Path Of The Dragon (A Dark Fantasy Cultivation Wuxia Xianxia Progression Series)

Chapter 12 Martial Skills

Early the next day, Jie sat in the courtyard. She watched the sun creep over the horizon and spill the dawn's first rays over the temple, giving it an otherworldly look.

She giggled at the thought. Of course it was otherworldly. It was another world after all!

"Are you ready, kiddo?" Ming asked.

The lightning that crackled over his scales seemed more energetic this morning, but maybe it was just her imagination.

"Yes, please teach me how to fight!" she said.

Jie bowed before the great dragon that had given her so much. She couldn't wait to learn how to fight! She would never let anyone she loved be hurt ever again!

"That's the spirit, kid," Ming said.

He brought out the same, small, golden box as before and flipped open the lid.

"Let's see here... where did I put that thing? Hmm? Nope. That's not it. Oh? I forgot I had that. Ah! Yes! That's the one," he said.

He brought out a scroll and laid it out in front of her.

On the scroll were diagrams depicting the movement of qi through the tunnels in the dantian. It called these tunnels meridians.

From there, it showed how to form this qi outside the body and into a dragon's head that engulfed the figure's fist.

"This," Ming said with pride in his voice, "is the dragonfist technique. It's a very basic martial skill, but it's highly effective even so. It forms a dragon's head out of qi."

"And then what?" Jie asked.

"Then you punch your enemy with it and then... boom! I did say it was basic," Ming said.

"I'm going to help you with this one, but I want you to use the scroll as much as possible, so you get used to learning from them. You'll thank me later when you learn skills I don't know, and you have to rely on the scroll completely," Ming said.

"So you know how to do this martial skill?" Jie asked.

"Of course. It's one of the first skills I learned," he said.

Jie studied the scroll and then paused.

"Hey, wait a minute. How can I read this? Does your world use the same language as mine?" she asked.

"Hmm," Ming said, "No we don't... after we got here, you just started talking in my normal language, and I suppose I forgot about it. But you can read it?"

"Yes, I can read it fine... and wait what? I've been talking a different language this whole time?" she said.

"You only just noticed?" he asked.

She frowned and then thought harder about what she was saying as she said it. As she paid attention to it, the language emerged from her mind.

Where before she'd been doing it entirely subconsciously, and it felt like she was talking as she always did. Now, she could discern the knowledge of this language within her mind. It still felt just as natural to her as her own.

Ming shrugged. "Maybe you picked it up during the travel here," he said.

"How? It isn't like we spoke during that," she said.

"No, but it's possible that some of my knowledge merged with you when I was so closely tied to every fiber of your being. Either that or our mystery helper decided to give you that.

"Or a million other unknowable reasons. Whatever the reason, you know my language. Let's move on. There's lots to do," Ming said.

Jie's head was still spinning like a top, but she pushed those thoughts out of her mind and focused on the scroll once more.