Due to being at a bottleneck of sorts with his martial techniques due to lack of Qi, he decides to revise his training schedule. Previously he would wake up at around 4 – 5 am and leave to train his martial techniques/other techniques. Then at around 4 pm when it just turned dark, he would start training his senses till midnight. Then he would head back and cultivate/sleep till 4am and repeat.
Now however due to his Qi not being enough to support more than a couple of moves with his techniques he mostly skips the day technique training. His new time table is wake at 4am, then train techniques till daylight which is around 7am. Then from 7am – 7pm he would train his senses before heading back for the night and cultivating till 4am the next day.
With the revision of his schedule, he starts the new day practicing new things, before starting on his next sense he needs to train.
…
3 weeks later Fen Chang and Bjorne could be seen standing in front of a cave together. They looked into the deep dark cave with a thankful and reminiscent look.
This cave was the same one they had been living in for the past month. Today was the day they plan to leave the mountains and forest and start heading back to the capital city.
Due to living in the cave for so long they had grown quite fond of it. Afterall it did provide them with shelter during the -20 degrees nights, the beasts that roam around the area and provided them with a cosy place to watch as the world gets covered in snow.
With everything from the cave packed up they set off for their final test before leaving.
Due to not wanting to leave without something to show for it they each set themselves a final goal. Fen Changs was to beat a low rank 2 beast in single combat, while Bjornes was to beat a high rank 2 in single combat without having his master step in.
So far both Bjorne and Fen Chang have only been able to survive their targets but not beat them, this time they plan to not only beat them but also kill them which would make it even harder.
First up was Bjorne as his target was closest. His target was the Snow Paw Lynx, which was a creature he has fought many times and each time retreated with severe injuries, this time he is out of revenge.
The fight starts off with Bjorne tanking lots of hit using its earth Qi armour but compared to the first time there is a big difference. Its colour is duller like a rock, while it is also thinner and less bulky.
Even though its thinner the claws of the lynx are still only able to scratch it as before his earth armour was like a hard clay, and was malleable under powerful attacks, now its more condensed like a cold hard rock, which makes the claws unable to tear chunks of it away.
During these weeks of training with advice from Fen Chang Bjorne managed to find a way to manipulate the earth Qi armour to be either soft or hard allowing for more versatile defence. Against claws and slashes he would used the hard armour, while against blunt attacks and jaws he would use the softer one, because otherwise the blunt attacks would crack the hard stone type one causing him to use lots of Qi to repair the cracks.
Although a great technique it is still unfinished and a work in progress for Bjorne as he is unable to change the earth Qi armour once in a fight at takes a solid 5 minutes to change it.
What he does is before the fight he would change to which ever was needed then deactivate it then when he activates his earth Qi armour it is already the correct type.
Due to mostly focusing on the defence technique his attacks are lacking in comparison to the lynx's Qi enhanced claws which it has just used.
The lynx having defeated Bjorne many times unconsciously looked down on him and thought of him as only a tank with to barrel and that once the armour is gone there is nothing left.
Unfortunately for it, Bjornes attacks although are not Qi enhanced are still very powerful due to its natural body and when the lynx go in range and was the perfect time for Bjorne to strike his left paw shot out in an instant and smashed into the lynx's ribs.
Due to using its paw in a fist shape instead of its claws, it caused damage to its rib and leg bones causing its speed to drastically drop. If he had used his claws then it wouldn't have affected its speed much.
This was one of the techniques Fen Chang taught him, of which he then perfected over his fights against fast opponents.
Though even with the armour Bjorne was still getting injured from when the lynx infused more Qi that normal into its attacks. Slowly the fight went on as the lynx bounced around the flat snowy cliffside they were fighting on.
Due to its broken ribs its speed was slower than normal which slowly allowed Bjorne to get the edge in a long fight. By the end almost 40 minutes had passed and finally he lynx had ran out of Qi and stamina which allowed Bjorne to exert the last of its strength it had saving up to make a decisive blow to its head, crushing the lynx's skull onto the stone.
…
A few hours later they left after Bjorne had healed up and went to the location of Fen Changs target.
His target was a snow leopard type creature with two horns on its head. It was a low rank 2 creature that he had seen many times and killed many others of the same species using his assassinations but this will be his first time trying it head on.
He first starts by getting its attention and aggravating it before luring it towards a better location. Currently it was on top of a small rock near an edge, not giving him much room to manoeuvre where as it can scale the rocks near by and have a great advantage.
He is baiting it to a more open area just a little down where although at a slope, it still opens and gives him plenty of places to manoeuvre around.
Once his target was in the area he turned back around and stared it down. The leopard still angry from its provocation earlier charges in using its speed to build massive momentum and looks like its going to try pierce him through with its horns.
He quickly becomes a blur as he uses silent steps to dodge. Appearing a few meters away from where he was previously left the leopard confused for a second before it quickly turned back towards him still having its same fast momentum.
He once again became a blur and dodged it, however the leopard still being able to see him managed to just scratch his side.
Seeing that he just barely had the advantage in speed made him a bit more confident to attack. When the leopard once again came in to attack instead of dodging, he became a blur that quickly formed behind the leopard silently and swung down with his sword.
Having good senses, it managed to quickly dodge and swipe at his wrist with its back claws causing a few scratches. The fight continued on and became a contest of speed as they each piled up light wounds eventually covering both of them enough to become somewhat serious.
Compared to the random scratches over Fen Chang the leopard had it worse as each time he attacked he aimed purposefully for the same cuts causing them to become worse.
After 20 minutes of running around he deemed it time to get in the decisive blow. This entire time has been a mind game of sorts that he has been playing with the leopard.
He spent this entire time being fast and it being a battle of who's fastest but he knows that the leopard still isn't enhancing its speed with Qi so he knows normally he would lose, so he has been keeping it up to let the leopard get confident that once it activates its trump card it would win due to being faster.
The leopard fell right into his trap as well as the entire time its had its guard up from this strange human and has been testing the humans limit of speed. Seeing that the human isn't getting faster it grew more confident and at the same time Fen Chang its time to end it so did the leopard.
They body prepared their moves, the leopards' legs and body started to glow slightly as Qi was being used to enhance itself. The glow wasn't as bright as a mid-rank 2 beast that he has seen when Bjorne fights but it was still a boost none the less.
Fen Chang however stood still looking like he didn't realise, which caused the leopard to have even more confidence.
It rushed forward at least 50% faster than before, the leopard expecting the human to not even be able to see it rushed straight ahead directly towards him.
Unfortuantly for it, due to training his senses they can catch things that are many times faster than himself and even from angles he cant even see.
So having perfect vision of the speeding leopard, just as it was about to hit him with its horns, his body starts glowing bright orange.
A towering figure 2x the size of himself appeared above him as its torso covered Fen Chang.
The horns smashed into the glowing light and completely bounced off. This was his defensive skill Giants Shell, which was greatly effective but it also comes with an extremely high Qi usage rate.
With the leopard stunned from slamming its horns into the defensive shell at such a high speed, he quickly dispels the shell and stabs his sword forward directly piercing through its head and brain.
Taking a seat near the corpse he takes a little time to get his breath back. Bjorne happily rushes over and expresses its congratulations towards its master by constantly doing a bear's bark and rubbing its snout onto his hand.