Liu Chen silently stood rooted to the ground, as both fear and anticipation built up of this nobleman in front of him, forcing him to do something that would be very against his will. His six-arms still covered his body, but he had begun to discreetly mobilize his Qi - as to not let this man in front of him find out.
Considering that Liu Chen hadn't been able to keep eye contact with him and started trembling from the man's strong aura, he had to be in the Nascent Soul Divinity realm at least.
'It would be great if I could get my Master to deal with such a person like this.' He frustratingly thought.
The man in front of him was still smiling with a terribly eerie face, and the thought of fighting such a nut job sent shivers down Liu Chen's spine. He was debating whether he should stand his ground, or run away and awaken his Master out of secluded cultivation.
"What is your cultivation base boy? If my guess is correct you should be somewhere in the Foundation Establishment Realm?" The domineering voice broke Liu Chen out of his train of fearful thoughts, and a sigh of relief was breathed out of him.
He quickly stopped activating his energy and wiped the sweat off that had gathered on top of his eyebrows.
'Okay, since he's asking about my cultivation level he's probably a battle freak and not an actual one. Thank God.'
Liu Chen inwardly rejoiced at the revelation of what seemed to be this man's true intentions. He then brought himself back to the conversation and nervously replied, "You are right dear benefactor, I am in the Early stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm." He said, still mimicking his Master.
A voice crack managed to slip out on the last part of his sentence from anxiousness, but he doubted the man even noticed nor cared.
The young man then uncrossed his arms and rested his hand on his chin as he began to inquire about Liu Chen once more. "Good. And your age?" , He asked in a deep voice that could shake the heavens.
"I am ten years old." Liu Chen replied, gaining much more confidence at the complimentary comment the man had made.
Hearing Liu Chen's age, the young man's eyes widened and he immediately drew closer to less than a foot in front of him.
Liu Chen hadn't been able to track his movements at all with it appearing as if the man had used a grand technique to instantly get in front of him. However, he knew this wasn't the case as he did not sense any mobilization of Qi.
The man then once again looked over him from head-to-toe, and meticulously examined every inch of his body. This time under the man's gaze, Liu Chen stood proudly without covering or hiding any parts.
He was almost 100% sure the man's reasoning for doing this was to verify whether or not he was lying about his age.
After the man's second appraisal of him was done; he put an open to his fist and bowed. This was virtually confirmation that this man was a noble, because only those raised in high-society had such a straight posture and elegance when bowing.
"My name is Tang Hao and I offer my deepest apologies to this young monk for damaging his property. I will be more than willing to pay the damage fees, and even send a generous donation to this Buddhist Temple. All I ask is for one quick sparring session."
Liu Chen furrowed his brows as the tone of voice this Tang Hao carried was more a command then a request. But this might just be how it is dealing with the strong, they walk doing whatever they please and the weak get to suffer because of it.
Liu Chen truly found this insufferable.
"Benefactor, your cultivation base is much higher than mines. Don't you have enough pride to not bully your juniors?" He coarsely asked.
Tang Hao simply laughed upon hearing this question and quickly explained his previous sentence. "My apologies, I forgot to say that I will suppress my cultivation base to match yours. I would just like to see how much talent the younger generation truly possesses."
Hearing this, Liu Chen was much more enthusiastic about fighting than he had been earlier. Truth be told he liked the intensity and feeling of battle, but he could not be called a 'Battle Maniac'.
He then smiled excitedly and hastily spoke while he started to mobilize his Qi once more. "Since I have not done my exercises for today I guess I'll be able to indulge this request. Please guide me in this battle, Amitabha."
Golden energy then erupted from his body and the stone floor around him cracked under the tremendous pressure of his Qi.
"For a little monk you talk with maturity belonging to an adult." Tang Hao stated while laughing heartily. His eyes then began to change as a bright red glint could now be seen in them. A dark red fiery energy erupted around him, and the temperature of the area suddenly shot up several degrees.
Both sides of the ground quaked where the two cultivators stood, and Liu Chen's golden energy soared around him, causing the surroundings to instantly brighten.
The Golden energy around him then began to condense into a clockwise spiral and formed a miniature vortex onto one of Liu Chen's stretched out hands. The golden vortex gave birth to a five foot palm seal with a thumb bent behind the other fingers, that quickly sailed through the air to Tang Hao's location.
Nine golden scripts spun around the Palm seal as Liu Chen shouted, "Great Vajra Hand Seal: Abhaya Mudra!"
Tang Hao grinned underneath the incoming threat of the Abhaya Mudra, and let his energy surge everywhere like an explosive tidal wave.
Just this outpour of Qi caused the Buddhist Hand seal to crack and break into tiny golden fragments that flew in the wind. Tang Hao then reached his hand in the air like he was grabbing something, and closed his eyes. As his hands began to sculpt the air around him, a flaming energy spear condensed in between his palms.
What was this? Liu Chen studied Tang Hao's strange movements and saw the Qi outline of the spear before it gained a physical form. 'I've never seen a weapon technique like this.' He thought as all six of his arms moved in perfect harmony and golden light began to radiate from them.
"This technique is called Star Weapon Creation. It is derived from my cultivation method: 'Celestial Body'. It uses the ambient energy of Heaven and Earth around us, otherwise called primal Qi, and shapes it into any given form the wielder wants." Tang Hao explained.
This was a way for him to let Liu Chen know the characteristics of his technique, and quickly come up with a method to counter it.
Liu Chen understood Tang Hao's intentions, yet he couldn't come up with a guranteed way to quickly neutralize the incoming attack. Based on what he said, he should be drawing in power from the Qi in the surroundings instead of just his own reserves. This technique was the ultimate cultivating while still in battle method!
Tang Hao then finally finished forming his spear, and tightly grasped it with his hands.
'I'll try out using a strength amplifying technique to rapidly boost my power. This will be my first time trying to use it since reading about it in one of the Taiji's School Of Thoughts sect's cultivation manuals inside the library at the Southern Pavilion.'
As this happened, Liu Chen pushed each of his six hands together in tandem, and a golden Taiji symbol formed under him.
'Success!'
He slightly grinned at his successful attempt of replicating another Sect's technique without practicing it in-depth. But he understood the basic gist of the technique, all there was to it was just creating the Taiji sigil with your energy, and placing your energy in the sigil strategically creating a small formation that temporarily increased your Qi output.
As Tang Hao's grip on the spear reached its climax, he pushed one leg forward and threw it into a perfect spiral of fire and energy towards Liu Chen. The taiji symbol under Liu Chen began to radiate waves of energy towards himself, as if it could sense the strike that Tang Hao just launched.
Liu Chen could feel himself becoming empowered with the great augment that the sigil granted him. With this boost to his Qi, he cleared his thoughts and summoned the Arhat mental scripts in his upper dantian (mind).
'Once the body is at its peak, and is fused with the power of nature in perfect harmony, only will the soul become one with the fusion, and that fusion shall give birth to the Arhat Body. Obtaining this body is to be free of the cycle of rebirth, attaining enlightenment and becoming one with nirvana.'
Energy escaped from his body into the form of a golden replica of himself that sat at fifteen-feet tall. Normally, this avatar would just be ten-feet tall, but with the increase In energy from the Taiji seal, his avatar was able to grow five more feet!
The Arhat Golden body sat in the lotus position with the eight golden prayer beads representing the Eightfold Path embellishing his neck. He then concentrated all of his energy to create two exact copies of the Arhat Body, and together - the three of them blocked the formidable spear strike.
The collision created sparks of energy, and the rotation of the inferno spear gradually came to a stop. Once the spiraling ceased, the spear broke under the pressure of the three Arhat bodies and dispersed, returning to nothingness.