The following morning, Ame despite finally being fully recuperated from the injuries she had suffered during and after her abduction, and having studied all she can is holed up in her room. The manor servants are excited as they decorate and prepare the manor for the new year festival. Red lanterns can be seen hung from many corners of the manor brightening the eyes not just of the manor servant’s children, but the adult as well. A red packet was always given every year and Master Min was far from being stingy and was a rather generous master.

 Thankfully, Ame was only forced to remain indoors for only one day. The Ono Family had only briefed stopped on their return trip home. The Ono clan would be having their own festivities and could not afford to be detained for more than one day. Safe in her room, Ame did not have to pretend to exchange pleasantries under the hateful eyes of Lord Hyeon.

Ame was uncertain on the reason why such strong hatred could clearly be seen in Lord Hyeon’s eyes. As far as she could recall, Lord Hyeon had never exchanged more than a dozen words with her. At the time of their engagement, he was only a babe, whilst she was three years old. But Sen was a male dominated society, it would not come as a surprise to her, that Lord Hyeon was insulted that his former useless fiancé was still alive, which was a direct insult to his noble status and pride.

With light footsteps, she approaches Dara with a favor. Ame widens her eyes and puts on a cute face of awe as Morph and Kiro on her shoulders do the same. “Dara, can I be allowed to do some simple training?” Ame sweetly said as she bats her eyelashes at him.

Dara hesitantly looks at Ame but soon falters under the manipulative barrage of emotions. The gruff old man pauses for a moment and, hesitantly replies, "Unfortunately, my Lady, I am not permitted to train others in martial arts. In regards to training, my little Mistress, you must go train with the household instructors. Please allow this old man to lead you there."

Ame happily complies as Morph and Kiro purr in contentment, and Sada follows worriedly behind. Given the state of Ame’s previous malnourished and battered body, Ame understood Sada’s concern. Tough the bruises had long since faded, but the scars on the heart from that traumatizing incident would never leave her body.

They swiftly approach a large dojo type of building. Within the courtyard, a fierce battle is raging between two contestants whose movements cannot be performed by any normal humans of their respective age nor seen by the common eye. With a flourish, the combatant in blue robes kicks the combatant in black out of the ring.

Dara, with a grin, approaches the observing instructor. The instructor turns and acknowledges the presence of Dara. Dara halts next to the instructor and introduces him. “Little Mistress, this is Goro and he will be your instructor."

 Goro bows to Ame and says, "It is an honor to finally meet you, Lady Ame. There is nothing to worry about; I can assure you are in good hands."

  Dara waves goodbye as Ame is left behind in the tender clutches of Instructor Goro. Soft footsteps are heard as the combatants slowly approach them. Ame slightly pales upon recognizing the figures of her older siblings. With a resigned sigh, Ame removes Morph and Kiro from her shoulders and hands them back to Sada, who retreats a safe distance away.

HuiFeng eyes Ame for a moment before turning way. However, Hong coldly assesses Ame for several moments before turning away and joining his sister. Instructor Goro pauses before the trio and begins to speak, “Lady Ame, I am aware that you possess neither cultivation nor prior training. Please come stand next to me, and watch your elder brother and sister train their basics and exchange pointers."

Ame automatically complies, coming to a halt next to Instructor Goro. HuiFeng and Hong enter the fighting ring and stand across from each other. Instructor Goro claps his hands for them to start their rematch. Although they were not trying to kill each other, their battle resembled practice matches between soldiers from Earth as they continued to exchange hit after hit against one another.  

For Ame to even see the stances and techniques, she had to concentrate as much as humanly possible to not miss the impossibly rapid movements. After all, HuiFeng was currently a Level 6 Mortal Realm cultivator, and Hong was not too far behind as a Level 4 Mortal Realm cultivator. To be honest, they were freakishly scary monsters to behold. She would surely die if she were to replace either of the two in combat. In fact, the only reason she can even understand the general flow of the fight was due to her ability to observe the rapid Qi circulation within their bodies.

Her observations were getting more accurate and easier to comprehend as the two older siblings continued to fight. After a while, Goro would either stop the fight prematurely or would wait until one of the two would forfeit. Then, he would give out some pointers and have each self-train or recuperate before starting another rematch, and at the same time, he also had her siblings practice some basic movements or techniques which she paid ample attention towards even without him instructing her. She could only stare silently, immersed in her study and analysis of the Qi circulation and data coming from her siblings’ training.  

After a while to Ame’s fury, Instructor Goro firmly commanded the following, “Now Lady Ame, please attempt to copy some of stances and practice them.” He certainly sounded professional and teacher-like, but Ame could detect that within the tone of indifference a trace of hidden malice was evident.

Ame stares silently at Instructor Goro for a few moments, causing Instructor Goro to unconsciously take a step back. Without another word, Ame grudgingly trudges towards the fighting ring. All the while bitterly cursing Instructor Goro for making her spar with either of the freaks of nature.

 Instructor Goro coughs and loudly says, "Now which do ye wish to spar with, Lady Ame? Lord Hong or Lady HuiFeng?”

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 Ame’s face twitches for a second or two, before Ame deeming herself able to calmly answer. “Hong,” Ame quietly said. She wasn’t some muscle-headed idiot. Of course, she would choose the lesser of two evils if she wants to make it out of this place alive.

Ame positions her feet correctly and brings her guard up. After all, she was trained in the military and was forced to take the self-defense classes, sparring matches, and regular drill duty upon becoming a new researcher on base. Either because of her catching the eyes of the drill instructors or pissing them off, she was even forced participate in even more specialized drills, training, and close quarter martial arts classes.

Though, if she had to say, as a member of womankind, she made the women on the base proud as she was no pushover even if she was outmatched. She even had a lot of fun and relaxation in Kyudo and sharpshooting classes.  In other words, the only thing hindering her ability was her currently untrained body, and her best options right now were to minimize any more unnecessary damage and survive.

Hong quickly lunges at Ame as she prepares her best to dodge. Hong’s fist barely grazes her cheek as she manages to move her head and body to the side in time, but his other fist plants itself in her stomach. Nevertheless, she was still prepared. Ame quickly manages to use the force of his right punch to help jump backwards at the last second. She was thus able to quickly retreat and make some distance between them, but Ame still slipped fell to her knee while clutching her stomach. With a small pained gasp, she quickly pushes herself to her feet and centers herself back into her stance.

Instructor Goro nods at Hong as Hong launches forward again. Ame merely does her best to alleviate the damage of each attack rather than dodging. In this way, if she lessened the impact, she would be fine. At the same time, she can slowly test her reactionary abilities and retrain her endurance, improving her defensive skills through fighting.

Even more importantly build the crucial ingredient/weakness her body had stamina. She may not win every fight, but she should at least have the energy to run or take a beating…... especially for outlasting those who giving her beating.

Then again, she also had to admit that if not for her new accelerated regeneration ability, she would be in a world of pain for some time now. Hong’s attacks started off relatively weak at first but was quickly growing in speed and power over time. Even flames were starting to flicker from time to time. ‘What the hell are they doing against a (supposedly) normal person?!’ Ame couldn’t help but wonder as she desperately created distance between her and Hong.

Although she is conserving her energy and limiting herself from making too many excessive movements, Ame is sure that her body is already suffering some internal bleeding and broken bones from this match. These injuries would only get worse as time progresses in the match… normally. Thankfully, her wounds were still healing rapidly enough to offset an immediate need for rest.

In fact, while she can feel her pain lessing, she can also feel a small but comfortable heat rising from her stomach and spreading through her body. Her mind immediately connects it to her body working greatly to heal her, but Ame could feel more. The heat seemed to make her slightly more invigorated and made her injuries even more bearable.

Despite feeling her exhaustion slowly growly, she kept her mind focused and felt as though she could keep on going. Although not actively thinking it at this time, she intuitively knew that she is growing stronger. This has also confirmed the need of physical training to temper her body and advancer her cultivation more quickly.  

Nevertheless, the main problem is the sparring match. Too much damage will only slow down her limited regeneration ability even if this healing process helps to temper her body. To make things worse, no matter what, she is still has a lower cultivation and experience as a cultivator than Hong.

Hong soon restarts a new barrage of strikes as tiny flickers of flames appear from his assaulting hands occasionally. It was as though he had some vendetta against her, and although she is still fighting, she is doing so pathetically. Ame was being pushed and suffering from blow to blow.  Blood was dripped from her lips, and creaking sounds could be heard from bones.

Nonetheless, despite all of this, everyone could see the clarity of sharp eyes. Those eyes gave a threatening feeling as though they can see through everything or even treat all things indifferently. In fact, the truth was that Ame appeared more pitiful than she was with every hit, either she managed half of the blow or cause the blow to skim off her body. Her skills at dodging were becoming better as the match continued, she even managed to parry one or two strikes upon becoming use to the rhythm and movement patterns of her opponent.

“Hah… hah hah hah …” Ame tried to control her breathing after performing an ukemi roll the moment when she fell to the ground. Despite doing her best and not making too much movements, she still hasn’t started any intense training yet.

As Hong steps forward, he throws a palm with a ferocious and suppressive flame surrounding it. However, Ame chose to step forward this time and moved her back foot diagonally to the front to sidestep his attack.  As she sidestepped, she initiated her counterattack and jabbed Hong in the face before quickly switching fists and sending a right hook into his temple. Her body ached and numbed from pushing herself and synchronizing her footwork with the turn of her hips.

Hong couldn’t defend or react in time and only felt disorientation in the next moment. He only felt the pain in the next instance as he staggered to the side, blood dripping from both his nose and the corner of her mouth. Both his vision and balance were still unsteadied. Despite this, before he could recover, he soon met a pair of fists once again as Ame gave him the old one-two with a great deal of her remaining strength.

From her perspective, Ame already predicted and can roughly confirm that this world doesn’t lack development in external martial arts. After all, it is natural for humans to take the easy way out, and no one would want to take the more painful and unsure route. Besides, who wouldn’t want quick and easy results?

Well, that’s fine by her though. She has yet to cultivate a technique, but she does know old school boxing and various martial arts from Earth. And since, Hong is cheating by using his strength, thus, she has no problem in returning favors and was about to get a few more punches in. Hong’s dizziness won’t last forever after all.

Instructor Goro claps his hands loudly at last, stopping the fight from continuing any further. Ame could only choose to stop and try catching her breath, while Hong held his head and tried to shake his dizziness away. Ame could only ponder the irony of stopping the fight only when she made a comeback. With a grimace, Hong and Ame bowed to each other and then Instructor Goro. Ame wordlessly hobbles past her brother and sister and heads towards Sada.

Morph and Kiro dash off Sada’s lap and sprint towards Ame. With a grunt, Ame bends down and grabs the two small kittens. Morph climbs up her arms and onto her shoulder, while Kiro stays curled up in her arm like a baby. Worriedly Morph licks the sweat on Ame’s face, while Kiro licks the only spot he can reach her chin. Too tired to shove the fussy kittens off of her, Ame allows Morph and Kiro to lick her until they are satisfied.

Ame limps back to her quarters to rest as Sada anxiously follows.