Chapter 28: Chapter 28

The next morning, Ji Ye left his room and saw Lu Zhishen working out at the arena space at the center of the temple grounds, bare-chested. The muscular warrior was lifting two large stone dumbbells, each of which seemed to weigh at least 50 kilograms.

“Hmph!”

Lu Zhishen bellowed and hurled one of them high into the air. He then caught it, using the momentum to throw the other one.

This was repeated several times until he let go of them and saw them crashing into the ground, producing two small craters in the floor.

“Come. All of you!”

It seemed that weight-lifting was only Lu Zhishen’s warm-up run. There was a more important business coming up next.

Heeding his order, 20 Twin Dragon Mount setters—able males who had been selected from the population—charged at him as one.

“Here we come, boss!”

Thud, thud!

In this case, their bigger number clearly didn’t help the average-sized warriors to take down someone close to 2 meters tall, who also had enough weight and brawn to go with that size. By using a pair of fists almost as big as human heads, Lu Zhishen knocked his training comrades senseless one by one. Although it was expected that someone who could easily throw those stones could also toss common adults away with ease.

“Not good. You lot not only lack proper training, there was no teamwork, at all!” Lu Zhishen lectured all the fighters, who were on the ground at the moment. “From now on, you will contribute all your available time to honing your skills. Make sure you make yourselves capable fighters as fast as you can!”

Listening to his deafening voice up close was like hearing an approaching thunderstorm.

“Now, watch closely. I will show you an art named ‘Arhat Fist.’ It’s only a general art, but it will help you greatly at the beginning of your way to becoming a true warrior.”

With that, Lu Zhishen began displaying a series of punching moves.

Despite the way Lu Zhishen said it, what he showed looked rather deadly, as each of his moves would cause a small air boom that suggested great power and speed.

Boom!

During his demonstration, Lu Zhishen hit a tree nearby that looked as thick as an adult’s leg, completely snapping it in half.

“Nice one. I shall take you on, Chief Lu!”

A human figure suddenly landed in the middle of the arena and rushed at Lu Zhishen, hands raised.

“Master??” The other folks nearby watched Ji Ye joining the fight in shock.

Slam!

Lu Zhishen turned around and parried Ji Ye’s fist with his own.

This was followed by Ji Ye’s blinding flurry of attacks.

The trademark of Mantis Fist was to use unsurpassable speed to throw your opponents off balance. Added with Ji Ye’s superior strength, the attacks were awfully hard to defend.

Still, Lu Zhishen was clearly not an average fighter. While still using his “Arhat Fist,” he skillfully deflected all of Ji Ye’s assaults nice and clean.

“Ho? Hey, master, your art appears to be quite similar to my Arhat Fist,” Lu Zhishen spoke up after stepping away to a safe distance.

“Good eye, Chief.” Ji Ye nodded in approval.

While “offline,” Ji Ye had tried searching for relevant knowledge regarding the Mantis Fist art, and successfully discovered that the art was originally named the “Arhat’s Mantis Fist.” This art was seemingly related to Shaolin Kung Fu.

Ji Ye expected Lu Zhishen to recognize the connection as a veteran warrior, though he didn’t think it would happen that soon.

He just remembered that Channeled Spirit was also supposed to be an art created by a monk, which meant that he currently had two major arts in relation to monks and temples. Something told him that he was going to become a battle monk himself at this rate.

As a matter of fact, Ji Ye chose to spar with Lu Zhishen just because the arts they used were highly related.

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“I won’t hold back then, master. Prepare yourself!” Lu Zhishen exclaimed in excitement. It was plain to see that he was also interested in Ji Ye’s skill.

Once again, they clashed in the middle of the arena.

The Mantis Fist focused on disorienting enemies by combining various flanking attacks in quick succession, whereas Lu Zhishen’s Arhat Fist was more straightforward. Each of the man’s attacks was deadly and dire, while at the same time perfectly keeping Lu Zhishen’s vulnerable spots out of Ji Ye’s reach.

They had gone through more than 20 rounds of come-and-go, without anyone gaining the upper hand.

“Master is… awesome!”

“Yeah… He can keep up with our chief. That’s impressive.”

“What else did you expect? He killed that monster by himself!”

“You can do it, master!!”

The trainees who could still stand up either whispered to their partners or cheered out loud.

Also, they were beginning to show true respect to Ji Ye compared to the day prior, when they were still regarding him as “God’s herald.”

Men were simple creatures. A fight was enough for them to warm up and know each other.

“Heh… huff… That was marvelous!” Ji Ye was getting tired in the fight, though the excitement never died down.

Modern people who had peaceful lives would never understand the thrill of fully enjoying the clashing of bodies. Not to mention that Ji Ye could not test his strength against common people since that would result in murder.

His attribute had taken on a new look.

[Alignment: Human (Earth)]

[Talent: Fusion (Extraordinary, Inheritance)]

[Level: Extraordinary Rank-1 (Elite)]

[Skill: Primordial Chaos Force (Basic), Seven-Sided Mantis Fist (Greater Mastery)]

[Item: Black Serpent Sword, Black Serpent Blood, Amethyst Dual Blades, Mantis Stealth Cloak Mark-1…]

The Primordial Chaos Force skill was about to reach the level of Lesser Mastery by this point. . His Mantis Fist had also gained proficiency and reached the Greater Mastery level, which was the sweet result of his “EXP training” the day before.

The craziest thing about Fusion was not just producing a Perfect technique. The most important thing was that he knew this cultivation technique very well. Therefore, the speed of cultivation could naturally be raised to the highest!

There was a problem though. That was that even if he knew it like the back of his hand, with only half a night left, it was impossible for him to cultivate a skill to such a level. That was unless he cultivated using “EXP”, but hadn’t Ji Ye’s EXP been depleted?

That was indeed the case. However, one of the functions of the Honor was to convert it into “EXP” according to a 1:100 ratio!

He assumed that Honor points were more valuable than EXP points, so it would be better not to spend them lightly. But the eagerness of studying the new art got the better of him.

By spending several Honor points, he found enough time to boost Primordial Chaos Force to the level of “fresh” before sunrise.

Basically, he had just spent several months in a virtual training ground practicing Mantis Fist non-stop. As soon as he came out and saw Lu Zhishen using a similar art, he could not wait to fight him.

Taking a breather, Ji Ye channeled some strength into his arm and felt the gathered energy ready to be unleashed.

“Chief Lu, take this!”

He charged ahead.

Boom!

They both blocked an incoming punch with an arm, causing them to stumble away due to the accumulated force.

Telling from the distance they moved, Ji Ye did just a little better.