Chapter 450: Close-Combat Training—A Full-Power Strike in a Dream, and the Specialized Requirements for the Two

Jier had once again arrived within the Lady's dream.

He straightened the comfortable old clothes he was wearing, hummed a little tune as he walked down the Treatment Mushroom platform that had saved him several times, and strolled toward his Yingdi. He first nimbly bypassed a massive tree trunk blocking his path, then, using the illumination from the Glowing Moss, Jier took a small leap over an aerial root of a tree that was shaped like an archway.

Not long after, he arrived at the brighter Memory Pond.

Unlike the first time he had come here, Jier had long since thoroughly renovated the place. On the open ground by the side of the Pond, the floor was covered with Silver Wall Panels he had scavenged from the Elf Ruins. With the reflection from this shiny metal, his little Yingdi had become bright and clear.

Relying solely on the brilliant, scattered light emitted by the Memory Water in the Pond, this Yingdi and its surroundings became bright due to the reflection of the precious metal, requiring no additional lighting equipment.

Besides this, there were also large, glowing Mushrooms carefully placed here by the old Spirit; perhaps to beautify the living environment, or perhaps to show that this place was also its own territory. The number of these Mushrooms was not small, and they could be considered to have provided some additional lighting.

But looking at those large-headed, colorful, glowing Mushrooms, Jier did not dare to eat these suspicious things when he was hungry. He would rather eat those gray-colored Mushroom Boys that ran, jumped, and babbled, than eat these brightly colored glowing Mushrooms.

"Let me look for it."

He stepped on the cold, reflective Silver Plate floor and came to the place where he stored his captured weapons. New Mushrooms the size of a fingernail occasionally grew on the wooden rack where the weapons were hung; Jier had to flick them off and throw them far away, not letting these mushrooms that grew everywhere erode his wooden weapon rack.

"Battle Knife, Battle Knife, it should be a weapon captured quite early last year." Jier searched the weapon rack but didn't find it, then opened the large Wooden Box under the rack and rummaged through it.

He finally dug out that rare Battle Knife from the very bottom.

This weapon came with a scabbard; its length and width were a size larger than the Changdao held by his Warriors, and it was slightly heavier in weight.

An ordinary person might treat it as a two-handed weapon due to its size and weight, using it with both hands, but as Jier weighed the weapon in his hand, he actually felt it was even a bit light?

"My strength has improved, after all."

He said this with some self-satisfaction, then drew the Battle Knife.

Clang—

With a loud sound of the blade being drawn, Jier looked down at the Battle Knife and discovered that when he had stored it previously, he had applied protective Grease to the blade. Thus, even though half a year had passed and the knife had not been used, there was not a single speck of rust on it.

Jier took out a piece of Linen Cloth for wiping weapons and carefully wiped the Grease off the surface of the Battle Knife. Then, he could clearly see a blurred inscription left by the maker on the blade: 【To my wife, I wish to dance with you】.

Unfortunately, Jier still did not know who the maker of this Battle Knife was, or whether the person who once used this weapon had survived after encountering the Bandits.

He then went to a more open area of the Yingdi. Ignoring the Mushroom Boys peeking and looking over curiously, Jier threw the scabbard aside. He first held the Battle Knife with one hand and swung it a few times to test the balance and feel, then gripped it with both hands and slashed with force.

Swish—

Swish—

Whoosh, whoosh—

Every slash of varying intensity produced an extremely loud sound of breaking air, but Jier had not truly used his full strength yet; he was merely using the physical power of his own body to wield the weapon.

Jier jumped back and forth while slashing; when jumping forward, he followed up with a two-handed slash, and when jumping backward, he swung the knife several times, simulating using the blade to deflect and parry the weapons of enemies closing in.

Next, he moved sideways, lowered his body, and quickly slashed several times from bottom to top. This was to imitate the action of immediately launching a counterattack from a low position after crouching to dodge an enemy's attack.

He then jumped up to step on the surrounding tree trunks, rolling at high speed in the air. The Battle Knife brought out a ring-shaped, vertical silver arc, sounding a terrifying, whistling noise as it cut through the air. Upon finally landing, he came down heavily, following up with a powerful slashing motion.

But the great force of the slash did not mean Jier could not control it. He ultimately let the Changdao stop when it landed, with the blade only a finger's thickness away from the ground, not actually damaging the Silver Plate on the ground in the slightest.

Exhaling a breath, Jier closed his eyes and muttered to himself: "How about I try using my full strength? After all, I still haven't been able to reach the limit of this Battle Knife."

Don't let the series of wide-open, wide-close movements fool you; the Battle Knife in his hand was well-crafted, and no abnormal vibrations or noises appeared, which meant he still hadn't probed the limit of this weapon's capabilities.

"【Grass and Wood Source】, activate." Jier said softly. Then, the areas on his clothes at his ribs glowed slightly, and he shivered as the Life Energy within his body began to operate at high speed, providing his muscles, bones, and organs with strength support that exceeded that of a Human.

Boom!

Jier took a step from where he stood, and his entire person instantly vanished from the spot. Where he had stepped, the Silver Plate left deep, deformed footprints.

Moving at high speed, Jier's clothes were whipped by the airflow, making a snapping sound, and his golden-brown hair was pulled backward by the wind. He first ran in a circle at high speed around the Memory Pond, then, feeling the place was too cramped, he ran randomly in one direction, stepping into the depths of the dream.

When encountering obstructing tree roots, Jier would lightly tap his toes and easily leap over them as if flying.

When encountering the winding small river made of Memory Water, Jier carefully made a large leap over it, avoiding falling in and disappearing from this world entirely.

The Lady's dream seemed to have no Bianji. He ran with all his might, swinging the knife as he ran to feel the sensation of the weapon being wielded with immense force. For quite a while, he did not encounter any tangible or intangible obstacles, until he arrived at a flat area where the trees were sparse.

Here, the tree trunks of the trees whose crowns could not be seen were relatively sparse, and the ground was entirely covered in soft Glowing Moss. The environment was open and extremely quiet, truly a good place for practicing martial arts.

"Ha—"

Jier let out a loud shout, sprinted forward at high speed, swung his arms with force, and delivered a heavy slash.

The blade broke through the heavy air resistance, carving out air ripples that were almost visible to the naked eye, traveling forward at high speed for over ten meters before Jier used force to stop and pull it back.

"Whew—"

Exhaling a breath, Jier pulled his feet out of the moss he had shoveled up from the ground. Looking back, the entire route he had sprinted along had the moss on the ground left in shambles by his feet. At the place where he finally sprinted and stopped abruptly, large patches of moss had been shoveled up from the ground because his feet had pressed against it.

Two shallow trenches had been plowed into the ground.

"Seems like something is still missing?" Jier was still unsatisfied. What was the point of just having the blade break the air? There was no blade aura, no such thing as sword energy, nor any outrageous air blades. It was just the arm swinging the blade; it was very difficult to compress and push the air to the point of creating destructive power.

He simply sat on the ground holding this well-crafted Battle Knife, breathing the moist, cold, fresh air around him, pondering how he could become stronger.

Looking at the gloomy environment around him, Jier soon had the answer.

【Shadow Bird】

A small, pitch-black bird made of shadows soon crawled out from Jier's right eye. As soon as this little thing came out, it circled around Jier's head, seemingly quite fond of the gloomy environment Jier was currently in.

"As long as you like it, it's time to use you."

Jier extended the index finger of his left hand, letting the small Shadow Bird land on his fingertip, while his right hand raised the blade of the Battle Knife, letting the cold steel blade reflect the hollow image of the pitch-black bird.

"【Shadow Enhancement】, enhance this weapon of mine and give it some extraordinary abilities it didn't originally have."

Jier touched his left index finger to the right, and the bird made of shadows turned into a mass of pitch-black power and merged into the Battle Knife.

Jier thought that was it, but he didn't expect the weapon enhanced by the Shadow Bird to have further changes. The originally cold and bright reflective blade gradually became gloomy and somber, and the overall color of the blade gradually dimmed, finally settling between gray and blackish-gray.

Jier estimated that it was because his Shadow Bird ability was newly acquired and the power was insufficient to dye the entire weapon the same color as the Shadow Bird. So now, it could only be barely stained a grayish-black.

Because of this, Jier was somewhat skeptical about how much real power the Battle Knife enhanced by the Shadow Bird's ability actually had.

He still had to test it on the spot.

Jier stood up, took a deep breath, and while the 【Grass and Wood Source】 Divine Art on his body had not yet vanished, he ran and sprinted once again.

After he started moving, he discovered that the Battle Knife enhanced by the Possession of the Shadow Bird would have some black light spots drifting backward from the blade as it moved at high speed. It looked somewhat miraculous, but he didn't know if it was good or bad.

If it were just for show, Jier would accept it, but he feared that the Shadow Bird's ability was insufficient, causing some power to leak out during high-speed movement, resulting in these black light spots drifting backward.

"Forget it, watch the power of this blade!"

Jier immediately stomped the ground and leaped twice, rushing forward more than thirty meters, and as he finally landed, he slashed forward with the blade he had already prepared.

This time, as the gray-black blade edge slashed down, there was no sharp sound of the blade breaking through the air, only a pitch-black edge flung out from the blade body, shooting straight forward in a linear path.

The pitch-black edge was exactly the length of the entire Battle Knife blade; it slashed along the moss on the ground for the whole distance, then flew another ten-plus meters before slamming into the trunk of a tree at the edge of the clearing.

The large tree trunk did not even shake, but a clear, pitch-black mark was left on the surface of the trunk.

Jier hurriedly stopped his movement. He first looked at the Battle Knife in his hand and found that the blade had returned to its original steel color, and the surface of the blade had become shiny once again. And just as Jier lowered his head to observe, a listless Little Shadow Bird crawled out from the Battle Knife, flapped its wings weakly twice, and flew straight into Jier's right eye.

"That's it?" Jier was somewhat speechless. Could its 【Shadow Enhancement】 only support one attack?

But he soon recalled some 'memories' from his mind that he hadn't known before, realizing that it was because the Shadow Bird's ability was too low, which was why it could only support one attack projected from a weapon, or multiple ordinary slashing attacks imbued with shadow power.

To strengthen the enhanced attack capability, one had to increase the Shadow Bird's own power.

"That's more like it, I thought it was really that useless."

Jier shook his head and walked forward; he wanted to see exactly how much damage that final pitch-black shadow blade had caused to the large tree there.

After walking over and taking a look, Jier breathed a sigh of relief, because the pitch-black shadow power had caused an erosion injury one finger deep to the tree trunk. It was an erosion injury as long as a finger, oh, and not just a finger's width wide.

Jier used his left hand to make a fist and knocked hard on the tree trunk, finding it still quite sturdy and solid. If the Shadow Bird's shadow power could cause a finger-deep shadow power injury to a tree of this sturdiness, then this kind of attack could be considered excellent.

Although there was only one chance for the move right now.

But Jier was already very satisfied; this meant he had gained another way to overcome enemies and win.

A satisfied Jier carried this fine Battle Knife and walked back. He looked at this extremely well-crafted Battle Knife, but he did not intend to use it anytime soon.

Because Jier could not explain to the people around him where he had gotten this weapon. Captured from bandits or enemies? But recently, no enemy had used such an eye-catching and excellent bladed weapon.

Bought from a Merchant? But when he entered and exited the Refugee Yingdi at Dorn Town, he hadn't ostentatiously shown everyone his newly bought weapon. He had, however, ostentatiously worn his new cloak directly.

A weapon he had possessed all along, just hidden in his own carriage? Other Warriors might believe this excuse; Bata'er Jiaoshi had never entered his carriage, so perhaps he would believe this excuse too, but would Xueya Site, who frequently entered and exited Jier's carriage and helped him drive it all day, believe it?

Whether Jier had such a weapon or not, could Xueya Site not know?

Therefore, until Xueya Site left him, Jier would find it difficult to take this weapon out for use.

"What a pity, I can only shelve you for the time being." Seeing no one around, Jier rarely added a Chinese idiom to his speech. The Human Common Language of this different world did not have similar Chinese idioms; there were only some similar short colloquialisms and some proverbs with philosophical meaning.

Jier climbed out of his carriage; he hadn't been inside for long, but when he came out, he had changed into a pair of thin leather boots. However, this small difference did not attract anyone's attention. The boots Jier had been wearing while performing high-speed movements and sudden stops in his dream had long been soaked and dirtied by the moist Glowing Moss; there was no help for it, Jier had to change into a pair temporarily.

When he came out of the lady's dream, he was even barefoot!

Because in the dream, his Yingdi had not prepared multiple sets of daily clothes or shoes or anything, though he had stored plenty of food and drink due to past experiences.

He arrived before Weier and Aoni, who had been waiting for a long time, and raised his hand to greet them: "Been waiting a long time?"

Unexpectedly, the two shook their heads: "Not very long."

"Knight Jier, you look quite happy?" Weier scrutinized Jier's expression and asked with a guess.

Jier shrugged: "There is a bit of good news, but it has nothing to do with everyone. Come! No more nonsense, let me ask first, what areas of martial arts improvement do you each need?"

He added a sentence: "Of course, the premise of martial arts improvement is that I can be of help to you. Unlike some basic things—everyone knows the basics—but once you delve into the exploration of a certain weapon's martial arts, I won't be able to help much."

Unexpectedly, Weier spoke his thoughts first: "Knight Jier, although I have many requests for help regarding martial arts and strength, today, I only hope you can teach me some knowledge and techniques of combat footwork."

"The in-depth kind?" Jier asked tentatively.

Weier nodded: "Yes, the more in-depth kind, not the basic things you taught the other Warriors."

Jier touched his chin, scratched the newly grown stubble on his chin, thought for a moment, and nodded to agree to Weier's request: "Alright, I will tell you about combat footwork techniques in depth."

He then looked at Aoni: "And you? What kind of specialized improvement do you need? This kind of opportunity is rare, feel free to make your request boldly."

Jier actually thought highly of Aoni, this sturdy, clever, and brave Warrior, so he let him make a request as he pleased.

Aoni scratched his head, but the Leather Helmet inlaid with iron plates on his head hindered his movement: "I don't have anything, my lord, I only hope you can teach me how to reasonably use the armor on my body to defeat enemies?"

Jier waved his hand and smiled easily: "That's too easy. So, who goes first?"

Weier intended to be modest, so he let Aoni go first.

Aoni did not hesitate either; he took a step forward, his eyes burning as he looked at Jier, his ears paying close attention to every word Knight Jier spoke.

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