Cultivation Fever

I spent most of the night meditating, disregarding any qi that I lost. Every three or so hours, I practised Qi Gong. The last day"s training resulted in improved qi manipulation, translating well to my Qi Gong.

I could now move fast enough to take a step at walking speed. However, the force of the blast still rocked my body back, so I wasn"t quite ready to make practical use of it yet.

With that, I had reached a pa.s.sable level in the basic techniques and was ready to tackle the Extending Slice form. The prospect filled me with a healthy dose of apprehension.

I took some time before breakfast to become familiar with the stages of this technique. It was only when I started acting out the body position, that something clicked.

When I watched Crow perform the Extending Slice form, I had simply observed how he moved. But standing there, right arm high above my head with my left foot forward, I felt strangely comfortable.

The first step of this form was nearly identical to the bowling action in cricket. Growing up in England, cricket was a sport forced on me for many years.

Not only did I know how to do this first step, but I was quite good at it. Once I got the hang of transitioning wrist spinning to whole arm spinning, I could perform the first step by breakfast.

Now came the harder part; the second step. Standing in the courtyard, learning how to pirouette, was slightly embarra.s.sing. Thankfully, Father saw it as martial arts practice and nothing more.

Pirouetting on my front foot like this was never a problem for me, but consistently stepping out in the right direction was. With that said, the bare skin of my feet started to burn after only a few attempts.

At home, I tended to wear plain charcoal grey trousers and a loose shirt, rolling up my sleeves as was habit from my past life, but I nearly always walked around barefoot.

I went back to the house and put on the shoes I wore at school. They were ankle-high, leather-soled boots made of a tough black cloth. They lacked support and acted more like socks with how tightly I wrapped them around my feet.

It was customary to tuck your trousers into your shoes in this world, as clothes hung quite loose. Elasticated clothing wasn"t a thing, and people in town often wore many sashes and belts to keep everything in place.

After I head back to the patio, I continued to train the second step. By midday, I could perform both steps independently, however, I couldn"t spin my whip during the second step yet.

The second step functioned to lead the whips momentum in the right direction and bring it under control. Without the first step to start, the whip just trailed lazily behind.

Already, it was time to piece the two steps together. Father came to watch this first attempt, and it was more successful than I had antic.i.p.ated.

My movements were robotic and stuttering, and the whip struck the floor in front of me, but I managed to get through both steps.

After hours of practise and plenty of Father"s advice, by the end of the day, I could confidently execute the Extending Slice form. It was still a little stunted, but probably usable in combat.

That night, I attempted to make practical use of my Qi Gong. Now I could perform a step, I wanted to use the qi blast to reposition my body. There wasn"t enough s.p.a.ce in my room, so I quietly snuck out to the patio.

Training in the serene stillness and darkness of night was invigorating. I started by learning to catch my balance before trying to move any distance.

It was quite damaging training, as each time I fell, my body slammed into the hard flagstones. But as dawn of this last morning arrived, I accomplished my goal.

By shooting a qi blast from one leg, then catching myself with another qi blast, I could dash about fifteen feet. I had to reinforce my legs with more qi to do this, otherwise, my knees would blow out from the impact.

I decided to call this technique "Forceful Steps." There was probably a real name for it out there, but it felt good to a.s.sert some ownership over an ability I had formed.

There remained one last trial before my training was complete; to get actual combat experience. I refined the Extending Slice form in the morning, before asking Father to spar with me.

He gleefully agreed, excited to finally have a fight with his son, "I won"t use any techniques to fight you," he a.s.serted, "but I will still be far stronger than the kids you"re going to face."

"Don"t go too easy on me."

"Oh no," he smiled and cracked his knuckles, "I won"t."

We a.s.sumed our positions, and I started spinning. Before I could think of a plan, Father charged me. I panicked and tried to slice him with my whip, but he sidestepped with ease.

I lost control of my whip, and he swiftly closed the gap before planting a blow on my side. It was obvious that he held back, but I was still winded.

"That was a little disappointing," Father remarked, "remember, you want to fight at range. You can"t let me get close to you. You should try ground ward whipping."

"Do I even have time to learn it?"

"Ah, it"s not that hard."

Without further delay, I tried it out. Slashing the ground was surprisingly easy, simply requiring me to twist my wrist in a figure of eight motion.

I had a bit of difficulty returning to spinning after the slashes, but after a few tries, it came quite naturally. I was pretty accustomed to the whip"s movements after this past week.

"Come on, let"s go again," Father urged.

We a.s.sumed our stances, but this time I was wary of his advance. He made a motion to charge forwards, and I pre-emptively whipped the ground. But Father had faked the charge and merely watched the whip slash before him.

"Come on, are you even trying to hit me?" he taunted.

I didn"t want to fall into his trap, but he was right that I couldn"t reach him like this. Even if I extended my whip during the slash, I could reach a maximum of ten feet in front of me, as I could only spin a five-foot-long whip.

I retracted my qi, conjured my trigger scene, then shot my qi towards him. He dodged to the left with ease, but I knew that he would try something.

With a flick of my wrist, I send a wave rippling down the length of the whip. In a second it reached father, swishing towards him. Without any hesitation, he rolled under the end of the whip and charged me.

I tried to flick it back, but I couldn"t stiffen my qi the whole way, and it flopped to the floor. Father jumped over the whip with ease, continuing his charge.

This was no time to panic, so I retracted my qi and started ground ward whipping, but I was too late. Father dodged the first slash and hit my face with a palm strike before I could do the second.

I smarted under the impact, tears welling in reaction to my bruised nose.

"That was better," Father commented, "but your attack pattern was obvious. Any brawler worth their salt could dodge that."

"Hey, I"m getting better!" I retorted, and Father chuckled in response.

"Again!" he commanded, and we a.s.sumed our positions.

The spars continued in a similar fashion for the rest of the day. No matter what I tried, I couldn"t even touch him! But I could feel that I was improving rapidly.

With each spar, I became calmer, able to react to situations more decisively. By midday, I was able to shift my focus to how I moved around the patio.

Positioning determined the flow of the fight, but it was hard to pay attention to my footwork, the whip, and what Father was doing, all at the same time.

It was a gradual process, and I noticed Father had to move faster with each fight. But the endless stream of defeats was slowly getting to me. I dedicated myself to getting a single hit on him by the end of the day.

I had an idea, but it would be hard to pull off. I had yet to show him my Forceful Steps, and I could use them to make a complex compound attack.

I would bait him to charge me, then retreat at the last moment with Forceful Steps. From there, I would do an Extending Slice, then finally a ground ward whip if he made it through.

He had become accustomed to beating me the instant he got close, so I hoped that this would catch him off guard. The last spar before dinner came, and I was ready.