Battle Techniques!

Chapter 5

"Where were you!" His mother almost cried, with reddened eyes, "I thought you might have gotten into danger"

His Mother pulled Mark into a hug. 

After a moment Mark prepared to reply with the lesser of two evils, "I was at the Forest,"

He decided to say that on the way home because he realized his mom would probably get more mad if he told the truth, after all with a word of Elder Hao he could do almost anything in this village.

"I don't understand why you go out there, why don't you just stay here and live peacefully." His Mother said at a whisper. 

Realizing that this argument had already happened and he couldn't win no matter what he said, he just smiled awkwardly. 

Dispelling his mothers concerns, he eventually managed to separate himself and go to sleep. 

Thinking about Elder Hao's offer, he looked around his old run down home, and realized his desire for more, for improving his and his mothers life and made up his mind to accept Elder Hao's offer, even with the possible dangers that come with it according to Elder Hao. 

The next day he managed to sneak away from his house, much to his mothers disappointment but realized at that point that she could hardly stop him. He managed to make his way to Elder Hao's house undetected by virtue of his small size and experience adventuring about. 

Elder Hao, detecting his presence somehow, shouted from behind the door just as Mark was going to knock. 

"Come in, it's open." 

Mark walked in and saw Elder Hao at the same position as he saw yesterday. Accidentally losing all politeness, he remarked, "Elder Hao, have you even moved at all?"

Elder Hao laughed, "No, I haven't, the path of cultivation is a long one, only with long stretches of time such as these only cultivation can you make solid progress through a realm. "

Sitting down, Mark thought, 'that sounds very boring' but held off the idea because of all the power he could get through cultivation. 

"Now, moving back to the topic at hand, your time to make your decision has come. I must repeat that this may be dangerous and the purpose of taking you as an apprentice is to replace me here, meaning you must deal with any danger this village faces." Elder Hao warned. 

Thinking about it, Mark felt this danger wasn't too great, since the only time danger appeared in the village was the occasional wild beast and one small group of bandits when he was a baby that apparently were sent off from a hand from Elder Hao, according to his mother, scaring any other bandits away. 

Seeing no downsides with the power he would get, Mark happily agreed.

Mark bowed down and exclaimed, "Yes Master." confirming his apprenticeship under him. 

"Good," Elder Hao exclaimed, "I shall teach you for five years before making my leave. If I'm right that should leave you 15 when I leave, a healthy young adult,"

"I have no cultivation technique to give you yet, you must first finish Foundation Breathing, but I will give you two battle techniques for you to train." Elder Hao said, placing down 2 books in front of him, "These two are basic techniques so you can use your Qi to fight. I am close to finally breaking through to Foundation Establishment Peak, so I will teach you when I break through. Go and read through those two books first."

Mark got up and questioned, taking the chance to learn more about power in this world, "Master, what's Foundation Establishment?"

"I guess I didn't mention that, did I. Well this is the last thing before you leave and I go back to cultivating. There are different Major Realms in cultivating, Qi Condensation is not the End. After Qi Condensation Realm there is Foundation Establishment. In order all of the realms I know of are this: Qi Condensation, Consolidating the Qi to establish basic use, understanding, and storage of it, Foundation Establishment, making your Qi not but a loose bunch of Energy but transforming it to a sturdy foundation, allowing you to transform a small part of Qi to liquid to be your Foundation, much more resistant to cultivation mistakes, Core Formation, Compressing a Foundation to an even sturdier Core, allowing all of your Qi turn from a gas state to a liquid state, and Nascent Divinity, which I don't even have a clue to how the realm is reached and the effects of it, other than strengthening the spirit."

Hearing the long wait in front of him, Mark was even more determined to reach those heights. In a hurry, he got up and bowed, exclaiming thanks, and made his way back home, keeping the books in his hands, not even taking a chance for them to get damaged. Getting a casual greeting from his mother, used to him exploring outside and coming back in frequently, he made his way to his room to look at the two techniques. Looking at the titles one was called Qi Infusion, and the other was called Qi Arrow. Opening up, it gave a basic description of the two techniques as well as pictures on how to move the Qi through the meridians. 

In the book 'Qi Infusion' technique the description was 'Use Qi to charge the body, reinforcing it, giving you greater strength in the infused areas' and the description for 'Qi Arrow' was 'Using Qi to form a basic arrow, sending it forward to cause moderate damage to a target. Strength can vary greatly'. With the Qi Arrow seeming cooler, he spent a while reading on how to move the qi through his meridians effectively for this technique, and forming it at the end of his hand. Working up the Qi, he stood up and tried to use it. 

"Qi Arrow," he said out loud. What formed though is a different story. A dull, wavy, golden, stick looking object formed out of his hand and got sent forward at a moderate speed into a chair in his room, making barely an impact, and then dissipated, taking most of his current Qi in his body with it. 

With losing half of his current Qi in his body, he sat down to meditate and gain more again. When he started, he was surprised by the amount of Qi he could now hold in his dantian, it had nearly doubled, although still mostly empty. Spending most of the rest of the day recovering Qi, he was especially hungry, went and ate, although just plain bread, and came back to try out the second technique, hoping it wouldn't end up a failure like the first. 

Reading the second technique he saw its major difference, in which he sent the Qi from his meridians not outside his body, but inside. Walking to put down the book and put it down, he accidentally banged his hand on a table, exclaiming in pain. Calming himself down though, he tried the technique.

"Qi Infusion", He said quietly, trying not to alert his mother but still saying out loud, for no other reason than his own instinct. 

He sent the Qi to his hands, and other than becoming cooler, his hands didn't seem to have any differences. He decided to try them out by getting revenge on the table.

He slammed his hand down on the table, eyes closed, expecting a tiny bit of pain. Much to his surprise though he only felt a slight sting. Opening his eyes, he saw a tiny bit of the table chipped off, leaving him with some wood bits on the floor. Cleaning it up, he was surprised at the damage.

After cleaning up the damage, he looked at his hands for a moment, before abruptly realizing his mistake, fainting before he could fix it.