“Good morning, Protectors,” Naja softly said to the four approaching ladies.

To the four women’s surprise, Alleyah was also present that day despite it being Naja’s day to instruct. The middle-aged woman gave a short greeting to the four and gestured to pay attention to Naja.

“I would like all of you to show me your martial arts one by one. We’ll begin win Kiara, followed by

Aanjay, then Yuri and lastly, Lunete,” Naka instructed with a clap.

Kiara began performing <>. Sounds of static crackled through the air as she went through the strengthening subskill of the martial art. The movements came smoothly to Kiara since she had been practicing diligently for the past few days.

Naja’s eyebrows raised slightly and her brows furrowed a tiny bit. She wanted to say something immediately, but held back.

Next came Aanjay’s turn. Aanjay performed the strengthening subskill of <> with some resolution, but there was a slight uncertainty due to Aanjay’s nerves at being scrutinized so heavily despite having practiced the martial art a number of times.

Naja’s brows furrowed even more. However, she still chose not to say anything.

Yuri followed after Aanjay completed one cycle of her martial art. Yuri went along with her martial art, <>. As Yuri was quite perceptive, she noticed that Naja was slightly unhappy. Therefore, Yuri wavered slightly at the prospect of getting even more intense training than the previous day. This caused her performance to be slightly shaky.

Naja’s brows furrowed even more. She waited until Yuri had completed a cycle before taking in a deep breath, seemingly to try and calm herself down. However, instead of keeping calm, Naja could not hold it in anymore and started berating the three.

“The three of you… is that how you’ve been practicing the past few days? I know that you four have been slightly faster than normal at achieving the first Energy realm, but this is simply ridiculous! Kiara, your martial art does not embody smoothness. It’s lightning. It’s untamable. It’s spontaneous! I have not seen any spontaneity in your actions! Aanjay, you started out fine. As a fort, you’re supposed to move with surety and resolution. However, your resolution wavered slightly just from a little pressure! How can a fort still stand with just a little pressure? Yuri! Your martial art embodied light. Light is fast, and direct. You were shaking all over the place!” Naja seemed to get angrier and angrier the more she pointed out the mistakes.

The four women shrunk in slight fear and felt like fleeing from the raging Naja. Thankfully, Alleyah was present at the courtyard. She placed a hand on Naja’s shoulder and told her to calm down a bit. Slowly but surely, Naja began to regain her usual expressionless face.

She sighed slightly, apologized and explained, “sorry, I’m a little too particular about adhering to the natures of martial arts and lost control of my anger. Look, the basis of martial arts is a small aspect of the element itself.

For example, there exists two martial arts, <> and <>, belonging to the water element. They embody different aspects of water and the actions that one must take when practicing must embody those aspects.

With <>, your movements must be bold. It must be fierce. It must be as unforgiving as the waves at sea. As for <>, it embodies the gentle flow of water, yielding yet unyielding. Movements must flow along and be gentle but firm.

Therefore, your actions must mimic that aspect of the element your martial art exists in. If there is no element, like Lunete’s martial art, then it must embody the image of the name.”

As the three who had already performed pondered over Naja’s words, Naja stared intensely at Lunete. Lunete suddenly felt like crawling into a hole, but quickly calmed herself down. She just needed to perform <> as usual. She had roughly grasped the nature of the martial art already, so she just needed to do as practiced.

However, the moment when Lunete started, she felt as if she had lost control of her body. In her mind, a dragon soared through the skies. Her body followed along the soaring dragon.

The dragon danced and suddenly reached a stormy sea. Waves crashed and thunder roared. Reverberations came in waves at the dragon, but the dragon was proud. It faced the reverberations of power and emitted its own. Lightning struck but the dragon danced freely through the web of lightning.

Eventually, the dragon passed the stormy sea. However, the dragon faced another obstacle. This time, it was frozen tundra. Winds buffeted the dragon downwards, forcing it to on the frozen lands. Undaunted and wanting to move forth, the dragon danced across the ice. It slid across the ice smoothly and continued its proud dance into the distance.

When the scenes finished, Lunete returned to herself only to find five pairs of wide eyes staring at her in astonishment. Alleyah’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Naja seemed to be in a daze. Kiara, Yuri and Aanjay could not believe that Lunete had reached that level of skill with her martial art already.

The protectors gained their wits first because they did not know what was happening, and waited in silence for the instructors to return to their usual composure. Gradually, Naja and Alleyah began to calm down.

Naja spoke first with a hesitant tone, “w-well done, Lunete. You truly embodied a dancing dragon right there. However, that did not look like <>. It’s similar but there are some notable differences. It seemed like a dragon dancing through several ordeals.”

“Uh… just then, when I steeled myself to perform the martial art as per usual, there was a scene that played in my mind. There was a dragon that soared and danced throughout the sky. Then it faced a stormy sea, followed by a blizzard in a frozen land. I totally lost control over my body as I was immersed in the scenes,” Lunete replied honestly.

What Lunete had said made both Naja and Alleyah gasp audibly.

This time, it was Alleyah who spoke, “congratulations, Lunete. You went through your first enlightenment. However, usually enlightenments for <> give the images of a dragon dancing freely in the sky without any obstacles.

There were some actions that you did that was slightly different from the original <>. However, those slight differences made a huge impact in the whole sequence. Tell me, what did you feel when you were doing those actions? Why did you change your actions so minutely?”

Lunete was stumped for words at that moment. Her mind raced to think of a reply quickly.

“I… felt that my actions were natural. Perhaps the minute differences were due to some influence of practicing a mock martial art taught by my fitness trainer back in my old world. It was merely meant to keep my body fit, but maybe some of the actions transferred over to my <>?” Lunete answered in an uncertain manner as she made up the whole thing on the spot.

Lunete did not want to reveal that she had three supposedly superior martial skills, and somehow they had assimilated into the weaker one. However, thinking about it all a little, maybe it was the pride of a dragon that prevented the three from consuming it instead. In the end, the pride of a dragon made the superior skills succumb to it. That was the most probable explanation that Lunete could think of regarding why the other skills assimilated into <>.

Alleyah thought for a bit and mumbled a small perhaps. Naja, on the other hand, had finally come to grips that a three-day old cultivator had her first enlightenment. She asked Lunete to try projecting her inner energy outwards to see whether there were more benefits to the enlightenment besides a greater understanding of the martial art.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Lunete did as she was asked and tried projecting her Energy outwards. Gradually, a brilliant royal purple outline began to cover Lunete’s skin. Alleyah’s eyes bulged while Naja was half expected this.

“Congratulations on reaching the second Energy realm,” Naja said softly.

This time, it was the other three women’s turn to be surprised. They did not understand the enlightenment business, but they did certainly know what it meant to breakthrough to the next realm. Reaching the second Energy realm meant that Lunete could start practicing the other martial skills that consume inner energy. It also meant that Lunete was now ahead of the pack in terms of martial progression.

The girls thought about Lunete’s behavior the past two nights and wished they had been more on the ball. Perhaps they would be able to reach the second realm along with Lunete if they had worked as hard. All three of them inwardly resolved to ask Lunete to wake them up for practice next time.

The rest of the day proceeded as per scheduled by Naja. There were more lectures about the Energy realms, with each increasing level lengthening the distance that one can project their inner energy. Furthermore, a high level cultivator could change the shape of their Energy into armor for protection. She had also explained what an enlightenment was and the possible benefits.

Naja guided the four with their martial arts, correcting little actions that did not seem to suit the martial art and let the four keep practicing to try to perfect their movements.

By the end of the training, Kiara, Yuri and Aanjay had discovered their own interpretations of their martial art. They just need to understand more and refine their actions. Lunete was the one who gained the most that day, but she also felt that the others would catch up quickly when they had their own enlightenment.

***

Wednesday turned out to be the least tiring of the days. The foursome enjoyed the training immensely, excluding Naja’s sudden outburst at the start.

The four women made their way back to their room for dinner. They enjoyed their meals, let the attendants clear it up and then took a quick bath. Following that was more cultivation practice.

Somehow, against all odds, or perhaps due to their intense motivation to catch up to Lunete by analyzing their martial art in greater detail, Kiara, Yuri and Aanjay all had an enlightenment nearly at the same time halfway during practice.

Starting with Aanjay, her eyes glazed over. Her movements became rock-solid. There was a certain sense of security that radiated from her movements. As if anyone would be protected from harm within her arms.

This was quickly followed by Kiara finding enlightenment. Her already sharp movements became even sharper. There were also erratic changes to the speed of her movements occasionally. The slight traces of electricity over her body when she practiced strangely disappeared. In its place, there was a just the popping of static.

Yuri entered an enlightened state right after Kiara did. Yuri’s actions became extremely fast. They were more direct and her hands flashed with light whenever she striked.

When the three ladies finished their enlightenment, they tried and found out that they too had risen to the second Energy realm. The four women excitedly hugged and congratulated each other.

However, in their minds, they were all thinking about something else which they burned with anticipation, ‘tonight is going to be intense.’

***

Lunete woke up in the middle of the night again. This time, however, she had promised to wake the others up when she woke up. So she set about nudging the naked bodies around her.

The three sleepy women groaned as they lifted themselves off the bed, not used to waking up at such a timing. Lunete dragged each woman off the bed and they began cultivating to blow away their sleepiness. After going through one cycle, Lunete told the others that she was going to do some “image training” regarding her art.

Aanjay gave a skeptical eye to Lunete as she said offhandedly, “is there even such a thing as image training?”

Lunete just shrugged and replied, “well, it does work. It’s what made me gain the necessary skills to become famous after all.”

This raised a few eyebrows from Kiara and Yuri. The three intrigued women began to observe Lunete as she began her “image training”.

Lunete mentally brought up the materials window of the game system. She chose several metals and other materials to mix into a corrosion-resistant, fairly sturdy alloy with the game’s metallurgy system. Then, she started mentally molding the alloy into a necklace that only consisted of its chain and began to work on engraving each chain segment.

When Lunete completed her work, the three ladies who were watching her work suddenly saw in their mind’s eye, a beautifully created chain-necklace. The design on each individual segment was meticulous. Kiara and Aanjay blinked several times while Yuri lightly shook her head.

They all looked towards each other, then at Lunete’s hands. Clearly there was nothing in Lunete’s hands, yet they all saw something together. All three of them started to believe that Lunete’s “image training” was legit.

Lunete’s equipment creation and engraving was followed by reading the information given on the formations jade tablet. Her understanding of formations was still shallow, but she still tried her best to understand what was projected in her mind from the jade tablet.

Trying to understand took a while, and Lunete had to eventually give up. She could only try to progress slowly step by step under the guidance of the Keeper. Therefore, she ended up joining the other three ladies with their martial arts practice.

***

Night flew by in a blink of an eye and the next day came quickly.

The day passed as quickly as the night with the foursome having to deal with many uncomfortable dirty survival scenarios. Tabansi was an extremely strict teacher. Nature was unforgiving, and therefore he also took that unforgiving attitude. He did not let the girls dare to make a single mistake.

By dinner, the four were fatigued, dirty, sweaty and extremely uncomfortable. They were thankful that Tabansi was gentlemanly enough to request the palace attendants to give the girls a herbal bath and massage to ease their day.

The four women cultivated their time away after dinner and their day ended on yet another steamy note.

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Author’s notes:

One more chapter left for the training week before a time skip! I am still writing this in procrastination of my main fic (>.>).

Thanks for reading and supporting this fiction!

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Lunete’s stats and skills:

NameLunete ArgallStatusStrength7Endurance17Agility15Dexterity24Perception18Energy2Additonal InformationLevel 10Age: 20FemaleStatus Points Remaining: 45

SkillsSkill NameMastery<>6%<>8%<>7%<>7%Formations1%