As training got in gear, days passed very quickly and everybody in the family soon got indulged in their own zone and daily pattern for their training and made quick progress.
Soon a year passed and Leo got a good foundation and basics going on for him, as he had good control of his movement of the short-spear and good, stable and firm footing as the foundation for footwork seems pretty solid. Also, his progress in body cultivation art also progressed smoothly as the only thing required for the progress of crimson-bright diagram of nine heavens is the time required for absorbing and nourishing the body gradually and a person can automatically reach the third layer of technique and reach peak houtian body only from that layer insight into dao is required.
Now was the time for Leo to chose the techniques for further cultivation as we know only by studying the right knowledge in the right order can we master and use that knowledge. Like, if we only know addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication. We can't just jump to Laplace, limits, calculus, applied maths, game theory, probability, and statistics. Similarly, he can't learn dao path techniques when he does not even have an insight into dao or 'THE WAY' and is just stuck at the door of basics in all techniques.
Though archery does not require any technique to reach basics the advance and further progress requires a technique that all have their own unique rhythm to them.
For short-spear, he chose the '136 changes of seasons', and as for footwork, he chose the bright- shadow steps. which was what his parents also trained in so it was what he also trained. Next day archery was the same, but his noon footwork training got a little amped up, as there was a thick rope formation with sandbags filled the iron sand hanging above the poles where he trained his footwork,
now his new goal was to travel the complete formation within a breath of time without falling or touching the ropes or the sandbags. With the same routine with which he trained till now. And so started his new daily self-torture session with falling, getting up, trying again, hitting himself with iron filled sandbags and repeat.
At his daily physical training, his fist and kicks technique got a little higher with few new combinations and variations it became a body-fighting or empty-handed martial arts. Now all he had to do was get acquainted with new combinations and variations required for the new technique '136 changes of seasons'. which required him to not only remember all 136 combinations of them to use in a fight but also use them as second nature to reach 'one with the weapon' stage.
Even though he knew all the reason for the ropes when his mother explained he obediently listen to her for what reason the ropes are required in the training as they will help him reach the advance level of footwork in next 4-7 years. First to move around the bright shadow rope formation in a single breath of time to reach the basic level and then to reach the same level of speed when sandbags and the rope are moving. Where it got even crazy, knowing and seeing, and experiencing is a completely different thing. Sometimes he started to question his own sanity as this was his own choice and he now even enjoyed the training so he started to think that was he turning into a masochist under the immortal training regime and the person who designed these kinds of pieces of training wanted to turn the whole world into a masochist society. This was a mystery which he did not even want to find the answer to.
For the next few months, he stopped sparring and focused on reaching and getting a good grasp on the techniques he just got to learn and gave a 100% of his effort and then some, to quickly learn these moves to at least get a firm grasp on them and get into the new routine and restart his sparing session again. During this time his parents now also took him to the forest to train against wild beasts and furious beasts along with Star and themselves to learn to fight. This also speeds up his progress as he was getting multiple types of opponents with different body types and sizes. It also made him adapt to the situation fast if situation change suddenly.