“What? No!” cried out Li Yi before taking a step backwards.

By now, everyone was looking at Li Yi as if he were prey in a hunt. Just a few moments ago, there was still hesitation in some of the men’s eyes. But this disappeared when Li Yan said that they were still going to sell Li Yi away as a slave.

“I’m sorry, kiddo. But if it was yesterday, we would probably have become your escorts and...” says Da Di with a shiver at the end at the thought of being implicated by Wu Si.

*swish!*

Before Li Yi could say a thing, he heard a sharp swishing sound coming from his right. In fact, it was not one sound, but three! Once again, Li Yi could feel time slowing down as he turns to see three disk-like objects flying towards his neck. Before Li Yi could think of anything, he froze in place for the time that was half a breath but felt a hundred times longer to him.

The reason he froze was due to a sudden attack of fear. He did not know why, but when Li Yi saw the disk-like objects, he also looked into his attacker’s eyes. Li Yi wasn’t too sure what it was, but he guess that this is what people meant by killing intent.

Fortunately for Li Yi, the time lost is insignificant, with plenty left for him to recover and even consider how he should deal with this attack. Taking a half step back is more than enough to dodge the spinning projectiles, since trying to catch them is probably a bad idea if he fails in his attempt.

Evading them as planned, Li Yi decided his attacker was too dangerous to be kept around unchecked. Leaping towards the skinny man who threw the disk-like objects, Li Yi intends to knock him out with a strike to the back of his neck like he have seen in those old martial arts movies!

*whoosh*

The scenery flickers before Li YI’s eyes. In one moment, he was looking at the skinny man by the campfire. The next, he is looking down at some trees that was behind the campfire just a moment ago.

Landing at the edge of the clearing, Li Yi now stood behind the men who are still looking at the spot he was standing at just a few breaths ago. At this point, Li Yi began cursing his inexperience at controlling this body. It was like giving a high end computer to an office worker who only needs to type out word documents!

“What...where did he go to?!” shouts one of the men.

“Behind us! When did he get there?!” shouts another man a few breaths later.

Li Yi turns out to face them, with a frustrated look on his face as he wondered when he would ever get a chance to practise controlling this over-specced body. To the men who were trying to capture him however, it looked like he was getting irritated by them.

“That’s enough fooling around, boy! Surrender peacefully or uncle will have to hurt you.” says one slightly buffier man who draws his sabre.

“Put that away, fool! Are you trying to hurt the goods?” shouts Da Di as he stands up.

Waving his hand at them and raising the large wooden bat in the other, Da Di walks over to Li Yi in an imposing manner.

“Considering we saved you at one point, can’t you be a little more cooperative?” asks Da Di as he taps his bat on his empty hand intimidatingly.

“Saved? More like picked up thrown out goods that can still fetch a price at a secondhand shop!”

Hearing Li Yi’s reply, everyone else had a strange look on their face.

“Secondhand shop? What is this kid talking about?” asks one man.

“Oh! I think he meant junk shop. No one calls them a secondhand shop though...” says the skinny man, to which the rest of the men nods in agreement.

“Oops. Said something unnecessary.” thought Li Yi to himself.

With the distraction cleared, the attention returns to Li Yi as Da Di stands in front of him with his towering figure.

“Are you going to obey?” asks Da Di.

“Over my dead body, old fool.” answers Li Yi with a sense of regret building up inside.

Before Li Yi knew it, time slowed down once more. To his surprise, Da Di’s bat, or rather club, was just a few inches from his body and closing in quickly. Jerking to the clear side, Li Yi hits the ground as he narrowly dodges the attack.

“Oh? As expected of Young Master Wu. The next ones won’t be as easy to dodge!” declares Da Di.

In the next few breaths, time repeatedly slowed down and returned to normal for Li Yi as he barely escapes Da Di’s furious club attacks each time.

“Dang it! What did I do to deserve this? I am just scraping by from this now!” cursed Li Yi inwardly as he was almost hit a swing which knocks out a clump of dirt as it misses his head.

“Wow! Big brother is as impressive as always!”

“Look at that force! Killing the boy would probably be just as god at this rate.”

The men cheered Da Di on in his barrage of attacks, who looked like he was messing with Li Yi as each strike narrowly missed the boy’s body.

On the other hand, Li Yan was paying attention to Li Yi now. Having fought as Da Di’s partner on several occasions, she knew that Da Di wasn’t playing around. But every time his blow should have landed, Li Yi somehow evades in the same narrow window of time.

As for Li Yi, he was thoroughly displeased initially. But after the tenth attack or so, he started to realise that dodging wasn’t that hard since time slowed down every time he was about to get hit. In fact, he could use this as an opportunity to get used to this ability of his!

The batting practice continued on, with Da Di swinging his club at Li Yi and the latter narrowly dodging it each time. It was unnoticeable to most, but as more swings went by, Li Yi’s dodges were becoming less narrow.

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“Hey, big brother has been attacking the kid for a while now. Isn’t it time to stop and put naughty kids to bed?” asked the skinny man to his companions.

On Da Di’s part, he was beginning to tire. It was not known to anyone here, but Da Di was once a master warrior himself. Due to certain circumstances, he had to go into hiding and even change his name and weapon. When he first attacked Li Yi, Da Di did hold back a bit but not as much since the fear of being hunted down by the Imperial Guards was still fresh on his mind.

However, his later swings were slightly more controlled as he became aware that he might end up killing Li Yi. But that was only up to the twentieth swing. When he realised his attacks were completely missing, he started increasing his power and accuracy. But Li Yi continues to dodge and it has now gone past fifty swings!

As Da Di’s face becomes more flushed and his breathing becoming ragged, the men became concerned. Is their big brother having trouble with one kid? He might be the young master of a rich family, but aren’t those kind spoiled to the core and useless when it came to actual fighting?

“Wow. This is great. I never thought the opportunity to practise would come so soon and in such a manner.” thought Li Yi to himself as he begun taking notice of more peculiarities about his ability.

First, the time slow wasn’t immediate each time. But as the threat gets closer, the limit of time slow is reached such that there was at least five breaths worth of slowed time for Li Y to react. Of course, the speed of the attack might change this, as compared to the flying projectiles from where he had a lot more time to react. More experiments are needed before this factor can be ascertained.

Second, before the time slow limit is reached, there is an easing period in which the flow of time goes from normal to the limit of slowing. In the first dozen of swings, Li Yi did not realise this. But as he attempted to dodge faster, this became apparent as he realised that he could actually begin predicting the path of a club’s swing starting from the time the slowing effect is halfway to its limit. Hence, Li Yi would make his evasive maneuver just before the time slow reaches the limit.

As great as this training was, Li Yi knew that dodging forever is not a solution to all his problems. What happens if he faces an enemy that can attack forever? Or an attack that he cannot dodge even with the effect of time slow? But for now, Li Yi wanted to get Da Di off his back.

Seeing Da Di getting tired, Li Yi was thrilled! What would be an appropriate way of beating this burly guy as he gets tired? And what about after defeating him? Should he take him as a hostage and force these mercenaries to let him go? As these thoughts ran through Li Yi’s head, Da Di suddenly stopped and the time slow came to a stop as well.

*boom!*

In a swift and powerful move, Da Di smashes his club into the ground. The resulting shockwave sends Li Yi flying into a tree. The tree is completely smashed through, leaving Li Yi rolling in the dirt for a few breaths before stopping.

“Wow! As expected of big brother!” cheers the skinny man as the others join him in praise of their big brother.

Li Yi’s mind reeled from the shock of the final attack. But not just that alone, he was confused as to why the time slowing ability stopped!

“Ahem! That’s enough for now.”

The voice that stops the cheering did not come from Da Di, but instead from Li Yan as she walks up to Da Di, who was in the middle of executing a breathing technique to recover from his swinging exercise. After whispering something into his ear, Da Di nods in agreement as Li Yan walks up to Li Yi.

“Young Master Wu, you can stop the pretense and get up now.”

Having recovered from the shock for some time now, Li Yi was surprised to see that it was Li Yan who realised first that he was just pretending to be unconscious. As he gets up to his feet, Li Yan continues to speak.

“Although we can force you to obey, it would be a lot better if you cooperate so we will let you in on our plan.” says Li Yan with a sigh.

“Plan? What can there be left for me as a slave? Anything I have would belong to my owner, won’t it?”

Upon hearing that, Li Yan shows a surprised look before clearing her throat to answer the question.

“Yes, you will be a slave. But only till your masters die.”

Li Yi was confused. Till my masters die? He did not understand, and waited patiently as Li Yan took a few breaths to herself before getting rid of her hesitation to tell Li Yi everything.

“Da Chuan mercenaries are actually odd job workers. Our customers make a request, and if we agree to do it, a contract is made. One of these requests is to get rid of a small underworld family in this area. I won’t go into details, but we basically have to kill every family member in order for the job to be considered as complete.”

Kill? Li Yi was flabbergasted. Looking at the men around, they now had a very serious look on all their faces.

“I do not know about Young Master Wu’s stance on morality, but I want you to know that everyone in that family deserves to die for the evils they have committed. As for consequences, you do not need to fear about someone going after you for revenge. There are many local underworld families and destroying one is only going to make the rest happier.”

“Hold on. Why me? How does me becoming a slave help with killing these evildoers?!” exclaims Li Yi.

“About that, I was in that village the day you were tested by the divine examiner. Apparently, you are a bad luck charm so just by being around them, our job would become easier...” answers Li Yan sheepishly.

Li Yi had an urge to put his palm hard to his face from hearing that answer, but held back his comments about the numerous shortcomings he could think of with this plan.