57 Inciting Anger

Ye Xiu had been training for the past 8 weeks, adhering to Xiao Bai's training regime. He had asked for some extra training from San Guo who readily accepted and was happy that he could push Ye Xiu more than he had already been doing. Ye Xiu was curious that his progress was much faster compared to Shi Die who also had his bloodline awakened.

"Sir, I have my bloodline awakened and Shi Die's bloodline is also awakened, but why is it that he progresses at the same rate to the others when he trains just as much as them?"

San Guo was obviously puzzled about that fact as well but came up with a logical explanation. "It might be because his bloodline has different conditions to become stronger. As far as I am concerned, bloodlines can have different conditions for unlocking the benefits. I know of a bloodline of a horse that required the person to ingest blood in order to receive the benefits. There are many strange things in the world so it should be possible that he needs a different set of conditions."

When San Guo finished his own explanation, he felt like slapping himself on the face. 'If he has a different set of conditions to receive the benefits from his bloodline then how am I going to train him? I said that I'd force him to become faster because his bloodline is focused on speed but what if that training doesn't work out?' San Guo started to worry as his training plan had already fallen apart before he even started to put the person on the training plan.

San Guo was thinking about what conditions would prompt Shi Die's growth because it would be very detrimental for him if he didn't gain the benefits that his bloodline should provide to him.

Ye Xiu had abused the advantages of his Dimension heavily and his strength had increased at a pace that was inconceivable. His strength increased to the point that it would've taken him months of work if he continued with the same regime that he had been on. The Spiritual liquid that he bathed in truly was a wonder but even then Xiao Bai said that he couldn't abuse it too much. Xiao Bai told him that the Spiritual liquid would only give him benefits twice a day so he would need to plan the usage exceedingly carefully.

Even with that limitation, he substituted the Spiritual liquid's benefits with the elixirs and pills that he had made. Though the benefits from the elixirs and pills weren't even in the same league, it still sped up his cultivation however, he still had to be careful of toxicity but Xiao Bai had a simple plan to get rid of the toxicity inside of Ye Xiu's body. Every time the toxicity reached a designated level, Ye Xiu was set to bathe in the Spiritual Liquid after exhausting himself in training.

The tournament had finished and Ye Xiu and Shi Die only won a single match before they were paired up with against a student way above their level. Ye Xiu managed to beat a second-year student due to the student making a fatal mistake during one of their Qi techniques which gave Ye Xiu the opportunity to use his own finishing move. Whilst Shi Die defeated a first-year student that was also in the Top 10. The matches were randomly selected at the start, Shi Die was lucky to get an opponent in the same year as him.

Their second match was lost easily as Ye Xiu was paired up against a fourth-year and Shi Die a fifth-year. They weren't too disappointed with the result because they knew that their levels were nowhere close to the older students. Ye Xiu had prompted his friends to start on the training plans that Xiao Bai had prepared for them.

Their training plan wasn't as efficient as Ye Xiu simply due to the fact that Xiao Bai had less experience in their fighting styles whereas Ye Xiu mainly inherited his Master's and Mistresses' styles. Of course, the training plan was incomparable to what they were originally on. It was above what even Liu Fan or San Guo could come up for them, but they still learnt useful things from them because not even Xiao Bai knew everything.

Xiao Bai mainly came up with training plans to build on what they had already learnt and focused on their strengths. Their weaknesses were covered up by what they learnt from each other and their teachers. San Guo and Liu Fan found their progress in strength strange because it was exceedingly fast. Shang Yang's progress became on par with Ye Xiu's once Xiao Bai managed to find an obscure book that was obtained by the former Mistress that expounded on the training methods of her Body Physique.

Xiao Tu was obviously unpleased with the progress that he had been making in comparison to his friends and Xiao Bai was still looking for books to help Xiao Tu increase his speed of cultivation. Xiao Bai had been spending the majority of his time that wasn't spent in the presence of the group to look for many different manuals and books that would help the group in their training.

Even though Xiao Tu was not pleased with his progress, he continued the training regime simply because it was better and yielded better results.

Ye Xiu was fighting with Shi Die, trying to force out his transformation. San Guo had noticed the progress that Ye Xiu had made so he decided that instead of San Guo being the one forcing out the transformation, it'd be better for Ye Xiu to force it out. Ye Xiu decided that when he fought against Shi Die, he'd use his dominating strength against Shi Die to make him feel helpless. This was because Shi Die was the one in the group that was supposed to be the close-combat specialist.

Ye Xiu also took it as training for him to control his strength. He had overwhelming strength but being able to use it efficiently was the question. Ye Xiu was training so that he would have no wasted movements that would consume energy as he fought. This was extremely hard with Ye Xiu since his movements were extremely fast so he had little time to restrain himself before making his move.

Xiao Tu was bored as he couldn't exactly fight with anybody else on fair terms because their training speed had accelerated to the point that he couldn't catch up. He vented his frustration during his lessons with Liu Fan as he created his own things. He was getting to the point in Smithing that he'd be able to make an adequate Qi weapon for himself. Liu Fan held Xiao Tu from rushing into his Qi weapon creation because he wanted him to create the best possible weapon he could use for a long period of time.

Liu Fan's logic of using a weapon for a long period of time is so that you can familiarise yourself with the usage of the weapon and the bond you can build with the weapon. All Smiths had the basic knowledge that from the lowest grade Qi weapon to the highest grade Qi weapon, there was always a chance for the weapon to form sentience. The lower the grade, the lower the chance of sentience being formed but it was still there.

The grade of weapon could always be upgraded through different materials and re-smelting. If a person particularly liked their Qi weapon they could always have it be bound to them and make it their growth weapon. The majority of the cultivator populace who had a growth weapon, always created or looked for the best possible weapon they could ever have before making it their growth weapon. Some people chose their growth weapon simply because it had a lot of sentimental value to them.

Some of the growth weapons that grew with their owners since the very start have actually been known to be some of the strongest weapons that existed. Many stories that contained legendary weapons and their owners had a long-lasting bond with each other.

Shang Yang wanted to spar against Xiao Tu to see how much she had improved in the past few weeks but Xiao Tu was declining her invitation to a spar. Shang Yang knew that the people she had the most trouble to fight against in the group were Ye Xiu and Xiao Tu so she also wanted to test if she could manage to fight them.

Shang Yang argued with Xiao Tu that overwhelming strength doesn't always win the fight unless the person is so above a person in cultivation that there wouldn't be any hope of reaching their stage unless they cultivated for a long period of time. However, Xiao Tu was stubborn in his view and did not want to fight Shang Yang.

Her anger was about to erupt, as Xiao Tu continued to reject her invitation and she was planning to slap him in the face to provoke him into fighting her. As she moved towards his general direction, Xiao Tu turned back to reject her once again just as her hand reached his face. An audible smack could be heard throughout the gravity room, but Shi DIe and Ye Xiu were too engrossed in their spar to notice what was happening. Shi Die could feel his senses becoming sharper so he didn't want to stop his spar.

Xiao Tu placed a hand on where Shang Yang had slapped him before narrowing his eyes in anger. He took out his spear from his dimensional storage abruptly and attacked her with several thrusts. Instead of using his quarterstaff, he used his spear purely for the fact that he wanted to cause injury to Shang Yang because he was not amused by her slap. Her slap had been infused with some of her Qi so it had definitely left a mark on him.

Shang Yang grinned once she knew that she had caught Xiao Tu's attention and beckoned him to fight her. "Fight me! You can't complain about your weak strength if you can at least put up a good fight against me!" Shang Yang didn't bother using her natural affinity for illusions to fight Xiao Tu because the battle would be over in less than a minute otherwise. She was here to test her combat abilities but without the usage of illusions to aid her.

She threw multiple daggers at Xiao Tu and utilised a technique that Ye Xiu had given her inspiration when he had been helping with her Qi control. Each dagger that she had thrown had a Qi thread attached to it, and it wasn't the flimsy types that would break in a single hit but a Qi thread that was strong enough to pull back her daggers with force. It was a way for her to mimic a flying dagger's usage thought it wasn't as versatile.

Xiao Tu easily blocked the daggers with the shaft of the spear and he moved closer towards Shang Yang so that he could get into range so he could stab her with his spear. Shang Yang didn't mind that Xiao Tu was closing the distance between them because she knew that she could also use it to her advantage by moving close enough so that he wouldn't be able to use his spear effectively.

Shang Yang decided to end the spar quickly so that she could have Xiao Tu calm down before fighting her again. Though her plan of inciting Xiao Tu's anger had worked, she wanted to fight against a Xiao Tu who could at least think clearly as he fought instead of blindly charging at her. She struck his joints so that it would paralyse him for a short period of time, but long enough to calm him down.

Once she finished paralysing him, she waited for him to get back to his normal state.