Well, okay, fine, you are pretty much right on the point about characters getting to explicitly supernatural levels.   However, the Book of Nine Swords clearly supports the nine sword fighting styles of the sublime way being somehow supernatural.  If fact, it doesn't really discuss any other possiblity.  It's covered in the introduction (including the possiblility expanded upon that the effects come from a transcendant principle; the other possibility offered is ki)<br/><br/>Chapter 3 of the book of nine swords is called Blade Magic, and pretty much every fluff description of maneuvers and stances go out of their way to describe the sublime way as being beyond normal combat training.  Therefore, textually, your assertion that maneuvers and stances are merely the techniques of a marginally disciplined fighter doesn't really have any support within the original source, at least from my reading of the book.  You can certainly use it mechanically to represent conan, but that's not at all how it was written or originally intended to be integrated into the setting.  The entire idea of the book of nine swords is "bigger, bolder, and even more fantastic than ever before" as expressed in the introduction.<br/><br/>(I don't read mechanics much, but I always read the fluff chapters pretty throughly)