Chapater 15: Changes and The Path

Nie is standing in front of a mirror and is still struggling trying to comprehend the events from 6 days ago and if they were a dream. But no matter how many times he thinks this was a dream, he just needs to look into the mirror to know that this was not a dream, about what happened right after Azure and him began the last step of the pill producing.

In the last step Nie needed to hold onto the strange stone that he used to grind the Beast core into dust, but this strange stone didn't just have the ability to destroy the resistance force of the beast core, it even had the ability to absorb body mass.

All the body mass that Nie got through eating a lot was absorbed. This caused the weight and the pressure from it to disappear from his body, which caused to his body to extend by 5 centimeters, but that is not the only thing. This body mass which was absorbed wasn't only the fat that could be seen on the outside but even the one inside Nie´s veins.

This caused Nie´s blood and body to get rid of a great amount of impurities from all over his body, this allowed some pores that were blocked by impurities to be opened up and allowed Nie´s cultivation speed to increase by a bit, but again this is not the only thing that allowed his cultivation speed to increase.

He had to suffer a great amount of pain while his body mass got absorbed, doing that made him temper his mind and increase his pain tolerance, and because his Cultivation technique is focusing on feeling pain to progress it was a great blessing for him, allowing Nie to absorb less qi and get more pain from it.

This new acquired cultivation speed and the loss of a great amount of impurities almost made Nie to reach the major success stage of the skin tempering period and allowed him reach 50% of soul purification. In the end that made Nie quite happy because he not only gained more strength and cultivation but also boosted his self confidence.

"Senior Azure, I made great progress in the last six days and I familiarized myself with my new body strength. Will you allow me to use the 100 wolf tempering pills tomorrow or shall I wait a while longer ?"

"Young Nie you may have familiarized with your new strength but you haven't familiarized yourself with the way you should cultivate. Right now you are still cultivating the same why as you did when you had more body mass, which is wasting a great amount of time and effort. If you had yourself familiarized already with the way how to cultivate in your new body, you would increase your cultivation speed even more and your foundation would be even more stable."

Nie begins to think at Azure words. He knows that he still hasn't familiarized himself with his cultivation technique in this new body. The reason for this is that deep inside him he still didn't register this new look and strength as his own.

This is hindering his growth and blocking himself. "I know Senior Azure, it is just that deep inside me I still am not accepting all this. I mean look at me Senior you saw my old me, I lived for the most of my time as a person that was fat but now because of a little thing my body has lost almost all the fat , it just feels like it is not my own body, which hinders me in applying the right amount of force with the qi."

Afterwards Nie sighs while looking in Azure´s face. "I can understand you Young Nie, I would feel the same way. But we can't waste time with that" Azure sighs for a moment and then looks around Nie´s room while his face is showing a mysterious face."Because young Nie… I have the feeling we are being watched by someone, and this person has definitely no good intentions"

"What? do you know where the person is Senior Azure ?" Azure could only shake his head in disappointment "Sadly no young Nie. This world is restricting me from using all my powers, because of that I can only leave your body in an energy form and this also restricts my ability to sense my surroundings. I may be able to find places easy but a person that conceals itself can now easily escape my senses."

"This sounds bad Senior Azure, can´t we do something about that ?"

"No, sadly we can't do anything about that. The only thing we can do is increasing your strength because this would give you the ability to protect yourself better and because I don't want you to rely on the thing I left in you to save you in a life threatening situation. Because it is a one time thing, I can't create a new one for now."

"I understand Senior Azure, I will do my best to strengthen myself and to overcome this mental blockade," Nie says while having his face full of confidence. "And I already have the perfect way to familiarize myself with my body even more and to accept it." He then takes out the Book that he got from Elder Jin. 'Basic Staff Arts' "By learning something I never learned before but wanted to learn"

Azure looks at Nie and his mind that was filled with worry begins to clear up. Before, he was worried that Nie had no fighting will and no matter how much progress he made he wouldn't be able to jump over his own shadow.// Slowly he grows, before he was just a normal kid that didn't realize how big the world and how real the danger is even here. But now I can see hope//

While Azure was in his train of thought Nie began to read the book. The book explained the different basic attacks you could do with a staff weapon. The staff may be in some eyes just a long and straight stick with not much potential in fights, but the truth is that it can easily switch between lethal and non lethal attacks.

The basic attacks that one can do with a staff are a thrust where one thrusts one of the end side of the staff into the enemy, a swing where one swings the staff into the side of the enemy and a counter where one let the weapon of the enemy hit the upper side of the staff to then guide the weapon away from one and then to use this opportunity to attack them.

These are the basic attack arts of a staff weapon and if one can master them a whole new world will open for them. The training stages in one's progress through training with the staff are called control, comprehension and mastery.

In the control stage one learns how to control one's body and one's weapon while moving and fighting.

In the comprehension stage one learns and comprehends the way on how to wield the weapon.

In the mastery stage one fuses the learned control and comprehension into one because of that the master stage is also called "Body and weapon as one".

After Nie reads through the pages which explain the attacks and the stages he continues to read the sides that explain the way to master the stages. to his surprise there are only information about the control and comprehension stage, by the Mastery stage there are only the words'' The path is nothing that can be taught"

Confused by these words he stops for a moment to comprehend these words. "The Path is nothing that can be taught" he repeats that sentence in his mind a few times but doesn´t understand them so he continued for now to read the explanation of the control and comprehension stage.

To master the control stage one needs to be able to carry the weapon without problems and be able to exert every basic attack one hundred times without exhausting oneself and without errors.

To master the comprehension stage one needs to comprehend three intermediate attacks from the basic attacks and be able to create one´s own move.

//One hundred times without error and exhausting myself, three intermediate attacks comprehended form the basics and one owns skill. This is easy to understand but the words from the mastery stage "The Path is nothing that can be taught" are confusing me, why are there these words maybe I should ask Azure//

He lifts his head to look towards Azure who is smiling in the moment while looking at Nie. " Young Nie. Do you have a question? is there something you don 't understand? " Nie slowly nods and shows Azure the page with the words for the mastery stage " I don't understand these words can you explain it to me?"

Azure's smile becomes brighter when he reads the words, afterwards he looks Nie into the eyes" The Path is nothing that can be taught. The explanation is already in this sentence young Nie and I can't help you there, everyone needs to find it by themselves."

Nie's face turns miserable at Azure words, he hoped Azure could help him but he didn't expect him to answer it like this." Senior azure where is the explanation in this sentence " The Path is nothing that can be taught" it is just a confusing sentence for me and now you are confusing me even more with your words that everyone needs to find it by them… selves, wait I got it." Nie´s eyes begin to brighten and he directly jumps, take his staff and runs out.

Azures bright smile couldn´t become brighter at this sight// It seems he comprehends it now, his path is clear and he know where he needs to go// Azure quickly enters Nie's body again while he runs out of the dormitory and then towards the forest.

//The best place to train without one disturbing me is the forest// Nie runs quickly towards the forest while passing by some other students who are confused by this sight. Because, who wants to run into the forest right now? The fight may have ended and the ruler has been chosen but that doesn't mean that the forest is now calm.

But Nie didn't care about that, he knew the perfect place to train, where no beast is and no one will find him. The Spring, the last few days he always headed there to train, even if he can't use the natural qi close to the spring he could still use the natural qi that is at the entrance of it. This qi is a bit diluited but still denser than the one in the dormitory.

Nie arrives at the spring area and quickly takes out the book again and places it on a stone close to him while going with the staff into a fighting position. "Now let's try out how good I am, I already had some fights and used my staff quite well I think. Senior Azure could you watch me and my stances and correct me sometimes if I do one thing wrong too many times without finding the error by myself ?"

"I would like to help you there but sadly I never learnt how to fight with a staff, my favorite weapon is a saber and the only other weapons art that I learnt in case my saber breaks or I have no saber close to me are the hidden weapon arts and martial arts so hand combat."

He is a bit disappointed for a moment but catches himself again" So it is true, there are no shortcuts in learning" he says while laughing and beginning his training with the first basic move "Thrust".

Because he is in no battle he can focus on his movement more and learn how do perfect it, while he does it he notices that his first few "Thrust" attacks lack power and stability, every time his arms are almost completely stretched he somewhat loses control and strikes a few centimeter away from the target he marked.

Nie begins to get into a routine while training, before he thrust his staff outward. He begins to focus for 10 seconds on the goal while taking three deep breaths, then he turns his body a bit to the side while moving his left foot forward. Then right after his foot touches the ground he strikes out with his staff.

Right after that he holds his position and closes his eyes to memorize his movements and focus on all the mistakes he made by this strike. like that he slowly corrects himself while repeating the "Thrust" attack countless times.

After 100 Thrust with his left foot and hand at the front he changes towards the Right foot and hand to repeat everything he did before.

Hours pass and he slowly is making progress with his thrust attacks. After three hours of training the thrust attack Nie sits down and begins meditating and cultivating.

Azure watches him and notices how the technique that wasn't really attuned to his new body slowly got corrected to suit his constitution better.// Haha it is good to see that he is slowly correcting himself in his technique, with this he will reach sooner or later the true speed of this technique, right now he is only using a bit of it which causes him to be even slower than the descendants and other outsiders that joined this Clan.//

Azure sighs afterwards and looks towards the sky again "Even if one has a strong cultivation technique if they don't use its full potential they will still be weaker than people with trash technique"

While Azure talks with himself and Nie cultivates or trains with the staff, the Watcher is again in the surrounding, watching them.

The watcher looks at every detail of Nie´s body and cultivation technique, even how he trains with his staff. He then takes out the token that lets him communicate with his Master.

"Master, after the subject physical change happened his cultivation speed increase drastically, but it seemed like he wasn´t using its full potential, but now things are different. I can see how he changes his way of cultivating and the amount of qi he is taking in. At that he began to train in his weapon skills and he is making progress quickly, in only hours he improves his attack hit accuracy by at least 15% and at the beginning he had around 35% hit accuracy. If we let him be he will quickly reach the control stage in his weapon and maybe even reach the Muscle Forging Period soon. I would suggest we act sooner than later by this unknown variable"

The watcher looks at the token after his report and waits for a command. Then shortly after a dark voice comes out of the token. "Don´t worry watcher, this person may have connection to this dirty little young lord but that doesn't mean that he is dangerous. I will send somone to deal with him in the next few days to deal with him. You will only have to give this someone all the information you gathered so far and then you can leave."

The Watcher nods " Understood Master, I will wait until the arrival of the underling and then leave" With that he puts the token away and continues to watch Nie "Enjoy these last few hours in freedom little one, soon you will be there where you belong, in chains as a little slave. Mhm I wonder how this little dirty lord will react when he finds out that you become our little slave".

He begins to laugh darkly after these few words and enjoy the thought of seeing Nie suffer but why he likes it, no one knows, except him and his master.