Chapter 25

"I will give you eight hundred gold pieces, but in exchange I want to do something for the next week with you." Timothy told the guard without even hesitating. He was willing to give upwards of six hundred for an additional year, so eight hundred for an additional two years was quite a steal for him. "I wish to spar with you so I could properly prepare for any tests I may need to take to be accepted into a school.

Back in Oak Township, Timothy mainly struggled with his cultivation because he did not have a sparring partner as well as any cultivation resources, whether pills or other treasures. Normally, a cultivator would be able to spar with others regularly and potentially afford a pill, but Timothy had neither of these things which severely impacted his overall growth.

At his age, combat experience did not matter as much as overall cultivation stage and level, but because of this, Timothy could at least specialize in having more combat experience compared to his peers. More often than not, the younger generations of noble clans or influential organizations would only focus on cultivating which made them easier targets in the outside world.

"Then I will accompany the young master in his sparring sessions appropriately." the guard replied as he signed an extension contract with Timothy since it was him who had hired him in the first place. Of course, Timothy would give the contract to his parents just so they understood the timeline of it, and could continue extending it if they got along with this guard well enough.

Part of him was rather annoyed because he would have loved to hire several more guards for his family, but Boulder Village and its citizens valued his father so much that if they fell into a bad position, chances were that the citizens would protect them as if they were family. Even with this, Timothy still wished for them to have more personal protection but it was good enough to have a decent leveled cultivator present.

Upon exiting the shack, Timothy let his parents know that he would be heading out with the guard for a time and that they would see them later on in the day. His parents did not have any complaints, because they were too busy to keep an eye on them as it was between taking care of little Joshua and handling the repairs of everyone's equipment and weapons.

"Here is a good spot." After walking around the village, Timothy noticed a training type space out of the way. With the village's guards aiding in helping the citizens repair their homes or doing other tedious work,, the training space was not being used for the time being. And so him and the guard began to spar.

Master Sei instructed Timothy throughout the sparring session to help him minimize the weaknesses in both his stance and offensive maneuvers. It was agreed that for the first five days, Timothy would not be sparring with a weapon. This was so that he could learn the basics of moving his body correctly during combat so that when he began learning how to wield the sword, it would be a little more natural right away.

At first, Timothy started by rushing his opponent by using a wide kick which was easily blocked before trying to use his speed to punch his opponent in all different areas of his body. However, his opponent had much more experience in combat being a guard for an entire two decades, so he continued to block without even backing his body up.

Master Sei gave Timothy several techniques to learn that were available to body refinement cultivators that were suitable to be what he could build his foundation with. The first was a technique for Timothy to concentrate a portion of his energy into his fists and while punching the air in front of him, it would create a suction of sorts and form an invisible attack.

Falling back, Timothy began concentrating his energy into the palm of his hand, but unexpectedly, his opponent finally decided to move from where he was standing to close the distance between him and Timothy as he threw out a kick of his own. Having his concentration broken almost immediately, all Timothy could do was try to block the kick. However, to his surprise, what seemed like a high kick, was a middle kick which landed on his torso and caused him to fly backwards from the impact.

"Now you see why it is so important to be able to concentrate your energy into different parts of your body quicker than even your thoughts. If you are able to do this eventually, you would not have to worry about falling into such a non ideal situation like you were in just now." Master Sei told Timothy as Timothy began to stand back up.

The other technique that Master Sei had passed down to him, was a body movement technique. Timothy felt that if he could use it efficiently, that he would be able to use it in the future as a trump card whether to finish an opponent quickly, or to flee from a much stronger opponent who had ill intentions towards him.

Suddenly to his opponent's surprise, Timothy's stance changed. Instead of leaving his hands to his sides, they were now crossed in front of him as energy began radiating from his body. For someone only level two in body refinement, the amount of energy coming from his body was rather explosive.

His opponent felt a bit of pressure as he now began to receive whatever attack Timothy was about to use against him. And just like Timothy, his opponent's body began to release close to equal the same amount of energy. Once Timothy saw that his opponent was ready to receive his attack, he began by focusing the energy into his legs.