Chapter 16
Chen Zhen woke up early the next morning. He ate his daily rations of spirit beast meat and used two spirit cores to expand his dantian. Shanggu Feng and Lou Tian were slowly feeling a little stronger, bit by tiny bit they were starting to regain some of their former strength. Now that Chen Zhen was level 6 of the body refinement stage his dantian was roughly equivalent to a five gallon bucket. Chen Zhen felt he was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with energy. As he was running outside to the stone platform he suddenly felt a weight press down on his body making his movements very sluggish. He could now only move at one-tenth his former speed. Chen Zhen's first thought was that someone had turned up the gravity around him. He tested his theory by picking up a rock and letting it fall. When it didn't create a large crater next time him he knew the gravity wasn't the issue. When he looked down at his own clothes he realized the fabric looked much thicker. Chen Zhen remembered how heavy his clothing felt when Shanggu Julong first made them. It seemed that now that he was much stronger Shanggu Julong had increased it's weight to make his training harder.
Chen Zhen walked up the stone platform and stood in front of the new battle puppet that was standing there waiting for him. Chen Zhen could feel and energy field around this one that wasn't there yesterday. Chen Zhen was intelligent enough to understand what was required of him, so he didn't wait for Shanggu Julong to explain things. As soon as Chen Zhen entered a fighting stance the battle puppet began to attack. Chen Zhen was caught off guard by the speed of the new battle puppet. It was clearly stronger and faster then the one he fought yesterday, and since he was being weighed down now, Chen Zhen could barely put his arms up in time to block.
Chen Zhen was knocked around the platform for most of the morning without any signs of being able to retaliate. Since Chen Zhen started fighting without asking, nor allowing Shanggu Julong to offer his advice, Shanggu Julong wasn't going to be forthcoming with any advice either. Lou Tian was observing what was happening to Chen Zhen, but he would just shake his head and go back to cultivating his soul.
Shanggu Feng could take this anymore, "How could you
"Don't give him all the answers, he will have to start using his brain and learn these things on his own.", Lou Tian said chastising Shanggu Feng for interrupting Chen Zhen's training.
"Do you not feel any shame at his display of weakness. It may be his body but we all share it. Doesn't his shame reflect upon us as well?", Shanggu Feng asked in exasperation.
"What he does or doesn't do with his body is none of my concern. He has all this energy, but he has never once tried to use it except to cultivate. It is no our fault that he lacks the most basic intelligence to know that all he has to do is circulate his energy thru his body to strengthen his moves while he is fighting. Didn't you learn that as a child? I know I did.", Lou Tian said in a condescending manner.
"Of course I learned that as a child, but he is basically a child in our world why do you offer advice instead of…. Oooohhhhh…..", Shanggu Feng started to say before he realized what Lou Tian had just done.
"Can you do what they just said giving me a chance to fight back?", Chen Zhen asked his clone.
[Sure no problem. Let's take this thing down.]
Chen Zhen had been curled in a ball on his back at this point just trying to protect his body as much as possible since he wasn't fast enough to attack back. As the clone began circulating energy thru his body the weight of his clothes began to lessen more and more. As soon as he felt that he could move, Chen Zhen sent a kick to the chest of the battle puppet that had been standing over him raining down blows. The battle puppet was launched over a hundred feet into the air. The battle puppet did a backflip in the air and adjusted itself to fall back down fist first aiming for Chen Zhen. The battle puppet looked as if it were superman flying right toward Chen Zhen. Seeing the battle puppet coming straight back at him Chen Zhen had an idea that left a wicked devilish smile on his face. Chen Zhen bent his knees with his right leg toward the front of him, and is leg facing out and a little behind. Chen Zhen bent forward at the waist and held his right elbow to his right knee, with his fist facing up right next to his face. Chen Zhen pushed energy into his legs and his right fist. Chen Zhen knew he had to time this perfect, so he waited until the battle puppet was just five feet above he head before he released his move.
"SHRYU-KEN!!", Chen Zhen shouted as he launched a flying uppercut directly into the battle puppets head.
The force of the two colliding caused a small explosion that left a ten foot diameter crater on the stone platform. The battle puppet couldn't withstand the force of the blast and its head was sent in one direction and its body was launched in another. Chen Zhen landed in the middle of the crater lightly with a small energy field surrounding him. He was looking at himself in amazement. He never thought that would actually work. In his mind he was just joking around.
"That was a very interesting move you just did there.", Lou Tian said with a chuckle.
"You should be ashamed of yourself, being so heavy handed with a mere level 2 battle puppet.", Shanggu Feng said with mock indignation.
"So what did you learn today?", Shanggu Julong asked.
After thinking about what he experienced today Chen Zhen replied, "The energy that flowed thru my body enhanced my muscles on a cellular level. The more of the energy I pushed thru my body the more explosive the energy I could release. And I found out that I could store energy in my body to release very strong attacks that force the energy out of my body to attack my opponent with amplified force."
"That's good. When most cultivators start fighting they begin by first circulating their energy to prepare to use their martial techniques. Tomorrow before you begin fighting I will teach you a very rudimentary martial technique for you to practice. This will teach to get more accustomed to fighting with your energy.", Shanggu Julong said as they walked back to the shack.