December 16, 2013, 9:45 a.m.
Changkong City, Dojo.
"Although I've known for a long time how casually Su Qing'an runs his shop, closing it just to have a match still gives me something to complain about."
The girl muttered with her chin propped in her hand. As the only spectator, Kiana sat on a small stool, watching the two people facing off.
Why was there such a scene before her? It was because, during the morning business hours, Raiden Mei had visited the coffee shop for the first time, only to be asked by Su Qing'an, in the name of the Taixuan Style, to have a match.
"I'm Su Qing'an, a student of Chen Junxuan of the Taixuan Style. You're Raiden Mei, the current successor of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū, right? Before my teacher returned to China, he asked me to seek instruction in the Hokushin Ittō-ryū. I wonder if you'd be interested?" The boy had asked her that bluntly less than a minute after they met.
Chen Junxuan's name was already famous in Japan's martial arts circles. Although the Hokushin Ittō-ryū had rarely interacted with those circles since Raiden Ryoma's generation, Mei had heard a little about the sixty-eight-year-old Chen Junxuan defeating numerous dojos and schools. That was why she had agreed.
Fighting someone her own age was actually a rare occurrence for her.
"Do we need protective gear?" Raiden Mei asked the boy before her.
"No. Whether it's the Hokushin Ittō-ryū or the Taixuan Style I learned, neither is a technique meant for competition. They're ancient martial arts meant for killing. If we're being completely serious, protective gear is meaningless. Let's simply say that whoever's sword leaves their hand first loses." Su Qing'an said this calmly.
Those were merely excuses. With his ability to control his strength, he was completely confident he wouldn't hurt Raiden Mei in the slightest.
What Su Qing'an wanted to see was the woman named Raiden Mei using the Hokushin Ittō-ryū with all her heart, without any restraints holding her back.
In Kendo, the speed of one's footwork determined how dangerous and agile one's sword could be.
And what he wanted was a Raiden Mei who could go all out.
Hearing Su Qing'an's words, Raiden Mei frowned unhappily. He clearly understood what the Hokushin Ittō-ryū emphasized. Otherwise, coming to seek instruction would merely have been an insult.
Knock the sword away? What a joke. Half of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū was devoted to teaching people how to cut off an opponent's hands. It had even once been called a despicable sword art.
For a true killing martial art, combat determined both victory and defeat as well as life and death. There was no question of whether it was despicable. Only those who survived had the right to speak of dignity and honor.
No matter how despicable the martial art that defeated someone was, it had still happened in a fair duel. To a martial artist, losing to such a method meant that if they died, it was simply fate; if they lived, they could only admit that their skill was inferior.
Despicable? That was merely something losers said.
Thus, even though the Hokushin Ittō-ryū had been called a despicable sword art, it remained famous throughout the world. It even faintly showed the potential to become the strongest sword art in the country.
Su Qing'an clearly knew this. Even his so-called Taixuan Style was not purely a sword art, yet this boy, who was barely older than her, intended to use his weakness to challenge her strength.
Such an arrogant and shameless statement had been tossed out casually by Su Qing'an, but the displeasure between Raiden Mei's brows vanished in the next instant.
It was replaced by solemnity.
The boy merely drew his wooden sword slowly, and Raiden Mei could no longer call him arrogant.
Martial artists could understand it. Or perhaps Kiana, whose instincts were unusually sharp, could sense it as well. From the moment Su Qing'an began drawing his sword, the atmosphere of the entire dojo had fallen under the boy's control.
His mind was as still as Mind Lake. The boy's eyes stared directly at Raiden Mei. This was the Taixuan Style technique known as [Presence], the use of aura just as its name implied.
In the Taixuan Style created by Chen Junxuan, even the most basic aura was exploited to its utmost. Those with wavering wills could not even draw their swords beneath the old man's gaze, and would only snap awake at the instant their lives were threatened.
In a duel between martial artists, once swords were drawn against each other, being even a moment slower was fatal. Even if one eventually reacted and regained control of one's body, it would already be too late. One could only watch the blade slide across one's throat before losing one's life.
In Su Qing'an's understanding, this was essentially a crude application of Soul Essence. In this aspect, his uniquely exceptional talent made this technique even more terrifying in his hands than in Chen Junxuan's.
Before his [Presence], ordinary people could not move even a finger on the hand gripping their sword hilt until the moment of death.
It was like the evil dragons of myth. When facing the dragon's might radiating from an evil dragon's roar, being able to move for even an instant already counted as rare courage among ordinary people.
By nature, Su Qing'an now resembled a mythical evil dragon in the eyes of Raiden Mei and Kiana. The only ones who could raise their swords against an evil dragon were heroes said to possess equally steadfast wills.
Raiden Mei, if you can't even draw your sword, then there's no meaning in learning the Hokushin Ittō-ryū from you.
Never had Raiden Mei imagined that a match against someone her own age would leave her in such a predicament.
Her opponent felt like a life-form of a higher order than herself. Merely drawing his sword, merely meeting her gaze, had already brought her close to defeat.
The pressure was heavier than even that of sparring with her teacher.
But with a single breath, Raiden Mei froze all her emotions. The instant every muscle in her body tensed, she relaxed them again. Her body, shaken by the [Presence], returned to its optimal state in the blink of an eye.
She drew her sword.
This state of mind resembled Mind Lake's stillness. Ancient swordsmen called it the Mind's Eye. At its core, it was ultimate concentration, the pinnacle of total focus. Only in this state could Raiden Mei draw her sword smoothly.
What allowed her to completely break free of the [Presence] was the Breathing Technique inherited by the Hokushin Ittō-ryū. It was nothing particularly mystical, merely a method for a swordsman to bring their physique into peak condition.
Raiden Mei was undoubtedly a genius.
A level that normal humans could only reach after painstaking training until the age of thirty had taken her only half that time.
She felt better than ever. Her body was incredibly light, and the world before her seemed to slow down. Her eyesight and the precision of her sword had reached an entirely different level from before.
On the surface, Raiden Mei was a young lady who wanted for neither food nor clothing and lived a much happier life than ordinary people. But her life had been far from smooth. If anything, it had been somewhat rough.
In 1999, her mother died of cancer.
In 2004, Mei was kidnapped by a terrorist group. After being rescued, she spent three years recuperating at a ME Corp private facility because of the psychological trauma.
Being the young lady of ME Corp had instead brought her countless hardships.
The reason Raiden Mei could surpass her former limits here was precisely because of the hardships she had suffered. The extreme ups and downs of this period had truly tempered her state of mind and turned into nourishment for her progress. That was why Su Qing'an's deliberate pressure had allowed her to enter the Mind's Eye state.
The girl began to feel fortunate that she hadn't refused Su Qing'an's request for instruction. Without such pressure, even for a genius like her, when she would have entered the Mind's Eye remained unknown.
This gain alone made the trip worthwhile.
As repayment, Raiden Mei resolved to give it her all.
Before you continue