Within the time it took to blink, they had exchanged over 20 moves, each aiming to slaughter the other. Every move that they made was made with the intent to kill.
Ren Jie's movements and attacks were continuous and fluid, which showed that his foundations were rock solid. He was only using top-tier orange grade cultivation arts whether it was the movement art or attacking cultivation arts.
Yang Qing could already decipher which they were the instant his body made the slightest of movements and even the degree of expertise Ren Jie had in them.
The orange grade arts he was using were the mainstay cultivation arts the Institute trained the students in the first four months, though they did teach them one blue grade art, but the bulk of the time they were trained in orange grade arts.
There were various factors and reasons why the instructors preferred to first train the students in orange grade arts, instead of focusing on the more superior blue grade, gold grade, or even purple grade arts.
Some of the reasons were; to help the students acclimate well to their breakthrough, to have a better grasp of their strength, a top tier orange grade art would do a far better job than a low tier blue grade art.
Blue-grade arts were difficult to grasp and even if one grasped it, someone at the early stages of the foundation establishment realm or in the qi refinement, would not be able to fully bring out the might of the blue-grade arts, and it would also hinder the understanding of their own bodies because of the strain the blue grade arts would have on them.
Therefore to better hone their instincts, and grasp of their abilities, the instructors usually started the students off with orange-grade arts.
The instructors would hand over a list of preselected top-tier orange-grade arts, and the students would choose which ones they would like to learn. It was usually a maximum of five. Any more, and it would prove problematic because the instructors would give them one-on-one tutoring in the early weeks before it evolved into group classes.
For the sake of efficiency, they couldn't learn more with the help of the instructors, though they could add to their list for self-study, but the maximum the instructors could guide them on was a fixed five.
Most usually went with five or less, since more was never best. Despite being orange-grade arts, it didn't mean they could be grasped easily. One needed to give them a fair bit of attention to gain any meaningful mastery of them. For orange-grade arts, achieving anything less than the blooming stage in terms of mastery was considered mediocre. Because it was only when one reached the blooming stage would the orange-grade arts be considered fully in use.
From Ren Jie's exchange of attacks with Zou Hong, Yang Qing could tell the movement art he practiced was a top-tier orange-grade art by the name of the weightless water-gliding step of the phaseless lizard.
The art was aimed at strengthening the leg muscles, with the core of the body acting as the conductor. One's control of their legs needed to be gentle and light to the point you could borrow the wind and the force of your movement or even the movement from the opponent's attack to increase your speed.
It wasn't the best when it came to running away from an opponent but when it came to a dueling movement art, it was one of the best, especially in a battle of attrition since it operated on borrowing the force of the attacker to sustain itself, and it also emphasized on using minimal movements as possible. Yang Qing could already tell Ren Jie was already at the blooming stage with it.
And for attacking, he could tell he went with the orange-grade art the thunderous crane sword art. It paired perfectly with the weightless water gliding step of the phaseless lizard since it focused on fluidity strikes continuously built upon the previous move be it attack or defend.
As for his opponent, even when the skilled Ren Jie, Zou Hong seemed to hold his own against him. Yang Qing could tell he had a natural physique that had the metal and wind attributes, which made him perfectly balanced in attack and defense.
Zou Hong's fight pattern seemed haphazard without clear movement patterns. He seemed to react solely on instinct, however, those movements though irregular, had a certain accuracy to them. Every attack, every roll of the body, everything he did seemed to add a lethality to his attack. Were it any other opponent he was facing, they would have lost by now and even though Ren Jie kept him at bay, it wasn't as easy as any of the students or even maybe Ren Jie himself would have expected even with Zou Hong not being at 100%, since before he was brought here, he had been under the special care of the requiem guards.
The longer the fight went on, the more Zou Hong's experience as a murderous rogue cultivator began to show. This was someone who had fought for countless years. From his file he was already 98 years old, and from when he was young to date, who knew how many fights he has been in? Probably several hundred more than the 16-year-old Ren Jie.
Ren Jie made a downward lightning slash toward Zou Hong to try and slice his shoulder, however, Zou Hong managed to twist his body and bones like a boneless creature and then borrowed the momentum of Ren Jie's slash by using his two hook swords to swing rotationally on his sword. By the time he swung upwards, his leg was already at the neck of Ren Jie aiming to slice his head apart.
Ren Jie managed to dodge in the nick of time, by b twisting his waist while he bent backwards. He managed to disrupt the trajectory of the kick with the twist, evading the kick by an inch but even then, a shallow cut appeared below his eye.
Zou Hong's pupils contracted when he saw the blood on Ren Jie's face. His face contorted to a frenzied bloodthirsty look as he manically laughed while increasing the speeds of his attacks. A tempest wind of destruction was created with his crazy swings that didn't seem to follow any rhyme or reason.
For the next few minutes, Ren Jie was put on the defense, dodging and deflecting the attacks by a hair's breadth each time, with Zou Hong's momentum growing by the second.
Murmurings appeared from the student's side each surprised at Ren Jie being pushed around, one of them even mocked Ren Jie for his lackluster abilities, and how he was losing face for the Order, while on the inmates' side, they were celebrating, and cheering like it was their win.
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