Just as the chi flowed out of Ming, it gradually returned back to him as well. The two weapons that he was holding combined into one black and white plastic-looking scimitar. “Get up. We do not have time to waste.”
Ming ordered as he swirled the newly formed blade around. “Your objective is to make me use my ultimate form. Pressure me with what you have learned so far and don’t hold back!”
“I won’t be giving you any concession. If you die by my plastic scimitar then you only have yourself to blame. You should be ashamed till you beat me to clear those sins.” Ming stated as the winter winds on top of the mountain began to whistle into their ears.
Jin stood up and prepared his stance by transmuting Bam and Boo to his waist. Yet, his sword was still within his scabbard and ready to be pulled out in a moment’s notice. The very same technique as Iaido, a quick sword draw, responding to a sudden attack. Jin did not learn this smooth controlled movement without difficulty.
Zeru had pushed him to his limits to get it right. From the speed of his draw, the placement of his feet to the correct push from his muscles. A lot of it came with muscle memory and extremely rigid rote memory to boot. Even now, Jin could feel Zeru staring at Jin’s back checking for the slightest mistake.
“Oh, I see. Iaido. The Sword Saint has taught you enough for my training to be two times more effective.” Ming praised his grandson as he raised his plastic toy looking scimitar. “But it will also be two times more difficult for you to pass,” Gramps added before starting to run towards Jin.
“Seriously? Just a straight on attack? Is he copying my method? Is it a feint or is thinking that way the diversion?” Jin thought to himself as he activated his Inverse Eyes. For some reason ever since Wang Ba Tan’s assault, his Inverse Eyes started to act a little weird.
Fortunately, they behaved weirdly in a good way. It could predict the way his opponent moved, and that was how Jin had been able to evade most of the attacks. There was a slight change in the atmosphere which he could detect where it was coming from and thus allowing him to adjust his action.
Even when Wang Ba Tan was about to hit him, there were future apparitions that would hint ever so slightly where the attack was coming from. However, when used on Ming, Jin could not even see a trace of it.
He wondered if it was because it was a one-time thing with Wang Ba Tan, a restricted use which refreshed after a certain period of time or if Ming was simply on a different level compared to the Banned Emperor Elder.
Without the assistance of his newly improved power, Jin decided to rely on his training that Zeru had drilled into him as he tightened his form and waited for the right time to strike Ming down. Maybe, just maybe Ming was testing how strong he was with this first strike and would handle him depending on his level. Whatever the case, Jin was not going to let his grandfather down.
Once Ming entered the range of his Iaido strike, Jin flashed his sword and realised Ming clumsily fell down in the direction where it was out of the range from Iaido’s strike. Jin was surprised and wanted to follow up a second strike instead of returning his sword back to scabbard.
But instead of hitting Ming, a blade slash suddenly hit his shoulder and ran down to his chest.
“How did…?” Jin, stunned by the slash, decided to move backwards. Unfortunately, he had underestimated the power behind the attack. The slash was deep and strong enough to break his vampiric bones and spill his guts out.
Now all Jin could do was lie on the ground and wait for his eventual death and reset. “Bad choice. You should not overextend your attacks. Had you returned back to your original Iaido stance, you would have received a lighter wound.” Ming lectured Jin as he recovered himself from the ground, patting away the snow on his body.
Yet, Jin was there breathing in pain and simultaneously feeling scared. His partially detached heart from the attack was pumping blood furiously out in the open, dying the snow with dark red colour.
When Jin thought about it, there was not even any time for him to activate his ‘Perfectly Normal’ parry slash, which was one of his most-used skills in a close combat fight. There were many a time, he managed to stop Zeru’s fast blade with that skill during their training. This time, Jin had been unable to see that plastic toy scimitar coming forth but just a slight tinge of chi in the air.
“This feeling of death… can’t say I’ve missed it!” Jin thought to himself as he tried to use his Maqi to recover himself. The Astral Panda Cultivator knew that he could reset his life in this plane of subconsciousness without any problem. But if he relied too much on that, he might get careless in the future when outside.
And carelessness was not something he could afford if his life was at stake.
Thus, Jin placed all his Maqi that he could muster into the legendary recovery inscription charm knowing even more hurt and pain would grip his mind and body in this particular metaphysical plane.
“I see. So, you have a way to recover yourself even from such a severe wound. Do you want me to wait for you to recover or do you want to continue in this state?” Ming questioned as he rested the plastic-looking scimitar on his shoulders and swayed his body.
“Just a second…” Jin asked for a ‘break’ when his training had barely begun. For the first time, he finally saw how the legendary recovery inscription charm worked with the covering of his skin. There were literal worms- nay, leeches that started to crawl out of the inscription charm and started to cover Jin.
Only instead of sucking blood away from Jin, they were actually providing Jin with blood, and some of them were even grouping together tightly. To his surprise, he could see that the leeches were metamorphosing into blood vessels and even organs. The old vampiric bones infused with his own were also doing their magic working in tandem with the leeches, regrowing and heal the fractures together.
“No wonder it’s always this painful.” Jin was curious why the inscription charm and bones had also been replicated in this particular plane of subconsciousness. Unlike his sword, these were supposedly added on traits into his body and not something he should have been born with.
“Ah, whatever… I can’t think with all this pain. Just focus on handling it.” Jin thought to himself as he finally could stifle the pain from within and shouted at the top of his (damaged) lungs.
“At this rate, there is no way you will die if you have enough time to hide. Heck, you do not even need to worry about sickness.” Ming remarked as he squatted down and observed the recovery process in real time.
