CHAPTER 110: QUANTITY AND CONTROL

Zen stood before the office door of Lu Daomeng. He knocked and waited.

“Enter!” came the reply.

Zen pushed the foor open.

“Young Master Wang Zen?” Lu Daomeng said, his voice with a touch of annoyance. “I have no advice to give you on the Swirling Swath technique.”

“No, Shifu, I’m here to show you my progress.”

“Oh! Okay, give me a moment.” Lu Daomeng closed hiseyes for a moment and then opened them. “Okay, go!”

“What was that?” Zen said with a confused look.

“Oh, I was just lowering my expectations so I’m not as disappointed when I see you do the technique."

“Ha! Well, prepare to be… not disappointed… yeah!” Zen bent his knees slightly and clenched his fists. “Haaaaaa…!” A ki swath appeared and spiralled around his body, then came another, then another. More came, the intervals between decreasing with each one and the louder he shouted, until there was a constant appearance of ki swaths spinning around his body.

Zen felt a phenomenon he had not gotten used to yet. His ki tower began rotating, creating a swirling ki pressuare that assisted in building a whirlwind of ki around his body. The boy smirked as the whirlwind continued spinning around his body.

“Well, that’s not too bad.” Lu Daomeng smiled. Zen had completed the technique. Sure it took some time for it to build up but the important thing was that he got there. His ki control and the purity of his ki, although it was still murky white, had improved. “Does the screaming help you focus or something?”

“Nah,” Zen said as he dissipated the technique, “It just makes it more dramatic.”

Lu Daomeng rlled his eyes at this. “Well, it’s good enough for the next stage of your training.”

“Yes!” Zen pumped his fist in the air. “Finally, I can learn some Ki Sword Arts!”

“Well… not exactly…”

Night had come and sullen Shifu and student trudged through the snowy frest floor.

“Why are you so sulky, Young Master Wang?”

“I mastered your stupid Swirling Swath technique but you still won’t teach me an ki sword arts.” Zen folded his arms and pouted, causing Shibi to pat his head comfortingly.

“Oh, so you believe you have mastered it, huh?” Lu Daomeng looked back at his student. “Well, then you should finish this next part in an instant cause it tests your mastery of the Swirling Swath.”

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“Fine, let’s get this over and done with.” They walked for a few more metres deeper into the forest. This was the furthest Zen had ever gone and was feeling thankful that Lu Daomeng was there with him. His Shifu stopped.

“We’re here,” Lu Daomeng said.

“Where? What? There’s nothing here.”

“Really? Look at the trees.”

Zen looked up and sure enough there was a difference between these trees and the rest of the trees in the forest. These ones still had their leaves, although they were dried, shrivelled and a copper colour. While most other trees had already lost all their leaves due to the winter, these ones still had their dead companions clinging onto their branches.

“These trees will help you with your next part of your training.” Lu Daomeng said before holding up two fingers. “This part of your training focusses on both quantity and control. First, quantity…” Lu Daomeng gathered ki in his palm and struck the nearest tree with leaves, sending the leaves off their branches and falling down. “You need to send just enough ki into the tree to make 100 leves fall off, now, Control.” Lu Daomeng focussed and activated Swirling Swath, creating a whirlwind around his body. “Now this part, you use Swirling Swath but instead of letting the focal point of the technique develop at the bottom of your body, you have to move it to you arm. The swirling swaths now spun around his body but instead of disappearing at his feet like normal, they disappeared above her raised palm, changing the focal point of the whirlwind. “Now, the spinning pressure should catching the falling leaves and lead them to your hand.” And as he sad it, that is what happened. The leaves were caught in the whirlwind and were led to his waiting hand where they began stacking up into a copper-brown tower. Lu Daomeng dismissed the technique, leaving the tower of leaves. “If you can do this, we will move on to learning a Ki Sword Art Technique.”

“S-Seems simple enough.”

“Good, then do it.” Lu Daomeng smirked. “If you can catch 65 falling leaves, then we will move on to the next part of training.”

Zen stepped up to the tree, briefly glancing at Lu Daomeng before gathering ki into his palm. He struck the tree, sending ki up its stem and displacing a lot of leaves.

“That’s more than a 100 leaves, poor quantity!”

“Uhm… I…”

“Don’t just stand around! Use the technique! See how many leaves you can catch!”

“Oh… yeah!” Zen activated the technique.

It took him some time, as leaves drifted past him onto the ground but he got it going and soon enough, his ki pillar was spinning an a ki whirl wind spun around him. He tried to change the focal point of the technique to his open hand. It was difficult to do as each pull threatened undo his technique. He realised there was another pressing issue with the technique.as soon as a leaf would enter his whirlwind, the ki would rip it apart! Soon enough, Zen was standing there with a dumbfounded expression, all the leaves he had dislodged either resting on the ground or torn into tiny pieces.

“I-I can’t believe it.” He said. “It’s impossible!”

“Then how come I was able to do it?” Lu Daomeng said. “No matter, if you cannot finish this task, then your training will end here. It is much more difficult than the last one and to make matters worse, it has a limited time to complete… technically.”

“What do you mean?”

“It is winter, Young Master Zen.” Lu Daomeng said. “There are very few trees with leaves left on their branches… in fact, I’d say this is the only section of the forest where you can still find trees with leaves. If you run out of trees with leaves, then you can no longer train in the task. So, if you fail to grasp it, youwill have to wait for next autumn.”

Zen cenched his fists. “I… I will master it before winter’s end.” He said.

Lu Daomeng smirked. “Now that kind of determination makes a good cultivator. I’ll leave you to it, then.” With that he left Zen alone in the forest to continue training.