The next day we returned to the same training grounds, only this time Ying'er didn't accompany us. In the open field Jinzi and I stood opposite of one another. Both our hands clasped onto sticks that had fallen from trees.
My grasp was light and to my side. Her grip was tight, to the point her knuckles were turning white, pointing straight forward toward me.
Her face clearly depicted her emotions as her body had light tremors every once in a while. The expression on her face rapidly changed between a slight fear, anxiousness, and cautiousness.
"Your move." I said as I raised the tip of the stick toward her.
After two moments she finally steeled herself enough to move.With that wind movement technique I gave her she rushed toward me. As she moved I noticed that she broke her own guard to do so, but I wouldn't say a word until this mock battle ended.
This was her mistake and she had to learn it the hard way. Enemies won't simply point out one's mistakes for you to correct mid battle. They would use it to their utmost advantage and many would try and exploit as many weaknesses as possible.
I know that she'll be hurt here, but I believe trial by fire is one of the most effective ways to learn combat. You remember your mistakes and many times forget your successes. Which is why I won't be limiting many of my senses, but I don't think she could even last a minute if I limited it to only 20%. I wasn't even going to entertain the idea of her touching the hem of my robes.
I will limit my strength though, so as to not delete her from this world. And my speed, I wanted her to learn how to defend herself and even try to retaliate in the future. I didn't want to overwhelm her every time without even the slightest chance to understand what was happening. If I did that, how could she even learn?
I watched her every movement almost as if everything was going around at half speed. Just before she got into range she suddenly changed her trajectory and started to run circles around me.
'Ah a classic! I wonder where she got that idea from?'
She ran circles around me, all the while I stood unmoving almost like a statue. I didn't need to turn my head as I kept my Qi Sense constantly running, slowly draining Qi from me, although miniscule and barely able to even cause a wave.
I wouldn't move until she did though, I gave her the first move after all. But after that move is made I'll retaliate and she won't have any chance to win, not that there was really any in the first place.
In the future perhaps I would measure it by how long she could survive my onslaught of attacks, but that probably wouldn't come for a long time. For now she needs to learn a bit about the basics of attacking and defending.
Finally she made her move in an expected spot, from behind. She did try to attack from a tricky angle, but it was futile with my knowledge.
With the stick in my hand I weaved it back and blocked her attack from below. It seemed she had put most of her strength into that one attack.
*Clack*
Immediately recognising that her attack failed she tried again from above, but I was no longer going to sit still. I turned while swinging my stick back through the front and over my shoulder.
*Clack*
Once that was blocked I spotted an opening on her right side. Using the leftover momentum of her strike I waved the stick past my head and struck.
*Thud*
"Ah"
She gave a small cry before stepping back. The moment I hit her I could feel that her concentration on the movement technique had broken and at that point she only used the strength of her legs to push herself away.
Her retreat left herself open to many more follow up attacks, which I of course took. With a couple steps forward I was within range again. I raised my weapon so she could telegraph my move. I was going to give her little windows of opportunity to attack, else it would be a one sided fight, a fight where she would always be on the defensive.
When I raised it she didn't seem to get the little hint and instead went to block from above. Either way works I suppose as long as she understood what I would do. Perhaps later on she could start to look closer at her opponent's moves and telegraph their attacks and respond with one of her own.
*Clack*
I went with the five basic directions that attacks might come from: the head, arms, and legs. Every once in a while I threw in a more tricky angle to attack from along with a few thrusts.
*Clack **Clack*
*Clack*
*Thud*
*Clack* *Clack*
*Thud*
*Clack*
*Thud*
*Clack*
*Clack* *Thud*
After a dozen moves I decided that I was going to let her be on the offensive. She had been hit multiple times, but it seems that she could still keep going.
Suddenly, I stopped advancing forward and took a step back. With the tip of my stick I used it to make a small gesture, simply moving it toward me twice.
She took a small moment as a breather before she used her wind movement technique again and ran at me.
'Has she already forgotten what happened? Hopefully not.'
As she ran I watched her movements once more, but luckily there was a different movement in her feet. When she came over she instantly tried to attack with a horizontal slash which I blocked immediately.
*Clack*
The feet I noticed had a different motion in them immediately kicked away as she distanced herself from me. Her concentration didn't break, but that was only because I hadn't hit her yet. Her movements were still open and mostly defenseless, but at least this time she kept her stick up slightly to guard her. It would still be a piece of cake to break her defenses during her movement technique, but it was something.
When she backed off she ran a few steps to my left before trying to attack once again.
It wasn't too bad a plan. I had nothing to defend myself with on my left, but not a single hair of mine would be touched by her .A sword in my right hand would be all it takes to defend myself against her.
*Clack*
She continued for another couple tries before deciding to run circles around me once again. Deciding that this was enough training for the day I decided to end the battle by exploiting that weakness I found in the beginning of the battle.
Sure, her stick was close and "protective," but she didn't seem to hold the intention for the stick to be defense. It looked like she held it so close more for emotional comfort than physical protection.
With a swift strike I hit her stomach as she was still running around me. Instantly her speed plummeted and her movement technique was deactivated.
*Thud* *Thoom*
Her body fell back onto the floor as she clutched her stomach. The stick she held onto naturally removed itself from her grip with momentum as she had actually let go the moment she was hit.
The whole battle didn't even last five minutes, yet this was the result.
"Ahhah…hhhaahhha aahhhh.."
I scooped her up off the ground as she cried in pain. I infused a bit of my Qi with her so that she wouldn't feel the pain as much anymore. While that occurred in my arms I started walking back to her home.
"Big Brother.."
"Yes?"
"Couldn't you have gone easier on me?"
"No."
*Sigh*
A sigh escaped her lips as she wrapped her hands around my neck. I looked at her for a moment before I continued to look towards the path. I guess I could let her do this especially after what I just did to her.
"Big Brother, you act differently than how you normally are."
"I suppose, you shouldn't talk much with your enemy during battle. If you do then you might just end up not wanting to kill them. Of course that doesn't apply to everyone, but it's good to remember at times."
"Huh?"
"Nevermind, let's talk about how you did earlier."
..
"W-was I that open? *sigh* I guess I have no choice, but to believe you. That final hit was all the proof I needed."
Dropping her off at her house I walked all the way back up to my own.
'To train for a month, huh? I wonder how it'll go.'
…
…
For the next week I taught her using the same method. It was a rinse and repeat every morning I trained her and by the end of the training she was usually on the ground panting. That first day was the worst by far as that direct hit in the end was quite painful.
But she must have learned her lesson in defense as from the very next day her guard improved by a large margin from before, or well from zero knowledge to a basic amount. From then on she wouldn't be in as much pain as that day, but that didn't mean she came out unharmed.
After almost every session I would have to help out by carrying her home. They would slowly get longer and longer as Jinzi seemed to be learning well.
When she gets home she rests her wary body for a while before getting up to train a little bit more before working on her cultivation. After all, she would probably continue to be weak if she didn't. If she didn't have any cultivation when the competition started then her disadvantage would be tremendous. I could also see it was improving as our sessions were practically only physical tests.
Her own resilience and tenacity had improved along with her ability to quickly regenerate wounds. It wasn't anything game changing, but the improvements could definitely be felt.
After cultivating she would sleep then wake up to rinse and repeat the whole week.
After that week I felt like she had improved those skills of basic combat, now for the reminder of the time she needed to improve her endurance. I gave out an onslaught of attacks until she would fall to the ground completely exhausted. I did slow down my speed of attacks by just a fraction to ease her burden a little. I didn't want her to exhaust her energy so quickly, so a long and drawn out fight would be the goal, the longer she lasts, the better.
At the end of a session, sweat would pour down her forehead and body every single time without fail. I would have to carry her back every time as she would usually have fallen asleep by the time she hit the ground. By this time she had already completed the second layer of Body Tempering and had a part of the third layer complete.
The last week before the competition I switched our sticks with two dull iron swords, but they seemed light compared to the sticks we used before, it was actually because I added something to the sticks I chose out for us before. I added additional weights within them all so she would get the hang of the weapon better.
Clangs and tangs of metal resounded in the field the last week before the competition and at long last she survived for ten whole minutes against me on the last day.
"Whoo!! Big Brother, I did it! Are you proud of me!"
"Yes, I am. You've done well, tomorrow I'll give you a nice weapon to use for a while."
"Okay!"
I had set the goal of ten minutes for her to reach during the first week, nothing would happen if she didn't reach it, but having a goal to strive for was good nonetheless. And she did it, on the last day too, 10:01 that was her time before she fell on the ground, but today unlike the days before she didn't immediately fall unconscious, instead even being able to still stay awake.