Chapter 876 Falling, Failing
Time was not a factor in Jin's plane of subconsciousness as Ming and the White Tiger alternated training Jin in his inelegant swordplay. At first, he was embarrassed trying to behave clunkily, but that made him suffer even more wounds from Ming.
Only after he started to grasp the movements did Ming decide to take a break and let the White Tiger train with him. Unlike humans, the White Tiger was able to 'play' with Jin using grapples, knockdowns and tussles which made it harder for Jin to execute his fakeout attacks and he had to be more creative in actively avoiding them while performing the clumsy rolls.
What Ming had told him turned out to be true. Zeru's teaching about posture made it all the harder for him to forget since it was trained deep into his muscle memory. Thus, to speed Jin's learning process, Ming had secretly manipulated the plane to put in stones and sticks within the snow.
This would make the falling and trips slightly easier for Jin while he learned how to utilise his Maqi to project his Astral Form out for an attack. "Trust me, you have it WAYYYYYY easier than me. Like I did not even have an Astral Form to project my attacks much less anyone to guide me. I had to cultivate my chi to do it by myself. Me giving you that perfected Panda Cultivation Manual is already providing a handicap."
"Yeah, but you had years to come up with and practice it while I only have what? Hours? Days? At most a week or two! I am worried the System and the others are already facing the backlash of the Monster Horde without me at the helm." Jin complained as the White Tiger pounced forward.
Jin was able to gracelessly fall to the ground and perform an Astral Projection Attack, but the White Tiger used its tail to slap Jin on his balls before evading the Projection attack too. By now the West Cardinal Demon had adapted to him and started to feint his own attacks better than Jin which made his training even harder.
"Oooh. That hurts just watching it." Ming giggled while ignoring Jin's worries as he saw his grandson trying to breathe through the pain. The Tiger had no human sympathy for a person being hit in the balls. As long as it saw an opportunity, it would take it and strike mercilessly.
And as expected, neither Ming nor the White Tiger gave Jin any breaks in between, causing him to train ceaselessly. The only time he was allowed to take a breather was when the wounds he suffered from were major and required much time to regenerate.
In one instance, the White Tiger nearly decapitated Jin's head, and it was barely hanging with the left side of the skin intact. Ming had to use his chi to keep Jin's heart pumping and ensure there was a blood vessel connection to his brain while he healed. He could have let him and resurrect but Jin's pleading gaze had made it clear that the dungeon supplier would rather suffer now than take the easy path.
All this intense training and punishing pain brutally strengthened Jin's mental concept of physical toughness while he got the hang of the Panda Style. His Astral Form got even more potent as time went by. Considering there was no night and day unless Ming deemed it appropriate for training, Jin had lost sense of all time. (Usually, it's the System that reminded him of things.)
For night training, Jin fought with Ming in absolute darkness as his current mentor changed the landscape to a snowy forested area. Unlike daytime training where Ming would help Jin with obstacles, the forested area his grandpa had created was ever-changing. The rocks, trees and slippery snow was more of a hindrance to Jin, forcing Jin to finetune his movements so that whenever he moved, it would be gracefully clunky.
To make matters worse, Ming also added traps which he would intentionally lure Jin into, further increasing the difficulty for his grandson. And as if that was not bad enough, his grandfather also blindfolded after he seemingly got used to the advanced training. Naturally more cuts, bruises and bite wounds from the White Tiger helped turn Jin into a deadly combat specialist.
However, all these appeared like child's play compared to his final test. Ming teleported Jin to the very same black concrete inner hall where he had fought against Wang Ba Tan.
With a quick glance, Jin already saw his final exam question staring right in front of him. The silhouette was more than enough to discern who he was. "You must be kidding me. How did you get him here?"
"It wasn't that hard. This version is based on your memories, and I asked Kraft for some samples of his stats and attributes some time ago. This representation is not as powerful as the real deal, but it's more than enough for you to have a hard time against." Ming explained as he lit up the whole black hall and they found Zeru replica with his long yellow hair intact.
"I suppose that means his strength is above the one he used to drill me last time?" Jin asked, but before he could get a reply, a slashing shockwave zipped by him without any warning. To this particular Zeru's replica, his opponent was right in front of him, and there was no obligation to wait.
Ming clearly did not need to answer that question anymore as he stepped backwards and summoned the very same wooden bench he had used in the mountains. The White Tiger also sat on it while staring at the impending fight.
"Welp. Here goes nothing!"
After days and days of training his whole body was filled with superficial scars. Not to mention, he was left half-naked with bloodstained tattered pants since he had been wounded time and time again throughout the training. As a consolation, he had full access to his Inverse Eyes in this fight.
He decided to run straight towards Zeru, just like how Ming had done against him. With their roles seemingly reversed, he noticed that Zeru similarly took on the Iaido stance Jin had previously performed. The Sword Saint's chi coursed through his body and Jin knew how powerful Zeru was… it would be instant death if he got so much as grazed by this replica's attack.
However, with all the Panda training Jin had done with Ming and the White Tiger, he now had confidence that his cultivation style was indeed an antithesis to all weapon specialists.