After staying at home for a few days, June 20th arrived and Yang Tian brought Drago to Tianwei Military Academy to report himself.
Because Yang Tian was a Class Two Warrior at the very young age of 18, the Military Academy looked kindly upon Yang Tian, and he was given a private room.
In the training ground of the Military Academy, Yang Tian finally met Liu Xiao and Zhou Feng from the team. The two women were roughly 27 years old. They were veritable beauties with great bodies, and both were Class Two Warriors.
Among the Warriors, the male to female ratio was very heavily skewed. It was ten to two, which was to say that in ten Warriors, only two of them were female. These two women in the Military Academy naturally attracted the attention of countless male Warriors. Zhao Wu told Yang Tian that both of them liked Xiao Fei. Despite their competing interests, both of them enjoyed a very good relationship with each other.
After the two women met Yang Tian, they told him to call them 'Sister'.
With the addition of Yang Tian, Xiao Fei's team was now eight strong.
There was already a pecking order in the team. Xiao Fei looked very young, but he was already 36 and was the leader of the team. Zhou Feng was 29 and came second. Liu Xiao was third at 28. Following that was Wang Guang, Zhao Wu, Liu Jian, and Li Xuan.
Yang Tian was the youngest, and therefore, at the end of the order. He was called 'Number Eight' by his teammates.
Yang Tian would need to refer to Xiao Fei as Big Brother, Zhou Feng as Second Sister, and Liu Xiao as Third Sister. Wang Guang would be Fourth Brother, Zhao Wu was Fifth Brother, Liu Jian was Sixth Brother, and Li Xuan was Seventh Brother.
Yang Tian joked around and called Liu Xiao and Zhou Feng Third Sister Liu a1nd Sister Feng which earned him a punch from both ladies. He had to stick to calling them Third Sister and Second Sister respectively. The two women nodded in satisfaction.
Yang Tian felt lucky. Not only did he have Drago, but he had also joined a very close-knit group. In teams like these, Yang Tian believed that his future would be interesting.
Over the next few days, the other seven in the team began training under Xiao Fei's instructions. As they learned from each other, Yang Tian felt that he was making strides in his improvement. In just a few days of training, he had reached the pinnacle of the Shadow Break sword technique.
Yang Tian felt that the time was right to start training on higher levels of Combat Skills.
Xiao Fei had a wealth of combat experience, and his understanding of Combat Skills had far exceeded Yang Tian and the other Class One and Two Warriors. Xiao Fei could see that Yang Tian was outstandingly agile, and so he advised Yang Tian to purchase a sword technique known as Lightning and a punch style known as Thunder from the Military Academy.
When training in Combat Skills, Warriors did not specialize in only one type of skill. A large majority of them would train to use Combat Skills with one weapon, and a hand-to-hand Combat Skill.
Looking at the summary of those two Combat Skills, Yang Tian spent 1 million Wu to buy them.
They were special Combat Skills that were owned by Tianwei Military Academy. They were priced at 2.5 million in the Warriormate store in the city. However, when purchased from the Military Academy, it only cost 500,000, and therefore, was cheaper.
The Military Academy did not restrict members from transferring Combat Skills. However, as every Warrior was different, some were stronger and wanted to develop Combat Skills that focused on strength. Some wanted to use short swords, and hence, trained in Combat Skills that utilized short swords…
Lightning sword style and Thunder fist style were both Class Two Combat Skills. It was similar to the Shadow Break sword style that Yang Tian previously purchased in that it not only had a diagram to show methodology, but also the breathing technique to go with it.
The truth was that the most important part of every Combat Skill was the breathing technique. During practice, one had to use one's intuition to feel the airflow in the body.
It was similar to practicing Qigong2.
Training in Qigong used the meridians as the foundation. The training of Warriors did not include the concept of Meridians, and instead, focused entirely on the movement of air through the body. The higher the level of the Warrior, the clearer they can feel the movement of air in their body—this was also a form of energy.
A Class Five Warrior could only vaguely feel and control, while a Class Six Warrior could easily control their breath at will. They discovered that when their breath went to certain parts of their body, that body part's strength and speed would increase, thus dealing more powerful strikes.
High-Classed Warriors called this breath Hidden Strength.
After buying these two Combat Skills, Yang Tian entered a small training room in the Military Academy that was roughly 100 square meters in size.
This was a special private training facility that the Military Academy prepared for its' Warriors.
Yang Tian entered training room number five and activated the Warriormate. It began to play the video tutorial for the two Combat Skills.
The video showed a masked man clad in black. He first explained the breathing technique, then the mechanical motions. Throughout this process, he gave pointers as he demonstrated.
Yang Tian watched the tutorial videos for both Combat Skills in one go before deciding to work on Lightning sword style first.
These training rooms were private, and there were no surveillance cameras in them. As Yang Tian began to train, Drago who was clinging to his chest squirmed out and jumped onto the floor. He looked at Yang Tian train with curiosity.
"Out… In… Out… focus your intuition on the chest. You'll feel a transient energy. Use your intuition to come into contact with it…"
Yang Tian followed the breathing technique and began to practice.
Half an hour later, Yang Tian could feel his body heating up, and it suddenly felt as though the breath was concentrating in his chest. He attempted to control this breath to divide it into two and move it to his arms.
What Yang Tian did not expect was that he could easily control the breath and divide it into his arms.
Suddenly, Yang Tian opened his eyes.
At that moment, Yang Tian did not know if this was a misreading, or if the breath was really moving in his body. He could feel that his arms were full of strength, so he drew the Tang dao by his waist and began to practice the mechanical motions according to the Lightning sword style.
The Lightning sword style focused on speed and was similar to Shadow Break.
Yang Tian practiced the entire form on the first go. Looking at the time, he had spent half an hour.
The second attempt took an hour and fifteen minutes.
…
After practicing his swordsmanship for half a day, Yang Tian began training the Thunder fist style in the afternoon.
This fist style's breathing technique focused on gathering the breath in the fists, which would then allow the fists to harden. The video tutorial's closing remarks was that when a Class Two Warrior had trained this Combat Skill to its limits, he could break through a cement wall a foot thick with one punch.
Of course, the cement wall could not be reinforced with steel struts. A Class Two Warrior's fists were not strong enough to punch through steel.
Over the next two weeks, Yang Tian trained constantly, growing more and more familiar with his sword style and fist style.
Throughout this time, Yang Tian would take time to call Qin Fei or go home and visit his parents every third day.
Even though he and Qin Fei were very far apart, Yang Tian could feel that their relationship was growing closer. From time to time he would even muster up the courage to talk about more intimate matters with her.
Yang Tian's parents, Yang Lin and Wang Hong, had in a very short time since their ascension began to look younger by ten years. They looked like they were barely a day over 30, and even the gray hairs on their head had disappeared.
This was the effect of ascension. It could strengthen the body of a baseline human, and lengthen their lifespan.
As for Zhou Hao, he had been discharged a few days ago. He and his family were staying at Yang Tian's old family home. Since Zhou Hao was now also a Transhuman, Yang Tian found the chance to tell Xiao Fei. Xiao Fei made some arrangements with his superiors, and Zhou Hao was also recruited into Tianwei Military Academy.
In the Military Academy, Zhou Hao was assigned to the Cadets since he was not yet a Warrior, and he was to be trained by specialist Warriors. The Military Academy would not give Zhou Hao special treatment because of his connections.
Yang Tian could make use of his own training time and a private training room because he was already a Class Two Warrior. He was noticed by the superiors in the Military Academy, but he was treated no differently from the other Warriors.
The time spent training Combat Skills passed quickly, and it was soon the 31st of July.
In the private training room, Yang Tian had just finished training his fist style when the doorbell rang. Yang Tian opened the door to see Zhao Wu.
"Fifth Brother." Yang Tian let out a long breath and wiped the sweat on his brow before saying with a smile.
Zhao Wu saw Yang Tian's sweaty body, and smiled. "A drop of sweat for a bit of gain. Number Eight, you became a Class Two Warrior from your hard work. Looks like I'll have to start working hard too."
Zhao Wu continued immediately after he finished his sentence, "Number Eight, prepare yourself. Tomorrow our team will be leaving for the Danger Zone to train for five months."
"Okay!" Yang Tian said excitedly. Going out for training was something he had looked forward to for a long time, and the time had come.
Warriors needed to constantly grow, and it was not something that could be attained by training in the training room. What was required was large amounts of combat experience which could only be accumulated from constant battles with Monsters.
To Yang Tian, this was the best time because he had just finished training two new Combat Skills. It was time to put it to test.
After packing up, Yang Tian returned to his quarters in the Military Academy and took off his sweat-soaked clothes to take a cold shower before he changed into something clean.
Since he was leaving for five months, he went home that night to have dinner with his parents.
After returning to his quarters, it was nearly 10pm.
Yang Tian called Qin Fei, and they chatted for a while. Yang Tian did not tell her about his five-month training stint to prevent her from becoming worried.
After the conversation ended, Yang Tian was ready to head to bed. Drago jumped over and squeaked at Yang Tian.
"What, eat the Grade Three Beast Core?"
It turned out that the little green dragon wanted Yang Tian to eat the Grade Three Beast Core.