"Now this, is the 32nd form of defensive stance! If you change your step just a little bit to the left, and twist your body to the right, you can immediately counter any attacks from the front and back!" said Meng Yue as she demonstrated the feasibility of stances combination.Duan Li, whom have followed the lesson for three hours now, so far were getting the hang of it.
"With this one, I should have already memorized exactly 89 stances already.." said Duan Li, feeling somewhat tired.
Mother.. I know that you are excited to impart all your stances technique to me, but I am hungry..
In the end, after another one round of rigorous stances impartation, Duan Li had finally learnt a total of 14 attack stances, 44 defensive stances and 31 supportive stances.
Not to mention, with a total of 416 possible stances combination!
"Haa..." Duan Li exhaled.
Reviewing all the stances in his head, it seems like his mother is very adapt in defensive and countering techniques from all the stances he had learned. Duan Li could also better understood what these stances could do now.
Firstly, as the name suggest, attack stances is used to properly adjust one"s own body to prepare for doing an attack. Defensive stances is both a neutral stance and for guarding against attacks. Meanwhile, supportive stances is used to chain in between attack and defensive stances, while also for counter-attacking as well.
"It is impressive for you to be able to memorize and practice 70 percent of my total stances so quickly.. how cheating.. haa.." sighed his mother helplessly. She knew that with the help of the quick memorization ability, her son would definitely soar through greater heights. But at the same time, she felt jealous as well.
"Did you know that mother had to spend perhaps seven years to master all those stances to the adept level? And another three years for most of them to the master level.." she continued while shaking her head. To think that almost ten years of her life was wasted into training diligently. Yet here, her own son had just achieved almost the same thing within just ten hours.
Truly cheating.
"What about the pinnacle level? Did mother perhaps have any martial arts trained to the pinnacle?" asked Duan Li curiously.
"Of course! Your mother here had spent another three years to practice some of them to its pinnacle level!" his mother said proudly.
"You had to be careful though Duan Li. Although you seemed to have reached adept level on those stances that I have taught you, as someone who is experienced in it, I could see that they are brittle and have no power to them." she warned.
"It should be fine if you were to duel between fellow juniors, but for seniors and teachers, especially the elders at the academy, they could see right through the flaw of your stances!" she added.
"I see.. no wonder my body felt it awkward even if I had mimicked it perfectly.." replied Duan Li seeming to understood.
"Exactly! This is because of the natural phenomena called "muscle memory"! Your muscle takes time to integrate these movements along with the appropriate force to be distributed into it. For you today, you have only just learnt of their movements and had not yet experienced using it in battles. Thus, they are extremely weak and is just the proper form of it." she nodded.
"However, since we don"t have time for proper training session, I think what you have learnt so far should already be enough for now. Some people might call you a genius starting tomorrow, but considering your age.. I doubt they would feel any different than looking at their seniors from you.. hehe." she said with a giggle at the end.
Hearing this, Duan Li suddenly felt demotivated.
"Haa... that"s right.. all my cla.s.smate should be way younger than me.." Duan Li sighed with his shoulders dropped down weakly.
He is already 21 years old today, compared to his cla.s.smates, they should be well around 16 years old!
Duan Li facepalmed himself as he imagined what a scene he will have to undergo tomorrow..
...
The next day..
"swish.."
The lithe and gentle flow of the translucent white curtain of Duan Li"s bedroom danced around as cool air entered through that half-opened window.
"Yawnnnn~"
Duan Li woke up with a gentle stretch. He patted his bed as he thought, "From today onwards, I wouldn"t be able to sleep on this bed as frequently as I did before.." he sighed.
Students of the Jixue Knights Academy had to live in their respective room at the dormitories. They could only go back home twice a week during the weekend.
The reason for this is because, the Jixue Knights Academy is quite far, more than 1000 km away from Xuan village. The only method of transportation that is fast and viable enough would be through the air, using the public transport called the "Airtrain".
These airtrains would go around in predetermined routes in a constant loop, using floating rails up in the air as its tracks. They are unmanned and operated entirely by magic inscriptions to arrive at their destination within set intervals.
For villages, their routes are located in between the other villages where the stops are shared by many people. These routes then travelled through the center of many towns along the way. Finally, it will reach the capital city of the Jiu Empire, Nine Lotuses City, where the Jixue Knights Academy is located.
Thinking up to here, Duan Li then thought about the haughty young man called Li Feng whom he had crippled.
"That Li Feng fellow came here in Xuan village two days ago.. isn"t that during the final weekend? What did he mean to fall asleep and getting scolded before that day?.." thought Duan Li in contemplation as he fixed his uniform.
"Ahh.. he must be on detention during the first weekend then!" he said, after coming to the conclusion that it should be the case for that troublemaker.
"knock knock!"
"Young man, are you ready yet? Come and have breakfast with your mother here first before you go!" said his mother in front of the door.
"Okay mother, just a minute!" replied Duan Li hastening himself.
...
"Mother.. I couldn"t finish them all.." burped Duan Li as he touched his ballooning stomach.
His mother had somehow decided to overcook today.
"Hehe! This will be my congratulatory feast for your successful enrollment to the academy starting today!" said his mother with a big smile along with her adorable baby face.
Looking at that smile and the effort his mother put into the breakfast, Duan Li"s heart was filled with warmth. He then looked at the remaining dishes and a determined glint shone in his eyes.
"Just three more portion to finish!" he said in his mind.
After a battle of wits, Duan Li had finally managed to stuff himself with all the food his mother prepared. He was so full that he felt that if he tried to walk just for a bit, he would barfed out everything to the floor.
"This is bad.." he said to himself worryingly.
His mother had put a lot of love in that dishes, if he were to puke them out, he would never forgive himself!
He closed his eyes to think for a solution as his view turned into that of the see-through state.
"Hmm.. maybe.."
Duan Li then focused his gaze on his stomache and found out that it was really filled to the brim. Subconsciously, he thought in his mind for his stomache to "digest faster!".
To his surprise, his stomache started to churn rapidly as if its contents was being sucked into the void by vaccuum. It then formed into a clump of blue-ish mist, as it flowed slowly downwards about four inches to an empty region and swirled around before slowly disappearing.
Realizing how bizarre this phenomena is, he opened his eyes and turned towards his mother.
"Mother, all the food that I just ate transformed into a blue-ish mist before being sucked down and disappeared around here.." he explained while pointing out to the part where it dissipated.
"Ohh? That area? Isn"t that the Dantian?" answered his mother.
"Dantian? What is that?" asked Duan Li seeming unaware of the term.
"Seriously? You don"t even know what a Dantian is?" his mother replied as she rolled her eyes.
...