章 82: Wind's Bite - Na Xue.
*Swish*
A fist flew out into the air, followed by a small bang caused by the air imploding on the vacuum created from the force.
A combination of blows followed, each disturbing the air and causing the falling rain to fly wildly around the area, occasionally a small bang could be heard but only every 30 or so blows.
Shu He continued practicing as if he was fighting a shadow, he moved wildly sideways as he balanced on a single leg, swinging his other downwards on his illusory opponent.
He stopped in place, breathing gently with his eyes closed before he started his ritualistic movements once more, it was similar to his practices he did with his bow back in Green-gate that he had formed himself, test, rest, refine, test.
He found himself easily dedicating hours at a time to this process, in a way it fascinated him seeing the changes in his body and his capabilities, seeing how the little adjustments or movements he would make greatly changing the outcome.
It had been 6 hours since he reached Meridian Awakening and he hadn't moved an inch from that spot, at first he was going to rest since he had been cultivating in meditation for days at that point, but after his breakthrough he felt his body and mind itch, he felt like he was holding on to something in his hands and taking a break would make him lose it.
The feeling of externalising Qi was compelling to Shu He, until now all Qi was to him was a means of reinforcement, but the capability of emitting and controlling it excited him to no end.
He had finally entered the realm in which a cultivator could be considered so, at the bare minimum.
His right leg whipped straight out as he balanced on his left, it was like a whip with how it flowed, transferring the greatest power to the tip.
*BANG* A larger bang sounded out, the air and rain carried by it blew away from the shockwave created as the plants around him shook from the passing wind.
He stopped once more, breathing out and relaxing his strained muscles.
'It's difficult' He thought to himself.
When he had broken through he sensed an odd feeling, the Qi in his body had accumulated and then burst out creating a shockwave, he remembered that sensation and wanted to reproduce it as soon as he could thus he began training before he forgot the feeling.
Now that he was capable of externalisation he could use Qi as an offensive weapon, most cultivators did this by using combat techniques, techniques that could be created by moulding their qi in their body in a specific fashion, or using items that could be imbued with Qi such as Spirit Weapons made from Spirit Stone.
There was however a third choice that was less common, using Qi released from the body to directly attack, this was doable even with Basic Qi but becomes much more potent when having a specialised elemental Qi.
Shu He had long since witnessed someone who fought in this manner.
Bai Shun.
It was back in Green-gate when he fell victim to the vicious Qi Disruption technique and became knocked out and greatly injured until he was given a pill by Chao Shi.
In those three years Bai Shun had occasionally visited the city and given him and Gang Bo pointers in hand-to-hand combat, pointers being leaving them in pure pain for a day afterwards.
He hadn't held back, though thanks to that their skills greatly improved over the years and their physiques bloomed, when he asked Bai Shun why he was helping them this much he merely grumbled that he felt guilty that they dragged us here and yet Chao Shi was too busy to guide us, so he felt the need to help.
He was a kinder person than he seemed, Shu He thought.
Either way, he had experienced first hand the power that Qi externalisation can bring, but trying his hand at it now he found it difficult, he could easily control his Qi internally to reinforce himself but the moment it left it was like trying to control water from a spilled bucket, he was currently highly incapable of accurately using it for attacks, most of the time his Qi would be like splashing water, completely useless for attacking.
Qi is a formless energy, that's how it can exist unnoticed by everyone but cultivators and so you can merely emit Qi and expect it to cause damage, you need to solidify it and give it a vessel, then you can control that vessel that is imbued with your Qi.
If one were to truly solidify Qi it would form a Qi Crystal, which would require a large amount of Qi and would be entirely useless for combat, so that wasn't an option.
Instead you would give it a vessel, and there is no better vessel than the air around you, it is incredibly conductive of Qi and because of the low resistance it's easy to control, in fact it is the most common way of 'solidifying' qi.
Shu He had been taught this a year back when he was curious on how Bai Shun extended his reach.
And this is what he was trying to put in to practice now, when he swung his limb he would begin gathering the air around it and compressing it, then once contact was about to be made he would further gather and compress it to a single point before releasing it in the direction he desired.
It sounded simple in theory, but it was actually quite hard since you had to do it in continuous active combat, it might seem easy to someone who was focusing their all on performing the technique, but the absolute minimum required for it to be useful in a fight was performing it on instinct.
Bai Shun said the closer you were to perfection, the stronger this ability would be, the strongest point would create a crack like lightning in the wind, piercing deep into the target.
This technique was called 'Wind's Bite' referring to the way it felt like being bitten with the way the target was torn by the compressed air.
Shu He had managed to understand the feeling from the moment he ascended cultivation, yet even though he was practicing with his entire mind on the process he had only managed to succeed a handful of times, and even those successes weren't even close to perfection.
He stretched, the muscles on his back and thighs sore from continuous practice.
'Well, I'm not going to succeed from the start' He thought to himself, as great as it would be.
He looked upwards, the illusory sky was slightly dim, and the rainfall had begun to let up.
'I think I've been here for nearly 3 days now; I think that's enough'.
He began heading towards the main building of the sanctuary to see if anyone else was here at the moment.
…
On the way back to the main building, Shu He stopped all a sudden as his face grimaced as he looked off into the distance before sighing in reluctance.
He made his way to a beaten path that was slightly off direction from the main building because he had seen something his senior brother had told him to make sure to do.
It was to do with some of the animals, more specifically one animal.
Though this animal was, for some reason, human shaped.
He came up to a large mound of dark blue fur that was laying on its back, as the mountain of fur heard his footsteps approaching its head rose from the ground slowly as its sleepy eyes tried to see who it was that was disturbing its sleep.
It was a Lunaflame Ursa, the largest spirit animal in the sanctuary next to Yingzi, Shu He had already become acquainted with this particular spirit animal, it was a heavily nocturnal animal and spend the day sleeping like a stone, when it hunts it uses its large claws and a ghostly blue flame that lights from the space between its paws and mane to cook whatever it hunts.
He still wasn't too used to interacting with animals but at the very least he found spirit animals easier to handle, since they were smarter than normal ones; At least the ones he had interacted with.
The ursa started at him questioningly, Shu He could only guess it was trying to ask 'Food time?' So he shook his head and pointed towards the small mound resting on the beasts plump belly.
The Ursa's head collapsed to the ground with a thud as if saying 'Oh, is that all?' before lifting its paw and nudging the mound with its large paw.
"Hnn…?" it began to wake up, shifting about for a few seconds before sitting up and stretching with a great yawn.
"Hnnnnaaaaaaaah"
Shu He averted his eyes while covering the figure with his hand.
"Who is it Shunyue?..." The figure rubbed its eyes as it looked around before they fixated on Shu He's figure.
"Ohhhh… It's Junior Brother Shu He…? What is it…?"
Shu He sighed with exasperation.
"Senior Sister, I thought Jian He told you about not going around like that" He said as he turned to the side.
This girl was Na Xue, Shu He's senior sister in the Beast Taming Division, and the one proclaimed a pervert by Jian He.
"Like what?" She tilted her head, smiling.
"…Do I really need to say?"
'It's obvious!' He thought as he could see the shadows of two swaying things projecting on top him.
"Please put some clothes on!" He said with a bit of embarrassment.
"No!" She replied immediately.
"You know Jian He will get mad with you!" He felt a headache coming on.
"Then he should come here himself!" She crossed her arms.
"He's busy so he asked me to keep an eye on you!" He responded.
"Does he think I'm a child, asking my junior brother to do such a thing?" She pouted.
"…I think so yes." He couldn't help but say honestly.
"What?! So cruel! Because of that I'm not putting anything back on!"
"No, no, please put something on!" Shu He panicked; his mis-slip derailed the negotiations.
"It's already bad enough that Elder Bai does it, having a girl to it as well just gives people the impression we're a nudist division!" He shouted.
"Is that bad?" She tilted her head.
"Yes! No one wants to join once they see you two prowling about nude!" Shu He said, but truthfully according to Jian He some… appreciators did try after, and only after seeing Na Xue's activities, needless to say they were turned down.
He would keep silent about that part though.
"Really?... I'm pretty sure some of them were eager to join after I spoke to them" She questioned.
Or not- It seems it was planned on her part.
Shu He pinched his nose as he felt a headache forming.
'No wonder Senior Brother told me to keep an eye out for her…'
"Either way, you're a woman, you shouldn't be exposing yourself to others this easily".
"But Elder Bai does it too…".
"He gets told off just the same!".
"My cultivation technique needs me to make contact with animals though…" She complained.
"Jian He told me that it's fine through clothes!" He objected.
"Did he now" She pouted, a gleam in her eyes.
She yawned and jumped down from the Ursa.
"Fine, since my Junior Brother is asking, just this once."
'Thank heavens…' Shu He internally sighed with relief.
He heard the rustling of clothes as he waited.
"There I'm done"
"Okay-" He turned to her before he stopped in place.
Na Xue was standing in front of him, clothes in her hands giving him a full view.
"Wha?!" His brain froze, it was an attack he had not expected at all.
"Pffftaahahahahahahahaha that's a great reaction! So much different from Jian He, he only treats me like another animal to manage so it's a bit annoying" She joked and laughed as she began to actually get dressed.
Shu He eventually unfreeze, closing him eyes as he calmed himself.
'This girl is… stressful.' He thought to himself.
Shu He himself wasn't really used to dealing with the opposite gender, when it came to talking normally as he would anyone that was fine, he wouldn't lose himself over a beauty nor has he ever actively sook someone out.
In his previous life, because of his debilitating condition he didn't have much of a chance to, when he was younger child those were the only times he had a chance to get close to someone, yet back then the only kind of relationships he ever had were the innocent relations between children, by the time he was a teenager his condition had already started affecting his life a lot.
He spent most of the time in school absent, and when he was there he had no friends because basically no-one knew him, he couldn't go to events or participate in clubs because his health would deteriorate even more if he did so.
And frankly, when it came to girls, none of them would take interest in a sickly loner.
It's not just that, his impression of them wasn't too great as he grew older either, a lot of the nurses that looked after him in hospital didn't treat him particularly well since he was on his deathbed just waiting to pass, especially in the times where they needed more beds for new patients.
But he knew that wasn't all of them, there were some kind nurses that he remembered well, he tried his best not to be biased, but his past experiences were things he couldn't erase from his memory.
The only girls in this world he had interacted with were basically housewives and people his age which he wasn't really interested in.
So his senior here was awkward for him to deal with.
She was quite beautiful, she had an odd shade of hair colour being light pink and grass like green eyes, she resembled a young adult in her early twenties, but he wasn't sure as to her actual age or her cultivation.
He only knew that she was the only core disciple in the Beast Taming Division!
This surprised him since he thought the strongest disciple would be the division head, but apparently that wasn't the case, Na Xue here didn't want to do any kind of organising or menial work, so she passed the position to Jian He.
"There, I'm dressed now" Her voice called out.
He peeked by opening his eyes fully just to make sure.
"Relax, I won't do it a second time" He could see a smirk on her face as he peeked.
"Thank you…" He sighed, opening his eyes fully.
"Hm?" Na Xue's eyes glimmered as she walked up to Shu He and patted him on the head, since Shu He was still growing, and she was tall for a female she easily did so.
Shu He frowned "What?"
"You reached Meridian Awakening? Congratulations!" She said with a smile.
Shu He's eyes opened in surprise "You can tell?"
She nodded "You'll learn to do so as well eventually, sense Qi and its quality, you can usually tell someone's level of cultivation doing so".
"I see…" Shu He began to think thoughtfully.
'I can do that with my sight, so it's not really needed, but maybe its worth looking in to'.
"You're a hard-working child huh?" Na Xue mentioned.
"I'm not a child."
"How old are you?"
"…12."
"You're a child!"
'Fuck, I am' Shu He sometimes forgets his age.
"By the way, now that you're at Meridian Awakening, are you going to participate in the Newcomers Tournament?" She asked.
"The what now?" Shu He in return tilted his head in confusion.
クリエイターの想い 
ShiroN3K0
ShiroN3K0 Sorry for irregular releases again, i know i'm not on a contract but i feel bad.
Since Shu He is now meridian awakening, he can work on a lot of things.
Anyway, enjoy!
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