There was a knock on the door.

“Go away!” Zen said, before sitting up into a cross legged position before making the hand signs for Cracked Earth.

Shibi opened an eye to look at Zen, he yawned and turned over to go back to sleep.

The door burst open! Zen fell off the bed and Shibi leapt to attention.

“What the…” Zen got up, his sheet on his head.

“How dare you tell me to go away?” Wang Lin shouted, glaring at Zen on the floor.

“M-Mommy? I didn’t know it was you.” Zen got on his bed.

“What’s going on?” Lin said. “For the past 3 days you have hardly left your room. I didn’t get you healed so that you could spend your days in your bedroom, sleeping!”

“I haven’t just been sleeping, Mommy.” Zen said. He was not lying, for the past 3 days, all he did was meditate, eat and sleep. It was all he wanted to do since he was able to make his way back to the mansion after failing to defeat and bring his friend, Yin Zheng.

“Really, seems like it.” She said. Turning her nose up, she sniffed the air before her face twisted in disgust. “Yuck! When was the last time you bathed?”

Zen shrugged.

“Meet me outside in the ring, Kiddo.” Wang Lin said. “But take a bath before you do.”

“Aww… but Mom…”

“No arguments!” Lin said, her voice deadly serious. “And take a bath! Or else I’ll tell Jun Nee to bathe you if you’re too lazy.”

At that threat, Zen ran to the bathing area of the large mansion.

A thorough man and Scorch Ape bath later, Zen made his way outside to the field. He found Lin Wang in the middle of the ring, going through her fighting stances. She stopped when she saw Zen walking to her with Shibi on his shoulder.

“Ah, finally here, huh?” Lin said, stopping her exercise.

“Yes, mother.” Zen sighed.

“What’s wrong with you?” she said, narrowing her eyes at her. “You’ve been different the past few days.”

Zen shrugged and looked away. He did not want to tell his mother about Yin Zheng. Though he was unsure whether he liked him much, he still did not want him to get into trouble.

“Anyways, you won’t believe what my brother said to me.”

“Uncle Jao?” Zen said. He had not seen the Jao twins in a while and even longer when it came to their father.

“He kept bragging about his daughter,” Lin said, touching a storage stone. Out came a bronze scrying disc and another storage stone, this one red. He touched the red stone to the bronze stone and showed Zen the surface.

Zen walked closer and he and Shibi peered into its rippling surface as an image appeared. The stone was used to capture a scene and the scrying disc was used to show the scene instead of playing the scene in the head of the storage stone’s owner.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Jao Fuu?” Zen said as the image cleared up. Jao Fuu was standing in a square ring facing someone who Zen found familiar. “Chen Jian!”

“You remember him?”

Zen nodded. “We have… interacted before we fought and I was injured.”

“Oh, well watch.”

Zen looked at the screen, “Well, I hope Jao Fuu wins.”

Both fighters looked scuffed up and tired. Chen Jian created two discs made of ki and tossed them at Fuu. She ran forward and leapt in the air, jumping and twisting, the discs shot past her. She landed and her foot glowed with ki.

“Scythe Kick!” Fuu shouted as her leg arced around, white ki trailing behind it.

Jian lept up in the air, the attack passing safely beneath him. Fuu’s kick stopped on its path and spuin back around, this time leading with the heal and aiming up at Jian. The first ki arc thinned out as a second ki arc trailed her path.

“Reverse Scythe Kick!” Fuu said as the ki arc grew outward towards Jian in the air, where he could not dodge.

Jian vanished and appeared behind Fuu.

“Cosmic Short Step,” Zen named the teleportation technique.

The two turned at each other. They fought hand to hand. Zen noticed something worrying, Jian was only using one hand to stave off Fuu’s attacks. A Ki Disc appeared in his hand, he found an opening and he slammed the disc into Fuu, who was sent hurtling away before landing on the ground, unconscious.

“She lost,” Zen said sadly.

“EXACTLY!” Lin said. “The way my brother goes on about it, its like his daughter won the whole thing instead of coming second.”

“That was the semi-finals?” Zen said in amazement. “Jao Fuu came in second for our year, amazing!”

“It’s cheap that’s what it is.”

“Huh?” Zen said.

Wang Lin walked away. Her foot began glowing with ki. “Scythe Kick!” she shouted before swinging her foot out, an arc of ki following her foot. “Reverse Scythe!” she shouted as he foot stopped and moved the opposite way, sending a large arc of ki outward, even more than what Fuu had done in the recording.

“You know Scythe Kick?”

“Yeah, it was my move, my jerk brother taught his daughter MY move!”

“You made it?” Zen said in awe.

“Kind of… I adapted it from a different move and c hanged it to be the Scythe Kick. Its still my move!” she said.

“Okay…” Zen said. “Me and Shibi are going back to my room…”

“Ah… going to be unamazing again?”

Zen stood still, “Huh?”

“You called your cousin Jao Fuu amazing but you want to know what is amazing? This.” She touched the recording storage stone to the scrying disc. The bronze disc rippled once again and a different image showed up.

Zen immediately recognised Chen Jian, it took some time for him to recognise the other person facing him but his eyes widened once he knew who it was.

“Zen! Zen!” Shibi said.

“That’s… me, alright.” Zen said.

Jian’s ki begin forming into a figure.

“Phantasm Figure,” Zen said. “One of the most powerful ki techniques in existence.”

It seems the Zen in the recording did not know that as he rose into the air and shouted, ““Meteor Kick!”” He said at the same time as the Zen on screen. The kick headed for the Phantasm Figure, which raised its ki round shield to block…

Lin Wang stopped the recording. “Now that was amazing.”

Zen could not help but smile, even though he knew that his mother was sparring him from the result of that encounter, he still was happy at being called amazing.

“But that kind of amazing should be backed up by hard work to be great. “You hear that, Kiddo? You are not going to be great rotting in your room.”

Zen sighed, “Okay, mommy.”

“Good. Now, to get one up on my brother for teaching his brat MY ki technique, I’m going to do something better.”

“You’re going to teach me Scythe Kick?” Zen said in excitement.

“Of course not!” She said as if it was the most ridiculous idea she had heard. “I’m not going to teach you MY ki technique, I’m going to teach you HIS!” She said triumphantly.

Zen sighed again. “Okay…”

“But I will need to make sure you are ready to learn the technique first.” She said, rotating her shoulder.

“What? How?”

“Sparring match, you vs me.” She smirked, stretching her legs from side to side.

“What? No, you’ll just beat me.”

“Come on, Kiddo.” She said smiling. “I’ll be a good sport. I won’t use Elemental Energy or Celestial Power during the fight. Just ki, like you. And I’ll hold back.”

Zen took a moment to think it over. This was a great chance to spar with one of the strongest cultivators in town. This could be really instructional.

“Okay,” he said with a smile. “Shibi.”

Shibi leapt off his shoulder as he took a fighting stance. They looked each other down then Lin Wang dashed for him…