The Cooking Master

fainted

We will walk slowly on the path OPness 

Chapter 4 

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Dong Lian is now standing in the front of the scarecrow with Xue Pan. 

"Lian. Look at me here. You have to grip your sword strongly. This can be the deciding factor between life and death in the battle." 

Pan step forward and show Lian how to hold his smaller kitchen knife. 

"Make sure that the grip is firm and the length of the hilt isn't surpassing your palm. This is to make sure that you're able to swing the sword around without the hilt touching your wrist and limited the rotation reach." 

Lian is implementing what he heard directly on his kitchen knife. It can increase his proficiency with kitchen knife and unlocks new motion with it. 

"Not only slicing, parrying, cutting, thrusting, slashing, it all depends on the wrist strength and flexibility. Now, you can practice all of that motion to hit this scarecrow. If you managed to cut all of it's strand and reach the wooden stick in the middle we will change it into other training. Pay attention to the basic movement that I will show you." 

Xue Pan then makes various gesture with his wooden sword. From basic s***h into combination and consecutive strike he perform each one slowly making sure Lian understand the principle of each strike. 

"After you do the vertical s***h, you can pull it back a half step then launch it forward again to perform a half thrust attack." 

Lian watched almost more than three hundreds combination formed by Pan. Altough Xue Pan by now is only eight rank Le se but his battle experience is enough to keep him survive. 

Lian followed after Pan movements and perform it more smoothly making Pan shocked. 

"His movement is flowing like water flawlessy. Is it because his body still developing without excess fat and the flexibility of his soft muscle isn't restricted by higher mass of muscle?" 

Pan clearly knows his stuff from experience. If one sacrifice his soft muscle into hard muscle, they will gain a lot of strength in the cost of flexibility. If one still have their soft muscle and never train their muscle, their flexibility can grow better and if trained correctly flexibility in a battle could save their live. 

"Lian. That's good. Now try to hit the scarecrow." 

"Alright uncle. But if I managed to reach the core what is the next step of training?" 

Pan thinked for a while. 

"Your soft muscle is still growing so probably we will train your soft muscle so you can extend it's flexibility since training hard muscle isn't good to be done if you're still underage. If you really manages to reach the core I seemed it was also the time for you to go have your first battle with a mythical beast." 

Pan isn't exeggarating the fact that Lian could face a mythical beast. Afterall even a regular 7 year old boy will need around 2 years to reach the scarecrow core. What's more for Lian he will takes around six to seven year to finish this double sized scarecrow. 

"Is that true uncle Pan?" 

However Lian expression is different than what Pan expected. 

"Can I really hunt mythical beast if I manages to reach the core?" 

It only rise a small curve on the edge of Pan's lip. 

"Yes. Now start hitting the scarecrow or you may not finished this." 

Lian understand that and now he is looking at the scarecrow seriously. 

Pan isn't sure at what is happening but he can feel a different aura from Lian. 

*shua* 

With a small kitchen knife in his hand Lian lunged forward and perform a basic thrust. 

*peng* 

With a metal sound clanking into something hard, the scarecrow scattered it's hay and bursted out. To put it simple Pan is now witnessing a hay explosion centered on the scarecrow. 

*bam* 

Leaving the hay to comes down from the sky like rain and in the center of it all stand the small body of Lian holding his kitchen knife. 

"Uncle.. It seemed like we should get out and hunt some horned rabbit." 

With a wide grin Lian approached Pan and bringing him back to reality. 

"Lian.. How did you do it?" 

"I just hit the weakest joints of the hay strand. It was near the right side of the lower abdoment. Don't you know that Uncle?" 

Pan made that scarecrow himself and he didn't notice anything wrong with it. 

"Did you learn this technique by yourself?" 

"No. It was teached by my father. Like opening a rock pumpkin with a knife, there's a trick for everything. I was also learning how to kill some of the mythical beast because the horned rabbit that you usually brought have some part crushed and isn't edible anymore." 

Pan know what Lian mean but even his father couldn't fight that way. Seeing what Lian told him and reffered as their weakness point, isn't something that anyone could see. Even Dong Xie couldn't do it. 

"So, can we hunt some horned rabbit now uncle?" 

Lian is hoping with expectation. 

"No.. Not yet.. You still don't know how to defend yourself or dodge. We better see how well you do on the third course first." 

With that said they moved towards the hanging stick course. The point of this training is reaching the finish line while dodging the swinging sticks. 

"Lian.. There's ten level of difficulties. If you could clear them up I will bring you outside of the village to hunt mythical beast no matter how bad your stamina is. So, are you ready?" 

"Anytime you're ready uncle Pan." 

Lian stepped up and standing on the platform. Pan then moves to the side and push down a lever and triggered the whole mechanism. Hundreds wooden stick is now moving randomly leaving no space to pass trough. 

"This is level one Lian." 

Pan said that and makes Lian shocked. How can he possibly passed this course? This is the only remaining thing that blocked him from free hunting his favourites mythical beast meat. He couldn't just back down like that. 

Lian clenches his fist and take a step forward. 

*swush* 

A stick just brushed by past his nose, missing just by milimeter. 

Lian heartbeat suddenly drumming like a thunder sound. Can he do it? That kind of question keep ringing on his head. 

"There are various way to get past this hurdle. The first one is speed, moving faster than stick. The second one is reflex, dodging every single one just when it about to hit you. The third one is by blocking it using a shield and force your way out. The last one, is by observation, planning your route and prepare for a back up plan in case it was messed out. But there's one similiarity of all those method do you know what Lian?" 

"No uncle Pan." he replied while his hand is trembling. 

"Courage Lian. Courage.. There will be times when you're facing a really strong mythical beast and on the edge of death. Will you surrender yourself to be it's meal or look for a way to save your life? It's not a question of are you strong enough to save your life, it's are you brave enough to battle your way out?" 

After he heard that Lian make a firm resolution. 

"Alright.. I can do this.. I want to do this.." 

Pan is looking at him with anticipation which crumbled in 1 second. 

The moment Lian stepped into the course a wooden stick hit his head and causing him to flew to the side and fainted. 

"Lian! Ugh.. I hope he's okay.. I guess it's too early for him to take this course, but without the ability to dodge or defend it will be impossible to bring him outside." 

Pan pick Lian body and checked for any other wound but there is none. 

"Fiuh.. I guess I should end his training today and bring him to his house. I hope brother Xie won't get angry at me.." 

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Fiuh.. Sorry we haven't see any cooking so far.. 

I'm still detailing on Lian training to reach his level of skill later. I'm also will explain to you his style of battle before he start cook his hunted mythical beast.. So, what do you think so far?