The voice the seemed to be full of confidence sounded from inside the room, I don't know if I was imagining it, but I felt that the Blood Qi in my body go still, once that strong voice sounded .
Seeing that we have permission to enter, Senior Brother Fu entered first then the turn was on me to enter, but I stepped away from the frame door and allowed Lu Chiang to go in first, not wanting to carry favor for him or anything, but trying to appear more respectful, in case I unintentionally ended in making Master Chen think badly of me .
The guy who I allowed him to enter before gave me a haughty look that almost made me want to confess that I had killed both his father and uncle, but I just suppressed that urge and dryly laughed this out, after he went inside .
After calming myself, I soon followed him in, once I entered the brightly lit room, I was met with the scene of two bowing their heads and cupping their fists while looking forward and then they said their greeting in unison, they greeted the middle aged man who was sitting in a meditative position in the middle of the hall as their Master .
Seeing them like this, I too didn't waste a single second and directly followed suit, imitating their stances and saying :
" Dojo's Disciple Tian Long great the Dojo's Master .
Liu'er, Chiang'er, you two have arrived, raise your heads, you too disciple Tian .
I should have finished my task, should I retreat, Master .
Knowing you, you might held some resentment towards this old Master of yours, so you can stay and watch the fun .
I would never dare to resent Master even if you killed me, Master is the star that glow on my..... .
Cough, cough, okay, I understood what you are trying to say, so shut up already and stand down, I will be sure to give you a few Flesh Tempering Pills that should help you consolidate your realm later, since you did a good job, 4 Flesh Tempering Pills will be awarded to you .
Tch, stingy .
I heard you, what with the stingy crab, do you think those pills grew on trees or something, will you drop some of I wear to beat you up .
Master is kind, Master is gracious .
Much better, come Chiang'er, let me see how your practice is going .
Lu Chiang began to head towards the middle aged man who now was standing up and for a fraction of a second there I seemed to have seen an illusion of a towering tree behind that middle aged man .
Master Chen was a man that had a long, flowing dark hair with silver strands of hair all tied in a topknot, he had a well-groomed, pointed beard, he was dressed in an elegant robe featuring intricate patterns and a high collar, suggesting a noble or a powerful man status, his current expression was vibrant, with a broad smile that conveys charisma and assurance, the man seemed to exuding an air of kindness and carefree attitude .
Seeing the way he interacted with Senior Brother Fu, I already began to put that guy in high regards, his attitude with me didn't seem to match the type of attitude that I had in mind, I was thinking that he might be a bit arrogant and it would have been completely understandable, he got enough strength to be acting like whatever he wanted, after all .
But seeing his way of interacting with me and with his disciples, began to make me dream about getting accepted as a disciple by him as well, I continued to watch what was happening with Lu Chiang, since I had no clue about what should I do .
First allow me to present my condolences on you losing your father, but this how the cruel fate worked, don't make it cloud your judgement or affect your spirit .
Now with that out of the way, You had a breakthrough to the 6th layer of Flesh Tempering and you are almost only 13, I'm really blessed to have a genius disciple like you, I will be sure to reward you later, congratulations .
Lu Chiang, thank master for his kinds words and praise, master had already mentioned that the road to the summit of Martial Arts, was a solitary path, that only a few people were able to walk through, so Master really doesn't need to worry about me, I'm still determined to reach the summit of Martial Arts, no, I was now even more motivated than before .
But I would like to ask master to not shower Lu Chiang with too much praises, I wouldn't have been able to achieve all this, if it weren't for me receiving the blessings of the master and his guidance, Lu Chiang once again here promise to always try and meet master's expectations .
Good disciple, good disciple, you're sensible enough unlike someone here, you have already exceeded my expectations of you, if you continue to be this determined, I believe you will bring honour to the name of this old man here and maybe I will be boasting about you later on life, I can't wait to see you soar to heavens, who knows maybe you will be able to make a name for yourself out there too .
But I need to remind you that haste make waste and that you can't build a towering pagoda without laying a good foundation first, I sensed some instability in your practice realm, so my guidance for you now, was to go into a retreat to stabilize your new realm .
Disciple understand and will do as what the master ordered .
I'm really blessed to have accepted a genius like you as my disciple .
Lu Chiang here should be the one who is blessed to be discipled by Master .
Learn how to take like your Junior Brother and you might become my favourite disciple .
Well, that will be a tough thing to ask me Master, I don't want to get into conflict with second Senior Brother Bai Ming, I still favour my life quite a lot .
Humph .
Seeing the interaction between Senior Brother Fu and his master, if I wasn't in the hall, I would have burst out of laughter, but something kept on bothering me with the way Lu Chiang interacted with Master Chen .
I don't believe that he was not able to see the evil in the heart of this disciple of his, he was showering him with praises that he didn't quite deserve and the other guy kept himself on the Master's good side by acting as humble as possible .
I had the idea of mentioning what I heard yesterday to Master Chen and my guess about the involvement of Lu Chiang in that plot, but luckily I witnessed this scene and woke up to reality, if I were to have done what was in mind .
I might have ended up being the one suspected of trying to plant discord between the two Master and disciple and the consequences to that would quite severe, so for now it was better to discard that idea of mine from my mind and keep my lips tight about those things .
Come here disciple Tian .
Just as I was engrossed in my own thoughts, I got called by Master Chen, his voice awakened me from my trance instantly, I hurriedly began to move towards the middle of the hall where the middle aged man wearing yellow mixed with orange traditional robe .
Once I arrived in front of him, he began to inspect me with his eyes up and down, then he kept nodding to himself,then he said :
Guardian Li said you are quite the genius and that you were even able to almost achieve enlightenment in Solid Rock Fist yesterday, as long as you are able to execute up to the 6th posture from the technique, I will take you as an In Name Disciple, are you willing ? .
As I stood in front of that steady like a towering tree man and under his discerning eyes, I kept getting the feeling that he was able to see through all the secrets that I had in my body which gave me the chills .
Standing in front of that guy felt like exactly how I felt standing in front of an angry instructor Lu, but he was releasing that much pressure without doing anything or releasing his Blood Qi like instructor Lu did .
The closest thing that I could describe him with, was the big rock from yesterday, before I was able to break it apart by my punch, I felt the exact same pressure from it .
The Master Chen in front of me was releasing that exact same kind of pressure currently on me, but unlike with that rock, the man in front of me seemed to exude an air of invulnerability around him .
Yet weirdly enough, I felt like I was familiar with that weird pressure as if I had sensed it or got to experience it somewhere before, but I just wasn't able to remember where or when did something like that happened, I just can't seem to be able to recall .
Seeing him looking at me so intently, made me a bit nervous, after all, I had some secrets on me that might entice even the most righteous man to attack me in hope of acquiring those secrets, but after I felt his gaze that was prying into me disappeared and yet he still don't seem to be attacking me or getting aggressive with me, I began become calm again .
I cupped my fist and said :
" Disciple is willing and hope that Dojo's Master won't be disappointed .
Once I got the nod indicating to start, I directly started regulating my breathing rhythm then in 3 breathes of time, I had finished executing all the 6th postures, then I was directly blasted with the loud notifications from the panel, telling me that I had poorly executed that Martial Technique .
Once I finished executing the postures all the way to 6th posture, I stopped trying to execute any more postures and instead, I sat on the ground and started circulating my Blood Qi around my arms then spread it to my chest, then stopped trying to temper my body, after I began feeling that the heat in my body was beginning to recede .
As I opened my eyes, I saw that Master Chen was staring at me with appreciation in his eyes and he nodded and said :
Well then, your execution is a little bit crude, you are almost at the Small Success realm with the mastery of that technique, I Chen Fu accept you as my first in name disciple .
Pity for what that had happened to you in that accident you had, if not I would have even be willing to accept you as a Real Close Disciple and not one in name .
That's currently the best I can do for you, I want you to be my first disciple in name, even though you will only be able to gain some guidance from me once a week, in addition to get some more training resources, that's all I can do for you, as for the things that might restore your Blood Vitality, these things are rarer than Phoenix's feathers .
We can only wait and see if the Blood Nourishing Soup would have an effect in helping that up, but weird, even though your Blood Vitality was severely injured, you were still able to push forward and breakthrough to the first layer of Flesh Tempering, was that due to you gaining something from the Enlightenment you had, or was it something else, came here and let me check your body .
Even though I was a bit optimistic about my chances to be an official disciple to such a strongman, overall I didn't feel much disappointment in how everything turned out, I still think that it was a great opportunity, I couldn't help but also wonder about the reason that old master mentioned the incident with the Deacon Lu so trivially, was he taken his disciples side or mine .
Was he protecting me or was he protecting his Disciple from me, was he not told clearly by instructor Lu about the details of what had happened to me, I was about to cup my fist and bow in greeting, when he suddenly asked me to get close to him, he wanted to check my body .
I was panic-stricken inwardly thinking that my secrets were just about to be completely exposed, but seeing that no way out and not being still completely sure about being exposed yet, I still decided to move forward and stand in front of him, I could have refused to be his Disciple, but I really didn't find any benefit in that, I indeed have a little bit of strength now .
But were the amount of strength that I currently have were enough for me to stand tall in this world, I don't believe so, if I were to compare myself to the likes of Master Chen, Instructor Lu, Guardian Li, no even senior brother Fu, all those guys were strongmen that I had no doubt that I would lose if I were to fight them .
I was still a soft persimmon no matter which angle I looked at myself from, even though the chance that I wanted to have was getting discipled in more closer way than this, but it seemed that I will just have to accept whatever that came in my way and use it in the best way I could .
Once I was in front of Master Chen, he suddenly got out a thin needle from somewhere, once I saw him pulling the needle, I braced myself for whatever that might be coming my way after that, as long as he wasn't going to kill me, I will try enduring it, but even though I said this, my body was shuddering a bit .
Haha, your reaction is better than Liu'er back when I tried to pull that kind of trick on him, haha .
Master is really spreading false information, carful, I heard that they called old people who spoke nonsense, Shameless, yes that's the word .
As if not willing to take that low blow silently, he said this and the expression of the middle-aged man in front of me seemed to be quite grave and appeared as if he was in pain, from what he just heard .
But even though he looked like that, I still saw that his smile was still there and understood that this was another normal interaction between the two of them, I really wanted to laugh at the way they were quarreling with one another in a way that made thinking that the two had a master-disciple relationship quite difficult .
" Sorry for being ignorant, but if Master won't be using the needle, then can I presume that you will be using Blood Qi .
Oh, you are quite sharp minded, this was what I indeed intended to do, do you remember when such a trick was used on you, consider this a small test for how quick-witted were you .
" Replaying to Master, even though I hadn't had that much encounter with this technique or as Master describe ' trick ', but if I'm not wrong, I would say that this trick was the same one used by Instructor Lu yesterday, he was able to tell how severe was my injuries were, I believe that the same exact thing was used here .
You really seemed to be a bright guy, pity, really a pity, but yes that will be the same trick I used, but remember that you shouldn't try to fight the Blood Qi or obscure it in anyway, otherwise you might end up getting severely injured as a response, I don't think that you would want that to happen .
I nodded but soon shook my head at his words, indicating that I have indeed understood what he was asking of me, he directly began to circulate his Blood Qi and I felt it entering my body and began to circulate around it .
I felt that my whole body was quite heavy, at first I didn't understand why I was feeling as such, but soon I began to understand that the energy that was used to scan my body was actually something akin to a substance, that substance was what made my body heavy, I know he warned me against using my Blood Qi, but I was really beginning to believe that he might have been mocking me or something .
Even if I wanted to circulate my Blood Qi, I don't believe that with the meager amount I have that I will be able to circulate it, to puch back the invading Blood Qi, just as I was thinking like that, I saw that the weird feeling I was having a second ago disappeared, I looked at the master to see that his face was ashen, he directly said in a stern tone and even the smile from before had disappeared as he said :
What's wrong with your body ? .