102 Sparring

The living environment of the inner palace was very stable and quiet. Leon was freed from many distractions and able to focus on improving himself. His daily routine consists of 4-part digesting the information from the [Myriad Metal Compendium Vol.1/10], 3-part honing and practicing new skills, 2-part parts of his time was allocated to pill concoction and divine cultivation, and the last part of his time was allocated to spend time with his family.

This was not limited to his mother, but also included his other family and in-laws living in the outer palace. He had brought the idea of moving them to the inner palace, but towards this idea, his mother had surprisingly rejected him. But on second thoughts, his mother naturally had her reason. The inner palace held many secrets.

Each time he made a trip to visit the Duke's family, Duke Ignis would always give him a strangely expectant but also unhappy look. He had no idea how he had earned the Duke's displeasure or what this father-in-law wanted from him. Whenever he tried to bring up the topic, the duke would keep mum about it, which put him at a loss of words.  

Inside his courtyard, Leon was practicing a new skill while waiting for the arrival of a replacement cauldron lid. Without a cauldron lid, he did not dare to refine pills carelessly. He had attempted another 2 times following the second failure. Although he had tried different variation to create the 5-Elements Enhancing Pill, the cauldron lid was repeatedly blasted into the heavens without fail.

His thought process for refining the pill had been relatively simple. If the energy did not fuse into the herbal essence, then he would try to fuse the herbal essence into the energy. With all honesty, it was the same shit, but different smell.

Matters of pill refining aside, his pill cauldron was something amazing for being able withstand the explosions. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he found out that his failed pill concoction led to an upgrade of the pill cauldron to the spirit treasure rank. Maybe he had a knack for artificing.

Spirit treasure, or rather spirit artifacts were all crafted by artificers. Artificers were a higher tiered profession than blacksmiths as they also know runic inscriptions. There wasn't much difference between spirit treasures and spirit artifacts. It was practically the same thing and was totally up to the people on how they want to call it. Whatever floats their boats really.

…

Needle throwing had always been one of Leon's simplest but most efficient method of killing. However, he had noticed that as he fought against stronger opponents, his needle throwing skill was not that very effective and was only suitable for finishing off weaklings. For his needle throwing skill to not be completely useless in future battles, he had to tackle the problem of power and speed it was lacking.

If Old man Kasif was present to understand Leon's thoughts and problem, he would have been ecstatic and shouted with great enthusiasm; "Accept me as your master, boy!! I can teach you!!". But of course, his mother would never agree to it.

As a doctor in his past life, the amount of martial arts and spirit arts in his arsenal were not many. His [Nine Echoes Oscillating Fist] might as well be his best martial art skill in terms of power and speed. If only he could transfer that speed and power to his needle throwing skill.

With that thought in mind, Leon had been practicing how to merge the two skills together to create a new and more powerful skill that took the essence of both skills; precision, power, and speed. However, there hadn't been much success, filling Leon with frustration.

"Forgive this one for being presumptuous, but one cannot improve themselves quickly from just practicing skills alone. This one can be your sparring partner if you wish for it, your highness." Howard suggested, seeing the prince's frustration.

"That is an excellent suggestion, Howard. Come, Let us spar!" Leon agreed happily.   

What the palace guard said was one of the truths of cultivation back in the Divine Realm. Whether it was mastering a skill or practicing cultivation, a person improves at a quicker rate when they are under constant pressure. The greater the pressure he can bear, the faster his rate of improvement is, and there was no greater pressure than through life and death battles.

But of course, there was no need to go that far as he was no match for the palace guards, and they were also his own people. Without any enmity or feud between them, it was ridiculous to start a life or death battle. Thus, a spar was the next best option.

"Yes, your highness." Howard quickly took a battle stance opposite of Leon, before asking, "Should I suppress my cultivation down to your level, your highness?"

"No need."

Leon shook his head. It would defeat the purpose for sparring if he let the guard go easy on him. He needed the pressure to improve. He was not afraid of losing. He was only afraid of wasted effort.

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Leon quickly lunge at the guard, signaling the start of their spar. The guard did not dodge and received his punch.

In a single bout, the gap between their cultivation was on full display. A contest of raw physical strength between 600-jin force and 900-jin force, the superior side was obvious. Leon was unable to gain advantage over Howard. He quickly retreated when Howard followed up with a horizontal leg sweep.

"Good strength, but far from enough, your highness! Why don't you try your throwing skill?" Howard suggested during their spar.

"I would naturally get to that. However, you should try blocking this next fist of mine. It won't be as easy!"

Leon lunged forward once more, however he started circulating his energy and ran them through a meridian route towards his arm to use his martial art skill [Oscillating Fist: Two Echoes].

Leon fist shot forward in the same fashion. Howard shook his head. How great the difference of a punch could be? Their difference in strength was great. He raises his hand to block again, but at the last moment before contact, Leon's fist suddenly exploded with 1200-jin force.

The force of the fist was 300-jin above his own!

Howard facial expression wrapped into shock immediately as he tried to parry the blow instead of receiving it directly, before retreating. The prince was not to be underestimated! He was in a league of his own.

"I'll be going on the offensive now. Please prepare yourself, your highness."

Towards Howard's words, Leon's eyes turned serious as Howard shot towards him and rain punches upon him. Leon used his unique foot movement to dodge each blow. Despite doing his best to dodge, Howard's blows still manage to graze him.

'This was it! This was the kind of pressure I needed.' Leon thought. His martial skills weren't the only thing needed improving, but also his combat experience and battle awareness.

He clenched his fist and sent out another [Oscillating Fist: Two Echoes].

Howard was prepared this time and used his own martial arts. His choice was… [Military Arts: Flowing Stream]!

Leon widened his eyes in horror at the familiar form as his fist connected, but the force behind it didn't. His wrist was grabbed, and his body was twirled in circles before he was tossed away face-first to eat the ground in the distance.

'That darn skill!' Leon gritted his teeth in anger.

"Again!"

Leon tried to attack from difficult angles, but Howard was still able to shift his position into his favor and grab hold of Leon wrist as Leon failed to deliver another [Oscillating Fist; Two Echoes]. However, Leon did not give up and shot out another one with his free hand before Howard could toss him.

The second Oscillating Fist landed squarely on Howard's armored chest and sent him flying backwards. Leon thought he had freed himself with that one fist, but he was dead wrong!

Howard retained his vice-like grip on his wrist and dragged him along!

Leon wore an expression of wanting to cry. He should have told the guard to take off his armor before the sparring at least. However, there was no use worrying over spilt milk and just fight on.

He threw a consecutive Oscillating Fist while they were still in midair, but his free hand was also caught! With both his wrist caught, Howard raised him up high and was about to slam him into the ground to break his own fall.

Leon's mind spun for a counterattack. With his arms restrained, energy transferred to his leg subconsciously as he sent out an Oscillating… Kick!

The kick landed on the back of Howard's helmet. The concussive blow to the head made him release his grip on Leon involuntarily as he was the one to slam into the ground instead, while Leon gained some extra airtime from the counterforce of his kick and landed some distance away after a few flips.

Howard suffered double concussion after slamming into the ground, but apart from feeling a bit dizzy, he was okay otherwise due to his strong armor.

Their spar was cut short after another guard made a sudden announcement.