Chapter 11 Grizzly Bear
After Kyle finished speaking, the wooden sword in his hands rose, and with it a vigorous aura appeared around him. The sword thrust out and swept to the side, creating a distinct sound of wind and thunder.
He concurrently explained, “The School of Sword Arts has a history of a hundred and fifty years, and it was founded by those who belonged to the previous generation of Outsiders from the Western Land, when they first came to the Empire.
However, during these past a hundred and fifty years, genius swordsmen have sprung out endlessly across generations, and the sword arts of our school have long since evolved from the style of the Western Land sword arts, eventually gaining a shape of their own. This Grizzly Bear Sword Technique has been improved and modified by many masters of swordsmanship in order to turn into what it is today.”
The muscles all over his body kept twisting and turning. Although the sword was in his hands, it was as if all his muscles’ power had been wrung into a single line. However, it was different from a human’s usual body constitution. The technique had its own unique rhythm, as if portraying a standing grizzly bear swaying right and left, and training the powers of the four limbs.
“Martial arts are divided into four types, namely Nurturing, Training, Amassing and Killing. Nurturing refers to the accumulation of the physical body’s potential. It is just like how a good sword requires daily maintenance, application of sword grease and blade polishing, to make it sharper and sharper. The same goes for the human body.
“Careful nurture is required in order to develop a strong base that may allow for the further development of one’s physical body.
“The Grizzly Bear Sword Technique is a Nurturing technique created by the masters of previous generations, designed to imitate the habits of grizzly bears, after a close observation of their movements.
“In the long run, practicing it will allow one to wring his or her body into a single line, thus gaining the strength of a grizzly bear.”
In between his words, the wooden sword trembled in Kyle’s hands, creating many afterimages. He suddenly swelled up like a grizzly bear woken up from deep hibernation, and the most powerful energy hidden in the human body exploded outwards.
A light roar echoed, as if a bear had cried out. With a thrust of Kyle’s sword, the air currents scattered the fallen leaves on the ground several feet away.
“When a bear hibernates, its whole body will tremble every few days. Thus, its muscles won’t stiffen, and its blood flow won’t stop, which would prove extremely harmful to its body. When we practice the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique, the most important thing to note is the trembling, as if all living things on earth have sprung to life at the sound of the spring thunder.
“This trembling is the Nurturing technique, and in it lie the profound mysteries of nurturing the human body.”
After demonstrating the full set of the Grizzly Bear Sword Techniques, Kyle retracted his sword as he turned and smiled at Fang Xingjian. “But, while this set of sword techniques seems easy, one has to slowly grasp and tune the weight, advance and retreat, and consider each move in its turn very carefully. It isn’t possible to master this in just a short moment.
“Today, I’ll teach you a few of the simplest moves…”
One could tell that Kyle, after accepting the tuition fees, was truly professional and did not hold back anything as he shared the essence of the Grizzly Bear Swordplay in its entirety with Fang Xingjian.
Of course, this was very similar to the countless other Nurturing techniques across the world. While the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique was powerful, it was in no way considered a peerless technique. But even through it alone one could already tell that this particular martial arts system was very well developed and thought-out, having become a unique part of this world’s culture.
Listening to Kyle’s explanation, Fang Xingjian’s gaze lit up. It was the first time he had listened to such an explanation for martial arts, and he suddenly felt as if everything had suddenly become very clear for him.
In the next moment, a new technique had popped into existence in his Techniques Column.
Level 1 Grizzly Bear Sword Technique: increases the potential of the human body and has the effect of gradually increasing strength and agility attributes.
To think that he had picked up the skill directly! It was not just that. With Kyle’s explanation and demonstration, he had also started following his movements in order to practice each step of the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique.
Within a few minutes’ time, Kyle had stopped his actions, staring wide-eyed at Fang Xingjian, as if he were a monster.
Fang Xingjian waved the wooden sword in his hands, his body trembling in synchronicity with the tip of the sword. It felt as if within each tremor the muscles all over his body were breathing along with the sword’s movements, as if a grizzly bear was scratching itself against a tree, the muscles and bones in its body trembling altogether.
‘How is this possible? When I saw him practicing the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique earlier, he was all in a flurry, he couldn’t grasp the weight of the movements, and he was breathing heavily as if he had never trained before.
‘How could it be that he’s mastered the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique merely within a few minutes’ time, as if he’d been training hard for months?’
On the other hand, Fang Xingjian was still immersed in the joy of leveling up his sword technique. He had been gifted with the world’s best talent in sword arts, and had then trained to get his Basic Sword Technique up to level 30, thus gaining the specialty Genius Swordsmanship. Therefore, it was no wonder he could pick up sword techniques at an exceptional speed.
With the additional acceleration, he was able to master level 3 of the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique in just a few minutes’ time, something which would have taken an ordinary person half a year’s effort.
While there was no increase in his attributes at level 3 of the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique, he felt as if the muscles and bones all over his body had been submerged into a hot spring, and as if multiple hands were giving him a full-body massage.
It was then when he suddenly noticed Kyle’s weird gaze and started to slow down the progress of his sword technique.
“Teacher, this set of sword techniques seems very familiar to me. It seems that there are many similarities between it and the Basic Sword Technique I’d learnt before.”
“Oh?”
With that, Fang Xingjian demonstrated his Basic Sword Technique to Kyle. The latter nodded with a gaze of appreciation. “Even though this set of Sword Techniques is simple and coarse, it includes the stances of most of the sword techniques in this world.
“What is even harder to come by is the sturdiness of your basics. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen this. Adding to that your talent in swordsmanship, it’s no wonder you’re able to grasp the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique so quickly!
“However, whilst in the beginning the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique is easy, you still need to accurately grasp the correct way to channel the energy within your body for later on.”
Kyle thought that he could understand the reason why Fang Xingjian was able to grasp the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique so quickly. He nodded in admiration and worked even harder in teaching Fang Xingjian. His admiration for Fang Xingjian rose even higher after realizing that although he was highly talented, he was still able to devote so much effort towards setting such a strong base for his swordsmanship.
Fang Xingjian, on the other hand, no longer dared to train at his full abilities, but held back instead. He knew that the talent which he had just shown had already far exceeded that of a normal person. If others were to find out that it would take him only a few days to level up the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique to level 20 or 30, he would no longer be seen as a talent but as a demon.
It would be good if the others were to admire him, but it would be unnecessary trouble if someone felt that something about his talent was amiss and wanted to look into it or to even put pressure on him.
Once his demonic talent was exposed, there would only be two possible options for him: to be pressured to death, or to forcibly comply to being someone else’s chess piece.
Currently, Fang Xingjian only wished to remain hidden in The School of Sword Arts, and to master all the sword techniques there in order to increase his powers.
Therefore, over the next few days, whenever Fang Xingjian met Kyle he would only reveal the equivalent of the level 1 Grizzly Bear Sword Technique, meanwhile secretly practicing by himself, repetitively breaking through levels, and even reaching level 12.
After breaking through level 10 of the Grizzly Bear Sword Technique, he finally gained additional attributes consisting of a 2 points increase in strength, a 2 points increase in agility, an increase in the body’s potential, and an increase in the recovery speed from the exhaustion of his muscles and bones.