Daily life of a cultivation judge-Chapter 948: Better teacher

"You’ve made substantial improvement," Yang Qing said as he reached his hand out to the panting Ma Yuan who looked like he would pass out at any second. His breathing was labored, and his clothes and hair were sticking tightly to his skin heavy with sweat that was so dense that it looked like someone had dumped his whole body into the pond.

Only he knew that wasn’t the case.

"That was still the same art?" Ma Yuan asked in disbelief as he clasped Yang Qing’s hand to help himself up. His knees almost gave out as he was standing, with his entire body devoid of strength.

"It is," Yang Qing said as he waved his hand drawing some of the green mist from the green flame tree and soaking Ma Yuan in it.

A second later Ma Yuan’s legs and body stopped shaking and his breathing started regulating as his swellings went down and the color of his skin went back to normal especially a few patches that were red, green, and blue from impact injury.

He couldn’t help but take a deep breathe as he closed his eyes soaking in the gentle and warm sensation that was covering his body alleviating all the pain and fatigue he had accumulated in his spar against Yang Qing which though lasted just half an hour felt like he had been fighting for a whole week without pause.

As he recalled those thirty minutes he found his body shivering inadvertently because of what he had endured. For those thirty minutes, he had been beaten up like a rag doll and no matter what measures he employed he couldn’t avoid nor escape Yang Qing’s flurry of attacks.

He still found it hard to believe the attacks were from the mortal’s path of transcendence. If Yang Qing told him he had used a purple-grade art, Ma Yuan would have believed him.

His gaze turned contemplative as his focus fell on his hands, replaying the spar, specifically every move Yang Qing employed, the way he did, the movements of his body, the amount of force he used, and the flow of his attacks. He tore it apart and dissected it piece by piece to draw any inference from it so he could incorporate it.

If he could replicate just a third of what Yang Qing had shown, then he had the confidence to truly hold his own against any early-stage core formation expert, and if a middle-stage expert dared let their guard down, using the art, there was a good chance he could heavily injure them.

He could feel the fighting spirit of his youth from a few hundred years ago when he had just started cultivating, get reignited. However, that spirit got doused slightly when he remembered the handicap Yang Qing had used on him in the fight.

Yang Qing had suppressed his cultivation base to the late stage of the foundation establishment realm, and when it came to art, Yang Qing said he would lower it to the level of understanding Ma Yuan showed.

Yet, despite the handicap, Ma Yuan had been helpless throughout the spar, being restricted and forced into a passive situation where he could only take the beating and even then the most he could out for was just half an hour, any more and he would be half way to meeting his wife.

How he was defeated, especially the handicaps was the reason why he was in disbelief on whether Yang Qing was using the same art he was as, especially when one considered that Yang Qing had said he would restrict his display to the level of understanding that Ma Yuan had.

That was the part he struggled hardest with. If the display was lowered to his level, how come it all felt foreign to him to the point he suspected Yang Qing of using a different technique. This thought in turn bred another question in him.

If its watered-down version was this much of an eye-opener for him, then how would the real thing look like if Yang Qing executed it in earnest. Manifesting his full understanding of it. That thought was what made his heart race in excitement as he could potentially see what awaited him on this road if he kept following it.

The more proficient he became with the art, the better he could protect Ma Ling, and he could also train her in it, which would be an added layer of protection for her. He couldn’t help but get excited at the prospect but he quickly calmed himself down so he could dissect the spar with a clear head.

The more he could dissect, the better the harvest would be, and the quicker he would improve. His target for now was to be able to replicate close to 80% of what Yang Qing had shown during the spar, and he hoped to do that before Ma Ling’s treatment was completed, which by Yang Qing’s estimates should be no more than three months. He needed to learn as much as he could within that timeframe.

"Thank you, Yang Qing," Ma Yuan said, as he sighed inwardly at how much he owed Yang Qing. This was a debt he could never hope to repay.

"It’s nothing much," Yang Qing said as he waved his hands dismissively.

"Learn as much as you can, and we will have the same spar three days from now under the same conditions. The goal is for you to survive longer than you have now. It doesn’t matter if you prolong it by a millisecond, a second, or a minute, it will count just the same as long as you beat today’s time.

That will be the goal of every spar session. For you to overcome the previous limit. It’s the best way to track your improvement every three days," he added as he turned to make his way to his seat by the entrance of his courtyard. He felt slightly famished after the spar, a feeling he knew was just a subconscious habit from his body refinement days where the training sessions would leave him hungry like a starved ghoul.

Ma Yuan didn’t say anything, choosing to bow to his waist to the departing Yang Qing, before sitting down in a meditative posture to replay the entire spar frame by frame, second by second. Luckily even though his core was shattered, he still had the soul strength of a core formation cultivator which made it easy for him to analyze the fight with extreme depth and richness that it would feel no different than reliving that fight.

By the time Yang Qing reached his seat, Ma Yuan was already in deep meditation.

Read latest chapters at freёweɓnovel.com Only.

Yang Qing poured himself a cup of heart-cleansing jasmine tea and over a dozen spring rolls and pan-fried dumplings which still retained the same heat and sensation as if they had just come from the kitchen.

Yang Qing closed his eyes and cupped his hand which he used to scoop the wafting steam coming from the dumplings and bring it to his nose, letting out a satisfied sigh in the process before finally giving in to the aromatic scent and going for one of the golden, perfectly crisp pan-fried dumplings.

He quickly bit into it, a satisfying crunching sound produced in the process, followed by the explosion of the juices of the perfectly marinated pork encased within. In no time the dumpling was already gone and he was reaching out to another with his free hand as he licked the other. He ate five in a row before he finally decided to go for the tea he had poured.

He switched his gaze over to Ma Yuan whose brows kept twisting and relaxing.

"I hope two months will be enough. If only Kang Huilang were around, he would have trained him better," Yang Qing muttered with a sigh.

The mortal’s path to transcendence was built for the ordinary, and perseverance and discipline were some of the things it demanded of its user especially where talent was low.

But in as much as it was built for the ordinary, it reached its true heights in the hands of the gifted. Those who had the talent and the discipline breathed life into the art that no amount of perseverance ever could and it was especially so in the hands of a few individuals.

While Yang Qing counted himself as one of those individuals, Zhang Qinggee being another, there was one person, in particular, he always believed that art was tailor-made for, and that was Kang Huilang.

An art that was aimed at building the basics of all forms of combat from fist to palm, to weapons like swords, spears, and sabers. So of course, it would flourish in the hands of a yellow-haired gambler who could perfectly master different types of intents without conflict.

When Kang Huilang executed the art, it was something else. One could almost hear the art itself exclaim in pure joy at being used by him.

While he had no basis for it, Yang Qing truly believed that when it came to the mortal’s path to transcendence art, Kang Huilang’s use of it would likely surpass its creator if they were at the same level. The art was built for him, the same way the universal origin myriad world’s light cultivation art was built for him.

It was for this reason, that though Yang Qing was intimately familiar with the mortal’s path to transcendent art, even having borrowed inspiration from it when he improved a red-grade art into a blue-grade art, he felt that if Kang Huilang was the one guiding Ma Yuan for these two months, the amount of gains Ma Yuan would achieve as a result would surpass what he would gain learning from Yang Qing.

After all, the near abnormal familiarity Kang Huilang had with it, there was a lot he could teach Ma Yuan and even perfectly tailor it to Ma Yuan’s state. While Yang Qing was doing a well enough job of it now, there was a difference if it was done by someone whose understanding rivaled that of its creator.

Ma Yuan learning from Kang Huilang would be no different than learning from a younger version of the art’s creator. But alas, Kang Huilang was at the mountain breaking through to the palace realm. Yang Qing could only hope that he would make it out in time before Ma Yuan left.

"We can only take it a day at a time," murmured Yang Qing as he brought his focus back to his dumplings and spring rolls. Just as he was about to reach for one, his eyes flickered a little as he looked behind.

"It seems like she’ll be joining them too," muttered Yang Qing as he let out a nostalgic sigh, as the silhouette of a lady appeared around the bend of the road leading to where he was.