Another thing that his fight with Elder Hsu brought to mind, and that had been underlined during the tournament, was Wu Ying’s lack of defense. No matter how good he got, Wu Ying would eventually be struck. Perhaps instead of a purely offensive martial style, he should be looking at improving his defense. Either that or something to help him heal faster after the battle.
When Wu Ying explained all the above to Elder Khoo, the Elder smiled peacefully. “No cultivating styles?”
“No, Elder,” Wu Ying said, shaking his head. “I will ascend using the Yellow Emperor’s method and continue with it till at least Core Cultivation.”
“Interesting,” Elder Khoo said, tilting his head as he assessed Wu Ying. “I had not thought you were that hesitant over making decisions.”
Wu Ying offered a wan smile. He had no excuse other than a feeling that making a choice to lock himself into a specific element would be a mistake. When Wu Ying stayed silent, Elder Khoo reached forward. His hand stopped a few inches from Wu Ying’s body and twitched, stroking the cultivator’s aura and making Wu Ying shudder at the unpleasant and unique touch.
After a moment, Elder Khoo retracted his hand with a light hmmm. “Well. It seems you have continued to practice the Aura Strengthening technique at least. Be careful in adding further aura strengthening cultivation exercises to your repertoire. In fact, additional cultivation exercises should wait till you achieve at least Greater Achievement with your current technique.”
Wu Ying found his lips parting in a smile. He was happy to hear he had at least achieved the Minor Achievement realm. In the case of the aura strengthening technique, due to how subtle the effects were in reinforcing the barrier between his own aura and the world, it was hard for Wu Ying to judge his progress.
“In that case, it seems we only have the matter of your martial techniques.” Elder Khoo tapped his lips for a second before turning away from Wu Ying abruptly and walking the shelves.
The Elder quickly brought them to the section that dealt with unarmed techniques. As he browsed, Elder Khoo made tutting noises and picked up and replaced scrolls or books, even going so far as to hiss his disappointment. From the unarmed stacks, Elder Khoo moved to other portions of the library, always handing new scrolls or books to Wu Ying to carry.
When the Elder was finally done, Wu Ying had a stack of books to browse through. This time around, Elder Khoo offered no explanation about their contents, instead sending Wu Ying off to digest their contents, only bending enough to promise to explain anything that Wu Ying was unable to understand.
“But…”
“You are an inner sect member. You will be forced to evaluate more and more situations, spending time analyzing not just cultivation and martial techniques but your own dao. Relying on teachers is all well and good for an outer sect member, but you must learn to assess matters as an inner sect member. We cannot see into your heart, only guide you.
“There is no better time to start than now.”
Wu Ying bobbed his head in acknowledgement, though as Elder Khoo disappeared around one stack, Wu Ying could not help but wonder if the Elder was tired of dealing with him. In either case, Wu Ying still had a stack of books to peruse.
To begin, Wu Ying checked over the manuals that covered power generation. They could be broken into three different kinds.
There were the simple manuals that covered physical body strengthening exercises. It was hard to call those books martial styles since they consisted of a series of progressively difficult exercises, ranging from those that required weights to those that used the individual’s own body weight. Many of the initial exercises were well known to Wu Ying through long years of exercise, but it was the first time Wu Ying had seen the work laid out in such a studied manner.
After further browsing, Wu Ying set aside one particular book. It focused on developing strength without the use of weights and emphasized stretches. If Wu Ying could achieve greater flexibility in his body, he felt he might even achieve the Sense of the Northern Shen style.
The next two books focused on power generation from entirely different angles. One talked about internal power, the use of chi while striking and fighting in what could be considered an extremely relaxed state. Internal strength cultivation was actually a cultivation exercise, which amused Wu Ying as he realized that Elder Khoo had contradicted himself when giving him this work. But Wu Ying could see how it was different too. While the Aura Strengthening technique focused on its namesake, this technique focused on the actual flow of chi within his body, teaching Wu Ying how to more quickly shift and project his chi. It did not increase the amount of his chi; it just made it easier for him to use it when attacking. Furthermore, the book emphasized the connection between the cultivator’s mind and body, an aspect that Wu Ying could see aiding the progress of his other styles.
The third set of manuals focused on external power. Here, the power generation exercises overlapped with his earlier book about muscle growth but was less detailed. Instead, these manuals spent more time on positioning and structure, going into detail about the proper frame of an individual’s body and the muscles that needed to be activated to achieve the highest level of power generation with each motion. It was fascinating, and even the skimmed information had Wu Ying considering in greater detail the way he moved. No other series of manuals seemed to go into so much detail, though some of the work re-emphasized words spoken by his teachers.
Yet, Wu Ying realized that choosing any of these would be a waste of the “free” style he received from consulting Elder Khoo. He winced internally, realizing that Elder Khoo had once more found a way to make Wu Ying spend the majority of his hard-earned points.
Setting aside the body strengthening and external power generation manual, Wu Ying turned to the next series of books, which were actual martial style manuals. The first consisted of a Darat Clan Wrestling Style. After browsing through the document on wrestling, Wu Ying frowned. It seemed that the Wrestling Style guide came from a cultivator who had practiced the style sporadically, basing the final manual both upon learned experience and his personal observations. It was less than stellar, which made Wu Ying concerned about the final effectiveness of the martial style.
Wu Ying went to find Elder Khoo, who was seated in his own chair, working on transcribing an aged scroll to a book. “Why this manual, Honored Elder?”
“The Darat clan?” Elder Khoo said without even looking up. “Two reasons. The Elder who contributed the manual was well known for his ability to wrestle. So even if the style itself is not fully authentic, the techniques should be effective. Secondly, the Darat emphasize strength in the legs and achieving a mounted position to fight from. This will give you greater flexibility than many other wrestling styles.”
Wu Ying thanked the Elder and returned to his seat. It did seem that there were a number of techniques for achieving if not his feet, at least the top of his opponent. Putting the manual aside, Wu Ying turned to the next option.
Throughout the day, Wu Ying found himself browsing the small pile of unarmed styles that were available. Studying each manual sufficiently to understand their advantages and disadvantages without spending too long on any one manual was a tiring exercise. It also taxed his mind to the fullest, as sometimes the flaws and disadvantages in a style were not immediately obvious.
In the end, Wu Ying narrowed the list of offensive styles down to a single kicking and single punching style. Of course, like any martial style, they did cover the basics of offensive techniques with the other limbs, but it was perfunctory. Wu Ying doubted he would spend much time reading those portions even if he did check out the books.