After the battle between them the two could be identified as strong individuals within their age ranges within most large sects.
Ki could be described as a monster if they spotted her mastery of the sword and how fast she was able to develop her own style during battle.
Little did they know that she had slowly combined the 70 plus years of experience of her previous life and attainments in sword arts into her movements.
Previously she focussed more on hardness within her attacks while in this life she developed more towards softness, during her battle she began to make up for her imperfections of her style with what she previously knew.
She slowly added her sharp and deadly attacks and mixed them with her soft and flexible defences and attacks until finally she reached a stage where she began to drink her special wine to help her to push forward further during her sparring session.
Slowly in her tipsy and relaxed state she began to experiment with what she had gained so far, as time went by she kept getting better and better.
Almost like she had a buildup of water at a dam, the moment she had drunk the wine the dam had broken and the water began to flow at a fast speed again, she was experiencing bottlenecks and limits with her sword skills but then she found a way to integrate her movements perfectly and find a method of attack.
She then created an opportunity by dirty tactics which the enemy was not expecting but in the end she found this tactic very useful for future encounters.
She often drinks poisonous wines, if she integrates the style during combat then the enemies need to beware when they clash weapons with her in a close enough range because they risk being sprayed with poison into their face.
Marilyn had at first went easy on Ki but as time went by she began to feel some pressure so had to use her full strength and technique.
The more mistakes she made the more Ki countered and attacked, this helped to correct old bad habits and correct them and hone her techniques further.
If before she was considered to be a second rate martial artist then after the battle ended she had reached the ranks of a first rate martial artist with Ki's help, all she needed to be officially a first rate martial artist was to improve her bodies overall state and then she would make further progress in no time.
Ki could not beat Marilyn through fair means as time went by because her learning speed was very fast and because Ki's overall body strength and stamina did not match up to hers so she had to resort to changing her style of fighting and event resort to tricks to be able to put up a fight for longer and come out the winner.
They were both impressed with one another both believing the other to be a true genius.
Ki believed her masters talents were wasted because of her background and lack of support but most of all in the previous life her masters life was ended at such a young age so that her talents would not be able to bloom to their fullest potential.
Marilyn believed that Ki was initially just a skilled child raised by the family so she would be sheltered so went easy on her a little but as time went on she gained a great deal of respect for her and a sense of rivalry was also placed in her heart towards Ki.
In her heart Ki was a talented child who deserved respect and strove for a great cause, if she stayed by her side then she would have the opportunity to improve herself in her martial arts and greatly change many things in the world.
Hearing that she lost she placed her sword and dagger into the ground in front of Ki's feet after she walked over and knelt before Ki with her head down and swore. "I Marilyn Bolivar will swear by my promise that I will uphold my end of our deal. I will do as you ask without question but I hope I can continue to train and spar with you whenever I am free if you will allow it."
'Back when I met her in my previous life she wasn't this much of a martial arts lunatic but that is probably because she had already lost respect for martial artists during that time of being recruited by those that caused the ones she loved the most harm from behind the scenes… the only reason she joined them in the end was to gain more strength.' Ki rolled her eyes. "I do not see any problems for now. My plans are not going to be implemented because I do not have the private funds to support them so for now you can move into the mansion and train with me. I will get you more access to various martial arts books and we can build up your body more with some nutritious foods. In a year or two we can begin to act upon what we have talked about as there is too much danger surrounding the events of Wolfden city for us to handle right now."
Marilyn looked up with excited eyes. "Yes Young miss!"
During the next few weeks began a series of buying more slaves, expanding and training the Blood Shadow group.
Some trained alongside the blood shadow group but had been selected to support Marilyn in the future in her organisation.
Marilyn and Ki sparred daily and trained together like they were obsessed with competing with each other.
Evie began to further improve her control over her daggers while Leon gradually got used to the weight of his wooden training great sword.
Many other deals with other families and traders began to take place as the first tea pavilion was being opened to the public.
The other businesses were beginning to stabilise and with the support of outside families the idea to expand into other places began to become possible but the Bombyx family decided to slowly expand.
The wooden walls had been built up around the village and slowly began the building of the stone walls and the renovation of the village.
After some thoughts Ki decided to prepare a Gu Worm for Marilyn to make use of within her organisation and to help gain control of the leaders from various gangs and also began to tattoo her body with the blood mystical arts to help her to collect the vitality to give her a way to increase her chances of survival and to stock up on vitality for her future plans.
She also began to make plans to pass on the Evil Flame Qi Art to Marilyn which would be harmful towards her the more she practiced it but she felt that if the technique used the blood mystical arts to supply the evil fire the vitality to help it grow then it would not need to take any of her lifespan in order to grow further.
For the time being Marilyn could not yet use the Qi art so had to spend most of her time honing her martial forms and perfecting her techniques while building up and improving the state of her body.
[1] Since she did swear loyalty is there a need to control her with blood mystical art subordination? I guess it depends if the abilities will be useful to the art she practices.
[2] I was thinking of her taking up the nameless sword Qi art since she is so talented with swords and would make swift progress faster than most geniuses… but there is also the Blood Buddha Qi art but that's already been given out to Rashida… so either the sword arts one or maybe wait until later for a Qi art and use the evil flame Qi art for its deadly attacks and its faster growth rate, combined with blood mystical arts it could possibly make up for the deficiencies?