Long Ren readied his stance. 'Let's see how effective Yun Ning's freezing aura really is.'
His right leg back left leg forward, palms near his face. Long Ren closed his eyes and took a deep breath only to open them a breath later and punched his right hand out.
White hallow winds followed his fist, no, his gauntlet, to finally land on the claws as they propel his punch even harder.
*Swoosh*
The expected explosive collision did not occur, instead, the dummy absorbed all the brute force and dampen the noise.
*Ding!* [1001]
On a nearby wall, a board displayed a score. The board seemed to be made out of paper and wood while the numbers are carved by a runestone-like mechanism.
Long Ren felt satisfied with the punch, 'Yeah, her freezing aura really crippled my senses and movement…I need to find a way to negate it…' he contemplated.
Gasps rang throughout the hall, Ming and Ping's faces showed a shocked expression as they kept staring at the board, mouth agape, and all.
"Lao, what in Hephaestus's name did you feed this boy?" Ping asked as he grabbed both of Xing Lao's, shaking them vigorously.
Xing Lao quickly shoved Ping's hands away, "Stop! I didn't feed him anything special! Just some sky realm level artifacts, that's all!" Xing Lao said, to which Ping responded with a surprised
"huh?!".
Xing Lao ignored him and went back to admiring his student's prowess.
He knew bringing Long Ren here would yield great results. Long Ren needed a weapon, an appropriate one, and when he did obtain it, his power skyrocketed.
Sometimes he wonders whether he spoils his first and probably the last student way too much. Just this weapon would cost him quite a significant amount, maybe around 100 years of premium beard-care products.
His heart ached but quickly recovered, remembering the compensation he would receive. A unique beard softener from god knows where. He tried it once from Long Ren and it worked like a charm, a divine charm.
Anything for his beard…Anything.
…
Anyway, Long Ren opened and closed his palms, feeling the power the black-gold gauntlet provided him. A simple gesture of closing down his palm generates white hallow wind near its claw tips.
He injects qi into the gauntlet and the wind's intensity grew, almost uncontrollably. His qi soon depleted as the winds calmed down.
'This uses too much qi to be useful right now, but the small passive winds are good enough,' Long Ren thought. He readied his stance once more and let out a flurry of punches.
Scored kept ringing throughout the room as Long Ren tried every possible move possible with the gauntlet and [Swift Song's Encore] in tandem.
Not much really as [Swift Song's Encore] mainly focuses on footwork, and only a tiny portion of it teaches fist techniques. But, as he's still in the preliminary stage of development, it did a good enough job,
[1022]
[1011]
[1111]
…
[1330]
"...",
Xing Lao looked at the father and son duo's agape face and chuckled.
He felt pride swell up from his disciple's accomplishments. Even though he lost to Yun Ning yesterday, it didn't mean he was not a monster, it was just that that girl is an even bigger monster. A flood dragon and a leviathan if you will.
"Long Ren, try punching it without the gauntlets." Xing Lao told him. Long Ren nodded and punched the dummy with his bare hands, scoring a nifty 888.
…Ping took a deep breath, trying really hard to not flush his already red face into black even more,
"Did you really not force-fed him those artifacts? How could a rank-7 cultivator dish out a rank-10 to earth realm cultivator's scores!" Ping practically growled, not believing the reality standing in front of him.
Sure, weapons matter in acquiring high scores, but in all his 20 years of life as a blacksmith owner, he had never seen anyone practically leap through 500 points just by equipping a weapon!
The weapon isn't even a divine weapon that a mortal can wield! Just a 7th layer Sky realm weapon! Sure, a bit high for his rank but that only means he shouldn't be able to wield it at its full potential!
A 100 points increase at his level? Sure, strong. How about 300? Genius, nice. But 500…
500!!!
A rank one usually dishes out 1-100 points, up until rank 9, 900-1000. An earth realm 1st layer would be 1000-2000, meaning Long Ren with those gauntlets could match a weak Earth Realm 1st layer cultivator…as a rank-7.
Ping's shoulders trembled ever so slightly as laughter soon invaded the small room,
"ha…Ha…HA, I must be dreaming…fuck this shit, I'm out," Ping said, throwing his hands in the air and leaving the room, laughing maniacally.
As his laughter faded out, Ming's gaze of contempt turned into one of slight regret, but still, contain maliciousness.
He stayed, gazing at the duo, although he knew they won't just run away with the item if he left, it just felt weird if he left them alone, as much as he wants to
"So, how'd the gauntlet feel." Ming approached them and asked, his gaze now softer at Long Ren. At least he's not blatantly cursing anymore.
"It's really nice, fits me well." Long Ren said, practically jumping in joy as hallow winds danced around his gauntlet.
'Tch, showoff,' Ming thought, "The name's Fenrir's Howl, but you can name it your dog's paws if you want, it's yours anyway." He said while handing out a bill to Xing Lao.
Xing Lao opened the folded paper and his eyes jolted out of their sockets, well, almost.
"HUH! This much?... I don't remember any of my other purchases being this expensive." Xing Lao said, his face sweated.
Ming showed a wry smile, "Well, it's not my old man who made it, his friend wanted to sell it so here we are, nothing I can do even if you're our VIP." He said while repeatedly apologizing,
Long Ren's mouth twitched seeing this guy's very different attitude, annoying much?
In the end, after a lot of consideration and persuasive words from Long Ren about his beard's limitless potential, he relented the payment.
He grieved for a while, only to recover right as Long Ren handed him a box full of divine elixirs, or so he said.
Another not-so-equivalent exchange. Get!