Andrew didnt waste any time, he quickly threw out a punch with his full power.
He could feel the air resisting his punch, as if the laws of physics were saying 'you shall not disobey me'.
It felt like he was trying to punch through a big weather balloon, but as his fist continued, the resistance finally grew to a maximum before there was a boom.
His fist came into contact with the masters body, a turbulent wind unfolded from this single strike, the nearby surrounding grass couldnt handle this kind of force and got flattened.
Even Zachary felt the need to shield his eyes from the momentum of the air assaulting his face.
Just then, in an instant, everything settled into a calm.
Zachary looked upon this with subtle disbelief, he knew Andrew had power, but this seemed even beyond what he displayed during the exam.
"This kids a little more impressive than I imagined, to already have such delicate control over innate energy in just a couple days…"
Zachary heard this voice ring out in his head, which confirmed his suspicions even more.
"Master, do you think hes similar to me?" Zachary thought to himself.
"Honestly, I cant tell— I cant see through his destiny even using my understanding of the dao."
"But what I do know is hes certainly someone you should build a connection with. Dont worry, you wont ever get outmatched, you are the most talented disciple ive ever taken after all!" Zacharys master transmitted to him.
"Okay, ill definitely take your word then." Zachary responded, with an expression of subtle confidence.
….
Upon releasing the blow, Andrew noticed something a bit bizarre.
It seemed that as soon as his fist came within 3 inches of the old mans body, it physically couldnt travel any further, as if there was something invisible blocking it.
"This must be the externalization of his Qi…. Quite powerful indeed!" Andrew thought.
"Hoho, young man youre indeed just as talented as Zachary has said. You havent even begun properly cultivating martial arts yet, but you can reach this level of power as well as use your innate energy in a very natural manner." The old man said with a warm smile.
"I shall take you in as a disciple, i believe in no time at all youll move out of this small area in pursuit of higher martial arts… my name is John Quazo, but you may refer to me as master Quazo."
"Its my pleasure, Master!" Andrew said, taking a knee.
"Okay, enough with the formalitys, lets quickly begin todays training. I primarily use the sword, i can tell you have yet to train with one yet, so ill teach you the simple premise of what it means to wield a sword, and if you have the talent it will show relatively quickly."
"As you know, a blade is used to cut slash and stab, those being the primary movements of the sword…"
"However, what you must realize is that in order to interpret the dao of swordsmanship, the true essence as it is, you must connect body mind and emotion— or more precisely you must connect action, intent, and feeling."
"If you can understand this whilst holding the blade, I believe you shall go far."
"Now, take this wooden sword and practice the simple motions, try practicing holding that model in your mind and well see the results over the next couple of days."
Master Quazo passed Andrew a rough looking wooden sword, but Andrew had no complaints.
He also knew the essence of swordsmanship in this world probably had something to do with the quality of the tool being a downstream necessity to comprehension, even if not explicitly stated by the master.
Having been an experienced neet in his past life for a short period of time, he kind of felt a kind of depth to this thought he suspected was prevalent.
Holding the model in his mind, he started swinging his sword.
His movements were quite sloppy he felt, not that he didnt know how to swing a sword, but he felt that he wasnt getting nearly as much force out of his swings as he shouldve been.
It was as if energy was leaking through his motions, making them less effective.
Andrew decided to observe Zachary for a little bit, he wanted to see what exactly he was doing per swing.
He took note of his posture, the way his foot, knee and hip shifted slightly before releasing a strike, the way his core stiffened slightly, the way his spine rotated, and the way his scapula worked with the rest of his body to transfer the power.
"Just watching probably wont do much— let me just eye him up while I practice…" Andrew thought, not even realizing how creepy that sounded.
Andrew dropped his sword for a second, before taking his shirt off.
Zachary couldnt help but sneak a glance in admiration of his sculpted figure, he could tell Andrew had put in hard work.
Even Master Quazo couldnt help but nod his head in approval.
"Sigh… reminds me of my younger days. Such dedication!" Quazo thought, slightly envious in his heart.
Andrew picked back up his sword, but instead of going back to swinging parallel to Zachary, he positioned himself 10 feet across from him, looking directly at him.
Zachary felt a shiver down his spine seeing this inexplicably, he was starting to feel… violated for some reason.
"What the fuck is this dude doing? Is he just tryna flex?"
Andrew gave a creepy smile, but Zachary quickly returned his attention to the sword, he didnt have time to start slacking potentially losing his flow state.
"You might be bragging now, Andrew, but well see how things are looking in a couple months when i inevitably surpass you in looks, figure and strength." Zachary thought, confident that he wouldnt lose to anybody, having been subtly gassed up by his master.
With this thought, he started moving a bit faster, quickly returning to flow.
Andrew didnt know any of what he was thinking, however what he did know was this was a fantastic training method.
The reason he took his shirt off was so he could more accurately feel and see specific muscle groups contracting, instead of relying purely on feeling.
Andrew quickly began swinging his sword again, this time a tad more precise than before.
The old man quickly saw this, suspecting what Andrew was up to.
He quickly started to realize his movements were slowly but surely starting to become more aligned over the span of about an hour, and thats when his suspicions were confirmed.
"What a pair of talented disciples!" He thought to himself, stroking his chin that contained no facial hair.
"Once he masters the optimal movements, he will have properly stepped into the action category, and then all thats left after that is aligning emotion and intent, and then putting it together…"
He watched on, marveling at the speed of improvement.
Zachary to him actually appeared to be the more talented one out of the two of them, however what he wasnt aware of was that his real master was actually giving him tips every few swings on what to clean up for faster progress.
Little by little his understanding of the sword dao began to become more and more powerful, using different tactics of aligning the 3 main variables.
Different emotions and intent aligned with particular movements released a slightly different visceral feeling when looking at his swordsmanship.
At first his sword felt almost determined, then deeply sad, and then deeply enraged, and then blissful…
This was basically like stepping into the next level of the dao, being able to release multiple variations of the same sword, in order to not collapse your ability to utilize it in battle when emotions start fluctuating.
After about another hour or so, they both decided to sit down and take a break, drinking some water.
"Okay boys, its already 9 pm and unfortunately my old body cant stay up all night to give you pointers. However, to me it seems like you dont even need them…"
"Andrew, youre learning from Zachary just by watching the movements, and Zachary you are learning fantastically fast on your own with almost no instruction. Your already showing signs of deeper understanding…"
"Keep up the hard work, when you both properly start learning body tempering and step onto the path of cultivation, you'll soar far above your peers with even less effort!"
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