"Who's Feng Huling?" Ku Lo asked Bo while Rin Tin Tin and Feng Huling began preparing for the upcoming challenge. 'They seem to be always clashing heads, so Feng Huling must be someone with a backing, right?'
Bo glanced at him with a frown before questioning, "You really aren't a generational disciple."
Ku Lo shook his head.
"Outer Sect Elder Feng's daughter, of course."
"Makes sense."
"What makes?" Bo frowned again.
"Why she has the guts to bump heads with the Sect Master's granddaughter."
"…" Ku Lo watched as Bo ceased all movement.
"Isn't it obvious? Rin Tin Tin, the name itself. She lives in a cosy apartment."
"I heard nothing-" Bo placed his massive-hands over his ears. "You know nothing." The giant took steps to distance himself away from Ku Lo and started looking and whistling in the opposite direction.
'Best to keep Rin Tin Tin's, obvious, identity a secret then.' More thought into it later, he could also understand Sect Master Rin's actions clearer. 'So I was to keep everything to myself. How dumb of me.'
Ku Lo shifted his focus to the challenge soon to start.
"So you think a mere junior disciple like yourself can beat an elder's daughter?" Feng Huling spoke with the lofty tone of a winner.
'So she doesn't know either.' Ku Lo could now foresee how the challenge would unfold.
"It won't be easy-" Rin Tin Tin glanced at him with her bewitching smile. "But I have to."
"Hehehe…" Ku Lo attempted to smile back.
"Let me begin with showing what my father has taught me," Feng Huling stopped the chat and took a stance facing the dummy.
Like Deacon Dai, Feng Huling began gathering Yin Qi, though the density of violet mist around her wasn't a tenth of Deacon Dai's. 'To be expected,' Ku Lo thought, and it was still an impressive sight.
"Yin Paw, First Form!" Feng Huling didn't spin around. Her attack movement was much calmer, one even he could follow from the side.
The move itself hit the target dummy's chest, piercing a finger wide hole.
"As expected of Elder Feng's daughter!" The praising began. "Senior Disciple Feng is the best disciple to enter the Yin and Yang Sect this year!", someone was already calling her senior disciple. "Limitless!"
"What do you think?" Feng Huling didn't pay much heed to the people praising her.
"you missed your target," Rin Tin Tin noted with a hushed voice, hidden from the group of people still cheering.
"My turn." Then she stepped on the white line.
'Not good…' The instant Rin Tin Tin's Yin Qi started showing, Ku Lo could note it being much thicker in nature. 'Maybe I'll say no?' he thought of a way out. 'No, that isn't possible anymore.'
Just like everyone else, Ku Lo watched as Rin Tin Tin's move left her fingernails. The attack pierced through the training dummy's head.
This time there was little talk. Everyone could hear Rin Tin Tin proclaim, "I win."
'Well,' he sighed. 'She is a good teacher,' he found a positive before focusing onto his nemesis already striding towards him.
"Congratulations."
"Don't think words will save you." Rin Tin Tin strode past him, her hands signalling for him to follow.
'Ugh.' Ku Lo glanced at Feng Huling, who appeared baffled from the defeat. 'Fairy Feng, you did your best,' he thought before going to receive his private training.
Rin Tin Tin led Ku Lo to a desolate spot on the training yard. No other person was within a hundred-meter radius.
"Remember," Ku Lo seized the opportunity to remind her. "Your grandfather freed me."
Rin Tin Tin wasn't affected by his words. "I'll talk to him later-" She waved it off with her hand. "Now as for you… show me your Yin Paw."
"Huh?"
"The Yin Paw, you know the basics."
Without responding, he turned away from Rin Tin Tin so he wouldn't hit her by accident, nor glance at her.
Ku Lo filled his lungs with a deep inhale through his nose.
"Gather your inner Yin Qi," she said.
A pink mist began gathering around him, though the concentration of it was very faint.
"Good, now direct it towards your hands. Not your fingertips, not yet. Don't make that mistake again."
"I know. It was my first time gathering Yin Qi yesterday," he said while directing the Yin Qi around him as if the mist was another arm or a leg. The Yin Qi was felt by him to exist in a magical, yet familiar way. 'Don't think too much… focus on the movement…'
"More. Gather more of it."
Ku Lo heeded her advice and went to gather the stranglers while at the same time maintaining the Yin Qi loads present around his shoulders.
Second by second, there was less mist around his body and more around his shoulders.
"That's enough for now. Move it through your arms," she said. "Keep it together, this part is much harder than merely gathering Yin Qi."
Indeed, Ku Lo could feel the Yin Qi wither away as it travelled further from his shoulders and into his forearms.
Half a minute later, Yin Qi reached his fingers, but there was hardly any left.
"Fail. You failed."
Ku Lo looked at her on his side, stopping the channelling. "But I still had Yin Qi."
"No. Even if you could've used all remaining Yin Qi for the attack itself, it wouldn't have hurt a worm."
"Try again?" Though he didn't like Rin Tin Tin, he listened.
She shook her head. "Stand behind me, eyes closed. Place your palms against my shoulders and feel the Yin Qi flow."
'No, don't think about it like that.' Yet, he did as instructed.
"I'll start now," she said, though she didn't need to since he sensed the abrupt change in her body.
'She starts to gather Yin Qi.' The loads on her shoulders were greater than his by manyfold.
'Travels through the arms.' His fingers ran along her arms, feeling the energy move yet not dissipating in any noticeable amounts.
'Into the fingers.' There was Yin Qi misuse in this part, but not much. 'Impressive.' He became engrossed in this action and wanting to observe the ultimate phase, he nudged his body forwards to feel her fingernails.
"Yin Paw, First Form." He could hear her attack and how the Yin Qi vanished from her body.
Ku Lo, opening his eyes, marked something in the distance, and it wasn't the attack Rin Tin Tin had performed. It was Feng Huling amongst the Yin Paw group. 'Fairy Feng?' Ku Lo used the nickname he gave her while noting her saddened expression staring back at him.
"Got it?"
A jolt crashed through his body. "Yeah, thanks for the demonstration."
"Now try again," she said, distancing them from each other. "I want to see you succeed with this one!"
"Right." As he positioned himself for another try, he glanced at the spot where Feng Huling had been in.
She wasn't there anymore.
…
"Everyone gather around!" Deacon Dai shouted. "Gather round!"
"Let's go," Ku Lo said without speaking her name.
"At least say thanks."
He glanced at her, managing to stay calm for the first time since his release. "Thanks…"
Rin Tin Tin giggled while he turned away.
'Don't let her fool you! She's your worst nightmare!'
"Is everyone here?" Deacon Dai asked when it seemed so. Still, everyone looked around them. This included Ku Lo, although he searched for Feng Huling.
'There she is.' He found Feng Huling by the virtue of Bo being such a lighthouse, always next to her. 'Is she still shaken by the challenge?' Both her mouth and black eyes showed her moodiness in their own way.
"Okay." Deacon Dai grabbed his attention. "Now let's have a little evaluation. The Yang Hand group goes first."
With those words from Deacon Dai, the Yang Hand group, consisting of one girl amongst a group of males, lined for evaluation.
'Let me see what's the difference.' Ku Lo was so excited to see The Yang Hand that he made his way to the front.
"Yang Hand, First Form!"
After a straightforward punch move, a mass of yellow energy shot out from the person's knuckles.
Ku Lo cocked his head to the side. 'Yang Qi is sure different… The complete opposite even.' For where Yin Qi would have vanished if shot like this, it became clear that Yang Qi had no problem in continuing until it hit the training dummy twenty meters away.
However, the effect wasn't the same. 'Blunt damage?' Ku Lo, having played enough games, knew the difference between piercing and blunt damage. 'Yang Qi is blunt? Yin Qi is sharp? I should ask… Fairy Feng.' He was about to think of the name Rin Tin Tin.