Replica Zeru performed his Iaido slash, yet Jin was able to dodge it in time since he remembered his sensei’s timing by heart and the replica behaved true to its name.
At that moment he dodged, Jin performed a fall which indeed prompted Zeru to overextend his attack range, and that was when Jin initiated the Astral Form Slash after his fall. The projection of his Maqi appeared almost instantly doing a straight cut right after Zeru missed his target by a few centimetres.
Alas, it would have been too easy if that was the end of it. The replica managed to block the surprise Astral attack, but that was when Jin decided to push for a follow up strike.
However, Replica Zeru had not dismissed Jin despite the diversion of a second opponent. The replica was merely slightly confused that he had to block a sudden strike from a black and white sparkling silhouette that disappeared momentarily after that.
A stab from the bottom caused Replica Zeru to move aside and use his scabbard to block the attack but somehow Jin “accidentally” dropped his weapon. This greatly threw off Zeru’s reflexes as a different black and white astral silhouette stabbed Zeru from a slightly different position. Possibly only a change in a five-degree angle from where Jin dropped his sword.
While Zeru once again managed to move away from the attack, he did not get out unharmed. That stab managed to scrape his elbow, causing a light wound which hindered his arm movements a little.
“Nice, +1 point for aiming at the nerves. If he moved the other way around, your silhouette would have gone for his armpit, and that would have been worse for him.” Ming commented from the side and accompanied it with a clap. The tiger even gave a low happy growl as if to approve his training partner’s efforts.
“You are taking points for this?!” Jin didn’t think his grandfather was serious on a ‘final exam’ duel. And yet that moment of distraction was what Zeru needed to throw his scabbard into Jin’s face.
But thankfully, after fighting blindfolded and in the dark, Jin placed some Maqi in his hands that made him slip intentionally rather than dodging outright, and this gave the Astral Panda Cultivator the opportunity to project another Astral form to attack. (As if Jin needed to fulfil a requirement to project the Astral images but no, it was to complement his attacks.)
And yet all of his attacks were actually part of the basic Panda Sword Styles. Technically speaking, as long as a cultivator was using chi with his weapon to attack, it’s already considered as a basic Weapon Style. (Even if it was just imbuing the weapon as that itself requires basic knowledge of transferring chi energy into it.)
So for each Astral Projection that popped up, it’s basically Jin utilising a basic Panda Sword Style mainly because the silhouette that appeared looked exactly like a Panda holding onto a sword.
If any of his regulars were to see him, they might think that Captain Hei had been fused with Jin or even believe that those Panda Captains were incidentally part of Jin.
The Replica Zeru might not be affected by the Panda Astral Silhouette since it’s reconstructed for battle, but against other cultivators, both Ming and Jin believed that its size (and to a certain extent it’s cuteness) would be adequate enough distraction to gain an advantage over the opponent. And that was important since a moment of diversion was all a fighter needs to have the upper hand to win the fights.
And as Jin continued his duel with Zeru, he did not feel as pressured as the time he duelled against Zeru for one last time before the underground boxed up cellar was officially opened by Claire.
Jin utilised all he had learnt fighting against a Cardinal Beast as well as Ming who had comparable years of experience. Though he would not be thanking them for all the near-death experiences, it was definitely helpful to learn how to overcome them. Not forgetting what Zeru had taught him, Jin had also utilised his skills and projected them via the Astral Panda silhouettes. And sometimes the fight they were in made it look like Zeru was fighting with a cultivator with his pet Panda instead.
“Advanced Panda Sword Art, Bamboo Sword Rain!” Jin shouted as he slammed his sword on Zeru’s wooden sword and immediately put his weight on the other side of his body causing him to roll to his enemy’s back with the aid of Panda Tumbling.
At that point, Replica Zeru was prepared to defend himself from an aerial attack since the Astral Panda Cultivator called out Bamboo Rain.
But to his surprise, Bamboos were shot out from the ground and pierced his left foot without warning. Zeru managed to evade for the second one that aimed for his intact foot and immediately unleashed a large chi slash on the ground to counter Jim’s Bamboo Sword Rain.
…Only to realise that the Astral projection of Pandas holding swords started to rain from above and aimed for Zeru.
Even as Zeru blocked one of the Astral Panda projections, another one came too close for comfort. It was to the point where the replica had to remove the wooden shaft and pull out his real sword.
Once shifted to dual wielding, he could block and dissipate every single metaphysical Astral projection, but he did not realise that there was a second part to the attack.
The Bamboo shoots that grew eventually were rooted out and held by more Panda Astral Projections and this time. It was Jin sending the Maqi into them. Each of them imbued with some form of element, they charged towards the replica at lightning speeds.
Immediately, a whirlwind of lotus flowers emerged from the centre of the conflict, and it pushed all of the Astral Pandas away. For Zeru to resort to using a Sword Art meant that Jin had managed to push the replica to a certain limit.
Still, that was what Jin was waiting for.
“PANDA YAWNING!” Jin yawned really loudly, releasing a large amount of Maqi which he had accumulated over time. For some reason, he felt that his Maqi generation got better as his training days passed.
Ming believed that his body had been healing rather well and his caretakers were already taking into consideration his mana and chi consumption such that they pumped enough for Jin to perform his Panda Yawning technique.
In the meantime, with all that trickery, Zeru decided to not bother evading and take the blast head-on. Jin did not expect this course of action but was delighted that his mentor had done so.
Mainly because the Panda Yawning technique he used was not the usual energy beam. Instead, it was actually a series of Astral Projections being compressed into a single beam.
Jin had initially planned for Zeru to evade, allowing the Panda Astral Projections to make a roundabout and return to attack from his back. But since he was taking the hit, the Panda Astral Projections were damaging him consecutively.
For Replica Zeru, Jin believed there was no way he could withstand such an attack head-on.
But he was dead wrong.
Zeru blew it all away with yet another slash filled with lotus flowers spreading across the air and looked angrily at Jin. In the next moment, more lotus flower petals started to appear around Zeru, and the radius widened.
“Okay, that’s enough.” Ming clapped once and suddenly the replica dissipated into thin air.
“Huh, why?” Jin asked as he was still able to fight since he had yet to suffer any serious injury.
“You will die if I let him continue. Trust me, you don’t ever want to be on the receiving end of what he was about to do. Come to think of it, he might not have been the best enemy to be reconstructed for your test.” Ming meant that Jin managed to pass Zeru’s threshold, which caused him to move to the next level.
“Does that mean I pass?” Jin asked and Ming nodded his head with a smile.
“No rewards though. Just permission to leave this place for now. I believe I held you hostage long enough for it to be an interesting scene when you reach back.” Ming’s grin started to resemble Kraft’s.
“Wait, what?! What about that ultimate form promise?!” Before Jin could get an answer, he was flung back to the real world.
“Nah! Was kidding about that, hehe! Don’t forget to check out the video I was talking about!” Ming’s voice turned into an echo for Jin who felt his subconscious plane fading away.
