Page 47: Skill difference

Bang! "Ack!"

"Zhu Guozhi! Are you alright?" Long Bai asked his companion who was sent flying by East Tiger. Before the fight began, Long Bai was thinking of how to handle the opponent alone but then, this happened. Never did he know that East Tiger was a woman who gets easily taunted by being called an "auntie" and sent his companion crashing on a small house.

A moment ago, Zhu Guozhi and Long Bai tried to speak with East Tiger as the first option. Since they are just to buy some time, that was the first plan however, while conversing, Zhu Guozhi called her "auntie". Immediately, East Tiger fumed with anger and dashed towards Zhu Guozhi with a fist.

'Were all women like this? They turn into something else whenever their age is discussed?' Long Bai thought while checking on Zhu Guozhi if he's still breathing. Long Bai placed his index finger near the nose and felt some air going in and out of his nasal cavity. 'Ahh, that's a relief. He's just unconscious.'

Long Bai looked back at the angry woman whose chest is heaving up and down. 'Gee. This woman has some issues, really. But still, I should thank her for providing me an answer to my problem.' He walked towards East Tiger and waved some hello.

"Aunt East Tiger, how about we do our business over there?" He was pointing at the woods outside the base camp. Not even after a second after saying those words, East Tiger came rushing with a strong fist.

"Insolent brat!!! Die!!!"

Long Bai evaded the attack and ran towards the forest. When he looked back, East tiger was following behind. 'Heh. She's really easily taunted. Plan's going good. Just a little more and we'll be isolated.' He thought.

After reaching a 500 meter distance from the base camp, Long Bai halted his tracks and turned towards the incoming enraged woman. Looking at her status, it looks like she won't rest until she crushes her opponent. Blinded with rage, she again attacked with a fist skill.

!

The fist skill was huge. To Long Bai's vision, it looked like a wrecking ball the shape of a fist. With no time to enjoy, Long Bai reciprocated with a palm strike.

!

A wall of bluish palm collided with a reddish fist inside a forest. Upon impact, waves of vibration was sent around while at the epicenter of impact, a crater with a depth of 20 cm was created. Both parties was motionless while looking at each other. There was a stand off.

"Brat! You looked stronger than it seems. Did you happen to take some kind of pill? That's dangerous you know."

After the clash, it seemed that East Tiger regained her usual self. Her enraged self was already gone after releasing that last skill. The only thing Long Bai can speculate is that she might have had a bad start of the day and that calling her "auntie" just triggered it. Since East Tiger calmed down, Long Bai tried to talk for a while.

"Ah, sorry for deceiving you but my real cultivation is just the same as yours. You look like a sensible woman, why did you become a barbarian?"

"Kid, what do you know? This world is not as forgiving as you thought. I have been to some places and have seen multitudes of human nature. It is something a kid like can't comprehend. And by the way, are you trying to fool me by saying that you have reached the bone tempering at a young age? Haha! I'll call you grandpa if that's the case."

Long Bai just produced a beaming smile to the woman and replied, "How about trying me. If I can beat you, work for me. How about that?" Since East Tiger is a bit different from the usual barbarians. There was no bloodlust nor killing intent. She might have just become a gang leader due to her strength alone. Long Bai felt that he may be able to talk and recruit her as a guardian of the village.

"Hah! Kid, What talks best is strength. Prove it that way!" !

Now that Long Bai sees some potential partnership in her, he needed not to hold back anymore. Since they have the same strength, only the skill difference will tell who's the victor. Now's the time to try the 1st gate's effects. Before he released his skill, he pumped more inner essence into his basic palm skill.

<1st gate channel open!>

[System alert: The skill has received more essence than the usual requirement. Skill has been upgraded to . The total essence you integrated was 1.5 of the usual. Your skill has been amplified 1.5x]

"Here I come!" !

East Tiger has leaped on the air while executing her skill while Long Bai was rooted firmly on the ground while invoking his palm skill. From above, the looked like a hammer that's descending from the skies trying to break the hardest rock on the ground while Long Bai's resembled a lava palm that carried high temperatures ready to melt the hardest metal it could ever meet. The two skills met and there was an explosion. Since Long Bai's skill was an emission type, he was far from the explosion causing him to receive small amount of injury however, in the case of East Tiger, it looked like she took the full blunt of the skill. After the explosion, something dark was descending. It was East Tiger who looked charred from fist to shoulder. Although she seemed to have received heavy damage, she was still standing, strong and tall.

"Brat! That was something good but what is the gap is closed? Will you be able to meet my fist? Haaa!"

East Tiger leaped towards Long Bai quickly and executed another of her fist skill. !

Before she could land her fist on Bai's body, Bai's fist met with hers. ! And before she could react, Long Bai gave a follow- up. He spinned in the air and whipped his legs towards her head !

East tiger raised both of her arms to block the incoming attack. Long Bai's right foot heel fought with the two crossing arms that's protecting the head however since the momentum of the kick was great, adding the effects of the 1st gate, East Tiger's arms eventually gave out and suffered an attack on her parietal region of her head. With the downward momentum, her body fell forward face first to the ground.

What Long Bai executed was the skill he taught to the village kids. It was a skill that the system recognized as a strengthening type. Since the skill set can't materialize like palm strikes, beast part materialization, spirit type attacks, the essence instead is used to strengthen the body part which is in action. Aside from the natural strength of the body, the utilized essence adds up to the power and makes the seemingly simple attack explosive. This is the consequence of the skill set that don't use any weapon except parts of the body. The drawback of such martial skill is that if the person has a weak aptitude with controlling the essence in his body, the amount of strength added to the skill will be little. For a practitioner to master this skill set, one would tirelessly practice the motions and at the same time trying to control the essence into that part of the body. This is the skill which Long Bai renamed as the that he passed to the villagers. Bai even required everyone that practices the skill set to wear white clothes which he designed together with a black belt which he based from his high school days. Although it looked unusual, it rather seemed neat in Bai's eyes.

After a few minutes...

"You're awake. Can you get up yourself?" Long Bai asked while standing beside her. East Tiger looked around and then to herself. When she noticed nothing was out of the ordinary, she slowly got up of her feet while touching the top of her head.

"Ouch. It hurts, huh. Why didn't you kill me? I'm a barbarian, you know? That's how you cultivators from the sect deal with people like us."

"Huh? We had a deal, right? Don't tell me the bump on your head caused you to forget?"

Long Bai tried to ease the tension between them since they were enemies from the start.

"Uhh. If you really show me your real cultivation, I'll make the oath. If you want me to be honest, you need to show me what's real."

East Tiger's was already ready to surrender but she was just too curious about Bai's real strength. From what she sees, the person in front of her is just at the flesh tempering realm. A moment after, she felt a sudden change on the man in front. The former weak aura he was imposing has now reached the bone tempering layer. And what's more, it felt even more stronger than her.

"What.. you told me we were just on the same level, don't tell me you gained a layer after we fought?"

Long Bai don't have any reason to hide such thing. During the fight, his core was stimulated and started to spin the five smaller cores in a faster rate causing the essence around to be attracted more. This allowed him to reach the 3rd level of the bone tempering layer after the fight.

"Ahh. So you really were not lying. Since I lost, I will follow your words. "

After that ordeal, Long Bai returned his old data and went back to the main camp. As for East Tiger, Long Bai instructed her to hide first until the raid is over. Once the raid team returns to the sect, she will go to the village and serve her purpose. Since the raid team has no idea about the East Tiger's real identity aside from the name, "East Tiger", her staying on the village will be no problem.

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100 years later..

Merchant City has become busy day and night, continuously attracting visitors from neighboring islands. It is only at this city that people would be able to taste a variety of food that tastes good but naturally unhealthy. (You know what I mean.) The diverse street food and the new restaurant chains has been loved by the locals and the people who visits the place. On a typical day time, people would roam around and check the stalls for their goods. Sometimes, the people's aim was to see cultivators with cylindrical sticks or those who were wearing white shirts and pants.

"Ohh! Look! A practitioner of the Critical Sword Strikes! Honey, I wonder how many strikes you can take if you fight him."

"Dear, don't let me try. He might break my joints if you ask him. That sword style is honestly brutal although they claim it to be a defensive martial skill."

"Ohh! To the other side! Honey look! White all over with a black belt. Its a White Dragon Martial practitioner. I heard their fist and kicks can can knock a person to sleep with just one move."

"I saw them during the last interschool competition. It was a fight between the White Dragon Town against the Beast Martial school. Those white- clothed cultivators faced a beast claw head on and just received some scratches while when it was the man's turn, a single hit from him sent the other party out of the ring. What's even surprising was that the cultivator from the beast martial school was rendered unconscious. They were that strong."

"Say honey, if a Critical Sword Strike practitioner fights against a White Dragon Martial practitioner, who do you think will win? Over the years, when these two meet at the stage, they would always fight without using their skills. Whoever was stronger would triumph. There was even a time when the two parties used the rock, paper, scissors game to decide the winner. "

"Hmm. I heard that these two martial skills came from the same person."

"You mean, from the White Dragon Master?"

"That's what I heard. That's why whenever these two skills meet, they never clashed. This was their way of expressing their gratitude to the founder of those skills. Since the skills came from one person, they believe that neither from the two skills are inferior with the other."