The Mystical universe

"Alright, though I approve of this young man, I can't leave you guys alone in this room. So, you're coming back with me, Yao'er." The sect master, with a blend of authority and warmth, announced his decision while effortlessly carrying his teenage daughter with one arm, heading towards the exit.

"Boy, the person my treasured daughter likes most must be a worldly expert and almost as handsome as me. You still have a long way to go. Ahahaha." Laughing loudly, he swiftly exited with his daughter on his shoulder, resembling a body bag, disappearing completely. Only a purple flash could be seen heading away.

...

In his abode, Teacher Long practiced his spear art bare-chested, noticing a purple flash flying towards him while carrying what appeared to be a person. In a second, the purple flash landed beside him, and a handsome middle-aged man appeared.

"Sect master, what brings you here?"

"Brother Long, always practicing I see. If you keep on like that, I might give you my position. Also, you don't have to call me sect master in private, call me brother Su or brother Zitian as you used to." Lightly smiling, the eccentric sect master joked.

"No thank you. I do not like to be tied as you are. You can keep your position." Categorically refusing the underhanded offer, Teacher Long stopped his training and stored the Azure Dragon Crescent Spear, taking out a green Daoist robe.

"So, why are you here?" Covering his bare upper body, he looked at the sect master and the girl on his shoulder.

A glint shone in his eyes as sudden understanding hit his mind. "I see what happened." Smiling, Teacher Long managed to put two and two together.

"You don't trust your daughter with my new disciple, brother Su?" as he asked, an expression of schadenfreude filled his face.

"Hmph, that little bastard almost stole my daughter's first kiss. Luckily, I was there to stop it." Coldly snorting, he put the young maiden on the floor, whose face was completely red. Still, she maintained her manners as she greeted her senior. "Su Yao greets Uncle Long."

"Hm." The latter nodded. While he looked at his daughter, the sect master's face suddenly changed as he realized what the man just said. "New disciple? Are you planning on personally taking that boy as your disciple?"

"Yes. I believe he is the person my master was waiting for to pass on the Nine Dragons Immortal Art. He also has natural talent for the spear, so I'm also thinking of teaching him the Nine Stances of the True Dragon." He explained.

"Hmmm, if those people learn that someone has finally learned that art, they will start pursuing his traces. He'll have to face some greedy people." Su Zitian thought for a bit before commenting.

"I know, but I am ninety-nine percent sure he's the only person that can actually practice this art. He will have to deal with what comes after, of course he won't have to deal with it alone." As he said that, a fierce light flashed in his eyes.

While they talked, Su Yao stood on the side and did not speak, but her mind was racing. "Nine dragons immortal art? What's that? And why would Kaelen be the only one capable of practicing it? Who are 'those people'?"

"I'm curious, brother Long, what makes you so sure he's the fated one senior Nine Dragons waited this whole time for?"

"For one, I am not able to judge that boy's origins, neither can I judge the two boys who are with him. Sister Miao felt the same way when she encountered them. However, those uncertainties would only give me a slight hope. The real reason why I am almost certain he is that fated person is because he has a dragon bloodline much stronger than mine." Thinking back to the suppression he felt that day, a grave expression appeared on Teacher Long's face.

"What!?" Hearing this, even the easygoing and eccentric sect master couldn't help but be completely shocked. "How can someone like that appear in this world?" he exclaimed.

Indeed, Long Ao's Azure Dragon bloodline was known as one of the four saint beasts bloodlines. Those are said to be powerful bloodlines in the stellar rank, the peak of this world. A bloodline much more powerful than those has never appeared in the True Martial Great World.

"Now that I think about it, Immortal Arts shouldn't appear in this great world either, yet it did. It seems something terrible will happen in this era." Taking a deep breath, Su Zitian looked up to the sky, his gaze penetrating the clouds as he gazed upon the starry heavens.

...

"Swoosh, swoosh." Sounds of the wind being cut rang on the training ground as a bare-chested Kaelen practiced the foundational spear art. His whole body was drenched in sweat.

"Though there are no martial arts skills in the manual, one can create his own after completely mastering the foundational move sets and with my strength those move will equal some martial arts."

After the sect master left with Su Yao, Kaelen had been practicing the foundational True Spear technique.

"As for the weakness intrinsic to long weapons, as I practice with my spear, I realize that only by being faster and more agile than my opponent can I reduce my close combat weakness. Though the spear also has defensive moves such as blocking with the shaft and the whirlwind attack, the latter is also an offensive one. It seems, in the case of the spear, the best defense is a strong offense. As such, I must make my spear as fast as possible, as explosive as it can be with power that cannot be parried."

As he racked his brain and practiced endlessly, he figured the only way to address his defensive weakness is by having an even better offense and better technique. As such, he will practice until his arms fall out.

If one thing made Kaelen a boy with unparalleled potential, it's his terrifying talent matched with an even more terrifying perfectionist attitude towards martial arts. If, by spending an hour practicing, he could become the best at something, he would still keep practicing if he didn't reach the peak of what he was truly capable of. Upon reaching it, he would search for new peaks to climb towards. The most important thing, besides talent and perseverance, is the fact that he enjoyed the process. His heart for martial arts was truly pure. Though he chased strength, it's because he understands that he needs to be strong for what he will have to face and to protect the people he cared for. However, he just truly enjoyed surpassing himself over and over again.

As he waved his spear around dozens, hundreds, even thousands of times, Kaelen seemed to enter a zone.

His vigorous Qi traveled through his 720 innate meridians, becoming more and more powerful with each full revolution. After nine revolutions, it finally concentrated in his right arm, which was holding the long spear. With the added Qi, Kaelen's speed and strength drastically increased.

He wielded his spear, striking dozens of times every few seconds. He changed his stance after striking one way a thousand times. Like this, he quickly went through all the stances and move sets of the Foundational True Spear… but it wasn't enough. He went through each move thousands of times more as he restarted from the first move. The manual had about a hundred pages, each with a specific move, but truly it was only a dozen moves in total. Notably: The sweep, thrust, block, overhead strike, double thrust, spiral thrust, darting serpent strike, whirlwind sweep, Piercing the mist, Dragon's Tail Swipe, Heavenly Descent, Pinning Technique, Divine Guard dance. Each with a set number of variations. The sweep, for example, could be done on the ground sweeping forward, facing the sky, from behind doing a half-circle, from the air down to the ground with a leap.

From the sweep all the way to the Divine Guard dance, techniques became increasingly complex, but one must master these moves in order to master the spear.

The multiple thrust, different from doing one thrust many times, is a half thrust with less overall power but allows multiple hits in a very short amount of time, as if one wielded a dagger instead of a long spear.

The spiral thrust, a basic thrust with a twist or spiraling of the spear, a very powerful move that is incredibly difficult to parry. Next is the darting serpent strike, a series of multiple weaving thrusts, agile and elusive, resembling a slithering snake.

While it may not be as fancy as those heaven-shaking martial arts, mastering the foundational move set allows one to easily replicate any martial art. On the other hand, if you jump to practicing special moves, you may be able to do them a few times, but you will never truly have the skills of an expert. As for complete mastery of a martial art, you can forget, as it's impossible to do so without having mastered the foundation.

They say it takes one month to master the blade, a year to master the sword, and ten years to master the spear. However, that saying is only for Initial Mastery, as for becoming a true grandmaster of these weapons, it will take dozens of years.

According to the foundational True Spear, when Kaelen reach the realm of 'spear has an extension of ones arm' he will have reached initial mastery, when he reaches 'body as spear' he will have reach high mastery, when he reaches 'Spear Intent' that is peak mastery, and when reaches Spear Heart that is grandmaster level. However, the book only detailled the first stage of mastery.

Of course, it will not take him ten years to reach it; that saying applies mostly to the average person. For someone like Kaelen, a month will be enough. That is only possible because he will do the same amount of work in that short amount of time. When it comes to foundation, there's no shortcut. Talent gives you comprehension, agility, speed, and strength over everyone else, but you still have to learn the moves by doing them and engraining them into your body: comprehension can't do that for you. If Kaelen has an advantage, it's his recovery time, endurance, and insane tolerance for pain, allowing him to put ten times or a hundred times the effort in the same amount of time. Sometimes, talent is the ability to suffer more than others, allowing one to do more, not suffering less and doing more.

The hours passed as day turned into night, night into day. The cycle went on for seven more days.

Finally, a week after their first class, Raizel and Thorin finished their breakthrough. Both had to endure tremendous pain to complete the breakthrough, as it needed to be done in one go; stopping for a moment would endanger their lives – it's their heart after all, that they were refining.

After being in meditation for the longest period in their yet short life, the two were completely battered.

Rays of sunlight pierced through the windows of the house as Raizel first exited his room. "I want to go practice on the boulder and see how much my strength increased." Excited after his hard-earned breakthrough, he rushed outside.

As he arrived in their training ground, he found a shirtless Kaelen unconscious with a spear in his hand. He looked like he hadn't cleaned or drank in a week. Both his hands were covered in callouses and blood, his originally silver spear now had additional spots of red. The ground surrounding him was a bit muddier than the rest. Though the sun rapidly dried up the ground, the accumulated sweat still made it soft and muddy.

"Shit, this crazy bastard. It's because he does shit like this that I never beat him." Sighing exasperatedly, Raizel looked around for a pool of water nearby. As the mountain was very green and had plenty of animal life, there had to be water sources somewhere.

"I'll see better if I take a high ground." He thought as he climbed the tallest nearby tree. "There. I see something." Not far from their house, he saw a small lake about a few hundred meters away.

"Heap." Leaping down the trees, the youngster exerted his strength to the maximum as he dashed at lightning speed, crossing ten meters every leap, leaving crushed ground everywhere he stepped. In a matter of seconds, he reached the lake. With a fist, he destroyed one tree and made a container out of the wood in which he filled up about four liters worth of water before dashing back to the sleeping beau.

"Oy, wake your crazy ass up." With a throwing movement, he poured half the barrel into the boy's handsome face, immediately waking him up. "Gasp." The sleeping boy abruptly raised from the ground, sitting looking disoriented. "Huh?" Opening his eyes, it took him a moment to adjust to the blazing sunlight after sleeping for who knows how long. But quickly he regains a clear vision, just to see a purple-haired pretty youth looking at him with a facepalm.

"Say, do you enjoy near-death experiences?" The latter asked him, still baffled by his recklessness.

"Hey, don't give me that. How could I be taking it easy when you two are risking your lives to get stronger? I had to put a similar amount of effort if not more." Kaelen only smiled as he stood up and tapped the dust out of his pants. "I'm going to need to clean these or get new pants." He thought. Approaching Rai, he took the barrel in his hand and quickly gulped the remaining two liters of water. "Gulp, gulp, gulp." Swiftly emptying the barrel, he turned to the pretty boy. "Where'd you get this? That's some good water." The latter simply pointed in a direction. "Oh? That's good to know; we won't be missing water anymore. Did Thorin finish too?" Not seeing the guy, he asked.

Before Rai could answer, a huge boom shook the house as Thorin was seen coming out of the walls of the house from his room.

He looked at them with an apologetic smile, "looks like i'll have to learn to control my strength" he shouted.

Kaelen and Rai looked at each other and smiled.