The Deity of War

Chapter 65: The Peerless Staff Strike

For Qi Ying, it was imperative for him to improve his combat prowess in any way possible during the upcoming few days.

Even the most powerful warriors struggled when facing a large number of enemies, and he couldn’t even be considered to be a powerful warrior yet. In fact, all of the people that had secured spots to participate in the tournament were more powerful than him.

A cultivation base at the Fourth Energy Martial Stage?

That was nowhere near enough!

His True Energy capacity was still unable to support him during prolonged battles.

How was he going to survive a mass brawl in a free-for-all battle?

Furthermore, during those past few battles, he had frequently benefited from the fact that his victims weren’t wearing any armor-type treasured tools.

In the Celestial River County Youth Battle Tournament, most of the participating warriors would be clad in armor, thereby elevating their defensive prowess to be comparable to that of beasts at the same level.

In that case, he would struggle to kill anyone with his dagger, and then, he would be struck by long-range spears and torrential downpours of arrows... It was a very spectacular scene to envision, but the consequences would be very dire.

In melee battles, hand-to-hand combat was one thing, but armed battle was a completely different beast altogether!

Using his left hand as a weapon was quite effective, as it was capable of producing devastating offensive output and was indestructible, but its range was limited. In a mass brawl against many armed opponents, its effectiveness would be significantly hampered.

As such, Qi Ying asked Lu You to help him choose a weapon.

He knew a little bit about using bows and arrows, but he was completely useless when it came to wielding spears and other long-range weapons. He was hoping to be introduced to a weapon that he could easily grasp the basics of, but Lu You suggested a rather neglected weapon to him.

It was the stick!

Qi Ying recalled that back when he was a little kid, all of the male students at his school would take the legs off chairs and swing them at one another during play fights.

That... was probably the most primordial weapon!

Lu You gave a perfectly valid reason for his suggestion: sticks were ancient weapons, but they were also the ancestors of all weapons.

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When humans first developed the idea of using weapons in battle, there were no sabers, swords, or bows and arrows for them to use. They had to take something that was readily available in the natural environment and use it as a weapon.

Rocks were quite heavy, and often couldn’t be recovered after they were thrown. As such, they had to use an alternative like branches, or bamboo stems as weapons, to attack more powerful beasts.

When people began to use sticks, their range of attack and offensive output increased. They discovered that one could not only swing a stick, but also stab, jab, sweep, poke...

Weapons continued to develop thereafter, but all of the improvements were made in order to enhance three areas: attack range, offensive power, and attack speed.

The stick satisfied all three criteria to perfection.

In particular, sticks were extremely useful in mass brawls... One could completely let loose and fight however they wanted! They could just swing wildly and strike down whoever was unfortunate enough to be within range!

One might argue that the spear shared all those traits, but presented an option that gave more offensive output. However, it was simply too difficult to master the spear in a short few days. True mastery of the spear required one to be able to use it as an extension of their body.

One had to be very accurate and precise to use a spear effectively, but using a stick in battle only required a certain degree of insanity!

In any case, following an explanation offered by Lu You, Qi Ying arrived at the understanding that the stick was the ideal weapon for him at that point in time.

“Come with me. I’ve got something for you.”

Lu You instructed.

Thus, Qi Ying and Lu You traversed through the Lu mansion one after the other, before arriving at a dimly-lit chamber.

It seemed that no one had been there for a long time, and everything was covered under a thick blanket of dust.

Lu You rummaged around in a corner before quickly pulling out a very long wooden box, which he placed onto a table.

Creak!

The box was opened, and Qi Ying was forced to narrow his eyes against the burst of bright light that emanated from within.

“This is...”

He focused his gaze to discover a metal staff about eight feet in length, and was slightly thinner than his wrist.

Upon the staff some patterns were carved, depicting tigers and dragons, but the lines were very crude and rough. The entire staff was golden in color, and the light emanating from it was what had erupted when the wooden box had been opened.

“Here!”

Lu You hoisted the staff out of the box before tossing it at Qi Ying.

“It’s so heavy!”

Qi Ying caught the staff with his right hand, but he almost dropped it due to its sheer weight. He only had an easier time holding onto it after circulating his True Energy around his body.

All of a sudden, his eyes lit up and he asked, “Is this a treasured tool?”

Lu You replied with a smile, “Indeed it is. It’s a Yellow Tier Intermediate-Rank treasured tool, the Dragon Tiger Demon-Slaying Staff. As your senior, I’ve known you for a while, but I don’t really have anything to give you, so let this be my gift to you!”

“This... But this is a Yellow Tier Intermediate-Rank treasured tool; it’s far too valuable!”

“Haha, it’s nothing much. This is something that was given to me by Madam Lu’s family back when she first came to the Celestial River County. Now, she’s earned so much wealth here and rewarded me with far more valuable weapons. The staff was created using very good materials, and we initially intended to craft it into a Yellow Tier Perfected Rank treasured tool. However, the weaponsmith was absolutely useless and ruined it... I don’t have any use for it now, so you can take it if you want.” Even though Lu You was handing it off as if it didn’t mean much to him, the reminiscent expression in his eyes suggested otherwise.

“Alright, I’ll accept this precious gift then.”

Qi Ying swung the stick around a few times with elation. Even though it was quite heavy, he really liked it.

Its weight could contribute to creating more momentum!

He would easily be able to smash someone’s head open with such a heavy weapon!

...

Whoosh!

Whoosh whoosh!

Qi Ying began to swing the staff around wildly in the courtyard.

There was no rhyme nor reason to his movements, and he looked like a monkey busking on the streets with a martial arts performance.

However, Lu You saw perfection in his ungainly display.

His attacks had great continuity and struck without pause!

Nothing was more important than that.

No matter how exquisite one’s technique was, it would be useless if a cooldown period followed between one attack to the next. If it were a one-on-one battle, the opponent may not be able to exploit that to their advantage, but if there were many assailants at once?

Only a continuous stream of attacks with no pause or intervals in between would suffice!

What Qi Ying was currently cultivating in was not a pure battle technique. Instead, it combined elements from both martial arts and battle techniques, and was known as the Peerless Hero Staff Techniques.

Its name sounded very unspecific and exaggerated, but it was full of content.

It encompassed forty-nine different techniques, as well as one additional offensive battle technique of devastating power: the Peerless Staff Strike!

Furthermore, just using the Dragon Tiger Demon-Slaying Staff was cultivation in itself.

Following the rapid series of breakthroughs he had made, Qi Ying’s aura was quite unstable. He had to focus on improving his external strength in order to stabilize his cultivation base.

Just using the external section of the Purple Energy Cultivation Method wasn’t enough to accomplish that.

However, wielding the heavy Dragon Tiger Demon-Slaying Staff assisted in condensing his aura.

To him, studying martial arts was cultivation.

In the courtyard.

Whoosh!

Large clumps of grass and soil were swept up as Qi Ying sprang into the air. He raised his golden staff high above his head, and a layer of purple True Energy appeared on its surface, before he sent it crashing down with formidable force!

Peerless Staff Strike!

Down below, Lu Zuo drew his sword to block his strike!

Bam!

The staff struck the sword and sparks flew in all directions.

Lu Zuo could feel an immense amount of force traveling through his sword and into his arm. A sense of numbness spread from his wrist to his forearm, then to his shoulder... He immediately mustered up as much True Energy as he could before he was able to parry the oncoming attack. However, at the same time, his sword slipped out of his hand.

Thump!

The sword stabbed into the ground.

Bam!

Qi Ying’s Dragon Tiger Demon-Slaying Staff also fell onto the ground, and he extended a salute toward Lu Zuo. “Thank you for your instruction.”

“Hehe... that wasn’t bad...”

Lu Zuo chuckled in a slightly awkward manner.

At that moment, a loud voice sounded from afar.

“Qi Ying, don’t forget your Colosseum obligations!”