Punishing Impact

It was something that Qing Shan had almost completely forgotten about: his first Martial Technique, Flaming Tiger Paw!

Because Qing Shan had been lacking the capability to complete Elemental Enhancement, and could not use his Qi in the physical realm, he had not been able to learn this skill earlier on. Because it was a Martial Technique, it was probably more powerful than merely channeling his Qi to his hand.

Qing Shan opened the scroll, and began scanning the contents of the skill. He was unsurprised to find that the method was one different than he could have imagined. He was supposed to spread fire Qi evenly across his palm and fingers, right under the skin. Then, compress that fire Qi into an orb on his palm. After that, release the Qi as densely as possible into an outline of your hand. Finally, compress the Qi back into an orb on the palm and quickly return it to the form of the hand.

Apparently, the sudden effect of compressing and releasing the fire Qi not only results in a second attack in quick success, but a more powerful impact due to the speed of compression and the immediate release. In the beginning, it was pretty much gaining power for the attack, and after the initial motion, it was as though a high powered spring was compressed and released. At least, that seemed to be the point behind the attack.

Due to Qing Shan running his Qi through his veins, the density of his Qi was already much higher than that of most people, who just let their Qi flow around freely in their body. This definitely gave Qing Shan an advantage. However, this technique was definitely going to prove to be difficult. Qing Shan had been completely unable to give his Qi a distinct shape. When he had released it before, it has always appeared as a part of his body, an aura. The Qi radiated out from his body indiscriminately.

This technique attacked with his Qi separately from a physical attack. A Qi attack inflicted physical damage that was related to the attribute of a person's Qi while also attack the Qi of the opposing person. A successful Qi attack would disrupt the strengthening of the opponent's body, and also interrupt the use of Qi Arts.

Because Qing Shan could not freely use fire Qi yet, he decided to make do with his lightning. Because of the nature of the element, the effect would not be that much different. Actually, it should be stronger. Unfortunately, he Qing Shan would have much more trouble controlling his Qi because of the volatile nature of the lightning attribute.

Knowing that this would be difficult, Qing Shan sat down, and began practicing his Qi manipulation. There was no way that he could begin using the actual Martial Technique with any degree of mastery if he lacked the ability to control his Qi properly.

So, for the next few hours, Qing Shan practiced his Qi manipulation. He would bring the Qi out in an aura around his fist and try to shape it. Unfortunately, after a few hours Qing Shan was only able to make a slightly uniform spike of aura appear. This was one of the difficulties of Qi manipulation. Aura was released uniformly around the designated body part. Because Qing Shan was trying to create a Qi palm, essentially, he needed to release Qi from his hand. With this, Qing Shan succeeded in making an outline of his palm. However, for the attack to work the Qi should be five centimeters away from the center of his palm, going outwards. He obviously could not detach Qi from his physical for as he was only in the Origin Realm, but he could move the Qi away from his body, as long as it was connected to his aura.

Luckily, although it was small, Qing Shan had taken a step into the right direction. That small spike of aura had branched out from his palm about two centimeters. Although it would not yet be perfect, he should be able to start the technique at this distance. Now, the struggle would be gathering more Qi at that point in the aura, without increasing the size too much, and, even more, keeping control.

This was considerably harder than making that spike of aura. He had to not only maintain the shape of the aura, but add more Qi, making it harder and harder to control. Although the aura did collapse a few times, Qing Shan succeed in making a two and a half in diameter sphere of Qi, although one rough around the edges.

Unfortunately, this was still very far away from his goal. Qing Shan needed to be able to compress the ball of Qi in his aura in less than five seconds for it to even be useful in a battle. Even then, he could not see himself using it until he had the initial preparation down to about a full second, and the preparation for the second impact at about half a second. There was definitely still a very long way to go.

Throughout the next week, Qing Shan managed to drastically increase the speed of his initial preparation. Unfortunately, it still took him about twenty seconds to form the ball of Qi. However, Qing Shan decided to try moving onto the next step, which was trying to get himself used to expanding the Qi into a certain controlled shape. Luckily, the effect of this technique was almost unaffected by the shape of the Qi being released. Honestly, it just looked better to have a technique called Flaming Tiger Palm than Double-Impact Fire Square. On top of the fact that this part of the technique was rather simple, Qing Shan had gotten a lot of practice with manipulating his Qi over the last week. Because of this, Qing Shan was able to transform the sphere into a dense, yet flat area that was a bit larger than his hand in less than a second. In total, the motion of flattening the Qi and reforming it into a ball took only two seconds, and this was on Qing Shan's first try. The hardest part of this technique was definitely rapidly gathering Qi and bringing it to a specific spot outsize his body. The fact that the Qi had to be densely packed together definitely did not make anything easier.

Luckily, Qing Shan found that he was able to perform an amateur version of the Flaming Tiger Claw Martial Technique just two days after attempting this second step. Unfortunately, this unrefined version of the technique would only be of any use on either a slow enemy, or an enemy that is immobilized. However, despite the limitations, Qing Shan was glad that he had gotten the initial preparation down to four seconds, and the attack itself down to about one point two seconds. Unfortunately, because the attack itself was slow, the impacts did not deal as much damage. Luckily the optional final attack, where instead of bringing the Qi back into the body Qing Shan released it with a second impact, dealt about the same amount of damage as the lightning Qi was discharged from his control.

Throughout the next week, Qing Shan found that it was easier and easier to manipulate his Qi. He had effectively mastered the Flaming Tiger Claw in two weeks, a number than was impressive when compared to others. Qing Shan had not completely perfected the technique, but he had gotten the right timing off the attack down, and would be able to use it effectively in battle.

'I guess Flaming Tiger Claw doesn't really work as the name for this anymore…'

"Punishing Impact."

Qing Shan decided that he would rename this technique to be one more suited to him. Based on the type of technique, it would always be useful, and would grow more powerful as he got stronger. As his Qi became denser he would be able to deal more damage, and also have more than just two impacts.

During this week, Qing Shan also practiced his Chimera Cultivation Technique every time he needed to recover some Qi. Despite now having above average control over his Qi for someone at the first level of the Origin Soul realm, he still lost Qi when he executed an action outside of his body, no matter if the Qi was still connected to him. As it was no longer contained in the vessel that was is body, it was natural that some Qi would leak out when his Qi was hard to control. Qing Shan found that he lost the most Qi in the transition from the sphere of Qi to the impact with his new Punishing Impact technique.

While Qing Shan still had another Martial Technique that he had yet to learn, the Thunder Dragon Martial Technique. Unfortunately, Qing Shan did not think that he could master the first stage of the technique in only four months. This was based on the fact that the Flaming Tiger Paw was labeled as an easy technique that is intended for the Early Origin Soul realm, while the Thunder Dragon Martial Technique's first stage was a hard technique that required complete understanding of the Early Origin realm in order to learn. Essentially, it was a technique that would presumably be mastered a bit after he reached fourth level Origin Soul realm. However, Qing Shan could probably start his work on the technique after the TST.

After getting a few hours of sleep, Qing Shan decided that he would ask Qian Yong to spar with him. If there was anything that he could hope to improve before the Triple Sect Tournament, it would definitely be his Spearmanship. While sparring was not as effective as actually fighting, it would definitely be a better training method than just swinging around Sky Bane. Qing Shan left the pocket dimension, and knocked on Qian Yong's door. Immediately, Qing Shan heard the ruffling of clothes, the girl's voice.

"Who…?"

"It is Qing Shan."

The ruffling intensified, and Qing Shan heard the sound of something falling. Actually, he heard this sound multiple times.

"Are you all right?"

The door whipped open, revealing Qian Yong, who appeared as though she had just gotten out of bed.

"I'm fine. Why is it that you are waking me up this early in the morning."

By the dark circles under her eyes, and the sharp tone of voice, Qing Shan could tell that she was not someone who liked mornings.

He scratched his head sheepishly.

"Well… I was wondering if you'd be my sparring partner?"

*Sigh*

"Fine. I will be out in half an hour."

'A half hour!? What on earth takes that long?'

On the surface, Qing Shan maintained his normal expression.

"Thank you for making some time."

"Go away."

Qing Shan walked away with a smile on his face. It was quite humorous seeing a side of his friend that he had never seen before. Just by the normally composed demeanor of Qian Yong, he would never have guessed that she had such a side in the early mornings. However, based on the aggression that she sometimes showed toward her younger brother, it was not an entirely baseless attitude.

A few minutes later, Qing Shan met with Qian Yong in the Inner Ring arena. As it was early morning, there were only a few people out and about, and no one was using the area. In terms of using the arena for sparring, it was allowed as long as no official challenges were placed. Obviously, official matches held priority over simple sparring, no matter what rank the people sparring possessed.

Once Qian Yong was ready, she brought out her spear and wrapped it with some rune-inscribed cloth that had a certain amount of resistance toward sharp edges. Seeing this immediately reminded Qing Shan that the Qian family seemed to be very well-off.

After Qian Yong handed Qing Shan some of the cloth, the two jumped forward, their weapons meeting mid-air, and sending a loud sound echoing throughout the area.