《Shared System》38. Somehow, it fits
Advertisement
Once upon a time, people used to fight to the death for this manual. However, currently Shi Xiang found it familiar.
It was a physical art.
To a cultivator, the martial skill that they used are not that important, what is important is their cultivation and strength. However, in his continent, there was exactly one notable martial skill that cultivators are interested in, or at least, they don't look down on it.
Originating from the South of the continent, the martial art Kik-ite was taught to the soldiers. In his youth, it was the things Shi Xiang relies on the most. It has shaped his development even now.
The fighting forms are diverse, however generally there are two schools of thought. The martial art was taught to soldiers with intents to teach them how to kill and disarm. The first school of thoughts focus more on the physical strength aspect of a confrontation.
Tackle, straight and deflection are used interchangeably. The idea is to disarm someone and then grab them closer for a physical confrontation. Knowledge of how to disarm is important, but not as important as the knowledge of close quarter brawl. The head, the legs and the arms are dangerous weapon. A user of Sik-ite always has a low stance, ready for a kick, it is unknown when the explosion is going to happen, but kicks are an important aspect of Kik-ite. A kick to the jaws or the livers are dangerous enough to kill for a normal person. Straight is also an option for a martial artist.
The idea is well and good, however, to achieve maximum effectiveness, the soldier might as well be unarmored. The art focus on the flexibility of the body and readiness to unleash kick, punch and headbutt at anytime. The best fighters are unarmored or at least only use a light kind of armor.
The idea is that it is not used on the battlefield, but is used when ambushed.
The legend says that there was once a general sleeping in his tent. He has removed all his armor, his enemies, knowing this, chose to move in the middle of the night to assassinate the general. The general, discovering ambush in the middle of the night, using Kik-ite, he was able to kill all of his enemies.
It was an art for soldiers who was disarmed.
However, this has merits to many cultivator. While for a normal person, fighting in armor while using Kik-ite was cumbersome, with a cultivator's strength, it may as well be non-existent. More importantly, the focus on the physical aspect of Kik-ite rang true for many cultivators. To many cultivators, their bodies are their strongest asset, what are armor, what are weapon? They might as well be non-existent in the face of a well-cultivated body.
Advertisement
A fist hit harder than any weapon in this world could, the skin protect better than even a master blacksmith armor.
In a martial focus society like the Ninth Sanctum, many cultivators originate from a soldier house, allowing them to cultivate and make their family proud. They have at least a passing familiarity with Kik-ite, and many poorer cultivators with not much resources to buy more powerful manual have used Kik-ite as their physical art to great result.
The idea is to pit your body against the opponent, no tricks, everything relies on strength and awareness. It just works.
Shi Xiang was poor once, and Kik-ite being a widespread art has influenced how he developed his fighting form.
It was a very hard form, with claw hand and gouging attack. His master, Shao Jingyi has tried to soften it to work with her flavor of cultivation, but old habits are hard to shake off.
Shi Xiang follows the second school of thought with Kik-ite, the idea that in a world of cultivation, you are always going to be fighting someone stronger.
It was this second idea that made Kik-ite famous. It was very simple, it was the idea that-
A normal human could kill a cultivator.
This may seem hard to believe but it is true. On a wintery night, as cold as any other, a certain master from a young house has defiled the daughter of an old general. He was not a master by any mean, but he was a cultivator. At the same time, he was above the foundation forming state, so he is not that half mortal, half cultivator state, he is a cultivator, through and through. Even if he played around, he is stronger than anyone in the general's service at that moment, pissing off him just mean bad thing for the general's house.
But after his daughter was defiled in his own house, and came crying to him, the general ordered all his men to put out all the light and close off all the gate.
In the darkness of that cold night, what happened was unknown but the next morning, the cultivator was dead.
It was said that in the death of night, the general used Kik-ite and ambush the cultivator.
Now, whether the story is embellished or not, the fact remains that it has become very popular with the people world wide...
...who promptly get killed by cultivators who think that they are getting too big for their bridge, however the idea has merit.
Advertisement
If the first school of thought was for fighting ambush, the second school was for ambushing.
Its extremely low stance was not for an explosive powerful kick, it is to keep balance, as the user are going to fight from a very low place.
In that position, the fatal points are the groin, the throat and the eyes. The fingers and the wrists of a Kik-ite user are extremely flexible, yet hard. The idea was that, if you could not win in a physical confrontation, deflect.
The hand has to be that flexible to deflect the powerful blow of a cultivator, it has to be that hard to deliver a deadly blow.
The tip of the finger of a Kik-ite user was as hard as steel, and they are used to deliver debilitating attack.
The idea was that an attack to the fatal point of a human are impossible to get through or would not matter for a cultivator. The finger would be used to deliver attack to vein and other soft part of a body.
If train enough, it could rupture an important artery during what other call "a woman dance".
The practitioner of the second school of thoughts are not looked well upon by the general cultivation world. It is only popular with the mortals. It was because there was no pride at all in their skill.
It was like the dancing of a woman, yet extremely deadly. Small blows delivered to the blood vessels, the joints, and other fatal spots accumulate, finally killing a cultivator by waiting until their defense has dropped enough to hit their center, just above the groin, dissipating their strength and killing them.
For a long time, it was the only physical art Shi Xiang practices until he met his teacher, Shao Jingyi who forced him to remaster his footwork.
But old habits die hard, and his style still utilize many of the points of Kik-ite.
And yet, right now, the emergency manual that Yan Yu has sent him...
"Shi Xiang: Senior, why is this manual so familiar?"
"Devil Path Ancestor, Yan Yu: It is your fighting style is it not?"
However, even Yan Yu did not expect to find such a promising youth. After seeing a few of Shi Xiang's livestream, he has determined that the boy fight like him. And so the manual that he sent was what he has gathered from the video combined with his own thought
"Devil Path Ancestor, Yan Yu: It is not like that guy could send you any physical manual, he uses sword, you can only come to me about this part."
However, Shi Xiang has a strange look at the manual that was sent to him. Artificially, it looks the same, but the theme of Kik-ite has changed dramatically.
The second school of thought was "to fight against a superior opponent".
What Yan Yu sent was "To rip apart the heaven and earth".
To describe how it works is difficult, it looks the same but the meaning is different. The focus on claw and fingers are still there, but it is all different.
If a Kik-ite user used his finger to claw at another person throat, their intention was to disable the airflow and perhaps actually rip it out.
What Yan Yu want was, with the claw, tear apart the mountain ahead with strength and cruelty. It was extremely exaggerated and require a lot of strength even if it looks the same.
Kik-ite was extremely subtle with their power usage, every blow was just to weaken before delivering a coup-de-tat. If Shi Xiang fights like Yan Yu wants, those debilitating blow to the blood vessels won't just be debilitating anymore, they will actually tore a chunk out of the other.
The subtleness, it is not there. The second school of Kik-ite was turned from an extremely defensive and evasive art to something extremely domineering by Yan Yu.
However, now that Shi Xiang thinks about it,...
...it fits him. Ever since he was changed by the two great masters, the only things he was doing was killing violently.
His strength and body has changed, perhaps it was time that he changes his physical art too.
Instead of weakening someone before dealing a killing blow, this will literally tear them limbs from limbs.
It was like how just recently, Shi Xiang just accidentally tore someone limbs from limbs just by fighting.
Instead of a debilitating blow to the throat to cut the air flow, it will literally rip them apart, it could even rip mountains apart.
It was just like how Shi Xiang rip someone apart recently.
Now that he thinks about it, somehow, this domineering art fits the new him that has changed.
Advertisement
- In Serial41 Chapters
Doctored Chance: The Unpleasant Preceding of "Pajama Boy" and What Drove Him to Murder
I, Mick Chadwick, regret to inform my readers that this memoir contains nothing but the truth, which in the case of Tobias MacClain, most ridiculed as Pajama Boy, is far from pleasant. If you seek to relate to a hero more than to aspire to them and have the stomach for unpleasant things such as a hero left for dead, villainous scars, bomb threats, and murderous intent, then look no further. All of these gruesome things and more await from my research, and though I do not wish them on any man or woman, I cannot bear this burden on my own much longer. In the words of Tobias MacClain himself, "Sometimes, a villainous act can cause the greatest good." I hope that all my villainous acts of sneaking, blackmailing, diary-reading, and grave-digging, among others, will be redeemed as I present this complete and truthful memoir to the world, and with any luck, open eyes to the truth of what we call "villainy". Doctored Chance: The Unpleasant Preceding of "Pajama Boy" and What Drove Him to Murder ********* MATURE FILTER IS FOR:- violence- graphic imagery (blood, burns, fairly dark headspaces)- cartoon depiction of burn scars for visual aid Despite graphics, Mick Chadwick's writing keeps Mr. MacClain's terrible tale light somehow. This is foremostly a comedy.
8 155 - In Serial9 Chapters
The Final Draft
This is basically the story of a farmer turning cats loose to wipe out mice that are stealing food. Except the farmer is an intergalactic empire, the mice are rebels and space pirates, and the cats are randomly chosen humans from present-day Earth. Margaret was one of the fortunate few to be selected, drafted to fight on an alien planet for overlords she never knew existed. Dropped onto a fantasy world where things like toilets are nonexistent, how does an architect/engineer fight back? By building, of course.
8 181 - In Serial35 Chapters
A Hardness of Minds
(35 Chapters >70,000 words, edited version available on Amazon) A Near-Future Hard Sci-Fi about Data, War, and First Contact in our Solar System. Life exists under Europa’s ice, but there’s doubt in the data. Against of backdrop of escalating tensions, double-sided revelations of first contact ripple through all involved as the probe attempts the first landing on the ice of Europa. The novel intertwines perspectives of Earth and under Europa as all struggle for truth. For fifteen years, the Europa Clipper has hinted at life under the ice-shell of Europa. An eccentric mogul, bent on expanding his legacy—funds and launches the first privately funded probe to Jupiter. The robotic submarine can reach the ocean floor and returning by an expertly trained AI. Tensions flare between the United States and China, while cyberattack threatens the project. Meanwhile, Dalton, a self-sabotaging synthetic data engineer, longs to make a name for himself in the scientific community, even at the cost of being infamous. Unknown to Earth, alien society has penetrated up the kilometers of ice, and has long researched ‘Nullworld,’ the mysterious ‘ether’ beyond the ice from which no sonar returns. Tensions in their global society have escalated as their city-state fights with a neighbor whose hydrothermal vent has run cold. Now the military caste is in control, halted all research, and pressed capable scientists and engineers into militia service. The alien scientist must escape and bring back research he hopes will diffuse tensions: the revelation of another water world. This is the second hard sci-fi novel by author Eric Kay (No Lack of Sunshine). It explores issues of data integrity in the age of adversarial information warfare, moving minds away from the brink of war, and experience versus knowledge by proxy.
8 84 - In Serial40 Chapters
Inside Metsys
Inside the universe of Metsys, life is chaotic, cruel and crazy. People with Stats have power and everyone wants to be a Player. Meet Corn, a slave who has no memory of most of his past and doesn’t know how most of the world functions. This doesn’t stop him from escaping the bonds of slavery by risking his life on a gamble. After all, he would risk everything for freedom and the right to be a mage. But how’s a scrub to learn Magic and get power? Why, join the magical under belly of the city, of course. And eat all the mana that he can get. Two Disclaimers: 1) This is a work of fiction. Any characters, places, organisations and everything else in this novel are fictional. Any resemblance between anything in this novel and the plane of reality we live in is purely coincidental. Was that a bit over the top and a wee bit unnecessary? Maybe. 2) This story features an antihero with a slight hint of villainy. So, sooner or later, it’s going to get dark. Very dark. Hence all the tags. If you are prone to be squeamish, this might not be for you. Well. You were warned. ;)
8 107 - In Serial10 Chapters
MUTE BUT CUTE ✓
A short story in which 𝗝𝗲𝗼𝗻 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗸𝗼𝗼𝗸 falls in love with a 𝘤𝘶𝘵𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘦 boy.❌ DO NOT PLAGIARISE MY BOOK ❌Started:- 17 January 2021Ended:- 20 January 2021STORY © BTS7KINGS/NAM-SHI
8 146 - In Serial15 Chapters
Fundy-Centric Oneshots
Oneshots about your favourite furry man!REQUESTS CLOSED FOR NOWNo NSFW/Shipping
8 69