บท 26: Deprivation - Metal.
Deep in the recesses of the forest near Greengate village was a familiar clearing, and in said cleared resided a figure sat cross legged with a bow laying on his lap and a quiver strapped to his back, he was bare chested with only a simple pair of cloth pants covering his lower half.
His body was adorned with a clear grey paste all over his upper torso creating an almost tribal like image to anyone who would look at him, he didn't even move an inch as the cold wind blew through the area and rustled the vegetation.
It was as if he didn't exist, blending in to the environment or existing as a simple statue.
Suddenly, his eyes shot open and a golden glimmer overtook his Golden-brown eyes.
In single swift movement, one hand grabbed the bow and the other an arrow, nocking it and drawing it in a simple but beautiful practiced fashion and without hesitation the arrow flew, but without taking any breaths his eyes shifted, his body followed soon after and another arrow was nocked and let loose flying through the air, the arrow shaft flexing as it left the bow.
And again, one arrow nocked and sent loose.
And another
And another
And another…
It was like witnessing a human whirlwind spewing arrows, while the movement wasn't superhuman, the successive moves were an impressive sight and even more so-
*Thud* *Thunk* *Thud*
One arrow after another with little gaps between landed on the variety of wooden targets around the area, there were many freestanding made of dead wood, some carved in to trees, some made with foliage.
But that didn't matter; The arrows had all cleanly landed on the targets, not a single one of them missed.
The boys body stopped moving as he took deep breaths before moving back in to the sitting position, his reddish-brown hair still messy from the fast movements.
This was his practice, one that he had discovered over the past couple of months, the boy being Shu He, of course.
After reaching the first stage, Qi Ignition, Shu He of course wanted to move ahead to the second stage, Blood Enhancement; He had spent some time observing the flow of Qi in his body and the process of enhancement, but it was slow, at his estimate it would take another two years or more to reach the end, while he had spent that same amount of time igniting his golden flame, he felt it wasn't as fast as it could be in this case, so he got to experimenting.
The first thought that came to him was the 'Qi Gathering Paste', after all if the point of it was to let his body absorb more Qi passively, why wouldn't it help him now? And he was right, when it was used more Qi flowed from the environment in to his body, and in turn his flame, then back in to his body which then sped up the enhancement process, probably about twice as fast, but that was the limit to this process, it was like the speed had hit a bump it couldn't overcome.
So he got to even more experimenting, different medication, different food and of course different activities and the answer he got was quite simple.
Exercise!
Or it would be simple, if it didn't have a caveat to it; He needed to constantly use his Qi to reinforce his body parts and then use said parts exhaustively, after which the marrow and blood in said area will absorb fresh Qi and be refined faster.
He called this 'Deprivation training' since he thought it was quite apt, a starving man would want food more than a satiated one, this training used the same idea.
At first he started running, but that was enough, he started pulling weights while jogging as well, not enough, performed a variety of exercises he could recall from his past life, while they were certainly tiring they didn't exactly reach his goal, so he went back to the drawing board.
Eventually after a lot of thinking he concluded that this training was what he needed.
It was a 2 phase structure, the resting phase and the active phase; He would rest, gather his mind and concentrate on his Qi, allowing it to imbue itself and enhance his blood and marrow faster, and then the active phase where he would enhance every inch of his body with Qi, something that took a lot of strain, and perform fast but highly active manoeuvres to tire himself before returning to the resting phase.
Rinse and repeat, and of course he was using the Qi Gathering Paste on top for utter efficiency, he estimated this was about 5 to 6 times as fast as it would have been!
And he was hitting multiple birds with a single stone here, he was practicing with his bow and his 'Qi Perception' as well.
Though, he didn't actually call it 'Qi Perception' anymore, since he wasn't even sure if the gold flame was Qi, instead he just decided to call it Keen Sight, mainly since he only ever used the 'Sight' portion of it, the full use would be 'Keen Sense'.
He had managed to adapt it well for use with his Bow, he could see a lot more with the sight allowing him in more accurately aim his arrows, and if there was an obstacle in the way, if it was something like leaves he could easily exclude it with Keen Sight and shoot through it, or if it was a solid object he could easily see the target on the other side and shoot at it from above with a volley.
Once more, he stood up and shot a flurry of arrows, each flying in different directions and each hitting the targets, landing next to arrows embedded there before.
He didn't sit down again, instead he stood still and observed his work.
'Not bad' he thought, rather proud of himself, his skill with the bow had improved leaps and bounds recently, the effect of Qi was rather wonderous.
He had stopped simply because he ran out of arrows.
'Unfortunately, I can't conjure arrows out of thin air' He joked to himself.
He went around pulling them out of the makeshift targets, observing where he landed the shots as he went.
'About 30% bullseye accuracy… the rest all landed on the target, it's not too bad but there's plenty room for improvement' He was rather harsh on himself when it came to archery skill, his Father had ingrained on him the importance of landing a shot where he wants, it can be the difference of life and death after all.
'No arrows broken or chipped, good' He thanked himself for not breaking any, he could make some more himself or buy some from old Yun, but he'd rather not use money unless he needed to, he didn't want to become used to splurging his cash if he could prevent it.
After cleaning up again, he went back to his seated position, he wasn't done by any means and the sun was still high in the sky, he intended to continue until the sun was setting, and he did so.
…
'That should do for today' He had worked himself to the bone once more, the skin on his hand had long since become thicker from all the blisters that came and when from wielding the bow for long periods.
The targets were once again pierced by a stack of arrows like hedgehogs, even in a single day his accuracy had increased and his proficiency in using his Keen Sight also.
Just as he was about to retrieve the arrows from the targets-
*Clap* *Clap* *Clap*
A loud, singular applause echoed from behind him.
Shu He almost jumped out of his skin from fright, his reaction was simple and fast, he pointed the bow in the direction of the sound, focused with his Keen Sight and went to nock an arrow-
'SHIT!' He hadn't got a single arrow left in his quiver, he had been caught off guard in a situation he didn't expect.
"That was quite impressive!" A mans voice reverberated through the area, it was strong and refined filled with confidence.
The man stepped out of the tree's shadows in to the opening revealing himself, not that Shu He needed the light to see his appearance with Keen Sight.
His face was well chiselled with clear silver eyes, sword like eyebrows that looked like they'd be sharp to touch and long black hair that was tied at the back.
In some ways this man might remind Shu He of his father, Shu Li, but the difference was this man was more refined than rugged.
Shu He then noticed his clothes, finding them strangely familiar.
'Is he from the same place? No, they look different'.
White daoist robes, similar to the ones Dong Jie donned, however there was a key difference, the trimming was coloured a light grey, or silver depending on how you looked at it, and on the chest was an entirely different symbol.
This one read 'Metal'.
'A different sect' Shu He concluded.
"You don't need to be worried, I'm not here to harm you; I was just a little curious, what a little cultivator like you was doing out here?" He explained.
Shu He didn't lower his stance at all, even without an arrow to shoot he didn't feel comfortable doing so.
The man sighed.
"Look, see this?" He pointed to the symbol on his chest.
"I'm from the Titanic Steel Sect! My name is Chao Shi!" He introduced himself in an overbearing manner.
'You think I'll let my guard down just because you said your name?!' Shu He complained inside.
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