“How the hell were you able to do that slash without me realising it? You were faster than my Iaido! Even my Inverse Eyes were not able to catch a glimpse of your attack.” Jin asked while healing. All that pain he suffered caused him to sweat profusely despite the cold weather. Not to mention his shirt was stained with blood and a gaping hole in the middle of it, making him colder (and to a certain degree, painful) with the winds blowing through his wounds.
“Panda Sword Arts. Although, to be more precise, what I showed you was the actual essence of being a Panda User.” Ming explained after he sat down and occasionally poked at Jin’s wounds to see if the leeches would react to it.
To his surprise, the leeches did by starting to suck his blood to use as nourishment to help their host recover. He decided to entertain them by allowing the leeches to do whatever they pleased. (Especially since those leeches would not stop until they have enough of his blood.)
“Have you ever seen a Panda …be rigid in its life?” Ming asked, and Jin carefully shook his head without causing pain to his closing wounds.
“It’s always lazy, clumsy and wants to play whenever possible, right? Like heck, I remembered a guy got taken down with a grapple by a Panda smaller than his size because he intruded his enclosure. And that Panda merely slept on him, thinking he was some pillow.” Ming recounted an incident, waiting for the nod from Jin with regards to his initial question.
“So as Panda Cultivators, we naturally have to be like this too.”
“You being lazy? Please, I think you’d rather die than be lazy. Whenever you came home from work, you always were busy with something. Mowing the lawn, repairing stuff around the house or simply cultivating. Anything you could find, to avoid sitting around and watch TV like a normal person! The only exception was on weekends, and even then you only did so as some sort of reward after training me.” Jin reminded him, and Ming laughed.
“Hahahah! You are not wrong. I did not mean your way of life in general, but just how you fight against your enemy.” Ming specified as he stood up and started to show a few martial moves without his scimitar.
When Jin watched his grandfather’s demonstration, it was obvious that the way he moved was strikingly similar to the Drunken Fist martial style.
“Don’t tell me the Drunken Fist originated from Panda Cultivators?” Jin could not have made that connection since most of these cultivators were from the Shaolin Temple.
“Not exactly. From what I discovered the roots of those Drunken Fist Styles were actually from a Shaolin Monk who observed a Panda after it accidentally drank wine. That stupid Panda had noticed the bamboo wine container and assuming it was more food, it greedily grabbed from the monk and ate the entirety of it all. Afterwards it started fighting other creatures and that monk emulated what he saw… well, the rest is history.” Ming explained.
“Eh…I do not think that really answers the original question.” Jin said as he tried to sit up slowly.
“Just a fair fun tidbit, but not entirely out of topic. Just like the Drunken Fist utilises unusual body movements to catch their opponents off guard, the true essence of Panda Sword Arts utilise the characteristics of the Panda. We deliberately get clumsy to fight, and you can say we are basically the antithesis of the Sword Saint.” Ming told Jin as he finished his martial art demonstration.
“Zeru aims for precision and perfection as you would expect from a Sword Saint, but we should be clumsy to throw the opponent’s conventional prediction out of the fighting ring and win the fight. They are bound by rules, but we set the rules with our own fighting style.”
His Gramps said as he kicked up his scimitar and repeated the very same demonstration with his blade. This time, Jin could vaguely see silhouettes of a Panda all around Ming’s body as he executed the moves with his scimitar.
“That is why I told you that this training would be two times more effective because you’ve been taught perfect basics from the Sword Saint. And two times more difficult for you to learn since you will essentially relearn most of it, to be able to deliberately behave clumsy.”
After performing the very same attack which he hit Jin with, he fell to the ground as part of the demonstration. There was actually another vague silhouette left behind to perform the strike making the Astral Panda Cultivator aware of how he had been injured.
It was as if Ming’s body was the diversion, making his chi and sword art the actual deal. “If you manage to master this, you will finally get to use your Astral Form to its utmost potential. It will be extremely useful.”
Even without Ming’s remark, Jin could already predict how useful it would be. “Haha… just ‘complement’ well? This is the real deal.” Jin thought to himself as he watched Ming come up from the floor effortlessly. There was no wasted movement despite how clunky he seemed.
He later proceeded to sway his body and trip even though there was nothing there that would cause him to fall at all. Now, Jin has a grasp of what Ming meant by deliberate falling.
“You cannot act clumsy. You cannot preempt clumsy. You have to BE clumsy. Not only do you have to learn how to break the falls, but also learning to read the opponent’s actions so that it would counteract against their conventional thinking and reflexes.” Ming stressed as he showed how there were no bruises or cuts despite the falls he had made, and this made Jin understand that it was easier than done.
“It might be easier if you have an actual panda to mimic, but right now, you have to settle for me,” Ming added.
“Hahaha, maybe if we put some black spots on the White Tiger, he might be of some use.” Jin joked, and Ming laughed as he went towards the tiger and pulled its face.
“This guy has been so lazy he might even put pandas to shame, but clumsy? He probably would have to put in way more effort than all of us combined to do what a panda does.” Ming got in on the joke as he rubbed the tiger’s head who merely let out a light growl of protest before moving its resting spot to the wooden bench.
At this point, Jin started to get up as the wound closing was more or less bearable. He suddenly felt that he understood his cultivation more than just refining his abilities. Maybe that was why even repeated reading of the cultivation manual, continuous meditation in his spare time and going through near-death encounters had not increased his current Grade.
With a better clarity of mind, Jin picked his sword up and decided to face Ming. He knew that his grandfather was a person who did not teach with grace and patience. Everything he wished to learn would have to be gained on the field itself and from there, his grandfather would give the necessary advice allowing him to improve.
If anything, Jin was aware that overcoming this particular huddle could be one of the hardest portions of his cultivation journey.
