Teaching (2)

"Good."

Shui waited for Ryan as he came in for an attack. Ryan raised the sword for an overhead swing and dashed towards Shui. From his eyes, it was obvious that he had no experience against a real opponent, however, the stances were at least solid. Shui was no master of the sword, but he could at least tell what an amaetur looked like.

When he was in range to swing the sword, Lily looked at the two in worry. She didn't think that Shui was being reckless, but the height difference between the two still caused worry to sprout in her heart.

'Don't get hurt, don't get hurt, don't get hurt.'

By the time Ryan started to swing down, Shui had already thought of six ways to beat him. The obvious swing wasn't slow, but it was nowhere near fast enough to hit with him being aware of it. Probably due to his own reservations regarding hitting an unarmed foe, the swing was aimed at his shoulder instead of his head. While Shui could choose a subtle way of countering, that wouldn't be enough to make Ryan understand his faults.

"Terrible."

Before he knew it, the sword was parried by the back of Shui's hand and then he was punched in the stomach before being flipped to the ground. While Ryan writhed in pain on his back, Shui looked down at him.

"Stay there for a bit. If you fight like that when I come back then there's no point in us continuing."

His words seemed harsh but Ryan understood that he was at fault for underestimating Shui. For a true master like him, it was obvious that even unarmed he wouldn't be able to beat him.

After leaving Ryan on the ground, Shui went to Lily. Since she was a complete beginner, he started by having her fully draw the bow and stay like that. She was a cultivator and the string wasn't made to be difficult to pull, so this was just to get her used to the bow. Then, he went back to Ryan.

"Get up."

Once he said so, Ryan quickly got to his feet and faced him.

"Don't hold back this time."

"Yes."

This time, Ryan came at him with the sword at his lower body, pointed to the ground. The first strike was a horizontal slash aimed at his head. Shui could still clearly see through his moves, but it wasn't as bad as before. After stepping back to dodge this strike, a vertical strike followed but that was also dodged with a sidestep. While still remaining in range, Shui narrowly evaded every one of Ryan's attacks while paying attention to Ryan's mental and physical state. After nearly an hour passed, Shui thought it was enough and caught the blade of the sword with his right thumb and index finger.

"Your stamina isn't bad. You should be able to handle fighting against a weak evolved beast."

"Th, thanks."

Once the battle stopped, Ryan collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. Lily was also tired but it couldn't be compared to Ryan who constantly put his full strength into swinging at Shui for an hour. As Ryan rested, Shui began teaching Lily how to shoot.

Nearly an hour later, Shui thought it was time that they did what they came here to do and used the combination of his one-star nebula soul, aura mastery and vitality awareness to find a suitable opponent for them. After leading them on a short walk, the encounter happened.

It had the body of a deer, but the rows of jagged teeth in its mouth didn't match the image of a herbivore. This evolved beast was a carnage deer and was said to be the descendant of ninelight reindeers and shark mermen. Similar to the horned boar they faced last time, it hadn't become a beast spirit so the three of them had nothing to worry about.

"Okay, you two, fight this."

""Huh???""

Although they sort of expected it, it was a tall order for them to face an evolved beast after the little training they had.

"Don't worry, you won't die."

Even after his assurance that they would keep their lives, the two remained hesitant. However, as the carnage deer drooled as it neared them, Ryan gulped down on his saliva and took a step forward.

"Let's do this sis."

Just by looking at his back, Lily knew that Ryan was just as scared as she was; if they were by themselves then running would have been the obvious choice. However, they were the ones to accept Shui's offer. They were the ones who didn't want to be trampled on. Therefore it was their responsibility to follow through. Before they could use the excuse that they couldn't be reckless, had no training, had no one to rely on, but that wouldn't work this time.

Since they had agreed to this, even if they failed, they had to at least try.

"Okay, I'll try to give you supporting fire but don't blame me if I miss and hit you."

"No, I'm gonna have to blame you for that sis."

"Do you want me to help or not?"

"Uh, be careful."

Shui stood at the side and watched Ryan slowly draw closer to the carnage deer. It was an evolved beast with agility greater than a deer, but luckily its aggressive nature would stop it from using cunning techniques.

'Let's see, I hope they can last for at least a minute.'

When Ryan reached two cales in front of it, the carnage deer's back legs pounded the ground and it launched at him with its pointy antlers. The sudden impact pushed Ryan back a few feet but he managed to hold his ground against the carnage deer's charge.

With the sword Shui lent him, Ryan blocked the charge and resisted the carnage deer, but that didn't last long. A few minutes after colliding, the carnage deer pulled back its antlers and instead used them to knock Ryan away with a smack to his side.

The attack caught Ryan off-guard so he was defenseless for a moment, and obviously the carnage deer wouldn't miss this chance. Luckily, Lily didn't allow it to do so. Though she couldn't do it until now since Ryan's body had blocked the carnage deer's figure, with both of them in profile view she was confident she could make the shot.

Right before the carnage deer charged at Ryan once more, an arrow flew into its side.

"Hrgh!!!"

The carnage deer stumbled backwards in pain as blood leaked from where the arrow was stuck. This level of accuracy wasn't that impressive considering the short distance, but for someone who literally barely learned the basics of archery, Lily did well. For a normal human, learning archery could take years but this was not the case for cultivators. Since even a Mortal Realm cultivator would be strong enough to handle a normal bow, the only thing they needed to work on would be their accuracy and stability. As long as it wasn't to the level of using it against other cultivators, then any cultivator of at least middle Mortal Realm could easily master archery in short time.

"Yes, I did it!" Lily exclaimed after landing her first shot.

"Thanks. Would have liked a headshot though."

"Don't be ridiculous."

Though the two were bickering mid-battle, Shui didn't say anything since he knew they were still focused. After getting shot by an arrow, the carnage deer looked warily and anxiously at the three humans. It really didn't think it would encounter such a situation the first time it went to the edge of the forest.

When the carnage deer looked to be slowly backing away into the forest, Ryan ran after it.

"We can't let it get away!"

Shui agreed with him but not with his method.

'Let's see how she handles it.'

Once Ryan got close enough to the beast, it suddenly rammed into him and sent him flying to the ground, groaning in pain, before rushing towards Lily. The wound she gave it must have caused it to put her on a higher priority than Ryan. When she saw the carnage deer ram Ryan and rush towards her, she was worried both for Ryan and for herself. She attempted to fire another arrow at the charging beast but it completely missed the target due to her shaking hands.

"Ah!"

By the time she nocked another arrow, the beast was so close that she became too afraid to shoot. As its sharp antlers came at her, she inadvertently shut her eyes. Not long after, she heard the sound of an impact but felt nothing.

Lily slowly reopened her eyes and saw Shui's hand grabbing the right antler of the beast.

"We'll stop training here for today."