Ki spent her days practicing her sword skills as she started to look more at the essences of each of the styles that she knew while she was working out the various flaws.
Her sword arts and palm arts were very fast, unpredictable and precise which allowed her a lot of flexibility and control.
Although her drunken style gave the feeling of loss of control and balanced it with her sword and palm arts to make her have some control over her sluggish movement, it provided her with many opportunities to stab or cut her opponents but when it came to dealing a finishing slash, it still lacked the power to quickly behead or dismember her enemies.
Even with her excellent sword and her own bodies power, she still relied on absorbing and parrying the opponents attack before using the force that had been used on her to her advantage as it is redirected but it was still much too controlled at times so most of the power is not used when it should be left in an uncontrolled state.
Ki continued to practice underneath the tree as she remembered the various images from the tree branches near her as the wind continued to blow them back out of place. "Once they reach their limit, they snap back with every bit of power and becomes a strong whipping force. Rashida's sword dancing art has a lot of elements where the power can build up like waves or a whirlpool to gather more force with every movement.
It is good to have control over my attacks and defences to provide more accuracy but there are other times when giving up control over my blade will allow more force. The piercing sword forms are effective for sudden thrusts in unexpected situations when the enemy least expects it but an effective cut would be needed on a more difficult opponent."
She kept moving in a disorderly manner as her steps were less predictable and she occasionally bent her arms and body to absorb the impact of an imaginary opponent before snapping her body back suddenly into a powerful slash.
Her body twirled as it followed the wooden sword and it looked like she had lost her balance but just as she was about to fall, she stepped over with another foot and centred her bodies gravity before positioning her wooden sword in a way that would protect her body and prepare to absorb another attack from any angle.
Occasionally she would fall down on her bottom, trip to the side or forward, roll on the ground and dive to an unexpected direction as she held her sword. 'Still not right but I feel like I am getting closer. Whether it is Marilyn's thrusting style, Rashida's water based style that has more powerful slashes or my own style.. each have their own benefits in battle. Where I am lacking in power and brute force, there are ways to use wood and water elements to create my own finishing moves.
Just as the generation qi art has helped by using water or blood qi to help nurture the wood or noxious qi, an opposite or another compatible animal form could compliment the snake form. Since my style has been inspired a little by the snake forms and allowed me to have a more flexible body, there could be options available in the other martial arts.'
She went into thought for a while and had let out a sigh. "If snake is a complete yin style then tiger is the yang. I need to be able to learn how to use as much force in my body as possible without holding back anything and without worrying about loss of control, loss of precision or worrying about keeping up my defences.
Luckily I have some experience with it already and I have a little brother who has been practicing the same thing over a long period of time. Then there id my other student who had started with learning the snake forms. I need to go back to the basics again so I can reach a point of balance and find where I could be lacking."
Although she had often taught her two younger students, she found that it was best that she try out her current direction rather than getting further muddled up in her thoughts as she tried to find a solution.
Just like she had been told about the heart demon and as she had heard about the eight animal forms, the essences and origins are discovered by humans then go through a long period of refinement before they reach their current stage of what is believed to be perfection.
She had reached the stage where it could be considered perfect or near perfect in her own or many others eyes but she had remembered what had happened after she had returned to her new life.
Going back to the basics allowed her to see things that she did not see before when she was at a higher level of power, now that she was already at a higher power than before, she was facing the same problem where her future path had become quite muddled.
The drunken sword arts uses the same yin and yang as it should be in a delicate balance as her body is out of control but is still within her control at the same time, the tiger and snake forms quite fit those examples as one was brutal and forceful as it had less precision and control but the snake forms were the complete opposite.
The next day, she called her younger brother and her other student as she started making them both practice both the snake and tiger forms from scratch along with her.
They exchanged many fierce palm, grappling, fist and claw moves that came from each of the forms as tiger was put against tiger, snake was put against snake, snake was against tiger then tiger was against snake.
Each time they would practice the forms or spar together as they started to find out how they two forms would be compatible with each other.
One was the opposite if the other so it was difficult to determine which was the better form unless they were all evenly matched and there were some other factors like Ki having to hold back which had reduced her power when using the tiger forms which was not beneficial for her mastery over the forms but she was able to understand a little more through the sparring about how to use force and when it was the best time to release it.
Their days would continue like that until they each gained their own insights into the two animal forms and were slowly able to master them completely one after the other.
Once they were mastered and both were practiced in a single session, they would slowly be blended together as they would form a snake tiger art which would then be later added to the Bombyx village library.
On the scroll that contained the combination of the sixteen forms, there was the image of a fierce tiger that had a very long and thin tail that was very flexible and at the end of it was a snake head with sharp fangs.
In those following days, weeks and months that continued to pass, Ki spent a lot of time within her own family mansion as she continued to keep up with her music lessons and made improvements to the mulberry and drunken arts as she would eventually move onto her sword arts.
All of her new inspirations, experiences and knowledge would be consolidated together as she worked out what areas needed to be fixed, removed and refined further until she could consider her techniques to have reached what she wished to achieve.
If she was lost then she went back to the basics again until she found that her body had adjusted more to the two animal forms to suit their style perfectly as it formed a delicate balance which she then used her changes and inspirations to adding to what she had missed before.
The mulberry arts were always wood and snake based so they had been perfected much faster as they were primarily yin based but the drunken style had needed a lot more work to be able to turn it into a complete and balanced art that suited Ki and was perfectly balanced the yin and yang forms to achieve what she needed in combat situations.
One moment her movements were within her control but the next moment there was an explosive release of force in a certain direction as she lost control and then would regain control.
During that time she would have killed an enemy, attracted the attention of another enemy who would attack during that opening created but by then she has already regained control and escaped that attack which would result in another killing blow when they least expected it.
The days were very long as she had even used the Unrestrained realm powerhouses under her influence to test her sword techniques.
Even without the influence of actual alcohol, she was becoming more and more familiar as if her drunken movements were more natural.
Her overall aura had become a little more relaxed and lazy or sluggish compared to her previous appearance and aura thanks to her music and martial arts training.
Although she still dressed in the same clothing and style as had before, many were able to notice her changes over time and she looked much more relaxed and carefree than ever before.
Most of her days spent under the mulberry tree had often been done barefoot as she had wanted to get closer to nature and feel it properly as the soil and grass was beneath her feet.
In ancient times, martial artists would walk barefoot so that they could sense and feel the world around them better, it was recorded in some ancient books which she had read that back then, that was how humans were able to gain better insights into the world and develop their own martial arts based on what they sensed, smelled, touched, tasted, heard and had seen.
To develop a qi art and martial arts was a difficult task and required a lot of refinement to perfect but back then they had to start from nothing so they had to discover it themselves and develop it through their own ways and through trial and error.
Even qi arts and martial arts of the present time were lacking some of the original essences of its creators and the overall simplicity of nature or their original intent so Ki gained further ideas on how to work on her own martial arts.
Through many underground channels, a large amount of snakes of different types and tigers had been purchased so that she could observe their movements up close so that she could see from the real things.
She observed the movements of the mulberry trees, drunken people within the village as they were expressing many emotions and moods but also many other aspects of nature as her soul experienced many forms of spiritual enlightenment.
Slowly she was evolving in many aspects and as more time had passed, she was able to achieve something many would find difficult to do on their own and through their efforts alone.
With the long period of time that she had spent to develop herself and her abundant wealth and resources, she was able to gain access to new materials and other things that would assist her in stepping closer to her goal.
The same was happening for each of her younger students as they were slowly adapting to the training and were slowly forming their own styles as her younger brother had gained inspiration from his own wolf companion that had helped him create a very brutal style of his own which he named the Arctic Wolf style and her other student had slowly gotten closer to learning the completed mulberry art that was only passed down to her and a select few.
Although they both had not chosen to continue down the more balanced path and instead chose a path to extreme yin or yang, they had benefitted from their training with Ki so that they could learn how to develop their movements to combat an opposing style that may be a direct counter to them but also to help them improve their own individual styles of combat.