Qing Shan looked at the older copy across from him, his awe renewed. In just that small exchange, Qing Shan had once again realized the difference between him and his copy. However, no matter how awed he was, Qing Shan still felt like punching the talking copy for underexaggerating this copy's strength. He had said that Qing Shan should not have trouble killing this one!
Qing Shan burst forward again. This time, he tried relying heavily on his movement skill that none of the other copies could replicate, but miraculously, this copy managed to move in the same way, even though its movement was slower and much less refined. Based on the fact that Qing Shan's movement was still faster, Qing Shan guessed that this copy had actually managed to replicate the skill without faster speed of thought!
'Does that mean I'll be able to do that sometime in the future?'
Qing Shan quickly shook that thought out of his head. This was not the time to be having any stray thoughts!
Even though Qing Shan was thrown off balance when the older copy had managed to replicate his movement skill, He recovered quickly, his mind calculating as many of the possible next attacks at maximum speed. In the corner of his eye, Qing Shan saw the foot of his copy, which had appeared behind him, shift to the right. This cut down the possible moves by more than half, and Qing Shan quickly turned.
When Qing Shan turned he saw that the turned foot was actually the copy's back foot, which meant that the copy was moving toward him. While Qing Shan was cursing himself for not noticing that the foot was the right foot, and thus the back foot in this scenario, he watched in slow motion as the older copy's staff Thrust right at his sternum in a feint, before hitting his shoulder full force.
Qing Shan bit back a scream as his shoulder was dislocated, and quickly flashed backwards, wrenching his shoulder back into place. By the time he could think clearly and the pain had passed, Qing Shan again saw the older copy attacking him.
This time, the Staff was striking down right at Qing Shan's head. Fortunately, Qing Shan was not off balance this time, and managed to throw his whole body to the side, narrowly dodging the attack.
Or so he thought. Qing Shan watched as the Staff seemed to stop on its own accord right before it hit the ground, and launch itself at him like a slithering snake.
Of course, the Staff was not actually moving on its own, or slithering, but the masterful skill of the older copy definitely made it seem like that. While this slithering would disorient and throw off most people, Qing Shan was able to watch every twitch of his copy's muscles, and every miniscule movement of the staff.
Unfortunately, The Staff was moving so fast that it was somehow able to cut off Qing Shan's escape. And even with his speed of thought, Qing Shan felt attacks from the Staff hit him at what he could have sworn was the same time, even though he knew that they were just in very, very quick succession.
As Qing Shan almost crumpled to the ground due to the force of the blows all across his chest and stomach, but he remained standing. At this point Qing Shan realized that he would not be able to get in close enough to attack his copy, so he grabbed his Staff. The Staff had much more reach than his arms, and would be a deadly weapon if he could use it correctly. Unfortunately, Master Liu had only hammered the moves Thrust and Strike into his brain, and Qing Shan did not think he would be able to beat his copy with those two moves, no matter how good he thought he was at them. It was apparent to Qing Shan that his older copy could execute any move he could do at least three times better, unless that was Qing Shan's movement skill.
After Qing Shan picked up his staff, he started moving around, rapidly breezing through the room. Although he was safe avoiding his copy, he could not do it for ever. Luckily, Qing Shan did not need forever. Qing Shan was just trying to come up with a plan that would allow him to beat his copy.
Qing Shan knew that he did not have that much skill with his Staff, but during his five hundred battles, his Thrust and Strike had gotten a hell of a lot better. However, Thrust and Strike where not the only moves that Qing Shan had used with his Staff throughout those battles. While they were not exactly skills, Qing Shan had gotten really good at targeting weak-points and hitting them hard with his Staff. The hardest part about fighting Qing Shan's older copy was that it strung attacks together effortlessly, throwing even Qing Shan's thoughts into confusion. Every attack was coming so fast that Qing Shan felt like he was watching his own attacks real-time. While the attacks were not so fast that he had no time to think, they were fast enough that Qing Shan could not study his copy, or make predictions, while trying to avoid being hit.
Qing Shan knew that his only hope was to somehow pick up a rhythm, to get himself in a hyper-focused state of mind.
This was easier said than done. It is really hard to get your body moving how you want it to while you are spending all your time and effort dodging attacks.
Soon, Qing Shan felt that he had stumbled upon something, maybe something that would give him a chance. When the older copy sent a downwards Strike at Qing Shan, Qing Shan had held up his Staff with only a small slope. The attack had hit the top of Qing Shan's Staff, jarring his hands, but Qing Shan held firm. Amazingly, to Qing Shan anyway, the attack flowed down his Staff, hitting the ground. Although Qing Shan had done this a few times during the five hundred battles, this was the first time he had done it voluntarily. Before this, Qing Shan had always been in a sort of battle-trance whenever he redirected a blow. Plus, due to the fact that Qing Shan had never done this before he entered the trial, the older copy would not be able to replicate this skill. While it would be able to make counterattacks and avoid it, Qing Shan would not feel the same thing happen to him. However, Qing Shan knew that countermeasures against this skill would be fairly easy, and thus knew that he would have trouble slipping this move in.
However, when Qing Shan redirected blows while moving around like the wind, he noticed that the older copy was thrown off, no matter if it expected the move coming or not. This was made apparent the next time a Strike was launched at Qing Shan. The Strike came from the left, a bit above Qing Shan's hip level. This time, Qing Shan tilted his Staff backwards, so that it was resting on his shoulder and pointing towards the ground behind him. Qing Shan then burst forward, flowing underneath the older copy's Staff and sending it right at the ground. Once Qing Shan saw the copy's Staff hit the ground, he compressed his body, before launching at the copy like a cannon ball. Qing Shan lifted his Staff and struck the older copy on the its back.
While the hit was not that hard and not very well placed, Qing Shan was ecstatic because of the significance of this strike. While it had barely done any damage, this was still the first attack that Qing Shan had landed on his copy even after almost ten minutes of fighting! Granted, most of that ten minutes was Qing Shan dashing around the room while running away from his copy.
Now that Qing Shan had a solid tactic, it did not take long for him to sink into the rhythm of the battle. The rhythm started out slow, with Qing Shan redirecting a Strike every few seconds, before attacking, but it began to pick up as Qing Shan got more confident.
Soon, Qing Shan was not only redirecting attacks, but making his own. He would use the same redirecting tactic to slip by the older copy's defense, and began attacking then. Qing Shan was amused by the fact that every single time he redirected the older copy's Staff, it would make a confused expression. It seemed that even though it knew what was happening, it could not do anything to happen. It was probably similar to how Qing Shan felt whenever he was beat up during Master Liu's training. It had been like he was watching helpless, as his body was battered and bruised.
Even though Qing Shan knew exactly what the copy was feeling, Qing Shan did not care for a multitude of reasons. Maybe it was because he knew that this copy was not sentient, and did not possess feelings, or maybe it was the fact that he had slipped into the battle-trance that comes once you hit the perfect rhythm.
Qing Shan had definitely slipped into the battle-trance. There was no question on this matter. If someone was watching the battle from the sidelines, they would see that Qing Shan had a completely slack and expressionless face, as if he was using all of his effort with every attack. He simply could not spare the energy to make expressions. All of Qing Shan's movements did not have any mistakes at all, and the resounding sound of attacks landing on the older copy was so perfectly in beat that it would set the pace for bystanders' heart beats.
However, something that could not be witnessed unless the bystander had an unimaginable level of cultivation, was what was happening in Qing Shan's energy channels. Qing Shan was switching between Qi loops so fast that it looked like each of them where flickering. Except for the Fifth Meridian, which was barely used. It seemed like Qing Shan had gotten so used to switching between Meridians that he barely even needed to use his Third and Second Qi loops. Qing Shan's Qi was also circulating so fast that his Energy Channels were constantly glowing the blue-purple color of his lightning Qi. Speaking of the lighting Qi, not only was it constantly zapping in and out of his Qi loops, but it had also started steadily filling Qing Shan's Life Core.
Any witnesses to the inside of Qing Shan's Energy Channels would have also noticed that both his Third Eye and Life core were four or five times larger than his Dantian. Any experienced cultivator would be able to tell that Qing Shan had toned his body and learned so much that those Major Energy Vessels had broken through many times, independent of his Dantian. While rare, these Major Energy Vessels would break through if they were about to overflow with Qi, even if the Dantian was not behind yet. This meant that Qing Shan would level up multiple times at once, as the changes to body and mind would not happen until his Dantian caught up to the same level as the other two Energy Vessels.
Unfortunately, this rapid growth of the two Vessels had not been very helpful to Qing Shan during his battle. Because both his Life Core and third Eye where guzzling Qi like a man dying of thirst does water, Qing Shan had less Qi to circulate, meaning that his strength boosts from fortifying his Qi loops would diminish. Since his Life Core was still taking in Qi, Qing Shan's Qi may actually diminish completely, and soon, based on the amount of Qi left in his Dantian. Luckily, it looked as though Qing Shan would win this fight before that would happen.
Qing Shan had already beaten his older copy withing an inch of its life. After repeatedly attacking it, It had ripped most of its clothing, and purple and red welts were dotting its body. It had blood leaking from both of its hands, and also its seven orifices. Once Qing Shan had attacked the copy to the point it could barely move, he had pushed it to the ground. Now, Qing Shan was standing atop the fallen copy, preparing to stomp on its spine.
Qing Shan did so, and ignored the sickening crunch. He then stomped on the copy's head, crushing its brain with a rain of blood.
Once Qing Shan had finally killed the older copy, he picked up the key that it had turned into, clutched it to his chest, and fell on the ground, meeting the embrace of unconsciousness once more.