Commanding Wind and Cloud

Qian Jin landed on the ground and stared at the spear in the Centaur’s hands. He was dumbfounded. “It looks like it’s not an ordinary Warrior Weapon! Most of my warrior power was cancelled out by the Anti-Warrior Power Array engraved on the spear!

“It’s a great weapon, but it’s wasted on you!” Qian Jin said to himself lightly.

But before Qian Jin could move, he heard the anxious war cry from the Centaur who was shouting towards the sky. It didn’t sound vicious; instead, it sounded like as if it was calling for help.

“Damn it! That thing is calling for reinforcement!” Qian Jin immediately knew what was going on. Centaurs usually lived in groups. Whenever one was in danger, they would call their peers for help. They weren’t the type of Demon Beast like the Three-Armed Ape that lived independently.

A series of rapid noises coming from horse hooves sounded behind the Centaur. It was another Centaur that was a bit smaller than the Centaur using the spear. It had a polearm that was made from a stick and a stone. As soon as it saw Qian Jin, it charged at him ferociously. From afar, Qian Jin heard even more noises getting closer and closer to him from all directions.

Qian Jin’s experience from the Endless World told him to immediately finish the battle and deny his enemy any chance to escape. After that, he needed to run away as fast as possible!

It was easy for him to battle against a single beast, but battling against a group of Centaurs? Running away... No, retreating was the smarter and better option!

Qian Jin looked at the Centaur who had the spear and saw a sense of fear in its eyes, as if it would run away at any second.

The stick with a stone tied to it was thrown at him like a javelin! Qian Jin didn’t hesitate at all; he copied the same attack by throwing his Zhanmadao as well. The blade drew a beautiful trajectory in the air as it struck at the Centaur who just appeared. Without looking and waiting for the result of that strike, he turned around and charged at the Centaur he was battling before.

The Centaur got a bit more courageous as it saw the powerful weapon leave Qian Jin’s hands. Its spear struck at Qian Jin’s chest simply and straightforwardly like before.

The spear pierced through the air again. Qian Jin took half a step forward and twisted his upper body using the strength from his waist and dodged this attack! As the iron spear passed by his chest, he suddenly reached out his arms and grabbed onto the body of the spear like two pairs of iron tongs used for forging!

The powerful thrust was stopped, and the spear that was piercing forward froze in place. The Centaur was so shocked that it stood still and looked at Qian Jin with its eyes wide open. “How much strength does this little thing has?” It thought to itself.

Using its instincts, the Centaur lifted itself up with its two back legs and kicked at Qian Jin’s chest forcefully using its two front legs!

“Up!” Qian Jin powered up his arms and lifted the spear and the Centaur into the air; the Centaur was still holding onto the handle of the spear. Then, Qian Jin swung the spear upwards over his shoulders and smashed the Centaur onto the ground behind him.

Boom! The violent force of the heavy weight made the earth shake a little when the Centaur was smashed onto the ground. The Centaur was smashed so hard that it had a hard time getting up from the ground. It really wanted to see what kind of prey it targeted this time. “How could this little thing throw me around? Many of my bones are broken!”

Pfuu... As it was thinking, its spear pierced through its head and nailed it to the ground. It had no chance to fight back or even struggle.

The battle between Demon Beasts and humans was similar to that of hunters and prey. Therefore, Qian Jin didn’t go easy on this Centaur just because it had a half-human body. It was simply a battle to the death; it would only be over if one side died.

Qian Jin quickly cut open the Centaur’s belly using the spear and saw many small chipped black pieces that were about the size of a fingernail. If put back together, it would form a spherical black crystal. He sighed. “Its Magic Core is shattered. This beast’s Magic Core self-destruction speed wasn’t slow. It instantly broke its Magic Core when it knew it was going to die and didn’t leave me anything valuable.”

The galloping sounds were getting louder and louder. Qian Jin ran back to the Centaur that was killed by his Zhanmadao when he threw it at the beast. He grabbed onto the Zhanmadao and opened up the Centaur’s belly. After he got the fist-sized Magic Core, Qian Jin quickly jumped onto a tree and rushed away from where the Centaurs’ hoofing noise were coming from.

A spear, a battle blade, and a Magic Core!

After sprinting, Qian Jin sat down on a big rock. He looked at all his trophies and thought about all the mistakes he made in the battle.

“It doesn’t matter if your opponent is strong or weak; you have to reflect on yourself every time you survive a battle. That might be key to your next survival.” - [Warrior’s Code]

“The biggest mistake I made is that I underestimated the weapon in the Centaur’s hands. I thought I could chop through the spear like how I always did to my enemies’ weapons.” Qian Jin rubbed the light blade mark left by the Zhanamdao on the handle of the spear as he lightly shook his head. “I’m lucky that it was only a Centaur. If this happened while I was on the Human-Demon Battlefront, I would be the one dead. From now on, I can never underestimate any weapon just because I have a Warrior Weapon in my hand.”

“The other errors I made don’t really count as my own errors...” Qian Jin thought as he knocked the big rock with his knuckles. “Shooting Technique! I can’t underestimate it as well. If I have the shooting technique like that assassin and a good bow, I could use the terrain to my advantage and kill dozens of Centaurs over time.”

“Shooting Technique...” Qian Jin suddenly reached into his clothes.

[Divine Shot]! Qian Jin looked at the book in his hand and remembered how he killed the assassin and unexpectedly obtained this book outside of Four Season Valley. He was too busy trying to advance to a Demon Fighter and totally forgot about it.

“[Divine Shot]? Such a domineering name!” Qian Jin laughed as he murmured to himself and flipped open the first page of the book. “Giving this book this name? Who do you think you are? The leader of the Yuri Family? Even the Leader of Yuri Family...”

Qian Jin suddenly stopped the murmur and stared at the words on the first page of [Divine Shot]. His heart suddenly twitched; the words on the page seemed to turn into a sharp arrow that could tear the sky apart, and it shot directly at him! Qian Jin got shocked and almost threw the book away.

“Who’s writing is this? This person can hide [Arrow Spirit] in the writing?” Qian Jin calmed himself down and looked at the name of the author on the book. All of a sudden, it seemed like he was nailed firmly onto a tree.

“Yuri Johann?” After his initial shock, Qian Jin patted his head with a bitter smile on his face. He was too focused on training his Wind and Cloud Power and trying to advance to a Demon Fighter the last few days that he forgot. He previously took a quick look at the cover of the book and found out that it was written by Yuri Johann.

Suddenly, the book that was cold felt boiling hot, like a burning charcoal in Qian Jin’s hand as he looked at it more.

“How would the Yuri Family react to its member’s death? And this [Divine Shot] is now in my hands... Even if I return it and say that I never opened it...”

Qian Jin suddenly waved his hands forcefully and said, “How could it be? If I was a member of the Yuri Family, I wouldn’t believe that someone wouldn’t look over the book that was written by Yuri Johann if they had the chance. What if they believe me...”

Qian Jin stared at [Divine Shot] and said to himself, “I’m not going to return it! A member of the Yuri Family was trying to kill me, this book is compensation.”

[If you want to become a real archer, then don’t focus on the accuracy of your strikes, and don’t focus on whether you can draw back stronger bows. Observe! If you want to become a great archer, then observe.]

“Observe?” Qian Jin read the opening introduction and was surprised by the content. The message that these characters and words, which contained the sharp [Arrow Spirit], was conveying was completely different from what the archery instructors and archery books taught. The more he looked at it, the more he felt like there was another underlying meaning.

“Observe; the continuous emphasis of observation.” Qian Jin flipped open the book as he read and thought, “What is he trying to tell me? From the introduction of the book, it should tell me more than just how to become a God-tier Archer.”

[What is the most important thing of being an archer? Targeting! Observe your target carefully! When you strike, your mentality should be like an arrow that was shot out of the bow, piercing through your target without having a second thought!]

It didn’t matter if the book was written by Yuri Johann or not. Qian Jin found the book very enjoyable; it was much more interesting than all the courses on archery in the academy and the books on archery in the Qian Family’s Library.

The two simple lines at the beginning of the book had completely intrigued Qian Jin.

[As an archer, the best contribution is not to kill the enemies, but the enemies’ commander! To achieve that, you have to get close to the enemies to find the perfect opportunity. Therefore, you can’t lack in intelligence, courage, and observation skills at all! When you have observed what you want to see, you need the courage to execute it.]

“Observation again?” Qian Jin slowly flipped through [Divine Shot]. After he got past the first page, the word “observation” wasn’t mentioned anymore. Instead, the content was all on practical shooting technique.

As he flipped through the pages and read the book, Qian Jin suddenly realized why Yuri Johann was named the living God of Archery during his time, even though there were a lot of other excellent archers around!

Not only was the introduction page different, even the content of [Divine Shot] drastically differed from other books. Yuri Johann didn’t agree with the concept that only using bow and arrows was considered shooting. In his opinion, anything that could be thrown was part of a shooting technique.

For example, even throwing a simple rock or a small throwing knife could be included in shooting techniques!

To his point, it didn’t matter if one was using rocks, throwing knives, or arrows. As long as the person truly understood the principle of shooting, he or she could use shooting weapons in other forms and deal a lot of damage.

[Divine Shot] was a complete set of training methods. The initial trainings were all strength training; according to Yuri Johann, the reason why archers exist was because they could sneakily kill enemies from a long distance. If one didn’t have the strength, even if the person had an amazing shooting technique, he or she could only hunt rabbits and deer!

“Strength?” Qian Jin casually grabbed onto a small piece of stone. For the last while, his strength had increased a lot due to the training in the Endless World; there weren’t many peers who could match up to him in terms of strength. On top of that, he had the explosive Level 3 Demon Fighter warrior power. These together made him barely satisfy the basic requirements set out in the [Divine Shot].

After Qian Jin tried out a few techniques in the book, he admired Yuri Johann even more. Any kind of technique would become ambiguous and hard to understand when they reached a high level. It would be a pain just trying to understand and practice them. However, [Divine Shot] had turned the ambiguous and dry content into a language that was easy to understand. When Qian Jin practiced the techniques in the book, he didn’t feel like there were any obstacles to reading and understanding what Yuri Johann was trying to say.

Qian Jin had a good foundation since he was a top student in the archery class. With the great explanation, he was able to accurately hit fist sized nuts on trees that were at least a hundred meters away with only small rocks.