42 Duel

The courtyard fell silent for a couple of seconds before Kuang Bindun spoke up with an eloquent "What?"

Jack sighed and gave them a long-suffering smile while he said "I got my hands on a new martial skill. Who wants to learn it?"

The courtyard erupted into noise as the teens crowded towards Jack.

Bai Maolong stepped out in front of everyone and bellowed "Get back you dogs!" When the rush stopped, he turned towards Jack with a hopeful smile said "As the instructor, you will have to teach me first, right Tanda?"

Jack chuckled as he nodded and walked towards his friend. He placed a hand on his shoulder and said "Of course, I don't have the time to drill with you guys much these days, I'll teach it to you and you can show it to everyone else."

He turned towards Bi Tuohui and said "Tuohui take over, Maolong and I will stay on the side."

Bi Tuohui nodded his head in acceptance and turned to yell at the rest of the group "You heard Senior Brother Song, start running worms!"

'Should I have taught them in the same way that my drill instructor taught me?' Jack wondered as he walked to the side of the courtyard with Bai Maolong.

When they arrived he shook the distracting thoughts from his head and turned to face Bai Maolong.

"Switching to English, watch and listen to what I tell you, and don't move." Jack told Bai Maolong as he squatted next to his right side.

Jack touched Bai Maolong's side with his right hand and said "You need to send a pulse of spirit energy from the dantian to your side oblique muscles while involving the meridians in your abdomen." He moved his hand down from the side to Bai Maolong's thigh and continued "From there you need to channel that energy through your major Quadriceps meridian cluster and your knee ligament meridians." Jack moved his hand down to Bai Maolong's calf while saying "Finally move it to your major calf muscle meridian and let it cycle from there to your dantian in rapid pulses of between thirteen and fifteen cycles per second."

When he finished Jack stood up and looked into Bai Maolong's concentrated eyes for a few seconds. After he felt sure that Bai Maolong memorized everything, Jack switched back to the local language and said "Let's go find Shi Furui's latest victim and I'll show you the specific meridians on it."

A few minutes later they had the dissection volunteer of the day on a table. Jack stopped for a moment to admire Shi Furui's skill in butchery, which eclipsed even his own, and started to point out the exact meridians once more, just so Bai Maolong had the mental image seared in his brain.

Half an hour later Bai Maolong's furrowed brow turned smooth as he said "I think I got it."

Jack nodded his head and walked to one end of the courtyard while saying "Stay here and watch my movements. I'll demonstrate how the Moon Step looks in action."

He reached the wall, and looked at the opposite one while thinking 'Don't embarrass yourself, old man.' He had tested his hypothesis in the deserted alleys of the town on his way back for a couple of steps, but he still didn't want to look like a fool in front of his whole unit. From the corner of his eye, he saw that everyone stopped their drills to watch him.

Jack got ready in a standing start, counted down from three in his head, and started executing the Moon Step technique.

His first step took him two meters away from his starting position. With each new pulse of the technique, he felt greater power building in his legs. In three seconds he crossed the halfway mark of the huge courtyard. In the fourth second, he started to panic as he saw the opposing wall get larger in his field of vision. In the fifth second, he gave up on breaking and jumped as hard as he could right as a pulse of spiritual energy reached his legs.

For a blissful second, Jack felt like he learned how to fly. In the next one gravity reminded him why she was called a cruel mistress as she slammed him into the wall of the neighboring house.

Jack only had the time to push spirit energy through his body and cover his face with his hands before he met the hard stone. A few seconds later he saw a group of upside down feet standing around him. He looked up and saw the worried faces of his friends looking down.

He gave them a crooked smile and said "See, if I had any moonlight I'd have long left this place."

No one laughed as they picked him up from the ground and checked his cuts and scrapes.

Kuang Bindun kept scolding Jack for his recklessness, and ordered him to strip down to his underwear so he could wash away the dirt from his clean white clothes. He didn't care that Jack told him that he had a few spare robes in the office, and made Jack sit in the courtyard almost in the nude.

When he finally got annoyed with everyone fussing over him Jack made them go and do some sparing to leave him alone.

Only Bai Maolong stayed by his side as he asked "Should I try the Moon Step now?"

Jack studied his eager face for a few seconds before he said "If you think you understand what you need to do you can try it. But remember; don't keep the technique running all the time, just use it in quick bursts when your leg's about to hit the ground. You saw what happened to me, if I kept running it for a few extra seconds my meridians would have burst apart from the buildup of spirit energy."

Bai Maolong's face turned serious as he gave Jack a solemn nod and went to the spot from where Jack started running.

Jack turned around and saw that Yin Ping didn't have anyone to spar against so he called him over.

"Do you need something, Tanda?" Yin Ping asked while he couldn't restrain his smirk as he looked at Jack's state of undress.

Jack ignored the provocation and said "Keep time on Maolong. I want to know how fast someone like him can go with this technique."

Yin Ping nodded his head, switched to English, and asked "In seconds?"

Jack said "Yeah." and walked over to Bi Tuohui who supervised the sparing.

"Tuohui, come spar with me. I haven't had a good workout in days." Jack said as he beckoned towards Bi Tuohui.

Bi Tuohui looked down at Jack's underwear, gave a shrug, and with an eager smirk on his lips met the challenge; and found himself tapping out a couple of minutes later.

"It's not fair to use your higher cultivation to overwhelm my strength." Bi Tuohui complained as he massaged his swelling shoulder.

Jack snorted and retorted "I taught you the locks and bars for a reason. You should use them to take on a stronger opponent, not rely on pure strength to solve your problems. Again."

Bi Tuohui groaned, but got into his fighting stance.

A few rounds later Bi Tuohui lay on the ground while moaning, while Jack stood over him with a pitying look. He extended a hand and helped Bi Tuohui back up to his feet.

Just as Jack planned to suggest a break, Bai Maolong's voice called from his back "Why not try a real challenge?"

Jack turned around and looked over Bai Maolong's shoulder to ask "How's he doing?"

Yin Ping shouted back "Improved by three seconds. Gonna need more practice to match his steps to this new cultivation technique."

Jack looked back to Bai Maolong and said "I guess we can do a little practice duel for the men."

The rest of the group cheered as they made a ring in the empty space of the courtyard and started making bets.

As he stepped inside the ring, Jack observed this so familiar scene with a bittersweet nostalgia for a few seconds, before he focused his attention on his opponent.

Bai Maolong stood in his ready stance, with his hands brought up in a boxer's guard. In the past he kept to this world's standards of guard positioning, Jack made him change his views on that real quick.

Jack took the same stance and the two of them started circling each other while throwing testing jabs, crosses, and low kicks.

A minute later Jack thought that Bai Maolong overextended himself with a poorly placed cross and went in for an elbow to the stomach.

Just as he stepped in, he saw Bai Maolong's other hand winding up for an uppercut. Jack stopped his strike short, and pumped spirit energy into his legs to use Moon Step to fall back.

The larger teen followed Jack's move with his own Moon Step, and even though it had less power, the larger boy had Jack beat in both height and reach.

He managed to grab Jack's shoulders and plant a leg behind his back to bring them both to the ground.

Just as Bai Maolong started to pull on Jack's right arm to do a bar on him, Jack moved his left hand in front of Bai Maolong's chest and used Air Blast.

A column of wind as big as Jack's head slammed into Bai Maolong's chest and made him go sliding on his back into the legs of a couple of the members of the audience.

Jack felt like his right arm almost got ripped out of his shoulder from the feedback from Bai Maolong's grip, but he ignored it and hurriedly stood up to stagger towards the wriggling pile of bodies.

A few teens dragged the two unlucky bystanders off of the sprawled Bai Maolong. His eyes had a vacant look for a couple of seconds, just as Jack started to worry about his friend, Bai Maolong inhaled a huge breath, turned to his side, and coughed out a couple of mouthfuls of blood.

When his coughing subsided Bai Maolong looked up at Jack with wronged eyes and complained "That's cheating."

Jack snorted as he shrugged his shoulders and said "Our enemies won't play fair either. Better to learn it now, than when it could cost you your life."

He turned around in a circle and looked into every teen's eyes as he added "That counts for the rest of you, too. Don't think that just because you've grown a bit stronger than the rest of the servants that you're hot s*it." Jack pointed out towards the Eternal Rest Mountain and continued "Those monsters will squish you like a bug under their foot if they thought you could scratch them one day. Stay vigilant and train hard, you know what will happen if you don't."

He made another sweep with his gaze over the gathered men, before he yanked his arm into place and walked towards his office.