The days that followed were quieter, but the quiet only made
the memory louder.
Every time Jin closed his eyes, he saw the split—steel through flesh, the sound
of bones giving way like rotten wood.
He trained by the river still, but whenever the halberd cut the air, he swore
he could smell blood riding the wind.
“Momentum, huh,” he muttered once, staring at his reflection trembling in the
water. “Maybe it’s not the world I’m moving… maybe it’s just what’s left of
me.”
Bao Kun never asked about it, and Jin never spoke of it
again. But that night, when the old man told him training would resume at dawn,
Jin simply nodded.
If he couldn’t wash the blood away, he’d have to swing until the weight stopped
crushing him.
Bao Kun starts to explain what the training plan and its purpose is “Up till this point when using momentum have you ever considered why you have been able to output such excessive amounts of force”. Jin replies “Although I realised the force up till now has been some what powerful, I wasn’t aware that it could be referred to excessive”. Bao Kun then stats to explain why he had brought this up “Lets assume you have a hundred points to distribute across strength, speed, and defence. Up till now you have only learned how to use momentum for strength, however, in reality when in combat one’s speed, defence, and experience is imperative to win a fight. From now I will teach you how to distribute the momentum you have, across all three attributes”
Although Bao Kun’s explanation was satisfactory, he’d held back on telling Jin that he also has an abnormal amount of momentum within him for someone who has only trained for 2 months. Bao Kun started training Jin on How to use momentum to increase one’s speed first. The plan was simple “From now I will chase you, every time I catch you I will beat the life out of you.”. Jin replied “Sounds simple enou…, what did you just sa--” at that moment Bao Kun charged at Jin with an unprecedented speed.
Jin had seen this scene before, he remembered vividly. The sight of a tiger chasing a deer, He could see the deer’s desire for life within the way it moved a plain as day. Before this day he could only acknowledge what the deer was going through as he saw its desperate movements and frantic eyes as the tiger caught up to it, but at this very moment he could truly sympathize with the deer. A large hand caught his shoulders, and at that very moment Jin truly understood the deer’s emotions at the very end.
Jin opened his eyes, his memory was blurry, but he had a faint feeling that something primal just happened to him. Noticing Jin wake up Bao Kun spoke “It seems you are ready for round 2” at this very moment, Jin felt his life flashing before his eyes. He’d recalled what had happened before he had passed out almost instantly. Jin almost immediately started running from his master. Bao Kun shouted, “Brat you better drive your momentum into your legs before I drive my fist into your skull”.
And so the cycle of life and death repeated. During the second chase Jin, learned to start using his surroundings to throw of his master. However, he was still far to slow to escape Bao Kun’s grasp. In the third cycle Jin didn’t learn a new skill, but he realised that no matter how much faster he got he could never grow faster than his master. By the fifth cycle minimise wasted movements from turns, although this allowed him to escape Bao Kun’s grasp for longer, it wouldn’t matter much when Bao Kun dashed towards him. By the eight cycle Jin realised the only way to escape the dash was to predict Bao Kun’s movements before it happened. The realisation he’d gained by the eight cycle was imperative to movement in battle, realising this Bao Kun intentionally gave Jin an out when ever he was able to refine this understanding. By the 20th cycle Jin was able to predict Bao Kun’s movements with around a 50% accuracy.
Jin at this point was able to run from Bao Kun for at best 5 minutes before he’d get caught. By the 50th cycle Jin realised even if his basics in movement were strong he simply lacked the speed to escape Bao Kun. By the 100th cycle almost 3 days in, of which he spent around 9 hours running, and the rest passed out from his beatings Jin had finally gained an insight. As he woke he screamed “It seems this grand master has finally grasped the meaning of life and death through the great “Dog Beating Stick Method”. Bao Kun’s expression twisted severely, he responded sounding almost enraged “Then it would be only prudent if I put forward a greater effort to help the grand master consolidate his learnings”.
The cycles continued, and at the 115th cycle Jin
finally grasped how to drive momentum to his legs. He understood the core of
directing energy with momentum, that being using a strong will to direct energy
to various parts of his body and directing what it would do there. When he
tried to drive momentum into his legs, it was like forcing fire into veins
meant for blood—every step burned, every heartbeat felt too heavy to carry.
The ground seemed to drag at him, refusing to let go, as if the earth itself
demanded payment for each breath.
There came a point when his lungs stopped gasping and
started pulsing with the rhythm of the chase.
It wasn’t just strength anymore—momentum felt like a second heartbeat, pounding
through bone and sinew, shoving the world aside with every stride.
When he finally caught the rhythm, the air split
differently—each step rippled outward, like the world was a pond and he was
learning how to walk across its surface.
The burn in his legs didn’t fade; it deepened, turned solid, like molten iron
cooling into steel.
Finally at 130th run Jin had finally managed to escape Bao Kun’s grasp for nearly 15 minutes, after almost 2 weeks of being chased like a prey animal. When Bao Kun had finally signalled the end of the speed training Jin was almost relieved, that was un till Bao Kun said “Now that you understand how to use momentum to increase your speed, its time to learn to use momentum to fortify your defences.
Jin felt an intense sense of foreboding, he’d recalled a scene of a bear thrashing at a man in the forest. He remembered as the bears paws alm— “enough of your contemplation, time to receive my fist”. And so began Jin’s training in using momentum to protect himself. Contrary to Bao Kun’s expectations Jin picked up this one within a week’s time. Bao Kun knew that using momentum for defence was harder to comprehend than speed, the time needed to pick up the basics to defending oneself and the time to build a will strong enough to drive momentum to defend was by no means short.
Although Bao Kun knew that Jin’s smart mouth helped him receive a beating far too often, he knew that much alone wouldn’t be enough. Knowing bits and pieces of Jin’s upbringing Bao Kun understood why he picked up defence so quickly, out of some twisted form of caring for his disciple he choose not to bring up the matter.
When it came to using momentum for defence Jin felt like moment was reverberating within his body. When he received a blow from Bao Kun the blow would permeate through his body like a wave, to combat this his momentum would form smaller waves in quick succession to wear down the blow before it could do much damage. After some time spent, consolidating using momentum for defence, Jin’s hellish training finally came to an end.
After a few days of rest Jin’s condition returned to its peak, Jin realised sleeping by choice seemed to help recovery far more than the alternative. Jin had now reached a state where he could use momentum to attack, defend, and to be faster. He understood instinctively that to bring his combat to the next stage from here he’d have to learn how to use them all in tandem. After speaking to Bao Kun for a bit, it was decided, despite Jin’s fear of fighting that he developed from his last encounter he understood the only way to advance from here was to fight opponents on a similar level.
At the end of a 3 week long training session, Jin and Bao Kun had decided to leave Shuimeng. From now on Jin would be fighting qi cultivators, and the beginning of the legend of Grand Luo River’s Halberd Beggar.
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