Assistant Instructor

I wondered what this little shixiong could possibly teach me.

“Kou-shixiong, what are you good at?”

“I’m a broadsword user. Right now, I’m learning the Broadsword Fox-Flame Technique.”

Kou-shixiong picked up a staff that had been placed in the training grounds. It seemed he intended to face me with that. I picked up a practice spear with cloth wrapped around the tip.

“Come at me whenever you’re ready.”

“Is that really okay?”

When I checked, Kou-shixiong gave a wry smile.

“Don’t tell me you think you can beat me? That’s overconfidence.”

I had honestly thought I could win, so I was at a loss.

“Well, fine. Let’s have one mock battle first, and then we’ll talk.”

Kou-shixiong took his stance with the staff, so I hurriedly readied my practice spear and stepped forward. I held back and thrust the practice spear. Kou-shixiong flicked it upward as though wrapping around it with the staff, then tapped me in the chest with the opposite end of the staff.

A sharp pain shot through my chest, and I dropped the practice spear. Kou-shixiong was looking at me with a measuring gaze. It was almost as if he were disappointed, as though this was all I amounted to.

“O-One more time, please.”

“Go all out.”

I challenged Kou-shixiong with everything I had. But my attacks were defended as if he had completely seen through them, and Kou-shixiong’s attacks accurately carved pain into my body.

I was defeated again and again, until I sank down onto the ground. I could not match him at all. Kou-shixiong’s age did not seem to matter.

“Haa, haa… I concede.”

“You could have used qi, you know.”

The qi Kou-shixiong was talking about was probably qigong.

“…I don’t know how to fight using qi.”

Kou-shixiong let out a sigh.

“Third Tier?”

“That’s right. I worked really hard to train myself to the Third Tier.”

Hearing Haoxuen’s story made me realize that those who became inner disciples through the entrance exam were the sort who started thinking about taking it once they reached the Third Tier. First, I should check how well he could control qi.

“Haoxuen, I want to see your qi. Refine it up to the Third Tier.”

I asked Haoxuen, who was sitting on the ground and breathing heavily. He was older than me, but I was his senior, so I decided not to worry about my manner of speaking.

“Understood.”

Haoxuen sat cross-legged on the ground and began refining his qi in a seated posture. It seemed Haoxuen had trained in still art, refining qi while remaining motionless. However, I felt that still art did not suit Haoxuen.

There were still art and moving art in qi training. I trained in a moving art called Meimei Gong, but apparently few people in this country practiced moving art. Since many of the seniors in Gyorei Cave were suited to still art, they had probably developed the fixed idea that if you were going to train qi, then it had to be still art.

Originally, whether someone was better suited to still art or moving art was split about evenly. Among the Taoist practitioners of Gyorei Cave, there also seemed to be many who were suited to moving art but were training in still art.

“It looks like my junior disciple is not suited to still art.”

I decided to refer to Haoxuen as my junior disciple. Junior disciple meant a disciple younger in rank.

“Huh? Do you mean I’m not suited to being a Taoist practitioner?”

“How did you get that from what I said? Do you think qi training only consists of still art?”

“Ah, moving art. I’ve at least heard of it.”

“Gyorei Cave has a moving art called Girui Gong. Let’s start with that training.”

I taught Haoxuen Girui Gong, and after about ten days of training, he became able to refine qi to the Third Tier.

“Just as I thought, my junior disciple seems suited to moving art.”

Haoxuen himself seemed surprised by this.

“Shixiong, if I had trained in moving art from the beginning instead of still art, how long do you think it would have taken me to reach the Third Tier?”

In my case, it felt like it had taken about a year. But there were individual differences in this sort of thing, so I could only say something rough.

“With this kind of thing, there are individual differences. Probably, if you had two years, you would have reached the Third Tier.”

This time, it had taken ten days because he had already reached the Third Tier through still art. If it had been from scratch, then even at the longest, it probably would have taken about two years.

When he heard that, Haoxuen hung his head deeply.

“…No way, it took me five years.”

Apparently it had taken him five whole years of training in still art to raise his qi level to the Third Tier. I had no words of comfort. Haoxuen staggered unsteadily toward me.

“Shixiong, what do we do next?”

“We decide which martial art you’ll study, and then we train in Immortal Foundation Qi Combat Art.”

The truth was, I wanted to have him train using Immortal Qi Body Control Art, which had been written by the founder, but the period I was assigned to instruct him was fixed at three months. I supposed Immortal Foundation Qi Combat Art, which had been compiled into a simpler form, would have to do.

After that, we continued qi training and I newly taught him Immortal Foundation Qi Combat Art. Immortal Foundation Qi Combat Art was a martial art that fought barehanded while enhancing the body using qi. There was too much of a difference in build between me and Haoxuen. So it might be better for him to have a practice partner with about the same physique.

“Among Haoxuen’s fellow entrants, is there any new disciple with about the same build?”

“Uh, a fellow entrant named Seiran has about the same build.”

When I heard that, I frowned. Seiran was the new disciple for whom Yulong was acting as assistant instructor.

“Check whether he’ll help with practice. If he says he will, bring him to me together with you. But don’t let Yulong know.”

The next day, Haoxuen and Seiran came to me together.

“He really is small. Haoxuen, are you sure about this?”

I heard Seiran whisper that. It seemed he was uneasy about me, since I was much younger than he was.

“But Yulong-shixiong doesn’t teach properly, right? It’d definitely be better for you to get instruction from Kou-shixiong.”

When I heard that Yulong was not teaching properly, I became curious about what kind of instruction he was giving, so I asked Seiran about it in detail. After teaching him about Gyorei Cave’s facilities and rules, Yulong had apparently been using him as a convenient errand boy.

It was possible that when Yulong had been a new disciple himself, he too had been made to run errands. Was my way the wrong one? But the elders had chosen me as Haoxuen’s assistant instructor. There had to be a reason for that.