Chapter 454 Monster Bones
It took Zeru less than a microsecond to unleash his sword. Before Jin could finish blinking, his master had already inflicted him with hundreds of superficial cuts on his flesh, from head to toe at a distance. The cuts were too numerous to be counted, and Jin staggered instantly.
"Hey! I just healed him! Can you be a bit more gentle?!" Pei shouted through the System Channel at Zeru though he shook his head in defiance.
"In a fight, not giving your all is not just a sign of disrespect towards your opponent, it may also be the one mistake that might reverse the tide of battle," Zeru replied, giving Jin barely enough time to close his wounds with the aid of Octofussy's Rapid Regeneration of the Otherworld Parasite God.
Regrettably, there was no free meal in the world. Jin could feel a tingling sensation whenever his flesh wounds healed. It was as if a worm crawled over his wounds to treat them.
One alone would be unpleasant enough, yet that feeling was multiplied by over a hundred. He instantly felt violated even though his wounds were closing up. Jin had learnt his mistake from the past battle, and instead of moving, he summoned out two Astral Pandas each equipped with a shield.
They were none other than Bam (Tower Shield form) and Boo (Wide Buckler shield form).
"How are you going to fight me without your weapons?" Zeru asked as he produced a swing in the air, causing a flurry of white lotus petals to fly towards Jin. The two Astral Pandas stood staunchly in front of Jin and handled the attacks while he prepared his counterattack by summoning his Black Panda Fire.
"Forgoing the path of a swordsman, and facing me as a magician?" Zeru questioned directly beside Jin as the white lotus petals flew beyond the Astral Pandas. With a swift chop from Zeru after teleporting to Jin, the hand that Jin was charging his Black Panda Fire dropped to the ground. (More work for Pei if not for the Rapid Regeneration, this time he felt his whole hand grew from worms.)
Jin shouted in pain, but a kick from Zeru to his throat silenced that scream and knocked him away. His Astral Pandas disappeared the moment Jin lost his concentration, causing Bam and Boo to drop to the floor.
"While you are not wrong to stop a strong attack with the Astral Pandas, you seem to have forgotten that I have speed and strength on my side. Distance is not a problem at all, so you cannot hide from me. How long can you prevent me from attacking you should be your most and only relevant concern." Zeru lectured as he strolled towards Jin. He could see the insane regeneration inscription already working its magic to reproduce another hand for Jin.
"His chi regeneration is truly abnormal, else he would not have been able to activate that rapid regeneration inscription that many times." Zeru thought to himself. "So what if you grow another hand? All I have to do is to cut it down."
"Is cutting me all you are capable of?" Jin finally regained his voice as he placed his other hand away from Zeru's sight since he was leaning on the wall.
"Do I need anything else? Whatever tricks you do, it doesn't matter. In the face of superior speed and strength, they are meaningless." Zeru moved forth as if he was floating on air, but that was also when Jin had finished his preparations.
Learning from the experience he earnt from the Three Tailed Fox Demon, Jin used the wall as a base to grow spikes of White Panda Ice towards Zeru. Despite his efforts, none of those White Panda Ice spikes mattered to Zeru as he dodged every single of them gracefully.
Whenever it looked as if the ice spike was about to hit his master, Jin ended up missing Zeru by a fraction of a centimetre. All the near misses pretend to frustrate Jin since it was not the main trick, for Jin was trying to fight just as Zeru had described… A magician.
Since Zeru was moving like the wind, Jin would have to slow the wind down. Each missed ice spike exploded behind his master into hundreds of ice shards and towards him. Jin did not care about the collateral damage to himself as he trusted in his own fast regeneration inscription even if it felt like he was being skinned alive. There was no other choice if Jin hoped to win against Zeru.
Zeru noticed the forming of the multiple ice shards behind him, and he twirled once in mid air, creating lotus petals to appear destroying most of the ice shards. He thought that Jin would be using those as a way to attack him.
"Barely a decent move, but I hope there's more to it." Jin did not reply and instead shot a scatter beam of Panda Yawning for the first time. He figured if he could shoot one large beam, how about splitting the beam into several parts?
Only in the future would Jin eventually learn that all it took was to move his tongue up and down as if he was ululating a Red Indian war cry and his beam was scattered. For now, he just opened mouth really wide and tried screaming and stopping to let them move erratically. (which worked perfectly fine but more of a hassle.
Due to the distance and taking the divergence of the scatter beams into account, there were only a few chi energy beams that targeted Zeru's position. However, what his master did not know was that Jin's scatter beam was not meant for him at all.
It was the scattered, floating ice shards that remained in the air. As the beams travelled towards the ice shards, they deflected the beam like a diamond shining bright under an intense source of light. Some of the shards even refracted the Panda Yawning rays, causing more of the beams scattered to the other ice shards that were not destroyed by the Zeru's whirlwind of lotus petals.
Zeru was unaware about what was happening behind him as he went forward to slice down a fragile sheet of White Panda Ice shield which Jin conjured haphazardly to protect himself at the very last second. Yet, Zeru was merciless in tearing that last form of defence away from Jin to show that he was serious in defeating his disciple.
"Your White Panda Ice shield appears way too slow. If you were 0.5 seconds faster, your White Panda Ice Shield could have reduced the blow of the attack and not be a piece of paper for me to cut." Zeru said as he had already vertically slashed and plunged his sword into Jin's chest.
If not for the monster bones that Pei had just merged with Jin, his entire rib cage would have been cut. Nevertheless, even the monster bones didn't manage to handle the severity of Zeru's slash unscathed. The cut broke a number of the bones, just not thorough enough to be called a clean cut. (It would have if not for the incomplete ice shield)
Yet that ice shield was also part of Jin's impromptu plan. The moment it got sliced into two, the broken ice shield pieces angled themselves and went ahead to attack Zeru with Jin's manipulation of chi. It was enough distraction for the major backstab waiting behind him.
Jin had been slow with his casting as he had moved the ice shards with chi alongside the aid of his Panda Vision, Inverse Eyes (or as Ming called them Pandaromic Eyes). Like a targeting system, the eyes allowed Jin to clearly see the path where the ice shards must be placed to accumulate sufficient power in the beams to rejoin as one again and hit Zeru's back.
When Jin felt it was the right movement, he did not hesitate to redirect the towards his master. The energy beam was concentrated enough that it punctured a hole through Zeru's shoulder while he fought off the broken ice sheets. However, Jin did not know that Zeru deliberately took the damage as he had figured it was enough for now, thus receiving the blow to call off the match.
Still, he did not get the full picture until the moment he saw Jin's eyes bleeding along with the broken pieces of ice shards behind him. Only then he realised how Jin performed the counterattack.
Zeru slowly stepped back and sheathed his sword again while he granted Jin time to recover. His disciple might have an abnormal production of chi, but there was a limit for anything. He was still a Grade 8, and his injured eyes proved that his overconsumption of chi was taking a toll on his body.
Once more the Rapid Regeneration inscription kicked in, but Jin could feel that squirmy feeling getting worse this time. It was as if the worms had grown to the size of snakes, and he screamed, unable to stop his body's own regeneration.
In the meantime, Pei felt like a revelation hit her about what Zeru was doing. "Are you doing this because of the side effects of the monster materials merging with his body?" Pei wanted a clarification to see if she really did miss a step in the recovery process.
Zeru nodded his head with delight. Pei finally understood why Zeru needed to attack Jin the moment he was somewhat combat ready. "The monster bones you used had a will remaining from the monster it came from. If Jin's chi and body did not overpower them in the first place, the monster genetics could have potentially possessed Jin's body." Zeru answered as he brought Jin's face closer and looked through Jin's eyes.
"Good, the signs are gone. It seems to be breaking down and Jin managed to reforge himself again. This time round, his body won." Zeru said as he placed his master back down and went over to pick up Bam and Boo for Jin.
"What bones did you use? I thought you were going to improve me and not making me fight an entity for control over my body…" Jin finally had a breather to ask.
"Bones of a Vampire." Pei and Zeru answered at the same time, and Jin now understood why Pei said the monster had the same body structure as a human body.
"Technically, I had planned to make the System purchase the bones of a Vampire Duke for you. Unfortunately, such a high ranking creature is impossible to purchase legally, and the black market prices are astronomical. Let's not even start with a Vampire Prince or a True Ancestor. A Vampire Marquis, however, was exactly perfect for budget purposes and the bones are as hard as metal." Pei answered via the bracelet.
"The wounds inflicted was to awaken the vampire genetics in the bone marrow. The inscription should be the one eating all the vampiric genes up so you would not be consumed by it." Zeru shook his bloodied shoulder a bit before the System healed him automatically.
"Heh, so I might have become a vampire. That would be great for Halloween, but so bad for business otherwise. Still, this rapid regeneration is eerily creepy. I don't think I will ever get used to the feel of worms squirming around me." Jin answered as he was feeling better.
"A small price to pay for such an excellent inscription. Besides, you saw how your chi output was not able to cover the regeneration process after two severe hits." Zeru was also testing out Jin's regeneration capabilities.
"Now that you learn your limits and how awfully slow you are to even use your sword, it is time to give you proper training with the remaining time you are in here and remember. You do not much time left." From Zeru's pocket, he threw a few lotus petals around the isolation ward, causing it to float mid air.
"I want you to manipulate your chi and control your body to jump onto these petals without making them move more than 2cm away from their original spot. It's to increase your manipulation of chi so that you can call out your fire and ice energy as fast as your mind can think." Zeru said as he gave a demonstration by jumping onto a lotus petal making it appear as if he was floating on it.
"I notice that you were also able to harness wind energy. Use that to aid you too. But always remember not to move the floating petal more than two centimetres away from its original spot or else I will cut you down." Zeru instructed him as he drew his wooden sword towards Jin.
Jin understood and gave it a whirl at the training exercise, but any without warning, Zeru already send a whirlwind of cuts towards Jin for breaking the rules. "Don't worry, I can do this all day until they open the isolation ward. Besides, my arms needed some exercise too."
"What if I do not complete the test by the time the ward opens up?" Jin asked which caused Zeru to send another whirlwind to him, prompting Jin to dodge barely in time.
"Don't ever consider the option of failing. Be headstrong and convince yourself that whatever you try will succeed. However, considering this isn't really something to be learned in a brief period of time, you will have to continue the training after you have defeated the four demon exorcist trainees. That is if you fail." Zeru twirled his sword while telling Jin to get up as soon as possible.
"In short, you are not getting back to the shop until you learn how to control your chi properly without using your Pandaromic Eyes," Zeru said as he deduced Jin's eyes were bleeding because he was using his Panda Vision to manipulate his chi down to exact and detailed movements of the ice shards in order to create the concentrated beam. Such precision had its price and Zeru preferred his student not to take any short cuts.
"What are you staring at me for? You are a hundred years too young to fall for me. Plus, I do not swing that way. My wife is the 'bestest'." Zeru shot another whirlwind at Jin to make him get back to training.