Chapter 4

Huo City, Burning Sun Sect training grounds.  Overgrown grasses stretched across the enormous field which clearly had not been used for decades, if not centuries.  In a previous era, thousands of disciples would spar and practice all in the name of pursuing their cultivation under the watchful eye of masterful cultivators.  But as the Immortal Tiger empire declined, so did the quality and quantity of its cultivators.  Huo City, once famous for legendary fire-attribute cultivators capable of burning entire cities to the ground with a simple wave of their arm, now had these kinds of abandoned sect grounds all over the city.  

Standing in one corner of the field were two boys, Zhu Hao and Li Jie.  Zhu Hao’s short silver hair waving slightly in the wind, he stared down at his friend roughly 3 meters in front of him.  Li Jie, despite being smaller, in no way lost to the pressure of Zhu Hao.

“Ready?” Zhu Hao asked.

“Anytime,” Li Jie said, beckoning for Zhu Hao to start the fight, but before either of them could rush forward, they both jumped back in surprise.  The source of their mutual surprise came from the familiar giant man who appeared out of nowhere directly into the space between them.  He, of course, was the same giant man who had saved their lives.

“Hahaha why so scared?” The giant laughed, sitting down and drinking wine out of a bottle as if all of this was simply a picnic, “Don’t keep an old man waiting, that would just be shameless!”

Both Li Jie and Zhu Hao quickly glanced at each other, turned to face the giant man, clasped their hands together, and gave a deep bow.

“We thank senior for saving our lives!” Both of the boys said with respect in their voices, although Li Jie was nervous after thinking how he threw dirt into his savior’s eyes not too long ago.

“Hahaha no problem at all,”  He paused, taking another swig of wine, “I see you boys were about to spar, but do you think you can get strong that way?  Playing around in this field, in my eyes you two will amount to nothing!”

Li Jie felt indignant at the giant’s claims but quickly suppressed his anger.

“Then senior, how would you propose we become strong?”  Zhu Hao asked.

“Why of course, I’ll train you two brats!”  The giant answered, finally gulping down the rest of the wine and tossing the bottle aside.

Before either Zhu Hao or Li Jie could fully comprehend what the giant had just said, he had already extended both of his arms, each one facing one of the boys.  A small Vermilion bird materialized from both of his hands and immediately shot towards them at a blinding speed.  Before either of them knew what was happening, they were already sailing through the air after feeling a force slamming into their chests.  They both crashed into the ground and quickly got back up.  Oddly enough, neither of them took heavy damage from that qi attack.

The giant let out one of his trademark half-roar laughs, “Hahaha why don’t you two entertain this old man for a bit?  If either one of you land a solid hit on my body, I’ll let you call me grandpa! ”  

Li Jie felt his blood pumping.  He took a look at Zhu Hao where he was met with his friend looking right back at him with determination in his eyes.  They nodded to each other and soon kicked off the ground in sync, charging in a curved line towards the giant.  Zhu Hao’s path took him around to the front of the giant while Li Jie’s would make him end up at the giant’s back.  Zhu Hao acted as a decoy to let Li Jie deal the decisive blow.

‘Judging by the fact he could materialize his qi, he must at least be in the Flowering Realm.  But he feels far stronger than that; he must be in the realm beyond the Flowering Realm, whatever that realm is.  The shameless one is him, picking on us!’ Li Jie thought as he sped up after seeing Zhu Hao about to engage the giant.

‘Either way, there’s no way Nascent Realm cultivators like us could defeat him, but maybe there’s a chance to strike him once... especially with that new ability I learned from the crest...’  But before they had a chance to enact their plan, the giant took a single step filled with qi causing him to advance all the way up to Zhu Hao, then quickly ducked past Zhu Hao faster than either of the two boys could perceive.

To Zhu Hao, it looked as if the giant had suddenly disappeared, leaving nothing behind but smouldering grass in his path.  He didn’t even have time to consider the burning grass as he felt killing intent surge from behind him.  Throwing all unnecessary thoughts away, Zhu Hao flipped around bringing his two arms up in a cross block as fast as he could--just in time to receive a brutal kick which once again caused him to fly through the air towards Li Jie.  Reacting quickly, Li Jie caught his slightly dazed friend and set him down, surprised at the speed of the giant’s movement technique.  

“Hahaha scared yet, brats?” The giant bellowed.

Li Jie responded to his taunts by continuing his charge.  The giant stood in place choosing to adopt a defensive stance in order to receive Li Jie’s attacks.

‘Let’s see just how good this child is in combat.’  He thought.

Seeing the enemy’s stance, Li Jie accepted his challenge by throwing a feint with his right hand and bringing his left hand forward for a palm strike.  Interestingly, Li Jie’s left palm suddenly glistened as if it were made of pure jade.

“Jade Palm Strike!” Li Jie shouted aiming at the giant’s lower abdomen.  Jade Palm Strike, a simple rank 1 martial skill that worked by manipulating one’s own qi to reinforce one’s palm, giving it the appearance of jade.  Many cultivators, especially those of the lower calibre, treated rank 1 martial skills as if they were sky-shattering treasures because to them, these skills seemed as if they were nothing short of pure magic.  But in reality they were exceptionally easy to obtain as they had no real value and could be trained to a proficient level in less than a day.  Both Li Jie and Zhu Hao had learned the Jade Palm Strike from a fellow worker at one of their jobs.  Of course, nearly all martial skills could be mastered to increase their effectiveness, but this took time or talent.  

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Li Jie’s strike had approached complete mastery of Jade Palm Strike.  His entire hand had transformed into a dark green jade, interspersed with dull red qi veins that glowed beneath his skin.  The giant raised his eyebrows and thought, ‘Not bad, his usage of Jade Palm Strike infinitely nears a rank 2 martial ability.  However a skill is useless if it cannot hit your enemy!’

*Swosh*

The strike hit nothing but air, the giant dodging effortlessly with a quick backstep.  His movement was natural as if he were taking a breath.  Li Jie narrowed his eyes and brought his left hand back, readying for another strike.  But this time he stepped forward and began a palm strike with his right hand.

‘Trying the same move?  You’ll have to do better than that,’ the giant thought and once again stepped back to avoid the strike, when suddenly Li Jie’s hand twisted in the air and slashed down diagonally towards the giant’s chest and manipulated his qi for another rank 1 skill.

“Wind Blade!”  

A small but sharp blade of wind rushed from his open hand and flew toward the giant, whistling through the air.  With one of his eyebrows raised, the giant quickly slashed through the air just like Li Jie, sending out his own equally strong Wind Blade that dispersed Li Jie’s Wind Blade.

“Not bad kid.  If I had taken that head on, I might have gotten a tear in my favorite shirt!  Hahahaha,” the giant laughed, “Come on, show me what else you’ve got!”

Somewhat frustrated, Li Jie leapt back to gain some distance and decided to risk it all on his new trump card.  But before that, he again bitterly complained in his heart, ‘What kind of man picks on kids in the Nascent Realm?’

He threw away those thoughts and concentrated on both the target and his new technique, “Phantom Blazing Step”.

Seeing the slight change in Li Jie’s eyes, the giant reassumed his defensive stance, ready to intercept whatever Li Jie threw at him.  To his astonishment, Li Jie began walking nonchalantly towards the him like he intended to surrender, but the boy’s eyes indicated nothing of the sort.  As soon as Li Jie entered his range, the giant led with a left jab that whizzed through the air towards the boy’s head.  There was no way that Li Jie could move fast enough to dodge the strike... but there never was a need to dodge it.

Before the ultra-fast punch could land, the giant suddenly detected a second aura in the air behind him.  The odd thing though was that the aura was exactly the same as Li Jie, who was in front of him.  As the left jab landed, the Li Jie in front of him exploded into a burst of flame and the aura of that Li Jie vanished.  The giant, completely puzzled, had no time to think as he detected the other Li Jie’s roundhouse kick about to hit the back of his head.

‘Silly kid, I don’t know what ability you just used, but aiming at a small target like my head?’  He chided in his heart as he rapidly ducked to avoid the kick.  But right after he ducked, once again, another Li Jie instantaneously appeared close to the giant’s left side.  The giant at this point was slightly panicked from Li Jie’s unique and odd martial skill.  He saw a palm strike coming from the third Li Jie which would be impossible to block since his left hand was still extended from his jab.  He couldn’t dodge a strike to his abdomen that fast either because most of his weight wasn’t distributed properly due to him ducking.

‘So that was your plan, huh?’  The giant, slightly alarmed, put all of his focus on Li Jie and used all of his brainpower to think of a solution.

‘I guess I’ll have to use that.’  He quickly concluded.

He sent out his qi to the left side and exploded it, causing Li Jie to cartwheel backwards through the air.  Exploding one’s qi was highly impractical and wasteful, but worked perfectly in this case where the giant held an absolute advantage in terms of raw power.

“Whew, you gave me scare there, not ba-”  Before he could finish his sentence, he felt what seemed like a light tap on his right side.  There he saw it--Zhu Hao’s glistening jade palm had clearly struck the giant.  The boy himself stood there with his palm still in the giant’s right side, smiling broadly.

“It looks like our decoy plan still worked, but our roles ended up being reversed, haha.”  Li Jie chuckled after seeing that they had won.  He was clutching his injured arm that took the brunt of the explosion.  From his pale face, one could see that he was clearly exhausted.

A shocked expression covered the giant’s face before quickly erupting into booming laughter, “Hahaha, you shameless brats... no, you young cultivators never fail to surprise me!”

Sitting down and materializing another bottle of wine out of nowhere, he took a massive swig before saying, “My name is Zhu Que, but you can call me master!  After all, from now on you two are my personal disciples of the Soaring Flame Sect!”

Both Li Jie’s and Zhu Hao’s eyes widened in surprise.  Not only were they now a part of one of the major sects in Huo City, the Soaring Flame Sect, but also they also had found strong master who would personally teach them.  It should be known that all disciples of a major sect held a status similar to nobles in society!  Furthermore, the teachers and elders of various sects rarely took personal disciples, and when they did it was normally only 1 person.

The two young cultivators immediately dropped to their knees and kowtowed to show their respect for their new master.

“Li Jie pays his respects to master!”

“Zhu Hao pays his respects to master!”

The two voices rang out through the abandoned practice field.

It was this, the image of the two students, one red-haired the other silver-haired, kowtowing to their new master, that closed the curtains on the opening act of Li Jie’s Legend, and signaled the beginning of a new era.