Junjie's sudden rise in the battle arts was rather startling for Lihua. She hadn't expected to be overpowered by a mundane man, for any amount of time to any degree. It wasn't uncommon for skill to close such a gap, but Junjie truly appeared ordinary; at least he wasn't particularly skilled with cultivation techniques. Although Junjie wasn't a genius in battle, Lihua had begun to ponder whether or not he had a calling for it.
In the world are figures known as the Blessed. The Blessed are people who are believed to be chosen by the heavens for a particular art, such as cultivation or battle. Naturally Junjie wasn't even remotely close to the talent of the Blessed in battle, but they aren't the only ones favoured by the Heavens. There was also the Favoured.
The Favoured felt comfortable doing something, even for the very first time, and are also believed to have received a minor blessing from the Heavens. They weren't always outstanding in their art, and even someone like Junjie could be one of the Favoured. However, they were still rather rare.
His rate of improvement is what led her to believe he may have received a minor blessing.
'How interesting, and envious. Curse this bastard for being potentially more talented than me!' She may have been a little bit jealous of Junjie, whether he was favoured or not. However, what had happened next had her entirely convinced.
They had just finished another training session, and that was when Lihua had, for the first time since they had begun training, felt a little out of breath. Considering only top athletes in the world could be evenly compared to Foundation Establishment cultivators, Junjie had just achieved something rather extraordinary for a fifteen-year-old child!
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Junjie was used to the sensation of being covered in bruises. These seemingly endless days had taught him to at least bear with pain. One hour of rest was truly just too cruel. He couldn't properly recover his strength, so for the rest of the day it was likely he would begin lasting less time against Lihua in each bout.
As per usual, Junjie spent the rest of his time carefully considering how to awaken his spiritual veins. At this point he was growing tired of getting nowhere. His unhappiness was growing by the day.
Audibly sighing and getting up, he walked out of the cabin with a steady gait, ready to challenge the demon once again. No matter how many times they battled, he couldn't help but feel his heart beat faster every time he thought of the consequences.
He saw her leaning against a branch of bamboo at the threshold of the forest. That meant they had about twenty metres of space between each other. It would take the average, mundane adult roughly four seconds to cross that distance; however, Foundation Establishment cultivators could cover that in about two seconds, perhaps even faster if they trained.
Jia Junjie and Xu Lihua locked eyes. His a light shade of brown, and hers a rich shade of gold. They maintained eye contact for a heartbeat before rushing towards one another. Lihua obviously travelled a much greater distance than Junjie, so the first exchange of blows occurred out the front of the house as opposed to the entrance of the verdant forest.
She opened with a simple jab whilst Junjie opted for deflection. A proper deflection was very difficult due to the disparity in strength; however, he was able to redirect her punch over his shoulder and delivered his first strike.
It was also a simple jab; however, Lihua, who was being rapidly drawn towards him due to inertia, was unable to block a direct strike at the moment, as she'd need at least half a second to adjust.
Junjie had guessed as much as she threw herself at him with the force of a bullet and expected to ground herself by landing a strike. Since things didn't go the way she envisioned, it ended up with her getting a nasty jab straight to the stomach.
Jumping back quickly, avoiding any more potential attacks, she spat,
"You shameless bastard." Her face grew to look quite comically outraged as she was gnashing her teeth and her eyes were excessively narrowed. She continued,
"How am I supposed to bear children if you keep that nonsense up! How would you take responsibility for that, asshole!"
'Damn, she's got quite the foul mouth.'
He had thought about making a witty remark along the lines of "Who would want a woman as sharp as you?" but insightfully refrained. Had he said something like that, there would be no doubt in his mind he'd join the spirits in the underworld in less than five seconds.
He hadn't gotten arrogant just because he could stand his ground for a bit against her. At the end of the day, she was stronger, faster, and better in most other categories. If she really wanted to, she could destroy him in mere moments. So he simply replied with,
"My apologies, I had forgotten about that peculiar little detail. Forgive my ignorance this one time?" He was fairly confident she wouldn't stay mad.
Smirking at his apology, Lihua closed her eyes, raised her head slightly and breathed in as if ready to sigh and reply, but in the next moment she fiercely lunged at Junjie and reached him within a fraction of a second. With hardly any time to react, Junjie received her blow, with the full backing of her cultivation, and dropped like a bag of bricks. He had no defence against something that powerful.
Holding his stomach in agony, he was near certain she had probably damaged, and possibly ruptured, one of his internal organs. How can a sack of flesh and bones resist the power of a steel hammer after all? In all of their time sparring, Lihua had never seriously injured Junjie and only ever inflicted fleshly wounds. This marked the first, and most likely not the last, serious injury she had delivered to him.
Recovering quickly, he retreated as far back as possible without turning his back to Lihua. That would be an instant death sentence. His stomach was in pure agony, but his mind was thinking with pure clarity, as he subconsciously felt as if his life was threatened. Adrenaline kicked into overdrive, raising his physical and mental ability by a substantial amount.
When they locked eyes, it was Junjie's turn to look comically outraged. All of the stress from failure had been mounting and was now channelled into him. He was ready to fight and he was ready to win.