A body thudded to the ground, knocking the air out of the person's lungs.
Lou Lan struggled to get up from the ground with his legs trembling mercilessly.
Standing up straight, the crackling sound of his back resetting itself resounded in the air.
Gasping for air, Lou Lan angrily picked up his bo staff on the ground and held it out in front of him.
"Again!"
Standing in front of him, Tian Hai tapped a wooden practice sword within the palm of his hand.
Lifting up the wooden sword, he took a side step and blocked four successive attacks given from Lou Lan.
Continuously for the next few hours, the two of them fought with Tian Hai rarely going on the offensive, and mostly countering while remaining on the defensive.
This wasn't because Lou Lan was pushing him back or anything.
Rather he just didn't feel the need to really give it his all.
The two of them had been sparring like this for a week now with Lou Lan showing no real improvements.
It seemed that despite practicing cultivation for a while now, his martial expertise was much lower.
Lou Lan didn't even know the basics yet, but he was a quick learner.
Originally Lou Lan never carried a weapon with him, depending on Lou Ning to assist him during fights. As such his experience in fighting with a weapon was virtually nonexistent.
So the first thing they had to do was find a style of fighting suitable to him.
After going through numerous weapons, Lou Lan seemed to have taken an interest in staffs. It seemed that he enjoyed the range it gave him as well as the feeling of swinging a blunt weapon.
But as for his skill with it... well at the very least he was better at using this than the other choices.
The unfortunate part about it was that the bo staff was the weapon they all knew the least about.
The closest person here who could relate would be Tian Kai, but even then his spear technique was almost completely different than how a staff should be used.
So, rather than teaching him incorrectly how to use the weapon, they decided to do the next best thing.
True combat.
Everyday, Lou Lan would be put up against one of them in a sparring match. There he would experience first hand combat as well as slowly get himself more used to how to use his weapon.
Tian Hai was great at this as he could take his time and slowly pick at someone's fighting stance. This allowed Lou Lan to see what he needed to improve in.
But then he'd had to face against Xue Chang or Tian Kai. Both of them were vastly different.
They tended to take the bully- sparring matches too seriously.
But even their terrible methods had some effects on Lou Lan.
And this was because Lou Lan's battle sense was that bad!
He still couldn't even make any of them break a sweat and more often than not he was on the receiving end of the beating.
"This is hopeless!"
The sparring session had ended and Lou Lan collapsed to the ground hugging his knees.
At first he thought they might've had a chance at having him defeat Wang Dong as everything had gone as Xue Chang predicted thus far. But after the past week his hopes had been dashed.
Even he knew that his fighting capabilities were worthless, but he couldn't think of what else to do.
"At this rate even if I had the full month to train, I wouldn't be able to even harm a single hair on Wang Dong's head."
He couldn't figure out what to do. He never expected his fighting capability to be so pathetic!
But he couldn't give up just yet, it wasn't like hope wasn't there.
Picking himself up off the ground, he tightened his grip on the staff before turning to face Xue Chang, "I'm ready for the next session."
But unexpectedly Xue Chang shook his head in response.
"No, this won't work at all."
Xue Chang could tell that Lou Lan was getting desperate, but he didn't have the talent to back up that desperation.
They had to figure out another way for him to succeed.
Xue Chang thought to himself for a few minutes while trying to figure out what to do.
Lou Lan, who wasn't sure what to do now just decided to keep practicing the basics by himself.
Swinging his staff around, the pole swished through the air causing slight ripples to move around it.
From a third person point of view, it looked quite impressive.
"Say nothing else about his fighting technique, he certainly looks like he is skilled. Lou Lan can learn how to do thing freakishly fast."
Tian Hai finished resting up and was watching Lou Lan move with a nod.
After he commented on Lou Lan's practice, Xue Chang also nodded as he said, "Yeah, it's quite the impressive sight..."
And suddenly Xue Chang's eyes flickered with inspiration as he came up with an idea.
"That's it!"
Tian Kai, who was frightened by Xue Chang's sudden outburst couldn't help but question, "What is it?"
"I know how he can beat Wang Dong, father Lou Lan over here quickly. There's only one thing we can do. We need to bluff him to death!"
Lou Ning, who was standing just a short distance away from the three boys, overheard their conversation. Looking over at her cousin, she said a silent prayer and decided that she would purchase a nice coffin for him.