Liang progressed quickly and his movements lost much of their rigidity. His blade flowed smoothly through the trees with barely any resistance and his footwork improved enough that he no longer felt awkward when pivoting and shifting his weight. During the last three month’s his improvements far exceeded his expectations, especially his short distance bursts, which the old man said where extremely important in combat.
His sword contained several arrays that operated passively but most of them required the input of qi to activate. His advancements were through his own hard work and not making use of the special abilities of the sword. To prove it the old man had him use the hatchet and the results were almost identical.
It felt good knowing he was not only creating firewood for the locals. He was intrigued by the arrays in the sword and shield but for now, Liang was not able to infuse the sword with qi; however, the old man said that would change in due time.
Using a small stick, the old man sparred with Liang every evening for the time it takes to eat a meal. They were intense bouts where he corrected Liang’s movements and taught him to block properly using the shield.
Although the old man seemed pleased with his progress Liang felt something was missing and asked him, “Master, do you have a sword arts manual for me to use as guidance. I’ve heard they make it easier for a person to remember the forms and practice.”
His village paid a large sum for the cultivation manual but they were unable to afford martial skill manuals. However, the question upset the old man and he shouted at him saying, “What do you need a manual for? I’m here aren’t I? What manual do you think you’re going to read is better than me teaching you personally?”
It left Liang feeling ashamed and he instantly regretted asking. After all, if a master wrote a manual and handed it to you, it would not be as valuable as learning from them directly. Putting the thought away, Liang trained every day as the old man instructed.
Stretching in the morning, practicing attacks and timing during the day, sparring with the old man in the evening, and going to sleep after dinner due to exhaustion. It was monotonous; however, he enjoyed the progress and routine.
Every day he was able to sense the qi around him with more clarity. The old man told him his absorption rate would continue to increase especially once the final piece was in place, but he would not elaborate further. This worried Liang, as he was afraid the old man would die from age or worse. He was witness to the old man almost choking to death and there were many mundane activities more dangerous than eating.
Finally, after another month the old man told Liang, “Don’t play with your small sword tonight, go to sleep early. Practice your stretches in the morning and then pack up camp. It’s time for you to actually accomplish something.”
Embarrassed he wanted to refute him but the old man would most likely say something else so he did not bother. He would often attempt to recreate the movements in his tent before sleeping. No matter how many times they sparred, the old man would always find faults. Whether it was footwork or coordination there was an endless number of mistakes to fix.
The old man was incredibly patient; though he never complimented him, he never berated him either. As long as there were improvements, he seemed happy. Liang tried to imitate everything he learned and burn the images into his mind.
Morning came and it was brutally cold, however Liang was too excited to notice and had hardly slept the night before. The old man did not say where they were going, but he understood what the old man meant the night before.
After moving quickly through the forest for several hours, the ground once littered with dried leaves and pine needles turned into a thin layer of crusty snow. The old man finally stopped and saw a large boulder where he sat down and said, “This is perfect.” Almost immediately after he spoke, a deep, nasally roar echoed between the trees, and the short stubby pines surrounding them snapped as a large creature barreled through them.
“The Armadillo Bear. It’s not too strong but not too weak either. The bony plates on its back make it a difficult foe for people below the peak Foundation Stage. Right now I would approximate your strength at the early Foundation stage.” The old man’s words left Liang frozen. The gulf in strength was too wide.
Fear stricken, Liang’s voice quivered as he shouted, “If it’s so hard to defeat doesn’t that mean I’m going to die!” However, the old man did not looked concerned, instead opening up a book and saying, “What are you so worried about? Haven’t I been training you for the last three months? Let me tell you that no matter what happens on this mountain, I, your master will avenge you.”
Before Liang had the chance to retort the large bear covered with dark gray scaly plates on its legs and back slammed into him. The force so great he tumbled several meters until slamming his back into a large coniferous tree.
The bear left Liang no opportunity to react and was immediately upon him. Standing on its rear legs the bear placed its two front paws together and landed with a tremendous downward force. Liang brought his small shield to his chest but the bear’s weight was incredible, crushing several of his ribs and causing him to cough up a mouthful of blood.
Wasting no time the bear stood up again leaving Liang a short window to roll to his right and distance himself. In the background, the old man shouted, “You should understand this but those scales are pretty hard. That bear showed you its belly and you did not take advantage. The current you cannot penetrate those scales, but you may be able to get under them.”
Cursing the old man secretly for telling him that he stared at the bear attempting to catch his breath. He was certain the bear broke at least one of his ribs and it stabbed into his lung. It was much quicker than it looked, but Liang was able to catch the old man’s hint.
All swords had advantages and disadvantages leading to different fighting styles. The Khopesh was a one handed hacking sword that was best while chopping and disadvantaged while thrusting. The old man said the arrays on the sword would help overcome many of the disadvantages, but Liang was unable to activate them for now.
The soft underbelly of the bear was clearly its weakest point but he doubted such an excellent opportunity would appear again. He thought of two possibilities. One would use the swords disadvantage and stab towards the softer parts of the bear and the other was a backhanded swing. Both would be difficult to accomplish.
On top of that, twisting was very painful right now. Large maneuvers like the ones he was thinking of would be very difficult. Not only would the pain be excruciating but also, he was not sure if his body could do it right now. The muscles throughout his core were tense, which left his body very stiff and made even the simplest of movements challenging.
However, before he could play out a successful scenario in his mind the bear charged once again. It had had to weigh close to 50 times as much as he did but Liang decided to charge forward as well, causing the old man to raise an eyebrow.
Because of the plates covering the back of an armadillo bears neck they were unable to lift their heads up. He would jump on top of the bears head and use the shape of the Khopesh to slide under one of the plates. If he was able to twist the sword under one of the plates, he could use the curved blade as leverage to separate them and thrust the sword deep into the bears body. However, his plan did not go as he thought it would.
While running, the bear pushed off its front legs with enough force to raise its body and it met Liang head on. The bears head smashed into his shield slamming Liang towards the ground as if he had run into a tree branch. However, as he was falling he was able to swing his sword and chop the underside of the bear’s neck leaving a deep gash and causing a massive amount of blood to gush out.
He immediately rolled out of the way and the bear stumbled forward slamming its head into the ground. Its rear legs continued to drive forward until the heavy breaths that blew the snow into the air finally ceased.
Exhausted, Liang’s only thought was to go to sleep but the old man walked up to him and said, “No time for sleep, we need to discuss what happened and what you should do next time. Swallow this and let’s begin dissecting the body. There are many valuable parts.”
A small pellet landed in his mouth and dissolved on his tongue almost immediately. A warm feeling coursed through his body and he started healing rapidly. In the time it takes to brew a cup of tea, his body felt as good as it did when he first woke up, perhaps even better.
The old man waved him closer saying, “First thing you need to do is remove the core. Afterwards I’ll show you how to remove the softest pieces of meat. Ah… it’s been quite a while since I ate armadillo bear. They make an amazing stew, but the best is the bear bellies, so crispy after you fry them… Hurry up boy it’s time for dinner already.”
It was near midday but the old man was saying it was time for dinner. Which left him wondering if the old man chose his foes by their flavor. However, he was starving as well and he had no arguments against a large meal.
