The Yuhao Chronicles - Volume 1 Chapter 31

Zhou Yi hearing this couldn’t help but raise her eyebrow. “Well if you think so, as your teacher, I think I deserve the right to assess those claims.”

Yuhao did a double-take hearing this. He thought that she would question him. He was a great talent and he was sure that Shrek Academy would be closely monitoring and supporting him to ensure he maximises his potential. However, he never expected his teacher of all people to challenge him. Maybe one of the other students, possibly an older one with a similar cultivation level, but never his teacher herself.

Knowing that he had no valid reason to refuse and that even if he did refuse, she would probably still fight him anyways, Yuhao accepted.

Pleased that her student didn’t try and come up with an excuse to get out of a spar, she quickly walked outside of her office and towards a nearby area with him.

As the two got ready, she spoke up, “I won’t be using my martial spirit initially. I hope you can do the same. Once I assess your basic skill and fighting ability, then we can move onto using your martial spirit.”

Hearing this, Yuhao’s face turned sour. He already realised that his fighting technique was poor and was waiting for an appropriate time to either meet or be introduced to the last remaining Tang Sect members. Since a couple of days ago, when he fought Wang Dong and realised that his military fighting techniques were not effective, he had been practising using them in conjunction with his spirit power and excellent physical attributes. While he hasn’t come a long way by any means with the techniques, he felt like he would definitely be able to block a few more of his roommates’ punches and kicks.

Not giving him a chance to let Zhou Yi know that his basic fighting ability is not up to the standard of his cultivation, she leapt forward and attacked. While she was moving fast, Yuhao could still follow her movements.

She started off with a simple right jab aiming for his left shoulder. Seeing the movement clearly, Yuhao leaned his body a little to the right while simultaneously using his left hand to deflect the blow away from him. He followed this with his own jab, aiming for her stomach in return.

She side-stepped the jab, getting on the inside of his outstretched arms and perform one rapid, but powerful punch to his torso. Even without using any spirit power, Zhou Yi’s physique was at the Spirit Emperor level.

With Yuhao’s own physique being at that level, the punch carried the same pressure and strength as two equal boxes. However, in this scenario, his teacher knew how to properly throw a punch and upon being hit, caused him to have to take several steps back.

Pushing the offensive, Zhou Yi pushed off the ground again and charged at him, only this time instead of starting with her fist, she brought her leg out in a wide arc. Yuhao used this to his advantage, dodging and laying his own punch out that connected with her waist as she moved past him with her generated momentum. With an uncanny amount of flexibility, she received the punch but lashed out with another kick at the same time that connected with his own leg. The kick made his thigh a little sore but overall made no real difference to the situation.

Yuhao seeing an opening made two consecutive jabs, one hitting her stomach and the other moving towards her right shoulder.

She received the first one, with her shoulder visibly retracting form the punch. However, unlike the first, she ducked under the second, and before he could fully retract, pulled his right arm over her shoulder, with his body following along with it. He hit the ground with a solid thud, with several rocks sticking into his back through the grass. The impact, while not causing any real damage to his body, still shook him up.

Immediately afterwards, he was forced to roll out of the way as a foot descended to where his stomach was just previously. Following on from the roll, he pushed himself up onto his feet and created some distance away from his opponent.

Zhou Yi paused seeing the distance created between them, “Well at least you know when you are outmatched and should not be in a fistfight. That does not mean that I am done with you yet. Just from that small bout, I can already sense that your fighting technique is extremely basic and seems to not be suited for spirit masters to use. I don’t know where you learnt it but rather than trying to adapt it I would suggest just finding an entirely new one.”

Yuhao nodded in understanding. He wasn’t anywhere near even being advanced in the technique. Back on Earth, as a part of the air force, you only needed limited fighting ability as most of the time you were in an aircraft. Your close combat ability had no overarching effect onto your piloting ability so over time they began reducing the hours required to train your fighting techniques and boosted air and space warfare simulations. Yuhao was more than happy to change to a new fighting technique. The only challenge was finding one.

“Forget about that for the moment. It is now time for me to assess how much you have practised with your martial spirit and your gained skills. I will only use my first spirit ring, and only if need be.” After saying this, Zhou Yi released her martial spirit, causing a white glow to surround her body.

This was something Yuhao was very interested in knowing as her spirit was never identified or written about in the original story. As the light faded, a slightly different figure appeared, with two yellow, two purple and two black rings appearing at her feet. All but one of these rings had their aura suppressed completely, giving a close representation of simply fighting a powerful Spirit Master.

Due to her spirit, Zhou Yi’s skin had become even more white than before, with her nails elongating by a few inches. Her whole bodily figure had become more slender and refined, while also giving off the effect of her being ready to pounce at any given moment.

Something that Yuhao had never felt before also happened. Seeing this new form due to the release of her spirit, Yuhao, in the back of his mind, felt a sense of support and protection. This wasn’t an emotion that arose from his own mind and feelings, but something deeper, as if it arose through his blood.

As he was confused, Amra spoke up for the first time in many days, “What you are feeling right now is as a result of my bloodline. The woman across from you has a Light Panther martial spirit. You will feel a similar feeling when meeting with the majority of feline-type beast spirits in the future, as they all have an instinctive feeling to support and assist feline beasts that have ascended.”

Yuhao nodded, “Thanks for letting me know, Amra.”

“No worries. I would suggest you use all three of your skills in this coming bout. The previous fight was pretty sad.”

Yuhao acknowledged his response, before focusing on his opponent once more. He quickly released his Spirit Eyes secretly and his Steel Space Dragon, with one yellow and two purple rings appearing at his own, respective feet. Knowing he needs to be at his best, Yuhao used his Spiritual Detection and War Beast’s Blessing skills, allowing him to see every movement by his opponent and increasing his physical and elemental defence by fifty per cent

As soon as he was prepared, Zhou Yi moved, this time pouncing on him. Her speed had improved however with his detection skill active, she was easily tracked. He got into a ready stance as she made her first attack, blocking the punch with his arm, feeling very little impact due to his increased defence and countering with a leg sweep.

His teacher dodged this by jumping high over him, flipping over his body and gracefully landing behind him. She quickly turned around and moved to slash his open back with her sharpened, elongated nails, however, was suddenly stopped due to a black shield that had mysteriously appeared in front of her hand.

Surprised, but not backing away, she attacked with her left hand this time, only to be stopped again as the shield quickly moved to be in her way again. Deciding to step up the fight, she bounded back a few metres and activated her first spirit ring. She realised that without using her ring, the combination of her student’s defence-based spirit and incredible physique would allow him to ignore the majority of her attacks.

As her first yellow ring flashed, her entire body began glowing slightly. This ring provided her with a skill named Light Panther Radiant Body. It increased her speed and strength by fifty per cent and is just the thing she needs to break through Yuhao’s defence. Just as she was about to move, she noticed Yuhao’s third spirit ring flash. This caused her to stop to observe what changed, which proved to be a bad mistake as she immediately felt a force impact the side of her body. It pushed her several metres away, with her performing a spectacular show of agility to correct herself from falling.

Looking back to where the force came from, she just managed to catch the sight of a purple portal closing and vanishing. Zhou Yi laughed at not only her student’s ability to catch her off guard by hiding the skill activation behind his body but also her silliness to not expect a space-related ability to come from him. In hindsight that was stupid of her since it is directly stated in his martial spirit name.

Wanting to finish the fight, she used her spirit power to boost her speed a little faster, quickly disappearing from her spot and reappearing in front of her target. She pounced on him, planning to tackle him to the ground, only for a portal to open up directly in front of her. Being in the air, this caused her to be unable to stop her momentum and carried her through the portal, which just so happened to have its exit point facing the ground.

Yuhao with this move was hoping to get some payback for being slammed into the ground himself. Contrary to his expectations, Zhou Yi used the force directed at the ground to spring herself against the floor and towards him at an even faster speed. Not having enough time to activate his portal ring again, he directed his shell guardian skill to appear in her path.

Already aware of this skill, she grabbed on to the floating shield when it appeared in front of her and used it as a means to launch herself in the direction that Yuhao side-stepped to. Yuhao through his detection skill was aware of this movement however his body was just unable to move in time with his thoughts. She caught him mid-movement and with her momentum tackled him to the ground. Using her reflexes, she managed to land in the dominant position, with her sharpened claws pointing directly at his face.

Seeing the situation and his defeat, Yuhao let his spirits and skills fade out.