13 Ch13 - Training with Yi Nan

Once back in his room, Yue Yang though about what he would do for the near future.

Concerning the girls, he had to think of a name for his little organisation, prepare a training schedule for the fighters and a learning schedule for the non-com. Once he got the building purchased and furnished, he would add some passives defenses to it, mostly support-type. They should be able to protect the girls from people up to Hero rank, meaning most of White Stone City's local and regular cultivators, and that was the most he could do with his current skill in Heavenly Runes.

Then, there was his personal development. It was going at a good pace despite the number of skills he was working on, most likely thanks to The Gamer cheat, but there were still some parts where he wanted to improve at a faster pace, espcially the mental and mind skills he was going to aquire. He also wanted to increase the training of his beasts, and rank them up to Bronze variants. He though that, on top of using the ID and cultivation medecines, he should get some training aid equipment, like weights or other kinds of restrains.

He browsed the Shop and bough Thoughs Acceleration, Memory Partition and Occlumency for mind arts. He wanted to use Memory Partition with Occlumency to make layers within his mind, each layer representing one room from memory partition. The deeper the layer, the more important and secretive the information. Anything to do with him being a transmigrant and with his gamer cheat would be at the deepest layer. Of course, each layer would focus on one though; the deeper the layer, the more important the though. Thoughs Acceleration would complement them.

He also bought the stones for his beasts. For his wolf, Amarok, he bough an angelic stone essence and a demonic essence stone. For his tigress Bastet, he got an ice essence stone, and he already had plenty of lesser dark essence stones. For his lizard Gorn, he got an earth essence stone and a water essence stone. And for his eagle, Thorondor, he got a light essence stone and a lightning essence stone.

He bough advanced mechanical training machines, to be able to handle the superhumans levels of fitness from cultivation worlds. He got some martial arts manuals, as well as some animated training dummies for weapons and hand-to-hand combat. He got nutriments bars for the girls, on top of the minor cultivation medecines they would need. Out of a little over 150 000 credits, he used nearly 100 000 credits for that.

Before going to sleep, Yue Yang spent an hour working on occlumency. The next day, in the morning, while his clones worked on his mind arts, stealth and awareness, alchemy and Heavenly Runes, his real body trained in physical combat, mostly the Yue Clan Spear Technique. Before noon, he left for his meeting with Yi Nan. He got the booth while disguised as a servant and left for a deserted corner. There, he changed back into Han Jeehan, returned in view of the restaurant and waited for Yi Nan while concealed.

He saw her arrive not long after, talked to the waitress and moved toward the booth. Still concealed, he waited until she was about to close the door to flash-step into the booth. She noticed his passage, probably due to air displacement, because she slammed the door shut in the same movement she turned around with her guard up and her eyes wide. So he canceled the stealth.

"Hello Yi Nan!"

He got an low and embarrassed growl in response.

"... Kindly refrain from sneaking around me please."

"I'll try, but I make no promises. I saw you talk to the waitress, but I doubt you ordered anything."

"Not really, but now that I think about it..."

"Order what you want. Out of all the dishes available, I want to take your second favourite. I'll leave it to you when she comes to take our orders. Of course it's my treat."

They spent the following 45 minutes in a friendly and relaxed mood. They didn't talk much about themselves, but some small talk about the world and cultivation in general. Yue Yang did flirt with her or tease her a few times, but not on the scale of the original. He wasn't that shameless. After that, they left for the outskirt of the forest, Yue Yang concealing himself on the way and following Yi Nan's alluring bubble butt. He didn't know it, but Yi Nan somehow knew his eyes were locked on her figure for less than pure reasons, and she was both flatered and annoyed. Soon enough, they reached a place to settle.

"How about starting with a little spar?"

"Yes, let's do that" she replied, still annoyed that he ogled her.

Yue Yang detected the annoyance in her voice, but though nothing of it. They started lightly, but even then, he saw she was being agressive. He decided to tease her by touching her with his finger whenever she left an opening and saying "strike". The intensity of the spar grew fast as she got frustrated with her lack of success against him. He deflected or dodged everyone of her strikes, while still looking relaxed. He only used the Fierce Fist and the Revolving Guardian techniques.

Then, Yue Yang thoug of something and decided to experiment. He went on the offensive, pressuring Yi Nan with enough attacks at enough strenght that she was stuck defending. She was slowly retreating, and out of nowhere she was hit in the gut and staggered a few steps back. She gasped, and it took her a few second to recover her breath.

"Agh... What the? How did you hit me?"

"Stealth."

"Stealth?"

"Yes. I didn't hit you faster than you could see or react, though I could have done that at any time. It's something I just though of during our fight. You already noticed that I'm quite good at sneaking around, right? I just hid my attack the same way I do to sneak around."

Yue Yang had applied the Shadow Concealment technique on just his arm instead of his whole person. The experiment was a success. If he applied it with his Hidden Hand technique, the opponent wouldn't detect his move. It would look like the attack came out of nowhere instead of himself.

Yi Nan, while replaying the action in her mind, also realised that she had lost sight of that arm during the flurry of attacks. It was so subtle she didn't notice at the change. And he had done it on the spot. Her respect for him grew, with some admiration as well.

'Still, it was rought. Right now it can only work on an opponent that is already being pressured, and with a relatively low level of perception... Heh, with enough control, I could probably hide all micro movements that experts use to anticipate attacks from my person. It's supposed to be something only masters should be able to do, but I can cheat to achieve something similar...'

"Han Jeehan?"

"Oh? Sorry Yi Nan, I got lost in thoughts. You were saying?"

"Nothing. Just bringing you back from your daze."

"Right. How about another round? I think you should get used to deal with people faster than you. Later, we can add your beasts to the exercise."

"That's fine with me."

And they resumed their sparring. This time, Yue Yang kept the pressure on her, but without trying to land a decisive blow. The minutes passed and Yi Nan's stamina got steadily depleted. When she reached her limit, he performed a throw and she landed heavily on her back. She barely had enough breath to grunt in pain at the impact. She stayed on the ground, spread eagle, sweating and breathing roughly.

"I see. Your cultivation is at level 4 Champion, but your skills are at level 3 Hero. That's actually something I expect from the majority of summoners, they focus on their beasts instead of themselves."

She wasn't surprised that he discovered her level, however it stung her when he said her skills weren't on par with her cultivation. She was confident in her skills, but his assessement lowered her confidence. Before, despite accepting to team up with him, she still though she had the capabilities to deal with the problem herself. She was no longer certain of that fact.

"In a battle of attrition, you would easily lose. On top of your speed and reaction, you should also work on your stamina. It would also help you whistand the pressure of attacks on your grimoire shield. Take your time to recover. I'll be fighting with your beasts next."

Unable to speak yet, she only nodded. 10 minutes and a recovery drink (purchased from the shop) later, she was good to go. She stood up and summoned her grimoire, it was a low rank silver grimoire. Then she summoned her beasts, a phantom panther and a spider witch. The phantom panther was basically a big black panther, and the spider witch had the upper body of a young girl and the lower body of a spider, similar to a centaur.

"Those 2 are my main fighting force. I have another beast, but alongside my guardian beast they have no combat ability."

"They are good beasts for ambushes and fast strikes. I guess your other beasts are support type with limited skills. Well, let's see what those 2 can do."

He jumped back and took a defensive stance. He was quite wary about the beasts capabilities. They weren't wild ones, they had been trained, and were directed by an intelligent being. They received boosts in their growth, rewards from the Ancient Code.

The reason why summoners were so respected was because the beasts had higher attributes than humans. More than 2 people were usually needed to defeat a beast of equal rank to them. With a grimoire, summoners had both offense and defense at the same time. Due to that, a summoner with a few beasts was a powerful force. The 2 beasts in front of him were normal ranked beasts, but they were roughly equal to a level 3 Hero like himself in term of attributes.

Yi Nan had been annoyed by Han Jeehan sneaking up on her, so she decided to give him a taste of his own medecine and ordered her panther to hide. She also knew he was fast, so she had her spider witch try to ensnare him in her webs.

Unfortunatly for her, noone of this would work. Yue Yang had extensively trained his perception, and coupled with his Twin Star inherent skill, negated the concealment ability of the phantom panther. He never lost his awareness of the beast position. When it came to speed, he was on par with the beasts so he could dodge their attacks. The web launched by the spider witch was an area effect attack that he couldn't dodge with his normal speed, but he had the Celestial Step technique.

During the entire fight, all 3 of them were in constant movement. They never stayed in the same area as it would be covered in spider web. When he couldn't dodge, he blocked the attacks with the handle of his battle halberd. Since there were storage items in that world, Yi Nan wasn't surprised by the sudden appearance of the weapon.

He counter attacked with the blund end of his weapon. The spider witch was the first to go down, not having a strong resistance to attack. It had only taken a flash step to get in range followed by a heavy strike to the head. The phantom panther was stronger than that, and Yue Yang had to inflict some cuts and bruising to the beast before Yi Nan called an end to the battle. Yue Yang fell on his back, sweating and pleasantly exhausted.

"Your beasts are decent. It would be good if they gained another level before evolving to bronze rank. But you lack a powerhouse. A beast that can take hits, and that can give a good pounding. Not your style, I realise that, but it will be good to have. It's not like you're low on space in your grimoire." 'I doubt anyone ever filled their grimoires with beasts. The most I recall someone having in canon was 7 or 8, and a copper grimoire can hold 10 beasts from the start.'

The beasts had given him a good workout. It wasn't the most intense fight he had been in though. Yi Nan, on the other hand, realised that she was over herself previously. She silently decided to train herself and her beasts more. After recovering, they arranged to meet at the restaurant the next day, and separated for the day.

Yue Yang spent the rest of the afternoon dungeonnning with his 4 new beasts to train them. He wanted them to reach level 5 before evolving them to bronze rank with the essences. He got back home in the evening, and after spending some time with little Shuang, worked on his mind arts before going to sleep.