Chapter 337: Tali and Ryun

Training

Tali watched from above as Ryun moved through the glade leaving dead monsters everywhere he went. At first he stood high enough up that they couldnt reach him, but by now he had gotten lower, just a meter or so above the ground. Giving the monsters a chance to strike, and a few even had, though their attacks couldnt even get through his armor.

He was unleashing techniques with every passing moment. By now he had timed his techniques in such a way that he always had three orbs above his head, creating a new one just as another fired. She could see why he called the technique a flicker, it lasted for just a split of a moment, so fast that most might miss it. He was using his focus to fire the same stage of his technique now, and she could see that he was trying to switch his stats around in bursts, putting everything in dexterity and strength when he fired his flicker. He was probably trying to kill as many of the monsters with it by flicking his hand fast enough to cover a large area before the technique ended. He had sacrificed the continuous effect for speed. She knew that he had tried to extend it, but to get a beam of such speed required a rapid discharge of charged Qi. They had tried to tweak the technique, but were unsuccessful, if he wanted a continuous effect, he needed to sacrifice speed.

Soon he was moving through the thousands of monsters trying to overwhelm him. Looking at him now, she couldnt help but think that his sensory skill truly was unfair. He was leaping around, looking as if he was jumping on airwhich he waswearing heavy armor that he obviously didnt know how to properly move in. He looked clumsy, his movements were untrained, yet they werent exactly wrong either. His skill, |Enhanced Adaptation|, let him correct himself. She doubted that he even noticed it. Every time he made a step that threatened to put him out of balance his body corrected itself, it adapted. It didnt work just on his body, it worked on his entire being. Such passive skills were always incredibly powerful, even though they might not seem so from the outset.

He was adapting to a new style of fighting incredibly quickly. She could literally see him improving as he was fighting the monsters. The horde of monsters wasnt a true test, of course, he had always been good against hordes of enemies. The only thing that theyve changed to his approach against such opponents was that now he tried to keep his distance. A balance of always keeping himself in range that let him use his techniques to the fullest, but staying far enough away that they couldnt touch him. The times of him using physical stats to overcome opponents were gone. Theyve based his style on one thing and one thing only, survival. The less he got hit, the more Qi he had available to throw at his opponents.

He wasnt killing many of the monsters, his beams were cutting through them, but he was killing dozens at a time at most. And thousands more were waiting for him to make a mistake and land a blow. Then she saw him stop using Void and switch to Stillness.

A hedza was soaring through the air, the monsters had started building web-like platforms to get more height, get closer to reaching him. He had played around with Void enough, he had gotten a good sense of how to tether techniques outside of his body in combat situations and what that would afford him. With his sense he could fire them in any direction, cut apart anyone coming his way without needing to really move his body or fire from his hands. Aiming was an issue, but he just needed to learn how to rely more on his skills for that.

Now, as a hedza neared him, he switched his Qi type and shaped a different technique. With a {Twilight Shaping Cast} he created a small box of space filled with Stillness Qi, the area which hedza was passing through. All Essence that his Stillness touched came to a stop, anchored in space. The result wasnt at all what he had expected. He hadnt practiced this against monsters, not against anything living, only against Talis techniques.

Tali watched as Ryun pulled out a javelin, a copy of the masterwork weapon that he had decided on using. Her attention was on him as he started his attack. They had tried hard to find a way for him to be able to do damage at a distance, he was now hundreds of meters in the air above the monsters, too far for them to reach him. He could probably fire his flicker technique and hit them, but that technique had limitations. Against more powerful opponents it wouldnt quite be enough, not at such distance. Some would be fast enough to avoid it, others would have defensive techniques that could protect them, or deflect the attack. His only high damage move was his main Paths fruit technique. His cut skill and perk were strong too, but ultimately, they were mid-range, and better left as an ace in case he got surrounded or someone closed the distance with him.

No, they had decided on something else. Something that most would consider insane, but Ryun as always was unfair. She watched as he moved his Qi and pushed it all into the javelin, shaping a technique at the core of the weapon. The masterwork weapon was filled with Qi, something that it was never meant to channel. Violet cracks spread through the weapon, it was becoming unstable, but its durability was increased enough that it would survive for a few more seconds at least. Plenty of time it seemed.

Ryun pulled his arm back and she saw him aim, still pushing the Qi into the weapon and probably using his targeting skill. Then he threw it with great strength. He had most likely moved some of his stats into his physical ones, as the glowing javelin flew through the air and hit the monster queen in the back. The javelin pierced the flesh and then it gave out. The metal handle cracked fully, and the technique was released.

A sphere of black and violet expanded, a {Final End}. A hundred meters of the forest became a crater filled with nothing, the queen and all of the monsters surrounding it nowhere to be seen. With a lot of his stats pushed into wisdom, his technique was one of the most destructive things Tali had seen. Not as strong as some out there, but close. Ryun had charged the technique fully; it had taken him a more than ten seconds to fully charge the technique compared to the eight that he needs when doing it in his body. Probably because he had been pushing Qi just through the conduits in his arm and the shaping the technique outside of his body.

She still couldnt help but wince every time he threw one of those javelins, it was hard to remember that they were copies. And it was one of the first things that new formation masters learned how to do. A formation at its core was just a more developed and specialized technique, bound in an object made to hold it. Most things werent made for things like that. Techniques couldnt last in them, or as she had just witnessed, the objects breakdown if the Qi pushed into them was something destructive like Void.

No one would do anything like this, ever. A masterwork item was the lowest rarity item that could survive Ryuns technique, and it was only because his awakened forge increased the durability of his items by a high margin. Still, it could only last for a short period of timethough she doubted that even many Eternal items would do much better. Destroying a masterwork item just to throw a melee range technique at a distance was ludicrous, and yet Ryun had his copies. His awakened forge let him treat items as disposable things. Even the armor that he wore was a copy. She could go down and unleash one of her most powerful attacks, destroy his armor, and he would just pull out another set out of his forge. It was annoying, to say the least.

Another javelin flew through the air, the target leapt evading the attack. But the javelin curved in the air and hit its targetanother of the queensmoments later, another sphere of black and violet flashed into existence.

At least he could only have 16 copies, which meant he could use that technique 16 times at a distance Just sixteenshe thought to herself with a shake of her head.

He was so unfair.