At the sound of his voice, the match began!
Ming Yue stepped forth, dashing towards Lord Qin. She started off with a flurry of swings attacking from every angle possible but he had deflected each one with his hands easily.
"Hoh, this is quite interesting", he said, continuing to stay on the defensive.
She hastened her pace and attacked even quicker than before. In mere seconds, she had attacked more than a dozen times, each one as unpredictable as the next. But Lord Qin was relaxed, each strike was easily dealt with.
As they continued to fight in the field, he thought to himself about her talent as a swordsman. Gradually he became excited over reforging the swords. Why? because she was different, in his mind, she had qualities that separated her from others. Those that stand out could prosper for years or die in mere seconds, but each and every figure would bask in glory. What blacksmith would not want their weapons to become famous?
But what made him think this way? It was not something like her eyes or her facial expression or her behavior. It was her way of fighting. Flexible and yet inflexible, each attack would be different but the intent was the same, to defeat the opponent. It mirrors her personality, willing to compromise, to change but never forget. Never forget what each attack will do, the course of each attack could change but it will always reach the mark. Like the wind, it will reach its goal but the path it takes will always be changing.
A quality that even Lord Qin rarely saw and he was delighted.
Ming Yue was already circling her energy, sharp wind enveloped the blade as her speed had once again increased.
"Come on! Show me more! Show me something better!" Lord Qin yelled out, spurring Ming Yue.
She jumped back in an instant and prepared her stance. She focused on herself and her sword.
One strike, one move that encompassed everything she had learned.
To cut down everything in her path.
She breathed deeply and moved.
"Oh shit", Lord Qin sensed a faint bit of danger from her, speaking those words but doing nothing.
The moment, Ming Yue breathed out, she almost disappeared from her position, reappearing in front of Lord Qin with the sword on his throat. A gentle wind passed through him.
"Good, so you can control yourself. If that strike had gone through, you might have taken a part of the city down. Anyways, a quick spar was quite good for the both of us, now let me plan a bit and you can go rest or cultivate or something", Lord Qin quickly left and disappeared into his hut.
Indeed, Ming Yue had gained something with this fight. She had gained a new technique! Although, she had always had it but never recognized it until now.
The same technique she used to cut down the gates of the Darksun Marauder's base.
Using the Shadow Blade Arts as a base and then modifying it with her own style and energy, this technique was only one strike meant to kill. A quick and silent death that cannot be seen nor felt, moving at an extremely high speed. A single instant of death that cannot be avoided nor stopped, perfect for assassinating someone in the open. Cold yet merciful for a gentle wind accompanies the strike to caress the victim in their final moments.
"I think I'll call it Spring Breeze", she thought.
Now she had two techniques, Savage Tempest and Spring Breeze. Afterwards, she began to cultivate and meditate, occasionally bringing out that book she bought from the General Auction to study.
Ming Yue could feel herself reaching the bottleneck of the sixth level, soon she would reach the seventh level. This was probably a good time to use a Three Thought Pill. She had to strike while the iron was hot, there were many things she wanted to look over and this pill would help her. The Three Thought Pill could triple a person's comprehension speed for several hours allowing them to lower the time it needs to understand a concept.
The moment she ingested one of those pills, her mind cleared up in an instant and she felt as if a number of things had become clear to her. Those several hours she spent mulling over all of her combat experiences and studying the book. What she gained in that time would have taken her months and up to a year to gain.
Why was it so?
It was because this was her first time using a pill like this and so the effects were quite apparent. Afterwards, she began putting all of her thoughts into fruition testing them all out, finding what worked and what did not. The next several weeks were spent in this fashion for Lord Qin had yet to leave his hut. She had several ideas for techniques in the works, especially merging it with the concept of wind and thunder.
On one such day, Ming Yue was practicing a new technique. She took her stance and lunged forward before spinning once and slashing diagonally. This attack formed a blade of wind that spun and became a tornado in seconds but quickly died out. Another occasion, she made a number of quick attacks, each one sent out a blade of wind. A total of 16 attacks brought about sixteen blades of wind which attacked in a constant stream. However the power was a bit too weak. On the latest day, she was unarmed and slowly formed a ball of wind in her hands. She expanded them and shaped them into very misshapen arms.These twisted arms also held swords made of wind but it was too difficult to control. This technique, she had been inspired by the Lord of Azure Soul and that young master from the Shao Family, Shao Huang.
Li Gang and Fu Shan would come in and speak with Ming Yue, talking about crafting and thoughts on the ideas she came up with. They were quite shocked with the amount of destruction she had caused but chose not to say anything. Lord Qin had like his home peaceful and orderly and the both of them chuckled at the though of seeing him shocked by how much of his home had changed.
At the end of a month, Lord Qin's little hut was surrounded by upturned dirt and destroyed land. There were marks everywhere as if a powerful storm had passed through.
"Hah! I'm done!" Lord Qin ran out of his hut with excitement not caring for his land at all.
He hopped around the broken land and landed in front of Ming Yue who was recovering from testing out her ideas.
"I've finished with the planning but now, we must go find the materials!" he said.
"Come!" Lord Qin ran off and Ming Yue followed, finding this situation similar to the first time she had met him.
The two people ran around the city, stopping every now and then so that Lord Qin would go into a shop and look through for materials. This went on for several hours and he had already bought a fair amount of precious metals and gems. He had a large bag in his hand although Ming Yue was sure that he had a spatial ring.
After running around like a madman, they went back to his hut. It was already midnight by the time they returned.
He left the bag of metals and gems outside while he entered the hut, coming out with a small fist sized hammer. Kneeling by the bag, he tapped the ground with it and a low rumbling came from below. Following it, the ground split open revealing a giant workshop in the ground, one even more majestic that that of the Jun Heng Forge.
Outside, everyone heard the rumbling and gasped.
"The Forgelord is crafting again!" they thought.