“Well, he strengthened his body with some technique, so I decided not to hold back.”
“What technique?” - Cho Ju Ro asked, surprised.
“Uhh…” - I hesitated. - “That sly guy, this isn’t something they teach in the Outer Court.”
The instructor cast a disapproving look at his disciple, who guiltily scratched the back of his head.
“But overall, he did the right thing” - the instructor continued. - “It’s a training match, so there’s no point getting hurt.”
“Exactly, Master. If I hadn’t used Stone Skin, I would’ve been splattered all over the training ground.”
“If you hadn’t used it, I would have held back” - I said with a smile.
“Got it. These two are no match for you” - Cho Ju Ro concluded, unsurprisingly. - “Ryu Sai, come here!”
All other disciples had stopped their training by now and were watching us with interest. One of the four onlookers stepped forward. He was at the fifth level of Foundation Establishment (15), which made him a serious opponent.
“Tang Ji Tao, where did you learn to fight like that?” - the instructor asked while we waited for Ryu Sai to approach.
“Everyone in our village knows how to fight” - I replied. - “I was the best at hand-to-hand combat. As for techniques, I just use whatever suits the situation best.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed you don’t rely on any set combos.” - He turned to Ryu Sai. - “How about a simple hand-to-hand bout? Can you asses his skill level for me?”
“Are you sure he won’t knock me out?” - Ryu Sai said with a grin. He was a full head taller than me but much narrower in the shoulders. - “I saw what he did to Ten Tak Le. If it were a proper fight with techniques, I wouldn’t hesitate. But a pure fistfight? Maybe we should check his strength on the trainer first?”
“Good idea. Let’s go.”
We all followed the instructor to the edge of the courtyard, where two dozen identical ‘stones’ stood, each shaped like a T and held upright by a pair of steel rails. Their weights varied, and at the far end, some were actually metal rather than stone.
“Try lifting that one with your arms fully extended” - the instructor said, pointing me to the very first stone. - “Then move on to the next, and so on until you reach your limit.”
“Alright” - I nodded, sizing up the unusual shape of the weights.
There wasn’t anything complicated about it. The load simply targeted a certain group of muscles, making it easier to measure raw strength. I walked over to the first stone, slid my palms under the crossbar, and pulled upward. I barely felt the effort as I lifted my arms from waist height to my maximum reach. Then I carefully lowered the weight.
Next, I went straight to the fourth trainer. It weighed more, though not by much. Scanning the entire row, I skipped ahead to the twelfth stone. That one made me work a bit, but it still wasn’t challenging. My curiosity flared, just how heavy a load could I actually lift now? Ever since I’d reached the fifth level of Qi Condensation, I couldn’t recall a situation where I’d ever lacked physical strength. I’d even hired more workers than necessary when building my house, worried I wouldn’t be strong enough, but in truth, I’d never once tested whether those stones would really be too heavy for me.
I looked over the line of weights one more time and confidently walked toward the last one in the row. It was made of thick steel plating with a lead core and was noticeably bulkier than the others around it.
“No way!” - Ten Tak Lu couldn’t hold back upon seeing my choice. - “He can’t possibly be that strong.”
I just smiled in response. Approaching the weight, I took off my “robe” got into a comfortable position, and pulled upward with all my might. The muscles in my arms tensed, sweat instantly beaded on my skin, and the mass began to move. Letting out a wild roar, I strained even harder, raising the weight higher and higher. The spectators froze, astonished at the sight.
Once the stone passed about the halfway mark to the maximum height, I was a picture of raw, unbridled power, bellowing with all my lungs. Suddenly, I stopped yelling, released right hand while keeping steady the weight with left hand and scratched my butt. Then I resumed my “grand show of endurance” screaming dramatically again.
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“Clown!” - Cho Ju Ro couldn’t help but laugh.
The rest of the onlookers finally realized that it really wasn’t that heavy for me, and they all facepalmed in unison.
“This is strange, but it’s definitely not my limit” - I said, carefully lowering the load. When it hit the ground, the impact sent a faint tremor through the earth.
“Perhaps the blood of some hereditary cultivators flows in your veins” - Cho Ju Ro mused, sizing me up thoughtfully.
“I don’t know… My parents were ordinary farmers, both born in the same village. It’s true I’ve never heard anything about my mother’s father. My grandparents died when I was only two, and my parents also passed away from marsh fever when I was ten” - I shared these details of my biography. I, also, was curious where this strength had come from, strength that was clearly beyond normal human limits, even considering Qi enhancement into account.
“Well, I think I’ve got a pretty clear sense of your level now” - Cho Ju Ro said. - “Everyone’s dismissed. Time for that personal lesson I promised.”
People drifted away in a buzz of conversation about what they had just witnessed. Meanwhile, Cho Ju Ro promptly roped me into a spar with him. First, he fought at Dai Hen Tai’s level, but gradually he sped up, his techniques growing more powerful, and his punches and kicks hitting harder. Most importantly, he didn’t hesitate to use levitation to dodge my attacks or to close in quickly for a hit.
To keep pace with him, I started using on the fly the newly “invented” way of employing the Steel Will Shield. That technique allowed me to block physical attacks by conjuring a plane of Qi, manifesting the concept of immovability, another case of an abstract concept materializing in the real world. Until coming to this world, I’d never encountered magic of this type.
However, when creating the shield, a cultivator had to specify a “reference point” in their mind relative to which the shield remained motionless. Usually, the cultivator’s own body or part of it served as that anchor. But with some concentration, you could use another physical object, a stone or the ground, for instance. In that case, when the shield was struck, the “reference point” didn’t actually experience any physical load. It was, in a way, an abstract coordinate. And that opened up a wide range of possibilities for manipulating reality.
Once again, I chose airborne dust motes as my reference points. Then I moved on to air molecules. And finally, I started using an entirely arbitrary point in space. Moreover, since the shield moved along with the reference point, I could imagine a moving reference point — which gave me shields flying in whatever direction I wanted, at any chosen speed. For now, though, I decided not to show off this cheat-like trick; I stuck to shields fixed relative to the ground. Even that was enough for me to push off them with my hands and feet, effectively “emulating” levitation.
“How are you doing that?” - Cho Ju Ro stopped, hovering in the air. I stopped across from him, standing on two of my shields.
“Doing what?”
“Standing there in the air. I can tell you’re standing on shields, but they ought to fall down along with you.”
“Well, I’m using invisible dust motes floating in the air as my anchor points” - I attempted to explain the essence of my approach.
“That’s impossible!” - the instructor practically protested in tears.
“Good thing I didn’t know that” - I agreed. His response was another facepalm, and then the training continued.
This fight was different from the previous ones in that there were no pauses or breaks. The pressure on me steadily increased, so gradually it was barely noticeable. Every once in a while, I had to come up with a new trick to stay on par with the instructor. But after a few hours, it became clear that I’d already used every trick that fit my current cover story; there was no way for me to beat this opponent.
At first, I had been able to strike Cho Ju Ro fairly often, showing off my ability to pick just the right moment and target for an attack. But soon I found myself more focused on not being slammed into the ground or obliterated by one of his bone-crunching techniques. What’s more, the instructor stopped even reacting to my attacks, he simply surrounded himself with a barely visible aura, which guaranteed protection from all of my techniques or physical strikes.
Still, that kind of stressful battle was exhilarating to me, because it gave me real experience fighting someone stronger. He was faster, more powerful, had more Qi, and countering his techniques was incredibly difficult. Yet I managed to hang on by constantly using unorthodox evasive maneuvers doing everything possible to keep him from landing a decisive blow.
The sun had long since set, and we fought in complete darkness. I had to rely on more than just my eyesight: I used psionics to sense and react to his movements. I was at my maximum acceleration, scanning the near future for possible outcomes just to handle the barrage of strikes he unleashed.
By the time the eastern sky began to brighten, I was running on sheer stubbornness. My body had taken a multitude of hits, but I kept healing and reinforcing it, while brainstorming ways to become even stronger and more importantly, more durable, because the techniques flung at me were doing their best to slice me to bits, flatten me, burn me, or freeze me. All of my shields had long since been smashed to dust by Cho Ju Ro’s slightest touch, forcing me to conjure them by the dozen just to soften the blows enough for me to dodge.
Finally, I felt I was reaching my limit and yelled out:
“I think that’s enough for today.”
“You think your enemies will just stop if you say so?” - The instructor smirked, intensifying his onslaught.
“Up to now, I’ve treated this fight as a training match, not really trying to kill each other. But if you insist…” - I answered meaningfully, allowing a murderous intent to radiate from me.