Dead Dragon's Combat Manual

Chapter 20: Breaking Step

Lou Meng's method of training Fang Yun's Earth Step was by running laps around the settlement. Early in the morning, the first thing he did was try to improve his control over his movement technique. However, the results wasn't as he has expected.

He could feel his cultivation recovering as a slow but stable pace, yet this was exactly the reason why he couldn't properly control the output of his Earth Step. Every time he 'launched' forward using the Earth Step technique, he'd find that the power had increased without him even being aware of it. The results of which would lead him to fall over like he didn't know how to walk.

To solve this problem, he tried to consciously weaken Internal Qi that was intertwined with his Metal Ki as it strengthened his legs. This method backfired at him as he realised that the effects of ordinary Ki and Metal Ki were different. Fang Yun's Physique Force didn't have any Daos altering its power, but the Dao of Metal merged into Lou Meng's Ki changed its effects.

Metal Ki hardened the body in a way that made it mimic metal itself. This in turn caused it to have less muscle elasticity than regular hardening and weakened his ability to use Earth Step.

Lou Meng couldn't help but be disappointed in the fact that he seemed to be unsuitable for the 'true' Earth Step movement technique. He could only stumble along until he gave up on practicing the same way as Fang Yun taught him and improvised a little.

Instead of holding back his Qi, he decided to let loose everything and launch himself forward with everything he got. The kind of failures he made while practicing this way were so hilarious that the people watching out for Demonic Beasts chuckled secretly at the acrobatic trip-ups he made.

With every failure to control his movement technique, his understanding towards Metal Ki gradually deepened until he unknowingly stepped into the second level of Physique Force mastery. The first level of Physique Force mastery was pretty simple: Harden the flesh in areas reinforced by Ki. However, the second level was a lot more profound.

The second level of Physique Force mastery concerned controlling the weight of ones own body. It was something Fang Yun incorporates into his Flash Step in order to move his body almost weightlessly as he lunged forwards. Many martial artists of Earth were commonly able to use this level of Physique Force mastery in order to even step on stone spikes without falling from their lack of balance. The original method of using this ability to shift a martial artists own weight by spreading it all over their bodies.

Spreading one's own weight out allows martial artists to balance their body so that they could stand even on uneven surfaces. The benefits of weight control in martial arts was also mostly used in close combat as well to focus the power of their strikes into one particular area.

Normally, a Martial Artist who could control the weight of their physical body would incorporate this ability into making their strikes as heavy as hammers. Lou Meng didn't follow this orthodox route of using the ability and instead created a new ability from using the benefits of his Dao of Metal.

Oddly enough, Lou Meng's ability to control the concentration of his weight turned into the ability to increase his weight. This didn't mean he became fatter as he used the ability, but more like his body was mimicking iron. The ability allowed him to create his own method of movement that completely disregarded muscle elasticity and more on the manipulation of weight.

He increases the weight of his body and focused it all into his right big toe, then used recoiling force of the impact as a way to launch himself forward like bullet. The way he stopped himself from turning himself into a human cannon was through using the heel on his right foot as the brakes.

He called this movement technique Breaking Step because he always left a crater everywhere he used this method of moving around. The speed of this technique was faster than Earth Step technique but was a lot less flexible and wasn't able to be used in places that had floors that were too fragile. Though he wasn't dejected about this though since he was sure there wouldn't be a time where he'd need to 'step lightly'.