Chapter 17 – Minor Changes

Ye Wei wasn’t confident about repeating what he did when he was with Lin Zi Yan before actually spotting the errors in his cousin’s stance, but now his body and mind were ready to refine and perfect the White Tiger’s Assault. After all, helping his cousin would be the only way for him to contribute to the Ye family’s last stand!

Excited and euphoric, Ye Wei placed his hand on the gate as he leaned forward to have a closer look at his cousin’s training. The gate moved an inch as he put his weight onto it and squeaked.

The squeak made by the opening gate was just loud enough to surprise Ye Wei causing him to panic and immediately pull his hand off the gate.

“Show yourself!”

Ye Zhong was focused and tensed while his eyes were ice-cold when he asked the intruder to identify himself. He bent his knees slightly and tensed up his calves.Then, he launched himself and within the blink of an eye he was already at the gate, charging in a way akin to a tiger ambushing one from above.

The heightened hearing of a four star Warrior could easily pick up the squeak, it was not surprising that Ye Zhong could hear him.

Ye Zhong’s hand was glowing bright red as he pulled it towards his chest like a loaded cannon ready to be fired. If he released his strike, the door would, without a doubt, turn into dust and Ye Wei, who was right behind it, would meet the same fate.

“Cousin Zhong, it’s me!” He shouted while realizing that this could be the last moment of his life, which caused Ye Wei to be covered in cold sweat in a rush of terror.

“Ye Wei, is that you?”

Ye Zhong recognized the familiar voice coming from behind the gate. ‘The owner of it should be friendly.’ This idea surfaced in his consciousness just before the point of no return, so he stopped his attack before it hit him. However, the recoil from the attack took its toll on his body, causing his face to became a little pale.

“Squeak!”

He opened the gate, while not being able to decide if he should laugh or cry as looked at Ye Wei who looked like an injured critter resting on the ground, “Ye Wei, it is way past your bedtime, why are you wandering around? Do you know that you could have been seriously injured a moment ago?”

Ye Zhong rubbed his little cousin’s scalp and told him off with a fake, serious face.

“The weather is horrible today.The heat is fine, but the humidity kept me up so I decided to take a walk and get some fresh air. My feet lead me here somehow, I don’t even know how I got here!” Ye Wei came up with a random excuse, while scratching the back of his head and smiling.

“You little rascal come on in!”

Ye Zhong reluctantly shook his head with an amused look in his eyes as he closed the gate behind them while dragging Ye Wei into his courtyard.

“Du Han Yue is a six star Warrior. Cousin, are you nervous about the fight tomorrow?” Ye Wei innocently posed the obvious question to his now extremely pale and tired relative.

“What do you know about it!” He replied and knocked his little cousin in the forehead with his knuckles.Then, he looked at the beautiful silver moon in the night sky. The moon’s light reflected off his face and revealed his anxiousness.

Nervous?

As a four star Warrior, having to physically confront a well known genius, the young six star Warrior Du Yue Han of Green Moon City with their family’s ancestral land at stake, who wouldn’t be nervous?

Just thinking about the consequences of failing was enough to make it difficult for one to breath!

“Cousin, you were performing the White Tiger’s Assault right? That’s an impressive high spirit level stance! I wish I was as strong as you… I can’t even make stances!”

“Could you maybe show it to me again? I want to see it close up.” Ye Wei looked at Ye Zhong with a fire in his eyes while scratching his head because he was shy from his overenthusiasm and questions.

Worried he might have gotten it wrong, Ye Wei wanted to verify the flaws he spotted a moment ago.

“If you work hard enough, you can and will be able to do stances!” Ye Zhong knew that talent was a sensitive topic for the mediocre Ye Wei, so he patted him on the shoulders as he motivated him with words. ‘With his red Sentient, nobody really knows how long he will need to become a seven star Student… Ten? Twenty? Thirty years?’

“You should take a few steps back.” Ye Zhong could not refuse the request from his little cousin.

“Roger that!”

Ye Wei nodded his head enthusiastically as he stepped back around approximately ten meters. He opened his eyes wide this time and watched his cousin, waiting for the white tiger to strike.

“Zap!”

Ye Wei saw this process before, but when comparing to Zi Yan, Ye Zhong did every step with much more flare.The will-force on his finger was much more dense and the Qi on the will-force was thicker. He drew rune after rune like it was second nature.

In a matter of seconds, Ye Zhong was surrounded by the hundred and thirty-six freshly-drawn runes, shrouded by the blurry shining runes which caused him to look mysterious and almost angelic.

Here it was, White Tiger’s Assault!

Ye Zhong uttered a cry, causing the hundred and thirty-six spots of light to wrap around his body quickly as they came closer to one another.

Rawr!

The white tiger roared ferociously, as if it was a beast that had descended from the heavens themselves. The pressure wave it produced spread and quickly, like a mini tsunami travelling across the courtyard, the fallen leaves were picked up by turbulence produced by the stance and were blown away until stopped by the walls of the courtyard. The pressure even knocked Ye Wei off balance despite being ten meters away. The overpowering pressure wave shook his body and he staggered for a while before finally regaining balance after taking six steps back.

‘I can see it clearly now!’

There was a golden flash deep in Ye Wei’s eyes for a single moment when he was analysing the runes that formed the stance, his dark eyes focusing onto the two wrong nodes within the stance.

‘This one is hidden much better than in the other stance. How should I perfect this and let cousin Zhong know?’ Ye Wei frowned, as he tried to figure out how to tell his cousin.

‘If I just tell him there are two mistakes in the White Tiger’s Assault stance there’s no way he will believe it. He’s just going to think I’m crazy.’ He tried to figure out how to send the message in a subtle manner so as to not reveal his abilities.

“That was astounding!” Ye Wei took a deep breath and went on with his play. He attempted to look jealous and astonished as he approached his cousin, “Cousin, is the order and position of those runes set? Would the stance still work if you for example, swap this one and that one around?”

Hearing Ye Wei’s outlandish question, Ye Zhong went silent and then laughed: ”Of course they are fixed, little cousin.The masters who invented the art of stances thought thoroughly regarding the position and sequential order of the runes of each stance; they are optimise to their fullest in order to promote synergy between the runes. If you swap them around, either it wouldn’t work or it would be less powerful than before which is undesirable!”

“Ah ha! I’ve heard that Warriors can manipulate mystic runes, but you know how far away I am from that level, right cousin? But I want to see it and had that idea, so I can grasp the feel of it… Ye Wei was trying to take full advantage of his puppy dog eyes, using them to manipulate his caring cousin: “Don’t you want to show me how it’s done, cousin?”

It was obviously working. Ye Zhong’s sympathy told him his talentless little cousin was a weakling stuck in the bottom of the well and wanted a peek at the world above. Naturally, he accepted the request with a friendly smile: “Manipulating runes is not hard, little Wei. No matter what hardship life has for you never give up. Especially in things you think you’re not as talented in as others. For example, Supreme Chen Feng was not at all talented when he was a teenager!

“Okay, watch, manipulating runes is simple!” Ye Zhong looked at his little cousin with a thoughtful glance. The will-force on his fingertips formed an magnetic like attraction towards the runes, which allowed him to effortlessly swapped the two runes around and turned them upside down as Ye Wei suggested.

The new pattern flowed and upon completion it formed a slightly different stance.

The Qi within the stance was now noticeably much more fluid since the formation of runes was more efficient.

In seconds, the courtyard was filled with a silver light and the white tiger figure was shining brighter and clearer than ever before. Two roars were heard, each of them loud as thunder, shaking tiles on the roofs near Ye Zhong’s quarters.

“Rawr!”

The tiger’s eyes were wide open while roaring. It was a glorious scene to behold as it seemed akin to the coronation of the king of the beasts .

This time around, however, Ye Zhong only used less than half the Qi he normally used for White Tiger’s Assault, but it was more powerful!

“Eh, what is going on?!” Ye Zhong was completely baffled. When he raised his head in shock, he doubtfully looked at the figure of the white tiger above him. The power of the stance had undoubtedly improved by approximately one third!

White Tiger’s Assault is the strongest stance among the sixteen high level spirit stances that the Ye seniors taught to the younger generation; how was it possible that one minor change improved a stance with such a long history so enormously!