A few days had passed since Fang Xiong had visited the library. He'd spent these last few days reading his books repetitively and training the Forms from the book his Master had officially passed over to him.

As he practiced the forms, more information appeared on the existing pages or in new ones. Things to help make the practice worth more or to make it more efficient but the thing that Fang Xiong was most happy about was that it gave him insights on how to change the forms from simple Breathing Techniques and into a singular special move.

He'd already barely completed one of them, which was the Gorilla Form's Move. Its name was quite simple, it was called "Crushing Blow".

The aim of this move was to do what it said; crush. It focused the momentum and strength of the body into one of the limbs for an utterly devastating blow. Fang Xiong had tried it out and found that it was about 5x more effective than a normal full-powered punch or kick but as the drawback, it took a lot of energy from Fang Xiong's body and left him quite fatigued after only 4 Crushing Blows.

Other than this, he'd also been getting lessons on how to better control his Ki from Master Long, while also being taught on what the different uses for Ki were and how it differs from the other two Cultivation Systems.

Ki could be primarily used to enhance the strikes the Cultivator threw out, while also being incredibly good at healing injuries and helping with the recovery of stamina. It was also incredibly good at defense and guarding the body of the Cultivator.

Master Long then went on to talk about Qi and how it was different from Ki.

Ki is calm and collected and wouldn't hurt the body as it comes from the body and the energy knew not to hurt what it came from, but Qi, on the other hand, was entirely different.

Qi is absorbed from the atmosphere surrounding the Cultivator and isn't used to the body, so it naturally causes a bit of damage here and there but once they get control over it, this natural damage the Qi causes to a body becomes a boon for their offensive power.

If a Qi Cultivator injects their Qi into someone with their attacks, the Qi will enter their opponent's bodies and cause internal damage. This shows the high offensive power Qi Cultivators can possess.

Other uses for Qi are Alchemy, Weapon Making, and Limited Healing, at least when compared to the healing Ki can dish out.

The final thing Master Long talked about were Soul or Spirit Cultivators. He didn't talk for very long about these kinds of Cultivators and when he was talking about them, all he did was call them cowards and overall seemed quite hateful of them.

But as Fang Xiong listened to how they fought, he couldn't help but agree that they were cowards.

They cultivated Spirit Energy and of course the Soul and used this energy plus their enhanced Souls and Minds to make illusions that could interrogate or just trap people for as long as they had Spirit Energy to fuel the illusions.

They also created Formations to damage their opponents or to put debuffs on them. For this reason, Spirit Cultivators are used as supports in group fights and are the perfect choice for capturing people who need to be captured without being hurt.

"But never trust a Spirit Cultivator, Xiong'er, they're all most likely than not scheming cowards who will use you as a pawn!" Fang Xiong could remember the look of anger and hatred on his Master's face at that time but beyond the hatred, he could see the utter sadness there as well. It just served to remind him that he couldn't let his Master down and risk hurting his pride; he had to become stronger.

Currently, Fang Xiong was reading a book while swinging about on a massive tree in the courtyard.

He would swing from branch to branch with ease, ducking and weaving between the branches like he'd been doing it his whole life. He'd even let his tail loose and let it sway behind him.

His breathing was odd and came in quick bursts of three every now and again, it sounded oddly like laughter.

Despite the ease of his actions, Fang Xiong was sweating buckets and had his concentration split in two ways. One way to his book, which he had to constantly switch hands as he was swinging around the branches, and the other way to concentrate on what branches to hold onto and swing too.

He was swinging through the tree on his Master's instructions for on how to properly progress in the Monkey Form. He did it without thinking and put the weights on and started climbing.

Fang Xiong could only thank the God of trees that the tree was so big and the branches so strong that it could withstand the weights and him swinging about with them on.

Fang Xiong stopped the breathing pattern and swung off the tree and let himself fall to the ground. He landed with a loud bang but ignored it and simply put his book down and took the weights off.

He was back to only wearing his shorts while every else was laid bare. He liked it this way. The clothes his father and sister always made him wear were much too restrictive for his liking and only his Master seemed to understand what he meant.

Fang Xiong grunted in a dismissive way and just wrapped his tail back around his waist before pulling his shorts up a little to hide it.

Putting his nose near his armpit and sniffing, he recoiled in disgust, noting that he really needed to clean himself. Thinking of what he had to do today and finding nothing too important, Fang Xiong left his family's personal courtyard and walked into their house to go to the washroom.

. . .

20 minutes later and a lot of scrubbing, Fang Xiong came out of the bathroom clean and smelling a lot better than before. He walked to his room, not bothering to cover himself with a towel.

He entered his room and then to his drawer and picked out some underpants and some shorts which looked the same as the ones he trains in.

Fang Xiong laid these clothes out on his bed before quickly rubbing his body down with the towel he'd brought from the bathroom. He shook his tail about aggressively, splashing water around his room but not caring too much about it.

After he was dry he put his clothes on before looking at himself in his mirror.

He wasn't sure why but he had always been incredibly vain, for some reason he couldn't help it.

As he looked at his tall (for his age), broad and athletically muscular body, he couldn't help but wonder what he was. Looking at other people his age, they were usually shorter, had much less muscle, if not devoid of it, and they were narrow instead of being broad like him.

Thinking about what he was he thought back to that dream he had, with the tall man and the tall woman who gave him such a familiar feeling and yet such an unfamiliar one at the same time. Fang Xiong shook his head to rid himself of the confusing thoughts and backed away from his mirror and went toward the door of his room.

Weirdly enough he heard some clamoring downstairs and quickly rushed to see what was happening, hoping to distract himself from the complex thoughts going through his head.

When he reached the commotion downstairs he saw his sister lifting up a few suitcases and her uncle, his Master, picking up some of the others.

"A-are you guys going now?" Fang Xiong's voice cracked slightly but he covered it pretty quickly and no one seemed to notice as they turned to him. Master Long look relieved Fang Xiong was here.

"Xiong'er, come over here and help me out with your sister's luggage," Fang Xiong would usually tell him to do it himself, but for some reason, he was compelled to help.

He lifted up the rest of the suitcases and carried them outside, following his sister and Master to the front of the Clan Estate. On the way there, Fang Xiong wanted to speak but just couldn't find the words to do so and instead chose to be silent.

When they finally arrived, there were a few carriages with men and women in uniforms in them surrounding a bigger, more luxurious carriage in the middle.

All the uniformed men stood up and rushed over to stand in a line when they saw Master Long appear at the front of the estate.

"Commander Long!" about 50 men and women shouted as loudly as they could as they lifted their fists to their chests in a salute of some kind. Fang Xiong widened his eyes in surprise, surprise that his Master wasn't lying when he said he was a bigshot in the army and also surprised that people had this much respect for the old man.

"Yeah, yeah, at ease. Now come and help me, my nephew and my niece carry these bags. Load them into the carriage and then we'll set off," Fang Xiong put the bags down and watched as the soldiers saluted again and rushed to pick the bags up.

Master Long looked over at Fang Xiong and motioned for him to come over. When he was in front of Master Long, he heard him start to speak, "Xiong'er, this short time has been magnificent. You've been a wonderful disciple and I think that you need to be rewarded~" as he said this, his Master grabbed at the air a pair of black gloves appeared in his hands, "These are special gloves for Ki Cultivators like us, so we can fight armed-opponents without having our fingers and hands sliced off. Try them on!" Fang Xiong quickly caught the thrown gloves.

His hands dipped a little from the unexpectant weight of the gloves but this only excited him.

He slipped them on and flexing his hands in an open and closing motion. He felt the metallic texture on his hands but also the surprising pliability of the gloves as well. He instantly knew they would make wonderful tools to beat people with.

Seeing Fang Xiong's ecstatic smile, Master Long boomed with laughter, "Haha! I knew you'd like them. Look after them. They should be good enough to go up against normal swords and Houtian Ranked Swords but always be wary!" Master Long slapped him on the shoulder before saying goodbye and good luck for the future and that he would see him again soon before he walked off to command his subordinates.

This left Fang Xiong and Xiao Mei to stand next to each and look at the other, causing Fang Xiong's earlier happiness to slowly fade.

Xiao Mei had red eyes and her lip wouldn't stop trembling, while Fang Xiong looked angry at something but his red-rimmed eyes gave away that he was just frustrated and sad. Xiao Mei went to say something but was stopped when she felt something shocking happen; Fang Xiong hugging her.

"Wait for me at the Academy, sister. I'll be strong enough to stand by your side at that moment, I promise!" Fang Xiong's voice was strained and a bit shaky but that did nothing to hide the pure determination in it.

Xiao Mei just vigorously shook her head while tears poured from her eyes. She knew how special this hug and declaration were and it made her heart explode with warmth.

After a few more seconds of hugging, they separated and Master Long came back over.

"Have you two said your goodbyes?" they both nodded their heads to the question, "Good because we need to get going," Master Long went to turn around before stopping himself, his face lighting up as if he remembered something, "Ah, Xiong'er! Here, catch!"

Fang Xiong quickly reacted to the small object flying toward him and lifted his hand up and caught it.

He opened his hand and looked at what it was. It was a simple, silver ring; a Spatial Ring. Fang Xiong looked up in shock at his Master only to discover him gone and probably in his carriage.

After one last hug and goodbye, he left his sister to go and get in the carriage to go toward the academy she'd chosen.

Fang Xiong put the ring on his index finger and sent some Ki to it to look inside. Inside were a lot of food items which were very rich with Vital Energy, some pills for Ki recovery and also some high-grade medical cream. Looking even deeper into the ring, Fang Xiong found a few books on the human body and how best to exercise it and push it to the limits.

He willed one of them out and opened it.

It was only a basic book but it was full of his Master's insights. Looking back at the carriages that were setting off, Fang Xiong muttered a sincere 'thank you' and got to thinking about which exercise would fit best with one of the 4 breathing patterns he had.