Not Being a Master Anymore

"Huh?"

Emiya stared wide-eyed at Old Tang's smooth, long face, scrutinizing it until his eyes nearly blurred, yet he found nothing unusual.

No, just a few days ago, he had talked to Old Tang about the Atlas Institute, and now Old Tang had turned around and given him such an absurdly perfect surprise...

Was Emiya's mouth blessed, or did Old Tang really have some kind of cheat?

"Hey, brother, don't look so doubtful. I'm seriously not lying. My memories have come back—I remembered that this set of Seven Deadly Sins was something I brought out of the Atlas Institute before. And now I feel like my brain works incredibly well. It's like there are several calculation personalities inside me: Old Tang No. 1, Old Tang No. 2, Old Tang No. 3..."

As he spoke, Old Tang focused and held his breath. Two seconds later, he opened his eyes wide, pointed at his handsome face, and looked at Emiya. "Brother, put some strength into it. Hit me right here!"

"For real or fake?"

"Cut the crap, for real! Today, I'll show you what real skill is! Old Tang isn't that same loser who used to get beaten around anymore—I'm Super-Evolved Old Tang!"

Seeing that, Emiya raised his fist. His arm abruptly tensed, and he threw a right hook... a feint. In reality, he lifted his leg and kicked out like a whip snapping through the air.

Who would have thought that Old Tang seemed to know it was coming? With a small sidestep, he dodged Emiya's kick.

Heh heh, missed me, didn't you?

Emiya refused to believe it and immediately leaped forward, raising his leg for a deadly series of kicks. Old Tang lifted his head with a wicked smile and began weaving through the attacks, his fine control somehow making him look fierce and imposing.

"Seriously, brother, you really have a cheat?"

Old Tang rolled his eyes. "Can an alchemist's business be called cheating? This is called combat intelligence... The moment you start fighting, the personalities in my head link up and go into a frenzy of analysis. It's like turning on a supercomputer, instantly figuring out all your moves and patterns—"

"Heh heh, little brother Emiya, the moment you move, I know what you'll do the next second."

Hahaha! The inflated Old Tang laughed wildly to himself. At last, he felt the exhilaration of his fighting ability soaring. If he could predict the future now, wasn't he practically invincible?

What great hero Emiya? He was just an ordinary man born before Old Tang awakened!

"Again!" Emiya exhaled as well, mana surging through his body in rapid circulation.

This time, he decided to get a little serious. He had also been constantly sparring with Zhou Minhao and other Zhou Family members, learning martial arts from different schools. Vaguely, he had begun to grasp a hazy, indescribable feeling.

That feeling was not a sixth sense, but a purely physical sensation.

"..." Emiya took up his stance. Unlike Old Tang, who rapidly spun his brain to calculate his opponent's fighting style, he needed to empty his mind and leave everything to his body.

Old Tang was about to say, bring it on, then. But after analyzing with his brain, his expression immediately turned grave. Damn it, he couldn't tell what style this was. The calculation pressure was getting a little high.

Whoosh!

Without warning, Emiya charged forward with a thunderous rush. Old Tang gritted his teeth and advanced to attack as well—they were still in the room, after all. He couldn't let his opponent force him into a corner!

Emiya's instant burst of speed was like a fierce leopard suddenly pouncing, but Old Tang was no pushover. He had already calculated that Emiya would sharply duck down, then follow with a snake-shaped punch from the blind spot on the left—

Whoosh! The air in the room cracked. Before the sound of the wind even reached him, Old Tang tilted aside and lightly dodged, their figures crossing past one another. Yet Old Tang did not relax.

Emiya's next move would be to stomp the floor, pivot from the waist, and turn back with a heavy palm strike. From afar, it looked as if he were unaffected by inertia, freely changing directions like a swimming dragon! This was You Shen Bagua Zhang, "moving like a dragon, turning like an eagle circling"!

Foreseeing it in advance, Old Tang also turned and met the palm strike. With a boom, the sound of their palms colliding in the room was like someone striking a massive bell! The mana gathered in their palms overflowed and burst forth, while peals of thunder echoed through the air!

However, Old Tang's martial skill was ultimately lacking. Though he possessed surging mana, he had responded too hastily, and instead of advancing, he was knocked back. Of course, he could have poured out mana and retaliated with fire, but that was unnecessary. If he got heated, he might accidentally set the room ablaze.

Still, borrowing that force, Old Tang could follow suit and dodge diagonally, because he had once again foreseen that Emiya's attack was a chain of palm strikes. He looked as though he had narrowly escaped, but in truth he handled it calmly, allowing Emiya's next palm to graze past his cheek—

Yet what Old Tang had not expected was that a sudden change occurred! Emiya's palm abruptly shifted into a fist, and just before Old Tang could evade it, the fist suddenly extended half a foot out of thin air!

Old Tang had not calculated that. His eyes bulged as he stared blankly at the rapidly enlarging fist before him—what the hell, Tong Bei Quan!

Smack! Old Tang's formerly smug face, wearing the air of a reclusive master, was struck head-on before he could dodge. He fell backward and slammed hard onto the solid wooden floor.

Lying on the ground, Old Tang clutched half of his face where he had been hit. He sucked in two sharp breaths, then after a while recovered and said with a resentful expression:

"Ow, don't hit people in the face. Old Tang's kung fu isn't up to par. Brother Emiya, you should at least know your limits and go easy on me."

"..." Emiya was speechless. Weren't you the one who told me to hit you for real?

Now that he knew he couldn't win, he was done pretending to be a master?

Old Tang sprang to his feet with renewed vigor, covering his face with one hand and waving the other. He said he was done fighting, done being a master. Then he quietly asked Emiya why his style had changed this time, to the point that even Old Tang's brain could not calculate it.

Emiya said it was a combat skill called "Mind's Eye," which allowed one to predict opponents through pure bodily combat experience. Simply put, it was making on-the-spot judgments based on accumulated experience. The more experience one had, the more accurate the prediction.

...Your future sight is amazing, Old Tang, but I know about it. I also roughly saw how far into the future you can predict just now, so all I need to do is adjust my tactics based on the extent of your future sight, gradually block off every route, and make it impossible for you to dodge.

At that, Old Tang said, "Holy crap, then this future sight of mine seems useless against martial arts masters. Their fists and kicks are definitely fast, their footwork exquisite. Once they get close, they can use experience to block off every route I have to dodge. What then?"

Emiya shook a finger. "Not necessarily. If others can predict you, then you can predict their prediction. Predictions can cancel each other out. At that point, it comes down to whose prediction reaches farther."

When the time came, whoever could predict the farthest would control the whole situation and stand undefeated with ease.

Old Tang was deeply tempted by that. It seemed he still had a chance to become a master?

But how was he supposed to train his predictions to reach farther?

Emiya took up his stance again. Want to learn? I'll teach you.

Let me tell you, the secret to this is one word: practice. Practice makes perfect. Fight me more, and you'll figure it out yourself. Besides, my Mind's Eye also needs continuous combat to build experience. You train, I train, and we all improve together.

Old Tang's face turned panicked, and half his cheek throbbed faintly. "You sure this isn't because... I left you behind with Wa Lord last time and ran off alone, so now you're taking revenge through official means?"

Thanks to @SaltedFishHuman @Reader20200127210121611 @Reader20230621234234791 @Reader20240213104655413 @ParadeDX @Reader20230611095209090 @Reader20210310125548732 for the monthly tickets!