Chapter 9:

Nevertheless, I didn't expect my dad information network to be that up to date with the monkey thing and having to compete against three cultivators at the rebirth realm isn't really reassuring because I've spend the last, what felt like, 30 years feeling sorry for myself while watching anime; I can't really say I'm the best fighter around… Oh well, I guess I'll figure it out in due time.

Meanwhile, Xian had returned to the cage to see that the feverish little one was being nursed by the peasant from before.

- "Oh, thank you, but I'll take care of him now."

- "Ah, you gave me-self sa much and couldn't let the poor thing alone."

Quickly Xian took out one of the heavenly water fruits, it was a little translucent ball about the size of a plum filled with blue liquid and had what look like an air bubble in it. Our little cultivator helped the monkey sit, the beast was really not looking good with its foot inflated and bruised all over. Immediately after it consume the medicine, we could see results: the breathing slowed down to take on an healthier rhythm, its face lost its burning redness and it got more relaxed. Those were promising results, now the problem was to actually operate on his own mother and the possible meridians he had at his disposition were not at the same cultivation tier. Even though Xian got lucky with that the big red monkey because it has an higher cultivation than normal, it's only at the peak of the earth realm and his mom is at the heaven and earth one there was a big possibility for more complication.

I could try to help the monkey cultivate but I'm not sure if human technique can work with them and if I will be able to get it to cooperate with me… It could be worth a try and at the same time I will give me the opportunity to revise my technique. After all teaching is but another form of learning. Plus, I only have about two weeks before the tournament and after that I fear my mom won't have the motivation to keep going so I need to operate before that and the environment surrounding the sect doesn't have a more suitable donor.

Since time wasn't on his side Xian hurried to his new student who was sitting on his knees: waiting with his hands on its hips and its shoulder relax. It looked like he was demanding a duel. Xian though it was odd, even though he knew those animals had some form of honor, in his eyes they were still just a bunch of monkeys. Anyway, he shouted to get the red swordsman attention:

- "HEY! I'm going to train you and make you stronger."

The monkey did not budge at all since it doesn't speak human and Xian felt very embarrassed about trying to talk with a beast. His embarrassment quickly transform into anger as he was too proud to admit defeat after coming so far. So, he got in the cage and the monkey remembering the last time they fought jumped on his feet and took a defensive stance.

- "No, I don't want to fight with you, I want to train you…"

Just like the monkey, Xian felt like he had his back against the wall not sure how to proceed with this. Therefore, he sat down and conclude that the first step would be to try and establish that he wasn't going to hurt the monkey… Easier said than done. For about 3 hours, they just stayed face to face with no progression at all, the big guy still hadn't move.

- "Ah, maybe he thinks I can't attack as long as he keep his ground… This is such a pain. I wonder what the peasant would do. Come to think of it I don't even know his name nor the one of my servant."

This was an odd realization. Even though it's true that all his childhood he has been told that the path of cultivation is a hard one where one needs to stand strong by himself and he never really considered that he wanted to be alone but… He can't really say that he has friends and even if he's not in conflict with his family it's not like he feel super close to them. Since, he's 8 years old he lives in his own quarter to facilitate his cultivation. That made him think:

- "Don't I have a sister?"

Aren't I a terrible brother to not even go see her after 15 years? She was what? 2 years old before I left. I wondered if that's normal for a brother in this world to not even be sure of his sister's age, I mean its not like we ever really spend time together. I think in total we might have see each other about five hours since she was born because I was too busy having to cultivate, you know the whole having to get strong part.

All this time the monkey was observing our protagonist who was leaning backward on his hands, looking at the sky or in this case the ceiling of the cage completely lost in his thoughts. However, this one was on his guards he knew how quick and how strong the child sitting in front of him could be. But has time went on he started to think that maybe the human didn't want to kill him, so he sat down without sheathing his tail, of course, as he was still wary of this cultivator. When he did Xian was slowly coming back to reality and he let out a sigh as what he was thinking about was somewhat depressing.

- "Alright I'll make up for all this after everything is over, I'm not gonna get a girl if I keep going around like this; I don't want to be one of those immortal virgins."

As he said that Xian stood up. Of course, the big guy did the same still unsure what was happening, but the little kid just, got out of the cage. About, 5 minutes later he came back with a bunch of logs on his back each at least twice is size in diameter and 4 meters long. Now Xian was going to show him the technique called destroyer of gods it's basically a strengthening technique with 5 different set of moves for the 4 limbs of the body. So, he put a log next to the monkey and one in front of him and slowly activated his technique. First, he was going to show what it does, then it was going to try to make the monkey understand he need to try learning it and finally he will mimic it to make the beast understand how to do it. Since it's a magical beast a strengthening technique should be usable and profitable enough to make it reach the earth and heaven tier which is nowhere near his mother tier level in terms of strength but animal are usually stronger than human so it had a possibility to work and with the addition of the heavenly water fruit the operation should be fine. All of this meant that this was a decisive moment: whether or not the monkey mountain samurai was going to understand how the technique works was about to determine the operation success rate.

Xian took his stance and punched the log making it broke in half leaving wood chips all over the ground. The monkey that had been observing this strange scene all along took this as some form of challenge and effortlessly, without even taking a stance, smash his log with the back of his hand into pieces.

- "Oh, so beast really have high natural strength."

However, Xian still hadn't used his technique he just wanted to show the difference of strength between using it and not using it. Therefore, he picked up another log from the pile and placed it in front of him and like last time he took the same stance but when he threw his punch it was so fast that the log evaporated in its entirety leaving not a single wood chip. The beast was stun by this demonstration of strength and when Xian put another in front of it, the swordsman though he had to show even bigger destruction, so he readied is tail in a kendo fashion, crouch his leg and leap forward striking down his sword with all the strength in his body. Suddenly, he was stopped, the monkey couldn't move an inch as his blade was stuck in between Xian fingers who look completely unfazed. Xian shook his head in disapproval trying to communicate without words he calmly approach the creature to point at its fist and started mimicking his stance but slowly to make sure the red guys could see how he wanted it to punch the log. However, the samurai was frozen in fear as its strongest technique had been blocked with such ease he understood that in front of this terrifying cultivator he was nothing but a toy. Meanwhile, Xian realizing the beast wasn't moving at all he decided to make it move, thankfully this one didn't seem to resist when he made it move its arms and legs to take Xian attack stance. Then all he had to do was to show the punch once again on another log and then point the log in front of the beast to inform it to do the same. It really wasn't obvious from the animal point of view what the human wanted to do but it got that this child wanted it to punch, so, that's what it did.

- "Finally, you're starting to understand big guy!"

It was already night fall when the monkey started to practice but it really took a full night of repeating the same punch for it to realize that Xian was trying to teach him. At that point the monkey stop, stood up straight and face the first subject monkey in the next cage that had been observing them and grunted at him while placing his sword on his head. Relatively confused at that scene Xian silently observe as the one in the cage inflate its chest to let out a quick but powerful screech all the while hitting the ground with its tail. The big guy puffed out his chest in response and then sight at the ground to finally turn towards Xian with determine eyes.

- "I take that you finally made up your mind."

Now that the situation seemed to have corrected itself a bit, the hope to make that beast a strong one was starting to appear on Xian face in the shape of a smile. Who would of knew that teaching could be so fun; seeing this monkey that couldn't understand a word he was saying still manage to learn from him was somewhat fascinating. Of course, there were consistently moment where it was just impossible to make it understand what he was trying to say. By example, the biggest challenge was to explain how to manipulate your Qi through the muscles and to make it explode on impact. Because, for Xian that type of movement just seem obvious so trying to explain something you do by instinct to someone who don't even speak your language is peculiar to say the least.

This forced Xian to meditate a lot on how his techniques works and gave him better insight on how those techniques actually came to be in the first place and maybe how they could be improved in the future. So, while his student practice each set of moves he sat and reflect on his three main techniques.

First, the destroyer of gods might seem very simple in appearance because it's the same as moving an arm but when you try to understand all the mechanics involve to make it work it become an action much more interesting. Basically, a muscle can only contracts and the way it does it, is by inserting energy in it. So, what Qi does is follow that movement and push the muscles accordingly to exert more strength. In simpler term, when I draw a punch every muscle that contracts receive external help to contract even faster. But, what if I could also utilize the Qi energy like some sort of substitute to protein which would help the muscles contracts faster directly from the inside that way I could execute everything much better. Also, what I learn of the technique are only suitable for the legs and arms, but shouldn't I be able to use it for my heart and diaphragm too that way I could regulate my blood flow and oxygen sourcing.

Xian stood up to try his first hypothesis out on one of the logs. His first try was a blatant failure but not only that it was just impossible for him to use his Qi to directly contract all of his muscles. Even when he closed his eyes and focus on only one at a time he only succeed in activating about 0.1 % of the said muscles. Forget about using it in combat for now this is something he will have to practice heavily in order to master. However, his idea to also use the technique on the heart and diaphragm only took him about an hour to master and prove to substantially improve his stamina which doesn't help him punch stronger but could definitely show benefits in battle.

For his other techniques, the heaven shadow punch, can't really be optimize with anything else than augmenting the amount of Qi the cultivator has because this technique is a punch that his drawn from the user's shadow with magic and his mostly use as a finisher. So, unless you got more magic you won't punch harder. On the other hand, the seal of the ten thousand divine beast arrays, even thought it is purely magic based, the way it function is peculiar. Because, it can multiply the output of Qi from the user by thousands of times the original amount. No matter how many times he turned the idea in his head it just didn't seem to make any sense. Of course, he could have settled with just saying it's magic, so it works but lately Xian found way more interesting the mechanics of cultivation than cultivation itself. Therefore, he decided to draw the full array that way he might see something interesting. After he was done, he admire his work and well… that's about it! Just looking at it, kinda look normal, he had no idea why it work at all. He decided to leave it at that for today and went to see how his student was doing.