Skill Evolution

Upon realizing that his injuries were no longer healing after killing each enemy, Qing Shan began to panic. While before he had not been taking his fights seriously, knowing he could almost easily kill every single copy, he was now realizing that he would basically be fighting hundreds of figures one-by-one, with his only boon being unlimited stamina.

Qing Shan's hand unconsciously moved toward his locket–his last resort in dreadful situations. At the moment, all he wanted to was escape.

Qing Shan saw something that had never happened before. He saw a large flash radiating from his locket, and saw the room and every single figure inside it shake. Unfortunately, the light quickly died down, and Qing Shan remained in the trial.

Qing Shan quickly deduced what had happened. The trial area was the domain of whatever figure had used it as a trash dump. It would make sense that nothing less than another cultivator breaking through the original domain would allow the use of items containing pocket dimensions.

Qing Shan fell even further into despair upon realizing this. His reasoning was sound, and he was almost definitely correct. This meant that he had no choice but to fight doggedly until he breathed his last.

'No!'

Qing Shan shook his head vehemently.

'I will not breathe my last breath here! I refuse to die until I get my revenge!'

Qing Shan opened his eyes slowly, a violent, yet controlled, fire burning in his eyes. It was as if every real person facing his gaze would fall back in shock. This was definitely not the killing-intent that could possibly be radiated from a man who has never killed another human.

Qing Shan tried to hone his anger, hoping to unleash that berserk rage that he had unleashed twice before. Unfortunately, Qing Shan had his suspicions that the blind rage was not something he could conjure up willingly.

With every other possibility exhausted, Qing Shan resolved to kill every being he came across in this trial, and that he would not leave until he had more than when he came in. He was going to pass this trial!

Qing Shan dove forward, rushing headlong into hundreds of battles.

Qing Shan thrusted, and struck with his Staff, and used its sides to block attacks. He put down his Staff and launched flurry after flurry of punches and kicks. Qing Shan grappled with his copies, throwing them to the ground and stomping them dead. Qing Shan weaved around their attacks, moving like the wind as he read each of his copies tells and dodged accordingly. Qing Shan fought the best he could, but after only five dozen copies were killed did Qing Shan find that he had lost most of the range of motion in his left arm due to bruising. He had also broken a rib.

However, Qing Shan kept fighting, too high on adrenaline to notice the pain.

As he fought, Qing Shan felt his fighting technique begin to evolve. He no longer hesitated before going for a grapple, and stopped every single one of his unnecessary movements during his thrusts and strikes. Qing Shan noticed that he could predict his copy's movements just by noticing the slightest shift in the figure's center of gravity. For the first time ever, Qing Shan found himself making attacks before he could completely think about them, even with his brain at full potential.

Qing Shan was attacking only on reflex, his hands moving almost before his eyes passed over his opponent's body. Qing Shan fell into some kind of battle rhythm, moving almost ten times every second, the time in between each miniscule movement the exact same every time. However, unlike one would think, this did not make his movements easy to track. Instead, this rhythm had Qing Shan confusing his opponents, throwing them off balance. Qing Shan would finish one move while preparing the attack after next. At this point Qing Shan was easily changing the loop which he circulated his Qi every second, sometimes multiple times per second. Somehow, it had suddenly become as easy as breathing.

After two hundred copies were dead, Qing Shan no longer had any noticeable unnecessary movements in his fighting style. While it helped that he was practically facing the same opponent, with the exact same habits, repeatedly, Qing Shan was getting better at fighting repeatedly.

After three hundred copies were dead, Qing Shan even had a smile on his face. He was actually laughing about how jumbled his fighting style had been when he entered the trial.

After four hundred copies were dead, Qing Shan had a profound realization.

'There is no such thing as a useless martial arts skill. Every single skill can be refined to the point of flawlessness, then evolved into something greater.'

After five hundred copies were dead, only a few dozen where dead. Qing Shan killed each of them methodically, each attack perfectly linking to the one after. The last copy only took Qing Shan ten seconds to kill.

Qing Shan turned, still high on adrenaline. He looked at the last copy; the talking copy.

"Wait! Before you fight me, why don't you take a rest?"

Qing Shan did not acknowledge the talking copy's words, but he was forced to collapse to the ground when all the fatigue from the last, well, ever since Qing Shan entered the real trial, hit him like a mountain dropping on a weed. As Qing Shan had been fighting for who knows how long, every single muscle was aching. No, it was far past aching. Every single muscle in his body was almost falling apart from over-use.

With all of this hitting Qing Shan's body at once, it was no wonder that he was knocked out cold.

When Qing Shan woke up, he found himself lying on the ground under the still-shocked gaze of his talking copy. Qing Shan had just killed over five hundred copies of himself while only retaining a few injuries. Thinking about his injuries, Qing Shan suddenly noticed that they had been healed, curtesy of the trial.

Qing Shan stood, glaring at the last copy in the room, killing intent filling his eyes.

"Woah, woah, woah! Congratulations buddy you have completed the first part of the trial…"

"That is funny, I distinctly remember you telling me that I had to defeat you to move on."

The talking copy shrank under Qing Shan's gaze, it looked like it would rather be anywhere else but here.

"Don't worry. You will die quickly. Consider it my thanks for helping me improve so drastically."

Qing Shan disappeared like a phantom, and before the copy could tell what happened it felt a giant force hit it in the gut.

Qing Shan felt as though he was fighting a punching bag; the talking copy was not fighting back.

Qing Shan had only ever killed unintelligent beasts and beings that were hostile toward him. While he consciously knew that the figure in front of him was just an intelligent copy, he also knew that any being with intelligence was naturally afraid of death.

Thus, Qing Shan stopped, looking at his talking copy with pity painted across his face.

"Why do I need to kill you to complete this trial?"

The copy spluttered in surprise, dim hope flashing in its eyes.

"That–"

"I don't care what kind of rules there are! If you can tell me, nod and you live. If not, you die."

The copy nodded slowly.

"Well, the only reason you need to kill me is because killing me causes my body to turn into a key. However, there is a way to get around this. You have to obtain both the Backup Key and the Master Key, and I can assure you that neither of the beings possessing those keys are sentient."

Hearing this, Qing Shan stepped back, relaxing.

"In your opinion, can I obtain both keys without dying?"

The talking copy hesitated for only a split second, before looking at Qing Shan solemnly.

"Based on what I just saw, you should be able to obtain the Master Key, but I am skeptical about you gaining the Backup Key. Based off of only fighting strength, the Master Key is definitely much harder to obtain. However, based on a few factors that are entirely unpredictable, gaining that key may prove to be even harder."

Qing Shan decided to press his copy for information about the Backup Key. He would cross that bridge when the time came for him to do so.

"So, where is the being possessing the Master Key?"

Qing Shan followed his talking copy out through an exit that had just been created. The duo then began walking through the maze, the copy not hesitating between turns.

Soon, Qing Shan found that he had appeared in another big room. However, in this room there was only one figure; it was Qing Shan's older copy, the one that had obliterated him in the Trial of Strength.

"Haaa"

Qing Shan blew out a deep breath. On some level, he had expected this. Unfortunately, having his suspicions was nothing compared to seeing it with his own eyes.

Qing Shan was scared.

If Qing Shan had encountered this older copy in a real life or death situation before his five hundred battles, he most definitely would have started to shake in fear, no matter how subtle it was. Now however, Qing Shan met his older copy's eyes as he entered the room, refusing to look away no matter how his gut twisted.

For some reason, this copy in front of him seemed to be even more intimidating than the one he met in the Trial of Strength. If Qing Shan had to guess, this would be because he could now comprehend more martial arts laws than when he first entered the trial. This meant that before he could not comprehend the strength of the older copy, but now he could.

The copy in front of Qing Shan was strong. Without taking actual fighting strength into account, Qing Shan was absolutely certain that he was decades behind this copy in terms of martial skill. However, the copy in this trial only had Qing Shan's base abilities to work with ever since he entered the trial.

Fortunately, Qing Shan did not have to hold back at all during this fight. His talking copy had informed him that it, for some reason, was the only copy with sentience throughout this part of the trial. When Qing Shan had asked about other sections of the trial, the talking copy declared that he had no clue. He had only been created for Qing Shan's trial, after all.

Qing Shan waited quietly for the talking copy to leave the room before he turned towards his older copy and smiled the same grim smile that had appeared on his face before he faced the five hundred battles.

Qing Shan found that this smile always came out when he was facing challenges. Any sort of challenge would do, but Qing Shan first smiled this way when he tried helping Senior Teng in creating the runic substance for the first time.

Qing Shan focused his speeding mind, managing to focus all ten extra times of his thought speed on this battle.

Qing Shan's eyes burst with those small, controlled flames, and his killing intent skyrocketed.

Qing Shan darted forward at the same time as his copy, and the two met with a loud sound.

"Bang!"

The two traded a flurry of blows, and Qing Shan blasted backwards. Even though he had left the engagement of his own accord, he still had many minor injuries already covering his body. His face had turned as pale as a sheet, but he still had a smile on his face.

Qing Shan had managed to see and understand every one of his older copy's attacks. Miraculously, every single move was an evolved form of what Qing Shan currently possessed. Even better, Qing Shan now had a good idea of how to perform these evolved skills.

Qing Shan was not stupid, and thus knew that fighting like just had was impractical. He would have to use every single skill he had ever used just to have a chance of breaking the defense of this older copy.

Qing Shan was excited.