At the usual training ground, Heero and his disciples gathered there. Only missing Xu Lingxun who just started the training. Heero got him a different training as the boy did not have the basics yet.
Heero dispatched Butcher Wang to have a spar against Dong-Woo. As for him, he had to help his first disciple. Standing right in front of him, Sun Zhou Yi fell into deep thought.
As Sun Zhou Yi was busy with his own thoughts, Heero faced Hirata who still wore the wooden mask. It certainly made Heero curious as to why this guy did not take his mask off since he came back from Ence Fort.
"Why do you still wear the mask?"
"I have met that boy once, if I don't wear the mask, he will recognize me!" Said Hirata with his gaze fell to Dong-Woo who just got kicked in his ass.
"Does it matter?"
Hirata was stunned as he could not answer Heero. Yes, did it matter? So what if the boy did recognize him?
'Uh, this is my past habit during my day in Shadow Fang…'
During his day in the Shadow Fang, he always stayed low and never showed his real face. There was an exception though, when he went back to the clan or when he acted as a ranker. Only during that time, did he show his real face.
"Alright, it's your matter, do you also want to improve your sword technique?" Heero got to the point. So far, he never taught his disciples any technique yet. Sun Zhou Yi comprehended Sword Ki by himself, Hirata learned his clan's sword technique, and Butcher Wang learned that random movement from observing the beast when he went hunting.
What he taught them only Ki Comprehension so far to nourish their body with Ki. It was not that he did not want to teach them, but because they were not ready yet. They needed a pure Ki to use his technique while their body contained another internal energy aside from Ki.
At least, his disciples needed to clean their bodies from harmful internal energy. Heero had checked all his disciples' bodies before and their bodies contained two energies that he did not recognize.
The gray energy that was similar to Specter Ki and another one was truly new to Heero. The other energy was like a rainbow, it was colorful. Heero was not worried about the colorful energy, what he was worried about was the gray energy.
The colorful energy was beneficial to them while the gray energy was harmful. He was afraid that there will be a clash of the two energies if they tried to use the technique that needed a pure Ki.
So, his disciples needed to clear this gray energy out of their bodies as he did not want to take the risk. As for why Sun Zhou Yi could create a technique Ki Sword, Heero did not know as he was still clueless about the gray energy and the colorful energy.
The same for Hirata, rather than teaching him a new technique, Heero chose to help him to master the technique Hirata had learned.
Hirata instantly nodded his head, he promised to fight against his brother. So he certainly wanted to get stronger.
Heero smiled and unlocked his smartwatch which confused Hirata. After a moment, Hirata's smartwatch vibrated. He checked his smartwatch and saw Heero sent a file to him. Curious, he opened the file and found strange words written in it.
Hirata did not recognize the writing, it was not Chinese, not Korean, and not Japanese. He was confused and looked up.
"Don't you recognize the writing?" Heero asked with a smile instead of explaining what with that strange writing. With his reminder, Hirata furrowed his brows and looked back at his smartwatch.
Indeed, he had seen these writings once but he did not remember where he had seen the writing. As he tried to remember where he had seen the writing, his eyes widened. The writing was similar to the technique his ancestors left behind.
His clan did not understand single writing within his ancestor's legacy. They had to learn the sword technique through the illustrated image.
"This…" Hirata stuttered as he could not believe this strange writing presented before him in digital form. After all, this language was far from his ancestor's era, far before the disaster struck.
"Yes, it's the same writing in your Ancestor Legacy. Learn that writing and you will grasp your ancestor technique. After that, you can exchange that language with your mother's freedom. There's no way your father will reject this offer, right?" Heero smiled at the stunned Hirata.
Once again, Hirata was shocked, his eyes widened as he looked at Heero. He was thinking hard about how his Master could get to know about this.
"There's no need to think hard about that. It was this guy who told me about your promise with your brother, he said he accidentally overheard your talk with your big brother!" Heero pointed his index finger toward Sun Zhou Yi who pretended to be innocent.
"But… But…" Hirata wanted to say that his clan's greed was boundless. If they knew his Master knew almost everything about their ancestor, he believed his clan would try to do something that would annoy his Master.
"It's okay, they can't do anything to me." Heero dismissed his disciple's concern confidently and continued, "To survive until now, your clan must be pretty smart. If they are smart, they should be friends with me rather than antagonizing me, right?"
"Hah…" Hirata let out a sigh as he truly could not reject this idea. If he offered the clan a chance to learn the ancestor's technique, he believed his father would agree to what he requested.
"I guess it will be fine. Even though my clan is greedy, my half-blood brother has a quite fine character in fact."
"Then, you should learn that primitive writing and continue your ancestor legacy. Your ancestor's legacy is not weaker than my technique, learn well!" Heero tapped Hirata's shoulder.
'Just who are you, Master?' the question was almost coming out of his mouth, but he refrained from asking. If Heero won't tell his past to him, he won't take the initiative to ask as well. Not telling him meant his Master still did not want to tell him about the past.
In the end, Hirata responded with a solemn nod while his eyes were glued to the smartwatch. In the file, besides the strange writing was Japanese. With his eyes glued to the smartwatch, Hirata looked for a good spot to sit and learn the new language.
"Have you found the answer?" As he finished with Hirata, Heero focused back on Sun Zhou Yi. He asked Zhou Yi what was his Ki Sword's shortcoming.
"The number of my Ki Sword?" Sun Zhou Yi answered in confusion as he could not think of his technique's shortcomings. So far, he could only form less than sixty Ki Swords at once.
"Your control over your sword! Let me ask you, can you move your sword to aim at a different target at the same time?" Heero rolled his eyes.
Sun Zhou Yi furrowed his brows as he recalled how he used his Ki Swords to fight. Indeed, despite the number of Ki Swords, he only aimed all the Ki Swords at one target. Without asking Heero's consent, he formed six Ki Swords.
After that, he scanned the surroundings to find a target. He found six boulders in different positions. The distance between the boulders was about four to seven meters.
Sun Zhou Yi gathered his focus, he tried to stab the six boulders with his six Ki Swords at the same time. He took one last deep breath, then the sword moved!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The six swords moved at the same time in six different directions. However, none of the Ki Swords managed to hit the intended target. Instead, all swords missed the targets by a large margin. There was a Ki Sword that passed by the boulder, there was a Ki Sword not even able to reach the boulder.
Sun Zhou Yi was stunned as he could not believe what he saw. He even missed the closest boulder that was about eight meters away from him.
"So, do you know why you lost to Musashi Hirata? It's because you can't control your sword just like Hirata controls his swords. Your advantage is the number of your ki Swords, but you can't use your advantage well as your control over your Ki Swords is severely lacking. What's the use of having many swords if you can only stab it in one direction?"
Hearing this, Sun Zhou Yi was stunned. Yes, what's the use of controlling many swords, if they only moved in one direction? What was the difference with one sword? It would be better if he formed a giant sword rather than many Ki Swords, but one giant sword was useful only if his enemy was a giant like the Wyvern King.
Using a giant sword again Musashi Hirata was less effective as Musashi Hirata could dodge it easily. A giant sword was much heavier and slower than the smaller swords, making it easier to dodge.
"So, you know what you should do, right? Try it with two swords first, then three words, so on…"
Sun Zhou Yi nodded solemnly.
"There is no weak technique if you master it well. Even if it's just a simple stab…" Heero took a sword out of nowhere. After that, he combined his footwork and a simple stab that was imbued with his Ki.
Whoosh!
Heero aimed his sword toward the closest boulder Sun Zhou Yi targeted earlier. His body only moved three meters from his original spot, there was still five meters distance between the boulder and the sword.
However, Sun Zhou Yi saw the boulder cracked, a crack that was caused by a stab, but the sword was still far from the boulder.
"Master your Ki Swords well, after that, I will teach you more techniques! Also, don't forget to train your footwork and your body. The stronger your body, the stronger your Ki will be!"
After saying that, Heero left the training ground. Before he went back, he checked Dong-Woo for the last time. The boy was still stubborn as he kept challenging Butcher Wang. Dong-Woo truly thought he could win with just his awakened ability.
'Should I show him something stronger than the one so-called that awakened ability?' Heero immediately shook his head as he thought of this. If he taught Dong-Woo something stronger than his awakened ability, Dong-Woo would be too reliant on his new-gained ability.
*** ***
Heero went back to the shop, he went back to help Han Ying while Hong Yu went to check the school. The school was half-finished, his wife was excited about it and she had been checking the school every day.
Heero was also satisfied with everything in his life since he came to Star City, his life truly changed, and surprisingly he enjoyed his life despite only making noodles, teaching the children in the preschool, or just writing a story.
Though there were a few concerns in his mind, such as Shadow Fang, the dungeons, and the nasty society in the city. There were still many things he needed to do so to truly enjoy his retirement life.
But slowly he resolved his concerns, he established the Xing District to shield his people from the rotten society in the inner and the core region. The dungeon thing which worried him the most as he still had not found a single clue regarding the dungeons.
As for Shadow Fang, he managed to catch the tail. The people he caught during the time he cleaned the Shadow Fang's base, these people told everything they knew about the Shadow Fang with his drugs.
They mentioned something important, Fighter Anteriority. These people mentioned the same thing, Shadow Fang would make a big move during the Fighter Anteriority. With this clue presented before him, Heero also decided to make a big move at Fighter Anteriority.
"Urghhh… I forgot to ask Zhou Yi what's Fighter Anteriority…"