Ye Mo didn't linger around after retrieving both the fossilized crystal and the iron wrist guards, concluding their deal, he went on his way.
Hei Qiong didn't forget to encourage him to take a good place in the future competition before he left. If Ye Mo fare well in there, they can put all his performances on the credit of his peak-tier spiritual weapon and advertise their craftsmanship, greatly increasing the popularity of the Ironheart Weaponsmiths.
Ye Mo walked on the streets with his pair of wrist guard enclosing more than half his forearms.
He considered buying an attire with long, loose sleeves to hide them, but determined it wasn't necessary.
Many cultivators in Azure Water city possess at least one spiritual weapon so moving around with one didn't attract any attention. Moreover, the majority of them were blades, hammers, shields and such but here they were just wrist guards, it was a very uncommon spiritual weapon to confection and a lot of people seeing them wouldn't even think of one, but only ordinary equipment that was part of Ye Mo attire.
As for those who knew him like students in the institute, even if they noticed Ye Mo suddenly wearing those wrist guards, they would only think of them as a low or mid-tier spiritual weapon at best, nothing more.
He was just a dirt-poor student with no connections to anyone, where would he get a peak-tier spiritual weapon that even clans as a whole would hardly possess?
Accepting Liu Zhi's challenge symbolized how tight his finances are.
While returning to the Tiger Martial Institute, Ye Mo came across several cultivators fighting in the middle of the street.
They weren't very powerful, only at the middle of the Qi Gathering Realm, but there were six of them attacking each other without any regard to their surroundings.
"Many travelers and visitors from small neighboring cities came by to keep watch over the final competition between the three institutions. With more people gathered in the same place, conflicts may arise, this is inevitable." Ye Mo observed the scene casually.
It was a land of martial arts where strength reigned supreme, when quarrel or disension appeared between individuals, it would commonly be resolved with fists and swords.
Mortals ran to safety while cultivators remained around spectating their battle.
Quickly, several guards arrived and suppressed the cultivators fighting. The city was divided between the four great clans, the south where the situation enfolded was the domain of the Yan clan so these guards will bring the offenders to their base for them to be either detained and punished or pay a certain sum to be released.
The guards were actually no more than the Yan clan members in charge of maintaining the peace in their territory,
Of course, if those fighting were members of an institute or the other great clans, they wouldn't suffer the same treatment, but rather contained before underlying negotiations and benefits would enfold between the experts backing the individual and the Yan clan, then he would be handed over.
As long as no one important was killed or crippled, there wasn't any need to make the criminal suffer and have their connections bear a grudge towards them, they would instead use the situation to greatly profit from them before allowing the criminal to leave.
After the offenders were brought away by the guards and the situation subsided, Ye Mo returned on his way to the institute, but this time he noticed a group of five Sky Martial Institute members boisterously walking across the road and taking much of the space.
He could recognize them with their white and blue robes which wore the members of their institute.
Ye Mo himself was dressed in the dark brown suit of the Tiger Martial Institute and could be easily recognized as one of their member as well.
"It would be a hassle if they see me and become violent just because we are not from the same institution, I better avoid them."
It wasn't rare for students of institutions to come across each other outside and 'exchange pointers' for the sake of humiliating the rival and prove their institute and its members were superior.
In fact, these exchanges were nothing more than brawls where the defeated would end up being carried home unconscious with multiple fractures.
Ye Mo knew this group posed no threat to him, but what would he gain from beating them up? He quickled meddled with the crowd of pedestrians and took another path, leaving unnoticed.
After avoiding them, he attained the Tiger Martial Institute in a short time and was allowed inside once he showed his token, directly returning to his house.
The interior was dusty, going to retrieve the pure iridescent iron then dealing with the Ironheart Weaponsmiths establishment before cultivating in the pagoda for one month, the stone house was left unattended the whole time and now looked abandoned and dirty.
It was no different than when he cultivated two months in the pagoda the last time and returned here, since Ye Mo didn't have a servant to take care of the house when he's away nor did he wish for one anyway, the house would slowly deteriorate over time if he didn't return once in a while.
Opening the windows, he spent dozens of minutes cleaning the house and dusting off the blanket before he set out again, this time to the martial hall where he rented a combat chamber for 50 gold coins.
The combat chamber was a vast private room secluded from the outside, where you could fight against a mechanical puppet and train your battle skills unbothered.
With a roof, no windows and only one entrance, Ye Mo could practice to his heart content far from prying eyes.
As he entered the combat chamber, he found a steely gray knight's armor standing by itself in the center of the room.
Two intense red lights flickered behind the half-moon eye holes of the helm, but if one was to look inside the armor, they would find nothing but an eerie, empty space.
This armor was the mechanical puppet prepared by the institute as a combatant practitioner to accompany the students in their attempt to increase their battle strength and also Ye Mo's partner for his training sessions.
When Ye Mo entered the grand circle drawn on the ground in which the armor stood, it stepped forward and quickly attacked him, punching with its gauntlet.
On the side of the combat chamber was placed a rack with all kinds of weapons, sabers, swords, axes and even a whip.
Students could toss those weapons towards the mechanical puppet who will naturally grab and use them in their fight, turning this into a sword battle or a fight with daggers depending on what the cultivator wished to experience for his training.
However, it wasn't necessary for Ye Mo currently who only needed something that would attack him and offer a bit of resistance, that it used weapons or not didn't matter to him for now, thus the armor used its fist.
The mechanical puppet, which had a strength that immediately adapted to his opponent's cultivation level, was stopped by a golden light in the form of a bell covering Ye Mo's whole body.
The light of the Buddha Golden Bell flashed faintly for an instant when the punch connected as the armored puppet was completely blocked off, the gauntlet unable to advance one inch closer to the target.
The punch was far from being enough to break the barrier of the battle skill.
The armor then lifted its right leg high as it kicked towards Ye Mo, threatening to lodge his head off.
The latter smirked as he canceled his defensive battle skill and raised his left hand, meeting the kick with his wrist guard, easily blocking the strike before forming a fist himself that he threw using only his physical strength.
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Bang!
The mechanical puppet received the punch directly on the chest as it was sent sliding back to the other side of the circle, a large spherical impression visible on its breastplate.
"You better not let me down, I will work you to the fullest in this remaining week."
Ye Mo walked forward with a grin.
In these seven days, he intended to thoroughly refine his skills, increasing his understanding of the Buddha Golden Bell battle skill and implementing the use of his spiritual weapon in his battle style.
Day one.
Shing! Shing! Shing!
The mechanical puppet released a flurry of strikes using his limbs to the limit, yet, Ye Mo parried all of them with his wrist guards, sparks sent flying in the rythm of their dance as not a scrath was left on the spiritual weapon.
Finally, Ye Mo countered with a Cyclone Kick as the armor retreated several steps.
During each exchange, Ye Mo refused to use anything more than his spiritual weapon to block the puppet onslaught before he would make it back off and restart all over.
However, the shape of the armor clearly degraded over their multiple battles, the surface of the gauntlets and sabatons were jagged and chipped from their impacts against the wrist guards while several parts of the armor were marred with indentations and scrathes due to Ye Mo's strikes, some places simply broken to the point you could see its interior devoid of any body to guide its movements.
Day three.
Ye Mo moved all around the circle like a gymnast, the mechanical puppet in tow with a spear in hand as he avoided its attacks.
The spear tip made it's way towards his back like a slithering snake when suddenly, Ye Mo ceased all movements, still in a running stance like time stopped, but only for him.
Ding.
At this time, the Buddha Golden Bell was summoned and gave a light sound as the spear attempted to penetrate its defense, to no avail.
The next instant, the light of the battle skill disappeared as Ye Mo quickly sprinted away once again, leaving the mechanical puppet behind.
If he was a bit too late in this situation, the spear would have seriously injured him, he was putting his flesh and blood on the line to ingrain in his muscle memory the use of the Buddha Golden Bell, staying perfectly immobile once it was activated.
Only this way could he use all his potential to grow the fastest, at worst, he could still count on Endless Vitality as long as he didn't suffer a fatal strike.
The spear was harder to move around and more difficult to handle than a sword or a saber, but it had a much longer range and superior penetrative force, it was more appropriate to train and test the Buddha Golden Bell battle skill so Ye Mo handed one to the puppet.
Day five.
Ye Mo deflected two spinning stars with his wrist guards then attacked, the explosive force of the Stone Breaking Punch crashing on the steeled armor.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
After days of unceasing battle, it was eventually too much for the mechanical puppet which splintered in multiple parts, a leg warmer flew on the side while the helm rolled on the ground, leaving the fighting circle, all in a loud racket reminding several pans crashing down.
All seemed to end as the cracked armor stood in a dozen of broken parts separated by multiple meters, but at this moment, electricity seemed to spark between each part, apparently connected, as they all moved towards each other before floating in the air and returning to their respective places.
The mechanical puppet stood facing Ye Mo once again, the damaged parts of its armor visibly repaired until it was as good as new.
Ye Mo wasn't surprised, it was the third time he witnessed this phenomenon in the course of his training. The armor of the puppet was laced with a reconstructive formation, no matter how much it was damaged, as long as the mechanical puppet body was only broken, but not disintegrated, it would restore itself.
In the Tiger martial Institute, there was also a wooden puppet with a regenerative formation. It was obviously frailer than the armored one, but even if it was destroyed to the point only a small part of it remained, it would sprout back like a growing tree from this tiny piece of wood and return in its original state in an instant.
The last day.
The weapon rack was half empty at this time.
The armor threw several flying knives towards Ye Mo which he effortlessly deflected with his wrist guards.
The puppet then jumped high in the air, using an halberd like a poleaxe that he raised up before cleaving down in a powerful attack.
Seeing this, Ye Mo looked at the blade approaching without a blink as a bright light covered his body.
Yet again, the halberd stopped right before Ye Mo, unable to penetrate the light from the Buddha Golden Bell battle skill that grew much more vivid in the timespan.
The mechanical puppet, now being close to his opponent, kept pressing down with the halberd on one hand while taking hold of the saber laying horizontally on its lower back, then slashed at Ye Mo.
The latter seeing this, smiled lightly, moving his arms which had for consequence to immediately cancel his defensive battle skill as he blocked both the falling halberd and the slashing saber with his wrist guards.
The knight's armor at this point, used its foot to flip up one of the knife that fell on the ground in front of Ye Mo and kicked it against him, using its foot to support the blade.
However, Ye Mo was aware of the knives on the ground and already anticipated this action as he turned around and gave a powerful back kick before the blade could reach him, sending the mechanical puppet falling on the ground several steps further.
The puppet quickly rose up and charged at Ye Mo once again, but the latter leaped lightly backwards, leaving the combat circle.
The puppet suddenly stopped all movements before slowly going back to the center of the circle while the depression on his armor caused by Ye Mo's kick quickly faded away.
"I progressed extremely fast in just a week, with my battle strength now, at least, I am sure I can cultivate in the fourth floor of the pagoda. Too bad there is no time anymore."
With a new high-tier battle skill and a peak-tier spiritual weapon acquired in such a short time, all Ye Mo had to do was train with them and increase his mastery for his strength to surge.
These days, he left his stone house abandoned once again, barely sleeping two or three hours a night on the floor of the combat chamber, while the rest of the day was studded with incessant battles, when he had no Qi he still used his body alone to sustain himself and parried all strikes with his spiritual weapon in a form of practice.
A small part of his time was also used to cultivate and increase the amount of wisps of Qi in his dantian, even to the smallest margin.
This week was rough and intense, but nothing can be gained without putting the equal amount of efforts. Now that both his defensive battle skill and his spiritual weapon have been merged with his combat system, he was more than four times stronger than the previous week.
"I won't need to run even if I meet Yan Mei or Jin Hao Tian. As for wether I can obtain the first place, that is too early to be determined."
Ye Mo thought but he was confident, most of all, he still had one card he didn't reveal. The rest was part of luck, he couldn't control it.