Chapter 152 Highest Level of the Demonic Change State! (3)

“My Six Ultimate Skill Manipulation Arts is split into several large attainment states. The first is mimicking, that is the one you have barely stepped into. The second state is compression, for this you have also started learning the basis. However, your learning was not in an orderly, gradual and structured manner, and this is not a good thing. As such, I need you to focus on training on the mimicking stage to the maximum in the following time when you are training with me. Your first step is to bring your mimicking to the absolute max. That is to say, whatever your cultivation stage is at, you must be able to mimic all the Skills of your Attributes that your cultivation stage can handle, and be able to swap around freely.”

Zhou Weiqing said: “Master, what other attainment states are behind then?”

Long Shiya said: “Mimic, compress, next up is control. Once those Skills you mimic are compressed, their power is naturally increased exponentially, and their Star Rating is also increased. By this point, it will be the main test of your control over your Skills. As compared to Stored Skills, mimicking Skills have a much greater requirement on your control, not just while mimicking, but also the fact that when you are attacking, you need to make those Skills become an extension of your body. If you are able to reach this third attainment stage, then you will be considered having the first step of success in the Six Ultimate Skill Manipulation Arts. The next will be the fourth attainment stage, sublimation and evolving, and this much more intricate and involves many profound mysteries. On the surface level, it is about letting a Skill evolve constantly, and at this point, you need to make some difficult choices.”

“For those of us at the Heavenly Emperor Stage, in truth we do not use many Skills, just a few. However, each and every one of those thoroughly tempered and well-seasoned, with countless of possibilities and myriad changes. After all, no matter how many Skills you have, if you are facing a powerhouse, what is the point if you do not have the chance to use them all? As such, when it comes to the Heavenly King Stage and beyond, the greatest aspiration of all Skills is to be instant-cast. Simply put, let’s say we are at equal levels and you have a Heavenly God Tier Skill, but I only have a mere five Star Rated Skill. However, when we fight, I use my Skill to instantly kill you, what is the point of your Heavenly God Tier Skill then? That is the reason why up to a certain power level, the true powerhouses will be pursuing the increase of power of Skills with the premise that they have to be instant-cast. In a fight against such equals, not only is the control of your own Skills of utmost importance, the control of the battlefield and control of your opponents in not allowing them to gather power and unleash spells. All of that is necessary.”

Without question, all that Long Shiya was describing was opening a whole new world to Zhou Weiqing, giving him a sudden enlightenment towards his future, to know the path towards being a true powerhouse in the future and the direction his cultivation and training had to take.

“Teacher, what are we waiting for then? Please start guiding me now. How about this, I will learn and practice your Six Ultimate Skill Manipulation Arts under your guidance while still maintaining the Demonic Change State. In this way, not only can I gain experience in the Six Ultimate Skill Manipulation Arts, the increase in senses will also help in that factor. At the same time, I can also train in my Demonic Change State and the ‘Ice Cold Perception’. As long as I keep in mind and remember all the various changes of the Six Ultimate Skill Manipulation Arts while in the Demonic Change State, it will also help me improve in my normal usage outside of it.”

Long Shiya laughed heartily and said: “Very good, you are indeed a promising student. That is exactly what I was about to ask you to do. Your resting time will be when your Heavenly Energy is not enough to maintain the Demonic Change State, and you can meditate and recover during that period.”

“Yes!”

...

Long Shiya began to officially start teaching and guiding Zhou Weiqing in his cultivation. As for the training of the Peerless Battalion soldiers, it was still left to Shangguan Fei’er, Wei Feng and the seven god archers of the Heavenly Bow Unit.

The more he personally taught Zhou Weiqing, the more Long Shiya realised how terrifying his young disciple’s innate talent was. Perhaps, in terms of his self coordination and control, Zhou Weiqing was not the greatest. However, his mind was his greatest weapon. As long as Long Shiya gave some simple pointers, he was almost always able to comprehend it and draw inferences to many future steps ahead, and more importantly, able to make use of it in actual practice, finding the simplest method to implement the lessons into his cultivation.

The next surprising thing for Long Shiya was the sheer speed of Zhou Weiqing’s recovery. By this time, his Immortal Deity Technique had reached the nineteenth stage, with nineteen energy whirlpools of the respective Death Acupuncture Points whirling and drawing in energy at full power, causing his Heavenly Energy to recover at insane speeds far beyond any Heavenly Jewel Master of equal power, or even beyond. After all his Heavenly Energy was expended, it barely took him fifteen minutes to fully recover once more. At the same time, he was starting to practice in limiting his Demonic Change State, to maintain the ‘Ice Cold Perception’ while cutting down on other energy expenses conservatively.

It might sound complicated, but in truth, what Zhou Weiqing did was to reduce the physical boost that the Demonic Change State brought to his body. With that reduction, it also greatly reduced the toll it took upon his Heavenly Energy.

Such an innovation allowed him to maintain his ‘new’ Demonic Change State for almost an hour, even at his mere nineteenth stage of Heavenly Energy. Such a feat was truly out of Long Shiya’s original expectations.

At the same time, with Long Shiya’s personal tutelage and the aid of the ‘Ice Cold Perception’ of the Demonic Change State, Zhou Weiqing’s training in the Six Ultimate Skill Manipulation Arts also improved by leaps and bounds, taking great strides in it every single day.

...

In the twinkling of an eye, a week had passed.

Just as Zhou Weiqing was immersed in the joy of continuous improvement, he was surprised by yet another good news passed down to him. The other Ruffian Battalions from the other northern armies had been sent to him, with Shen Ji personally leading men to escort them to the Peerless Battalion. The total number of them was about three thousand seven hundred men, of which the Central Northern Command had sent almost two thousand men. After all, the Central Northern Command was the biggest army in the entire north, almost the equal of the North West and North Eastern Armies combined.

With the arrival of the new batch of Ruffian soldiers, Shangguan Fei’er came to ask Zhou Weiqing how they were to deal with them.

Three thousand seven hundred men had already surpassed Zhou Weiqing’s original expectations, and he immediately called a meeting of the upper echelons of the Peerless Battalion to discuss their further plans.

The upper echelon of the Peerless Battalion was still the original few, though of the seven Heavenly Bow Unit archers, only Hua Feng attended. Besides that, there was Lin TianAo, Shangguan Fei’er, Wei Feng and the other ten Company Leaders. Currently, they were all gathered in Zhou Weiqing’s large Battalion Commander tent.

Currently, all of them had overjoyed expressions on their faces. After all, the Peerless Battalion could now hold their heads up high after the previous chasing away of the Sixteenth Regiment. Ever since that incident, no one had dared to come to cause trouble to them, and even all their requests for supplies had easily been green lit without any problems.

Now that another three thousand seven hundred fresh blood was incoming to their ranks, it would undoubtedly be a great boost to the Peerless Battalion.

...

That day, Shen Ji had brought Shen Bu to see their Master and adoptive father, the Vice Commander of the entire North-West Armies. However, that wise and farsighted old man did not bring them to offer an apology or attempt to smooth things over. He knew such belated actions would not have any great effect. Instead, he pushed for the North-East and Central North armies to hasten the process in sending their Ruffian Battalions over with a strong escort. Indeed, a strong escort was required to do so; otherwise what if those ruffians started causing trouble or run amuck?

Without question, this was what the Peerless Battalion most required now, and putting more effort in accomplishing those tasks was far more useful than just a mere apology. Actions spoke louder than words, and this was further represented by specially sending over pay and provisions. As for whatever supplies the Peerless Battalion required and requested for, as long as the North West Army Command had sufficient supplies, they would approve and send it without delay.

Indeed, given Zhou Weiqing's description of the battle, the remaining corpses of the Swift Wolf Regiment had been quickly found, further ‘proving’ to Shen Ji and the others about Long Shiya’s power. At the same time, it had also given them the false impression that the Heaven’s Expanse Palace was planning to make a move in the border wars, and as a result they did not hesitate to give their full support to the Peerless Battalion.

...

“Battalion Commander, once our Peerless Battalion gains these new men, we will have the strength of almost half an entire Regiment already. Hahaha.” One of the stronger Company Leaders, an Eight-Jeweled Physical Jewel Master known as ‘Mammoth’ exclaimed excitedly.

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “You must be planning how much bigger your Company will grow right?”

Mammoth grinned and said: “Heh heh, Boss, as you know, as our First Company is primarily made up of the Air Force Troops, we are the elite amongst even our Peerless Battalion. If there are any top quality fellows, you must give us the priority to grab them up!”

Naturally, the other Company Leaders would not take that lying down, and the tent burst out in arguments as they all tried to ‘snatch’ the top talents incoming.

“Alright, enough, everyone keep quiet. First, Second and Third Company, you all already have so many Air Force soldiers, it can be said that all my finest warriors are with you three, why are you still trying snatch from others? My goal is to let the entire Peerless Battalion be powerful, without any weak. Vice Commander Wei Feng, you record this and take note, there are a few things that I need to trouble you to coordinate and arrange.”

“Yes sir.” Wei Feng glared slightly at the noisy Company Leaders before giving a proper army salute towards Zhou Weiqing.

Zhou Weiqing said solemnly: “The first thing is to get an accurate census of the men, and get all the details of all the new three thousand seven hundred of them. How many are Jewel Masters, Physical, Elemental or Heavenly Jewels, what their cultivation level is, how many have Heavenly Energy, what all their Heavenly Energy stages are, down to their Attributes etc… All of it in detail and recorded down. If they do not even have Heavenly Energy, reject them back for Legion Commander Shen Ji to handle.”

Wei Feng nodded and said: “Those who are totally without any Heavenly Energy at all are likely to be a minority. After all, in the northern borders, no matter which army’s Ruffian Battalion should be in a similar circumstance. Those without confidence in themselves would never dare to cause trouble in the army, and correspondingly would not end up in the Ruffian Battalion. Our registration and recording process has already started.”

Zhou Weiqing nodded and said: “If we run into any trouble, let Chief Instructor Fei’er accompany you. Absolute strength is absolute truth. Fei’er, is that okay with you?”

Shangguan Fei’er glanced at him, then said passively: “It will be good to see some new blood with itchy skins, I really enjoy treating such ‘illnesses’.”

Upon hearing this, the entire tent gave a collective shudder involuntarily, with the exception of Hua Feng and Lin TianAo. The Company Leaders all suddenly fell quiet. It was clear all of them had been ‘treated’ such before.

Wei Feng continued: “Now, the biggest problem is that with those over three thousand men here, there are definitely a lot of new troublemakers with attitude problems. More importantly, some of them have pretty decent strength as well... if not for the fact that the Seventh Legion has stationed two Regiments around their temporary camp to guard them, perhaps some serious trouble would have already arisen. We need to be able to deal with that as soon as possible.”

...