Is Yue Buqun stronger than Linghu Chong (difference between Bixie n Sunflower manual)

Hi Spcnet,

I'm new to the forum, and after watching many adaptations of Smiling, Proud Wanderer, I have always wanted to know if Yue Buqun is supposed to be stronger than Linghu Chong. Please understand that I have never read the novel, so for those who have read the novel, please let me know. I know that in most adaptations, Linghu chong ended up being the second strongest swordsman (fighter) in Smiling, Proud -- the strongest is, of course, Dongfang Bubai. Judging by how uber strong Dongfang is in the story, Yue Buqun should at least come close to Dongfang, don't you think? First, Yue was already a top 10 fighter in Smiling Proud before learning the Bixie swordplay manual. Second, he is also top 10 in internal energy with his mastery in Violet Mist skill. If you combine his knowledge of Huashan sword, Violet Mist and his complete mastery of Bixie Sword skill, shouldn't he be second to Dongfang Bubai or at least stronger than Linghu Chong?

My second question is the Bixie sword manual. I always thought that this manual is an abridged version of the Sunflow manual. Correct if I'm wrong, but the story behind the manual was that two huashan brothers copied the original manual from a Shaolin monestary, and later recited what they copy to a Shaolin student. And then the student began to learn the skill based on his own interpretation of the manual. If this is correct, then isn't the Bixie manual an almost exact copy of the Sunflower manual? I also remember that in some adaptations, it was explained that the Bixie sword skill is only one of the many skills from the Sunflower manual. Again, for those who have read the novel, please explain the difference between the Bixie and Sunflower manual. Thanks.

(1) If LHC had never saw LPZ and DFBB, he'd probably have lost against YBQ.

But after LHC has had time to think about the moves, YBQ had no chance at defeating LHC since YBQ isn't creative enough to utilize the PXJF speed for anything else.

As for LHC's level, I'd still put him below Shaolin's FZ and RWX.



(2) Your interpretation is not quite right. PXJF is actually a better expression of the original KHBD because it was from a single source who actually understood the underlying principles.

KHBD had glaring flaws that were sort of glued together with half-hearted explanations.


So KHBD(copy) is more comprehensive while PXJF is abridged but retains more of the essence. If I were forced to learn one or the other, I'd definitely go for PXJF.

The sword moves from PXJF were likely just fabrications though. They're ordinary but it's the instant speed from the underlying theory that gave it power.

If BXJF was only speed increases, wouldn't that mean that Yu Buqun was still using Huashan swordplay? That's something LHC should already know. I don't get how looking at someone executing speed can help with someone else. I'm surely missing something.

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Originally Posted by Dirt

If BXJF was only speed increases, wouldn't that mean that Yu Buqun was still using Huashan swordplay? That's something LHC should already know. I don't get how looking at someone executing speed can help with someone else. I'm surely missing something.

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Evil-resisting swordplay had a set of sword moves attached to it. Yue Buqun being what he was, he wouldn't have imagined BXJF could have been used any other way, so he'd have used the BXJF sword moves along with the internal. Higher tier martial artists from Linghu Chong upwards would have understood the essence, and adapted the theory to whatever moves were appropriate to the situation.

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Originally Posted by ChronoReverse

If I were forced to learn one or the other, I'd definitely go for PXJF.

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I think death is better than learning that martial art given what you have to sacrifice. Aren't both the Sunflower manual and Pixie sword play incomplete? How can it be still so powerful.

http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthre...ighlight=pixie

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Originally Posted by Trien Chieu

I think death is better than learning that martial art given what you have to sacrifice. Aren't both the Sunflower manual and Pixie sword play incomplete? How can it be still so powerful.

http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthre...ighlight=pixie

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That's one of the reasons why there's speculation on how powerful the original must have been; the power of just the incomplete version is already so tremendous.

Here's the history of the KHBD/PXJF.

1) Original KHBD is kept at Shaolin.
2) Two brothers at Mt. Hua go to Shaolin and secretly memorize half of KHBD each.
3) Shaolin realizes what they did, sent Dayuan to remonstrate with the brothers. The Shaolin abbot burns and destroys the original KHBD manual.
4) The two Mt. Hua brothers each recite their half to each other, but the two halves don't match up to form a coherent whole. A huge argument erupts.
5) Dayuan arrives at Mt. Hua. Delighted at his presence, the two Mt. Hua brothers each recited their half of the manual to him, trying to get him to confirm who was right and who was wrong.
6) Listening intently, Dayuan gives them some casual answers that nonetheless was sufficient for the brothers to 'reconcile' their parts. The brothers thank Dayuan profusely and create a 'bootleg' KHBD.
7) Seduced by the martial arts of the KHBD that he learned from the brothers, Dayuan sends a formal letter of remorse and resigns from Shaolin.
8) Learning of the creation of the bootleg KHBD, the Ten Elders of the Sun Moon Sect launch a sudden raid on Mt. Hua and take it for themselves.
9) Dayuan changes his name to Lin Yuantu, invents the '72-Style Pixie Swordplay' and founds the Fortune and Prestige Escort Agency, dominating the martial world.
10) RWX, as leader of the Sun Moon Sect, eventually gifts the bootleg KHBD which the Ten Elders stole to DFBB.

So in principle, Lin Yuantu's understanding of KHBD should be greater than the bootleg KHBD the Mt. Hua brothers created. BUT, the novel also strongly hints that, so as to disguise the origin of his newfound martial arts ability, the actual stances of the '72-Style Pixie Swordplay' may be actually, genuinely crappy; the power behind them comes from speed and internal energy generated by Lin Yuantu's KHBD. Watching the battle between the Qingcheng expert and Lin Yuantu, Yue Buqun's master commented that the moves seemed ordinary, but sometimes they would weirdly speed up at critical moments. He attributed this to some oddity in the sword skill, but it seems much more likely that Lin Yuantu was always capable of that speed at all times; he just hid it most of the time.

PXJF itself is therefore not necessarily a more 'pure' or more powerful expression of the original KHBD than the bootleg version, simply because Lin Yuantu wanted to disguise the KHBD parts.

I've always had trouble classifying how strong some characters were in XAJH.

Linghu Chong had the best sword arts and terrible bare handed fighting, but in an actual fight to the death, would he win over someone who wasn't trying to compete sword arts with him? Would he beat Zuo Lengchan or Ren Woxing? As he was watching the fights at Shaolin, he didn't even understand their palm styles, so I can't imagine he would be able to 'break' them. It always seemed to me that JY was purposely keeping his martial arts level somewhat secretive so that he can always bust out victory in times of defeat if necessary so it wouldn't seem inconsistent.

Yue Buqun should also be weaker than Zuo still, as he had to resort to using a poison needle as well as tricking him with the fake manual in order to gain victory. I'd imagine he would just beat him fair and square if he was capable of it -- though he might've also planned to make himself look in danger for an excuse to blind him and permanently remove him as a threat.

Monk No Commandment is able to easily subdue Tian Boguang and does a number of really impressive feats. I wonder if he is initially better than the headmasters minus Zuo. Of the Four Friends in West Lake, Ren Woxing himself praised White-Black as being extremely skilled (along with Huang Zhong), and that is rare enough that it makes me think they're stronger than the headmasters as well. Lots of characters in XAJH appear that don't get as much screentime as I'd like.

In his fight with 'Great Yin-Yang Palm' Yue Hou, it was hinted that even if he didn't understand/couldn't find an immediate flaw in his opponent's stance, DG9J allows LHC to find a proper (if not 'perfect') counter.

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“Excellent palm skills!” Linghu Chong acclaimed and swung his long sword upward. Because he couldn’t find a single flaw in Yue Hou’s palm form and his movement, this thrust of his had both defense and offense, ninety percent of it was false while only ten percent of it was real.

But in Yue Hou’s eyes, this upward swing was brilliant. Regardless of which part of Linghu Chong’s body he planned to strike using his two palms, he would always end up sending the center of his palm toward the tip of the sword. So only half way through the palm strikes with his two hands, he immediately retracted his palms and leapt backward.

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I think Yue Buqun's goal was to permanently 'neutralize' Zuo Lengchan, not just 'beat' him; also, he didn't want to reveal too many strange arts, which would raise a lot of questions in people's minds. He had to seize victory at a single blow, which his stratagem allowed him to. I think he was probably slightly above ZLC at the point of their fight, but not enough for him to win in the convincing manner that he needed.

I agree about all the weird characters; let's not forget that while Yue Buqun said that it would be impossible for him to restrain all 6 energy streams even using ZXSG, Monk Bujie did exactly that with his own twin palm streams...and then Shaolin's Fang Sheng managed to subdue all EIGHT energy streams. So there's definitely a lot of top level people that were probably above YBQ. I also agree that Huang Zhonggong and Heibaizi were almost definitely top notch experts as well, based on RWX's praise (which he was quite sparing with in general), and let's not forget the Ten Elders of the Sun Moon Sect, or people like Beggar's Clan Leader Xie Feng, who was able to easily write on wood (which Qiu Chuji back in ROCH thought, correctly or incorrectly, was impossible/very difficult even for people like Yideng). XAJH was a time filled with hidden dragons and crouching tigers indeed!

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Originally Posted by Ren Wo Xing

5) Dayuan arrives at Mt. Hua. Delighted at his presence, the two Mt. Hua brothers each recited their half of the manual to him, trying to get him to confirm who was right and who was wrong.
6) Listening intently, Dayuan gives them some casual answers that nonetheless was sufficient for the brothers to 'reconcile' their parts. The brothers thank Dayuan profusely and create a 'bootleg' KHBD.

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The bits underlined are not stated by the text, and I tend to disagree with this interpretation for several reasons.

承認私閱《葵花寶典》，一面深致歉意，一面卻以經中所載武學，向他請教。 - Admitting secretly reading the Sunflower manual, on the one hand they expressed deepest apologies, on the other they sought his advice on the martial arts contained in the manual.

當下渡元禪師並不點明，聽他們背誦經文，隨口解釋，心下卻暗自記憶。渡元禪師武功本極高明，又是絕頂機智之 人，聽到一句經文，便以己意演繹幾句，居然也說來頭頭是道。 - Duyuan didn't point this (not having read the manual before) out, listening to them recite passages from the manual, he casually explained, secretly memorising it. Duyuan's martial arts were originally extremely sophisticated, and was an extremely intelligent person, listening to one phrase, he would explain his own take on it with several phrases, managing to make perfect sense with all he said.

The brothers were asking for elaborations on bits of the text they couldn't understand, not reciting the whole thing to him just to see who was right. There is also no mention of unifying the halves whatsoever.

...而他二人所筆錄的《葵花寶典》殘本，也給魔教奪了去... - and the incomplete copy of the Sunflower manual that the two wrote, was also snatched by the demon cult.
辟邪劍法是從《葵花寶典》殘本中悟出來的武功... - Evil-warding sword technique is a martial art that was gleaned from the incomplete copy of the Sunflower manual.

This implies that the Sun Moon cult's copy already existed before Lin Yuantu's visit. Furthermore:

不過岳蔡二人所記的，本已不多，經過這麼一轉述，不免又打了折扣 - but that which Yue and Cai remembered was originally not much, after this transfer, it was unavoidable that there would be further losses.
其實這部手錄本殘缺不全，本上所錄，只怕還不及林遠圖所悟 - actually, this written copy is incomplete, that which the copy records, might well not match up to that comprehended by Lin Yuantu.

These are rather contradictory statements, but can be reconciled if the 'matching up' refers to quality rather than quantity (i.e. the Sun Moon cult copy might have more of the original material, but less coherent without the benefit of Lin Yuantu's martial insight).

From a common-sense perspective, the notion that the two kept what they read in their heads until they could make sense of the whole is absurd - if you had a long, complicated document that you were unfamiliar with and had to memorise in a hurry, wouldn't the first thing you would do be to make a written brain-dump of what you remembered, regardless of whether it made sense? Even Lin Yuantu had to hastily write down what he remembered on the first thing that came to hand - his sash.

Looking at the first edition of the novel somewhat explains why these passages don't hang together so well. In the first edition, KHBD was created by an unknown married couple in their prime, who later split up (gee, I wonder why ;)?). It was in two volumes, a 'heaven' and 'earth' volume, each written by one of them, and the two brothers memorised one volume each. The volumes did not mesh because they were not meant to - the authors had wildly opposing martial arts philosophies. So each brother trained in their own portion, leading to the Huashan schism (no mention of needing the other volume to train - that was added in the second edition, but with no further elaboration outside of a single line).

The timeframe is also different - the attack from the cult came decades after the event. I get the impression that Jinyong hadn't yet thought of the self-castration angle at this point, since this means that they and their students had plenty of time to learn from the manual. In the second edition, this was reduced to 'not long' to take that time away, but given all the things they were supposed to have done (become bitter rivals, found a new faction, fall out with Shaolin), it doesn't feel like it should be a short time at all.

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Originally Posted by Ren Wo Xing

So in principle, Lin Yuantu's understanding of KHBD should be greater than the bootleg KHBD the Mt. Hua brothers created. BUT, the novel also strongly hints that, so as to disguise the origin of his newfound martial arts ability, the actual stances of the '72-Style Pixie Swordplay' may be actually, genuinely crappy; the power behind them comes from speed and internal energy generated by Lin Yuantu's KHBD.

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Actually, after seeing the 2nd and 3rd stances in which Lin Pingzhi used four Qingcheng students' swords to kill each other, Linghu Chong's assessment was '高明之極' - sophisticated to the extreme.

When fighting Yu Canghai:

他辟邪劍法的招式，余滄海早已詳加鑽研，盡數瞭然於胸，可是這些並無多大奇處的招式之中，突然間會多了若干 奇妙之極的變化，更以猶如雷轟電閃般的手法使出... - The techniques of PXJF, YCH had researched in detail, understood them all, but in the midst of these rather unsurprising techniques, there would suddenly be certain extremely exquisite variations added, furthermore employed with lightning-like speed...

So, while the 'base' sword art might be crappy, the base plus the extra variations was not. However, since Dugu 9 swords takes the crown in terms of technique sophistication in this novel, the techniques alone probably weren't that threatening to a DG9G user, since given a brilliant move, he would simply improvise an even more brilliant move to counter it on-the-spot.

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Originally Posted by Doc Kwok

The bits underlined are not stated by the text, and I tend to disagree with this interpretation for several reasons.

承認私閱《葵花寶典》，一面深致歉意，一面卻以經中所載武學，向他請教。 - Admitting secretly reading the Sunflower manual, on the one hand they expressed deepest apologies, on the other they sought his advice on the martial arts contained in the manual.

當下渡元禪師並不點明，聽他們背誦經文，隨口解釋，心下卻暗自記憶。渡元禪師武功本極高明，又是絕頂機智之 人，聽到一句經文，便以己意演繹幾句，居然也說來頭頭是道。 - Duyuan didn't point this (not having read the manual before) out, listening to them recite passages from the manual, he casually explained, secretly memorising it. Duyuan's martial arts were originally extremely sophisticated, and was an extremely intelligent person, listening to one phrase, he would explain his own take on it with several phrases, managing to make perfect sense with all he said.

The brothers were asking for elaborations on bits of the text they couldn't understand, not reciting the whole thing to him just to see who was right. There is also no mention of unifying the halves whatsoever.

...而他二人所筆錄的《葵花寶典》殘本，也給魔教奪了去... - and the incomplete copy of the Sunflower manual that the two wrote, was also snatched by the demon cult.
辟邪劍法是從《葵花寶典》殘本中悟出來的武功... - Evil-warding sword technique is a martial art that was gleaned from the incomplete copy of the Sunflower manual.

This implies that the Sun Moon cult's copy already existed before Lin Yuantu's visit. Furthermore:

不過岳蔡二人所記的，本已不多，經過這麼一轉述，不免又打了折扣 - but that which Yue and Cai remembered was originally not much, after this transfer, it was unavoidable that there would be further losses.
其實這部手錄本殘缺不全，本上所錄，只怕還不及林遠圖所悟 - actually, this written copy is incomplete, that which the copy records, might well not match up to that comprehended by Lin Yuantu.

These are rather contradictory statements, but can be reconciled if the 'matching up' refers to quality rather than quantity (i.e. the Sun Moon cult copy might have more of the original material, but less coherent without the benefit of Lin Yuantu's martial insight).

From a common-sense perspective, the notion that the two kept what they read in their heads until they could make sense of the whole is absurd - if you had a long, complicated document that you were unfamiliar with and had to memorise in a hurry, wouldn't the first thing you would do be to make a written brain-dump of what you remembered, regardless of whether it made sense? Even Lin Yuantu had to hastily write down what he remembered on the first thing that came to hand - his sash.

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So the Sunflower Manual of DFBB is the complete copy of the Huashan couple and the Bixie Swordplay is just a small portion of the Sunflower Manual with some interpretation of Lin Yuantu? I thought the two copies are pretty complete because the Huashan couple memorizes the manual word by word and copy them down and put together but the manual doesn't make sense. Lin Yuantu come by to visit them and explain to them about the manual word by word. Lin Yuantu also memorizes the entire copy and wrote it on his old monk clothing with better interpretation. To hide the power of Sunflower, Lin Yuantu also creates 72 sword stands. For DFBB, it doesn't matter without the interpretation of Lin Yuantu because DFBB himself is an expert of martial art so it's obviously he can understand the manual just as good as Lin Yuantu.

Given how complicated the manual is, if it's incomplete the practitioners would be died from fire deviation.

i thought the only complete copy is burned by the abbot of shaolin..

bixie and sunflower is just half assed copy just that bixie is supposed to be more superior copy ?

Since the 2 of Mt. Hua students are greedy and want to keep the manual for themself they both recite fake manual instead so none of them are even close to that of original. In other words that manual is the fake version and not as powerful as the other copy which was interpreted by Dayuan and had been enlightened by him. So You can think of yourself which is better the fake version or the simplified version by Da Yuan?

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Originally Posted by TianXiaWuShuang

Since the 2 of Mt. Hua students are greedy and want to keep the manual for themself they both recite fake manual instead so none of them are even close to that of original. In other words that manual is the fake version and not as powerful as the other copy which was interpreted by Dayuan. So You can think of yourself which is better the fake version or the simplified version by Da Yuan?

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That can't be right. If the version by the two martial arts brothers were a fake then DFBB would never had reached the peak he/she did.

I see their copy of the Sunflower Manual as the most complete version but requires more intelligence to understand as the authors had limited ability.

While the Evil Resisting Sword manual is less complete but easier to understand as the author had done most of the hard work for you.

well you cant say DFBB couldnt reach the peak of what he/she did just because she learned the fake manual. As you see Sunflower manual is not originally from shaolin so Dayuan interpretation might be different from that original and also DFBB had good martial foundation even before he/she learned the manual. So in this case just the difference based on Dayuan interpretation of the manual and the interpretation of DFBB's which she learned from fake manual. Since DFBB is from evil cult she might have different interpretation than that Dayuan had and also even make it closer to that of original for his/herself. In other words she might bring the fake manual closer to that original instead. As I can see DFBB is more intelegent than that monk from shaolin.

I think there is truth in both Mandred and Tian Xia Wu Shuang's posts.

The KHBD copied by the Huashan brothers was like a world map puzzle broken into pieces.

DaYuan only studied the puzzle for 10 days, he memorized what he could and wrote it down hastily on his robe.

If the original KHBD from Shaolin is a fully assembled world map, then Dayuan's 72 strokes of Bixie swordplay is like a perfect map of North America. A consistent, logical continent that can stand on its own, but only a fraction of the vast world.

DFBB got his hands on Huashan's broken up puzzle. He had over 12 years to work on the puzzle and could consult the full manual at any time, he did not need to rely on 10 day's worth of incomplete memorization like Dayuan did.

Being a genius himself, it's possible that DFBB assembled the puzzle for Asia, North America, Africa, thus his understanding of KHBD would surpass DaYuan's.

It's hard to say who is the greater genius, Dayuan or DFBB. But it's safe to say that both were brilliant men, but DFBB had the chance to work with the full amount of puzzle pieces for a longer period, and thus his knowledge of KHBD is bigger.

Yeah, I think BlackRaven summed it up perfectly. KHBD of DFBB is complete (the Huashan couple memorized the manual word by word) but require high level of martial art knowledge to understand and learn. On the other hand, Bixie is not complete but easy to understand and learn as Lin Yuantu already explained the difficult part of it. If you compare their practitioners, the KHBD practitioner DFBB is a lot more powerful than Bixie practitioners YBQ and LPZ. I would say Bixie is about 70%-90% as powerful as KHBD. However, both KHBD and Bixie are trash and should be burned to ash for good considered what you have to sacrifice in order to learn. There are so much other martial arts out there that do not require any sacrifice. Why not learn them instead?

Nope Yue Buqun was quite far from Dongfang Bubai actually. Dongfang Bubai had decades of cultivation in the skill before Yue Buqun started to learn the Bixie Swords skill. So YBQ was still quite far from reaching Dongfang Bubai's level. In comparison to Linghu Chong, he's definitely weaker as well. His Bixie Sword skill had a limited number of variations, and no many how much it changed, he had to repeat the entire set of skills from the beginning again. Despite its speed and power, that was the weakness of YBQ's swordsplay. Linghu Chong was able to capitalize on that with his Dugu 9 swords skill. Even if YBQ continued to improve his skills, he would still lose to LHC in the long run as LHC's mastery of Dugu 9 swords wasn't complete as well (it took Feng Qingyang decades to master all the skills in DG 9 swords). To pit something that is limited against a skill that had limitless potential based on its underlying principle, the outcome is obvious. If you look at internal energy, LHC has Yi Jing Jing too, which is one of the strongest internal energy cultivation skills in all of Jin Yong's novels. So, LHC is stronger than YBQ in any way.

The shaolin person was a very smart martial arts master actually (渡元禅师/林远图/lin ping zhi's great grandfather), that's why the huashan brothers told him about the skills in the KHBD in the first place. He was the disciple of the first shaolin master who came to inherit the original copy of KHBD (红叶禅师). Lin Yuan Tu's understanding of the KHBD was greater than the huashan brothers, and his version of the KHBD became the Bi Xie Sword Skill. The brothers' version of the KHBD had more verses and content, but it had more flaws as well due to a conflict in understanding between the brothers (it later led to the the breakdown of huashan into the jiang zhong and qi zhong fractions). The reason Ren Woxing gave this copy of the KHBD (from the huashan brothers) to Dongfang Bubai was that he felt that it will do more harm than good to a person, so it was just a part of his scheme to destroy DFBB. I guess he saw that the changes to a person's body and mind will be too drastic for any good to come out of it. RWX didn't realize how strong DFBB could become based on that KHBD though, it was only later (when he fought DFBB) that he saw how powerful the skill really is. The main thing about the skills in KHBD was extreme Yin cultivation (through unorthodox external means). It was for building internal energy and great speed in martial arts, thus the 自宫 and taking pills to change the body's constitution. Damn stupid IMO, people prior to that time could do it without these methods lol *Nine Yin Sultra?

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Originally Posted by jcmonkey

The reason Ren Woxing gave this copy of the KHBD (from the huashan brothers) to Dongfang Bubai was that he felt that it will do more harm than good to a person, so it was just a part of his scheme to destroy DFBB. I guess he saw that the changes to a person's body and mind will be too drastic for any good to come out of it. RWX didn't realize how strong DFBB could become based on that KHBD though, it was only later (when he fought DFBB) that he saw how powerful the skill really is. The main thing about the skills in KHBD was extreme Yin cultivation (through unorthodox external means). It was for building internal energy and great speed in martial arts, thus the 自宫 and taking pills to change the body's constitution. Damn stupid IMO, people prior to that time could do it without these methods lol *Nine Yin Sultra?

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It's true. KHBD does way more harm than good to DFBB. Without KHBD, DFBB is still one of the elite fighter in wulin. Even not as powerful, his intelligence is more than make up for it.

mixed up is within the understanding on sunflower origins and understanding internal skill. sunflower manual increase any attritube related to speed. speed of channeling speed of movement speed of excution. it maybe that sunflower manual is just an internal skill derive from 9yin focusing on speed instead the balance speed, defence strength, recovery qi energy. castration may just be a skip point in the meridians to increase the very fast speed till god like speed. However from internal energy, you can create a martial (external) which complements the internal energy. 9 yin and 9 yang can be paired with anything. 9 yin has also it's dedicated external skill like white bone claw to enchanced its excution. so if someone learns white bone claw, it automatically has low level 9 yin which already overpower in attack however doesn't have the rest like defence strength and qi recovory or strength. because white bone claw non weapon skill as basis, it requires qi channeling to excute hence, naturally you would have 9 yin basic internal cultivation level assuming the book has total of 10 levels, it uses only 5 levels. the rest of level is addtional stats but cannot be excuted with the white bone claw. other wuxia skill which is available like dragon palm, dog beating stick could utilised its same internal skill attribute, such as speed of 9 yin, internal qi and defence qi which maybe able to use all 10 levels in the 9 yin internal. in sunflower manual, hua shan is split into sword art and internal sect. both cannot achieve the speed level because they didn't castrate. but the sword art uses the same concept from sunflower manual which increases speed during channeling but maybe slowed down due to meridian in the critical part. so it is powerful however not perfect. violet mist internal is also the same, however internal energy would cover more slower way of learning but more powerful overtime. so this also means violet mist internal is derive from sunflower manual. of course sunflower manual internal should be logical stronger. and LYT manage to create a better version of external skill set which is bixie sword play (same like white bone claw) which is superior than hua shan sword play. however is bixie sword play without castration is useless because it is too slow. DFBB has sunflower manual however he/she doesn't have complementing external art other than throwing needles. the needle are maybe able to use the 10 levels of sunflower manual speed and power however the skill itself it is too one dimensional hence the martial art is low level compared to 18 dragon palms and dog beating stick. Hence it is easy to evade the attack or there are weakness which make it not completely overpower. so the only available external skill which complements sunflower manual would be bixie swordplay. now, byj has bixie sword play and violet mist. however violet mist is useable but not overpower internal to complement bixie sword play because it takes two different routes to channel the qi. Hence it is slower. LPX has no good internal so bixie swordplay he have some low level sunflower internal. Hence we can say that violet mist internal is higher than sunflower manual in bixie swordplay. we cannot assume that level 5 is +10 then level 10 is +20. it could be level 5 is +10 then level 10 is +200. DG9J is overpowered external skill for those who are able to use it. It is based on intellengence/talent of the user. Same skill use by different people will have different level of effect. Hence the highest level is without any sword. LHC uses a sharp sword to complement this external skill. Why DG9J is strongest external skill is because it can be use without any internal and it is already very powerful. But of course it will lose to over powered internal and external skill due to it defence. This is evident when DGQB also uses heavy sword to defeat strong yang internal exponent during his younger days. DGQB didn't lose but he cannot win also with heavy yin internal dependance, which is speed and power. Sword play is normally yin due depandence on speed and power. so bixie sword play is speed crazy sword play but with little variations due to it motive it is only to maximize speed but has alot of flaws which are covered by increase in tremendous speed. DG9J easily can exploit this weakness as it flaw it repeatition of skill. DG9J without any internal skill is equal to sunflower manual + needle level compared to other external skill which requires snergy with internal skill.