'Incredible!' He thought.
But it was still far from perfect, the book described that once this martial art was mastered, one would be able to break a fully grown tree from five meters away. And also, he took too long to execute it, any rational enemy would have already moved away by the time he punched out.
Full of excitement, he repeated the art. Trying to get used to the process. After five attempts, he felt himself drained.
That's weird, why did he get tired so fast? He observed his body. When he looked inside his energy core, he found that it was dim. The energy inside was almost depleted. So his energy core was still too weak to perform martial arts too many times.
He sat down crosslegged and used Energy Funneling Art to cultivate, at the same time having the aether refill the energy inside his energy core.
After he refilled his energy core, he repeated his training, getting faster and stronger with each repetition. By the time the sun was about to set, he finally decided to take a look at the second martial book, Hardened Bronze Body.
As the name hinted, this art revolved around having the energy spread around the skin of his entire body. Turning it hard as metal, allowing his body to resist serious impact. But controlling the aether to spread all over the body in a balanced amount was much harder compared to concentrating the energy into his fist.
Amon decided to train this art only after he was familiar with executing Bone Shattering Shadow Fist fluently. He surmised this would be the fastest way to learn both arts to an acceptable degree.
He continued to train until the sky became dark. When Hei Pho came to call him to rest, his body was full of sweat. His soaked shirt was on the floor as he continued to train barechested.
When he went back to the bedroom after taking a bath, Hei Gong was cultivating. Amon observed him for a while, studying his way of cultivation. It was apparent that the older man was using a different cultivation art. It seemed much more complex. But the thing he could learn from just watching was limited. So he stopped wasting time and went to cultivate himself.
During the martial training on the day, he only cultivated to refill his energy. Now that he could do proper cultivation, he recalled the advice that Hei Gong had given him earlier today. He put them into practice. The efficiency in his cultivation after applying the correct details could be felt. He could not suppress the excitement in his heart as his cultivation pace increased.
At midnight, the time that Hei Gong usually stopped his cultivation, he saw that Amon was still cultivating. He said to Amon to not cultivate too late, that Amon needed to rest as well before he went to bed.
Amon only nodded as a response, but he had no intention of heeding the words. He had found out that although he cultivated a whole night without rest, he did not feel tired nor sleepy. Instead, he felt invigorated in the morning, even better than when he slept.
He had no problem not sleeping for a few nights in his past life. He had done that many times especially on the battlefield, falling asleep behind enemy lines was a luxury. But the fact that he did not feel tired this time was not due to his endurance and willpower, it was simply his body was full of energy.
At first, he thought that was the effect of the cultivation itself, but then he remembered that Hei Gong always stopped cultivating and then went to sleep. Hence, he knew that this condition was unique to him. In fact, he had not slept at all since he acquired the cultivation art from Hei Pho. Cultivating had become a new way for him to replace sleep.
The next morning, when Hei Gong woke up and saw that Amon was still cultivating, he simply associated it with Amon waking up earlier.
When Amon went back to the courtyard to repeat his Bone Shattering Shadow Fist training, Hei Gong followed to see his progress. He watched as Amon made his punch.
"Hm?" Hei Gong lifted his eyebrows.
As Amon was about to punch again, Hei Gong instructed, "Punch towards me."
Amon did not give it much thought. He swiveled his body until he was facing Hei Gong. Hei Gong was standing about five meters from him, exactly the distance where it was said that the punch could deliver a deadly blow. But even if Amon had already mastered this art, he doubted it would cause any damage to Hei Gong who was already in the Martial realm.
He accumulated his energy into his fist as he had done hundreds of times, and punched out. Hei Gong felt a slight wind pressure on his clothes and frowned.
"How did I do?" Amon asked.
Hei Gong gave him a complicated expression before he said, "to be honest, I am surprised that you have already reached this stage."
"So, my execution is acceptable?"
"It was still far from saying it can be used in an actual fight."
"So, it was still bad then."
Hei Gong stared at him intently, before saying, "though it was still far from perfect, your advancement is incredible. A normal kid might still be trying to properly execute this move, yet you are already in the beginner phase of mastery."
"Beginner mastery?" Amon asked with interest.
"Mastery of Arts, like the Martial art and arcane art, can be divided into five phases: Beginner, skilled, expert, master, and grandmaster."
"Then mine is the most basic phase, what's so great about it?"
"Normally it would take a kid, or even a young adult for that matter, about one week of trial and error before they could properly perform the art, formally reaching the beginner stage."
Amon scoffed in his mind. He was not an actual kid, so such an improvement was not actually that impressive. "How long will it take to reach the highest grandmaster mastery?"
"For most? Never," Hei Gong replied. "Grandmaster mastery of either martial art or arcane art is not something that can be achieved just with hard work and time. It also required compatibility of the art with its user, and the innate talent to understand the art. Even someone who had continued to practice the same art for tens of years cannot be certain that they will reach the master level, much less grandmaster."
Amon contemplated Hei Gong's words. "The book said that when I mastered this art, I will be able to destroy a tree from five meters away. Is that only achievable if I reach grandmaster?"
"No, that is the effect if you reach expert mastery."
"That is only expert level?"
Hei Gong nodded. "At master level, you should be able to perform three rapid punches with the same power within a second."
"What about grandmaster?"
"You should be able to execute ten consecutive powerful punches within a second."
That sounded farfetched, Amon thought. But then again, this world had shown him many miraculous things. Including the battle between Madam Lin's henchmen with the Grimalkins. How they could manipulate the elements to their will. It will not be so strange for him to perform something that would have been considered a superhuman feat in his past life, considering of course, if he kept improving in his cultivation and training.
Amon asked, "Do you have a martial art that utilized a dagger or a shortsword?"
Hei Gong's eyes went to the small dagger on Amon's waist. He had heard about the madam's gift from Hei Pho. He waved his hand and a book materialized. He handed the book to Amon.
"Understand that martial art using a weapon is more difficult to perform compared to the one using your body. That's why I gave you those previous two arts first. Leave this one for later once you have better learned the first two."
Amon accepted the book and nodded. He saw the title on its cover, Silent Swift Stab.
He then went back to focus on his training. Hei Gong watched him for a few more minutes as his face continued to show complex emotion before he went away and left Amon to his training.
This training regime soon became Amon's routine in the mansion. He spent his day mostly training martial arts, while the night he spent cultivating.
He did not neglect his tutelage of medicine under Hei Pho, though. He still spared several hours a day inside Hei Pho's medicine room. Since he was already directly taught, he could do experimentation. In fact, Hei Pho was greatly helped now that she did not have to personally make all of the medicines.
Unbeknownst to Hei Pho, however, was that Amon was secretly also learning her poison technique. Amon's proficiency in poison was far greater than in medicine, due to his experience in his past life. He was also secretly conducting experiments on making poison using the available ingredient in the medicine room when Hei Pho was not around. The leftover mess could just be credited to him trying to make medicine.