Chapter 102: Learning Techniques from Animation, Part 2

After bursting forward and steadying himself, Bai Yu-xi shook his head in dissatisfaction.

This move clearly had not yet taken full shape; it felt awkward and unnatural to use.

"Huh?"

Willy blinked in surprise. "Isn't that one of the Six Techniques, the one called Shave?"

Bai Yu-xi froze. As a terminally lazy otaku, he had naturally seen both of the great hot-blooded mainstream manga.

After Willy pointed it out, he realized that his own move did bear some resemblance to Shave from the Six Techniques: both relied on recoil to generate explosive speed.

Only, instead of stamping the ground dozens of times in an instant to amplify the recoil, he was using the explosive force of particle bombardment to propel his body.

"Wa-ha-ha! Interesting!"

"Xiao Bai, can you run on water? Or run through the air?"

Willy flailed his arms in delight. "If you can, wouldn't that be the Sea Walk or the Moon Walk from the Six Techniques?"

Bai Yu-xi blinked. He had never actually tried that.

He made an experimental leap, then suddenly stamped down hard with one foot, only to fall back to the ground with no effect.

"Ah?"

Willy looked disappointed. "No good?"

Bai Yu-xi shook his head, but faintly sensed something strange.

Though he had not succeeded, his body had indeed just felt a kind of floating sensation from being suspended in the air...

"Ahhhhhhh!"

Willy cried out in frustration. "How can it not work? Try Rankyaku, Tekkai, Soru, or Shigan!"

Xia You-you and Maya exchanged blank looks. What were these two talking about? Why did they not understand a word of it?

Rankyaku was a technique that sent out a razor-sharp wind blade with a kick, splitting the air to create a vacuum and inflict damage.

Bai Yu-xi could not do that. Even if he kicked his leg off, he probably still could not cut open a vacuum. But by blasting particles from the soles of his feet, he could not only increase propulsion; the force carried the same destructive power as his fists. In that sense, it might not be inferior to Rankyaku.

Tekkai was a technique of tensing the body until flesh and bone became as hard as steel, enough to resist blades and bullets.

Superhuman individuals already possessed superactive shields, so ordinary blades and bullets were naturally no threat, though X-weapons were another matter.

But Bai Yu-xi had comprehended a technique of releasing particle bombardment from any part of his body to bounce back incoming attacks.

Although he had not yet reached the point of being able to use it freely over his entire body, the fact that the skill had already taken shape meant that, with more practice, it would only grow stronger.

Shigan was the concentration of all one's strength at the fingertips, striking with extreme speed to produce power akin to a bullet.

That seemed worth trying. Bai Yu-xi's body strength was not yet so great that he could attack an enemy with a single finger and remain unharmed, but concentrating particles into his fingers and firing them out might well increase their destructive force.

Moreover...

Unconsciously, Bai Yu-xi raised the index and middle fingers of his right hand. With a crackling burst, blazing azure arcs of electricity coiled around them.

"Let's try it!"

Suddenly interested, Bai Yu-xi beckoned to Willy, inviting him to spar.

"No way!"

"One punch from you and I'll be sent flying, and you can also shoot lightning!"

The dark-skinned foreigner stared warily at Bai Yu-xi. "I'm not falling for it and volunteering to get beaten up!"

"I'm not trying to fight you to the death!"

Bai Yu-xi could not help rolling his eyes. "It's just practice sparring! I'll be careful!"

"You sure?"

The dark-skinned foreigner eyed him suspiciously for a while before saying hesitantly, "All right then. But be careful. If you blast me into a pile of dust with one punch, who am I supposed to reason with?"

As he spoke, he suddenly lunged in and kicked at Bai Yu-xi, launching a surprise attack.

It was no wonder Willy felt his scalp prickle whenever he heard that he was going to spar with Bai Yu-xi. This newly awakened rookie had displayed too many astonishing abilities before them, the seasoned veterans, and from the very beginning the two of them had not even been on the same level.

"Hah?"

After all, Willy was a super-limit fighter who specialized in agility. His sudden ambush startled Bai Yu-xi badly.

He did not even have time to use his newly developed shield technique to defend himself, and could only bend his arm to block.

An attack of that level naturally could not injure Bai Yu-xi.

Even if he did nothing at all, his own superactive shield would instinctively defend him.

So Willy was the one who suffered. With a howl, he clutched his leg and hopped about, staring in disbelief at Bai Yu-xi. "What level are you at now?"

"Before, I was F7. Then I was struck by the high-energy electrical arcs of the Abyss Thunder Toad, and it felt like my body got tempered by them... so I seem to have improved a bit."

"At the very least, now when I use the Ninety-Nine Style, I no longer injure myself from the shock, so I guess I've reached F9? Maybe a little higher?"

Bai Yu-xi lowered his arm and shrugged innocently. "As for right now... how would I know?"

Willy was dumbfounded.

Super-limit fighters of different combat ranks possessed different levels of superactive shield strength; that was the so-called energy-particle density.

For him to use his 6400-degree superactive shield, which was only F4 level, to smash into Bai Yu-xi's shield of several hundred thousand degrees, possibly even higher, was that not like hurling an egg at a rock?

The repulsive force produced at the instant their supernormal energy particles touched would have been enough to shatter his superactive shield and wound his true body.

Had Willy not sensed something wrong and pulled his force back, and had Bai Yu-xi not reacted in time and refrained from releasing his energy outward, his leg might already have been broken by now.

"No more! No more!"

Willy shouted at the top of his lungs. "Aren't you just bullying people?"

"Who told you to ambush me?"

"I said this was sparring, that you were supposed to help me develop the moves for super-limit combat arts."

Bai Yu-xi said gloomily, "If you were going to take the chance to get in a cheap shot at me, who else can you blame?"

"All right then..."

Realizing that Bai Yu-xi, this newly awakened rookie, was still far from having perfect control over his power, Willy finally settled down and obediently attacked Bai Yu-xi one move at a time.