On the third day of Qian Renxue's training, Bai Jin replaced her Wooden Sword with a Bamboo Branch.
The Bamboo Branch would snap against a stone pillar and leave no more than a red mark on a person. Qian Renxue looked at the slender length of bamboo but did not reach for it.
"Too light?" Bai Jin asked.
"You're holding it too close. Are you going to block my path today?"
"Someone saw your left leg was doing better and decided to move up the Golden Fragment by another two days."
"Who?"
"Who else would dare, besides you?"
Bai Jin laid the Bamboo Branch beside her foot. Qian Renxue shifted sideways. The old Silverwing Skystep had barely reached the inside of her knee when pain shot up from the old wound. She cut off her Soul Power and let her right foot turn her body halfway around. The Bamboo Branch brushed her left hem and flicked away a feather.
Qian Daoliu stood on the temple's stone platform, setting aside the Wound Medicine he had tested the day before. He did not step down. His eyes stayed fixed on the angle at which his granddaughter's left foot landed.
"The last time she fought with this Soul Bone, she didn't turn so sharply when she drew on its power," the old man said.
"She didn't have anything trying to take her path then, either." Bai Jin raised the Bamboo Branch. "One more move."
He did not hide his strength. His First Soul Ring lit up, and the distance between Qian Renxue and the Bamboo Branch stretched. The gap had been only a foot, yet she could not cross it. Her Silverwing Skystep could pry space apart. Before her injury, she would have used Skystep to change her angle and find another place