Douluo Dalu: 1st Cycle: Dancing Panda

Yi Lan was sitting in his office and was currently on the soul communicator. Ever since he picked up Karni from the Green Tiger Town he had tried to slowly but surely entice Karni into joining the Spirit Pagoda.

It was something that Spirit Pagoda entrusted him with but his plans got ruined one year into the process.

"Yes… Yes… Yes, sir I have tried to offer those benefits as well but the kid still wouldn't budge." He stayed silent for a moment. "I understand, but all that the kid offered was that he will personally assist me in the future, it looks like he has a backer."

"The Tang Sect?" Asked the person from the other side of the line.

Yi Lan sighed and confirmed. "Yes sir, it's the Tang Sect. They are already personally teaching him, though he is not yet a member."

The voice on the other side sighed. "That's fine then, there's nothing we can do if they already pay so much attention to him. What about the other prospect?"

Yi Lan laughed self-mockingly. "She didn't even consider us from the start. While she is also backed by the Tang Sect in secret, she simply said that 'She'll join if Karni does.'"

The line went silent, until a long sigh escaped it. "Good on your report, keep in touch." The connection was cut.

Yi Lan had an annoyed expression on his face. He could tell that they weren't happy with how he handled the situation, but there was really nothing he could do.

"Damn Mo Qing, he really beat me this time." He took some documents from the table and put them in the drawer section called 'Prospects'. He then stopped and picked them back up.

"He really has grown a lot since then, despite wanting to bring him into the Spirit Pagoda, he probably doesn't belong here." Yi Lan sighed.

… … …

A jab directed into the claws was used to block an ability from fully activating.

The person with the claws activated their first of the two yellow rings as they sped up immensely to the side of their opponent.

The opponent however stepped away with an uncanny movement, with unnatural timing of their body, before the clawed person even activated their soul ring ability.

The opponent was a boy who wielded a gold and silver bo staff, with a snake running alongside it. His hair was of darker blonde and he had greyish-blue eyes. This was Val Karni, however he was much older than before, he looked to be about the height of a 10 year old.

The person who just missed greatly with her claws had bright auburn hair. She currently had black cat ears in her bright hair and a frustrated look on her face. This dance had been going on for some time. This was of course Wu Siduo. She too was now much taller, and had a great balance of slenderness and muscles on her body.

The exchange was repeated one more time, but this time, she reacted incredibly quickly, as if she expected it.

She made what seemed to be a 90 degree turn towards Karni, while Karni continued to move away. This was a dance they had done many times in the last few years and in Siduo's words, Karni was getting "more and more annoying."

While moving away, Karni was lightly tapping the ground with the Staff while spinning it in his hands. When the staff passed the eyes on the third spin, his eyes seemed to change into bright yellow.

As soon as Siduo saw that,she immediately closed her eyes and stopped, trying to run to the side instead.

On the other hand, Karni ran straight towards her. The slight taps of the Bo Staff still present. His second soul ring was currently shining brightly, and one could hear the staff making swoosh sounds because of the continuous spinning.

Every tap, Siduo's ears twitched. Finally on the 8th tap, she decided to change direction and open her eyes again, gunning straight for Karni.

Karni did a strong step into the ground as if to lock his foot in, and then reached out with his whole body in a straight jab. One foot in the front, one in the back, maximising the power of his body to aim for her head. To do so, his body had to be even more flexible than Siduo's at the moment.

Siduo saw that and there was some visible fear in her eyes as she reactivated her first soul ring to make a small adjustment, barely scraping past Karni's staff jab. In the process, she looked into Karni's eyes which were still yellow and immediately regretted it.

Before her appeared dozens of golden shapes obscuring Karni's true position, even while she was barely 2 metres away. The golden shapes which looked like Karni were so dense that she could only base his position off of his Staff, but that was enough for her.

She finally knew how Karni felt when she made his predictions unreadable.

Her second soul ring shined brightly as hundreds of claws striked towards what she thought was Karni's position.

She felt something connect with her claws but before she had time to celebrate, a vibrating short staff that was releasing a soft humming noise hit her face from the side.

The force was as she expected, big, and her cheeks felt numb, as if they had just gone through a painful massage. This feeling translated to the rest of her head as well.

At that same moment her sight cleared. She was on the ground as she rubbed her cheeks. But she heaved a sigh of relief as she noticed that Karni was, like her, also on the ground.

In Karni's left hand was another shorter version of the Staff which had a few claw marks on it, while the drumstick that hit her face was in his right hand.

Karni, despite being on the ground, was full of smiles. "Another draw eh? It seems you were struggling quite a bit there for a while, Sisi."

"Oh shut up… Well, I guess you really are becoming a control system soul master even if it's slow." She tried to tease back.

"Hey it's not me who's still on the ground." Smiled Karni back, already on his feet.

"Be quiet and help me get this fuzzy feeling out of my head, will you dear?" Her last sentence was made in a grandma-like persona.

This was a draw. They were still using the rules of 'who dirties their butt first is the loser'. If this was a match where one incapacitated one another the one who would currently have the advantage would certainly be Karni.

All of the second soul ring ability of Siduo's ,which was called the Hell Hundred Claws, was absorbed by Karni's left short staff. This knocked him off balance and he fell to the ground while hitting her with his right hand. The pressure was too much for him to use his movements to rebalance, even if it was his specialty.

Siduo's second soul ring was very strong; it enabled her to attack 100 times in a short period of time with her claws. It was especially good with overwhelming opponents.

Karni countered this by making her vision blurred. This forced her to guess where his position is and enabled him to absorb all of her attacks with half of the staff.

The vision impairment he gave her was an ability of his second soul ring. He named it the Vision Bestowal. However the way he used it here wasn't how this skill was usually meant to be used.

This skill allowed him to share his first soul ring ability, to see into the future, with another person. He could even share with multiple people where the only limit to how many was based on how much soul power he used up.

Through the last few years he developed a way in which he could use it offensively as well. He could force his soul ring ability on someone else if he used up more soul power as long as they looked into his eyes. At that point he could overwhelm someone with a sheer quantity of possible futures so as to distract them.

This was something that when Karni and Siduo first met, Siduo used against him as a flaw in his first soul ring ability. He has now turned that flaw into an attack that he can use on his own.

The result being a draw has recently become more and more common when Karni and Siduo faced each other. While Karni has never truly won against her, situations like today, where he had the upper hand were becoming more and more often.

It was quite impressive considering he was fighting someone who reincarnated from this plane.

However this didn't start when Karni got his second soul ring, nor did it begin when he learned to use his second soul ring in an offensive way.

It began when they entered the intermediate academy of Star Luo City Academy.

The academy, thanks to Mo Qing's persuasion, gave special resources to training Karni and Siduo. They were known as the two geniuses in the intermediate academy even before they got into it.

Their personal combat teacher became Teacher Ye, who was previously in charge of teaching them Mecha Engineering, while Mo Qing himself taught them in class alongside being their master in Mecha Designing and Manufacturing.

Teacher Ye was usually the combat teacher in the advanced academy, but also taught Mecha Engineering as it was quite a passion for her. Now she has returned to her advanced academy job.

The fact that an advanced academy teacher taught two kids who were in intermediate academy showed how much importance the academy gave to Karni and Siduo.

They had gotten a separate class all together as soon as they entered the Intermediate Academy, leaving the rest of their peers behind. They were leaders of the class, and now another two students who had great chemistry became so.

Those were their old opponents that they defeated easily in the past. Li Tai the Cloud Sword and Yu Tian the Dragon Shield. They were Soul Grandmasters as well.

More than a few Soul Grandmasters existed in that particular year, Karni and Siduo were a great source of inspiration to them. Yu Tian and Li Tai were hit especially hard by that 'inspiration.' They still challenged them on a regular basis until they split classes.

Karni and Siduo have gotten quite a lot of combat experience just thanks to them in the Elementary Academy. Teacher Ye didn't agree. When they entered the intermediate academy she actually seemed disturbed.

When she discovered that Karni could split his staff in two she almost wanted to slap him to what extent he was disregarding this ability. The amount of potential attacks he could do with constantly switching the Bo Staff between the full form and split form was enormous, yet by the time he got into intermediate academy officially, he was still clunky at using it.

Hence, in the past year that they have been in the intermediate academy, most of Karni's combat class was focused on mastering switching between dual wielding and single wielding the staff.

But that alone also wasn't what brought his success rate in draws against Siduo up. It had to be said that Siduo, unlike Karni, seemed extremely experienced and calm in combat situations. Teacher Ye was shocked how little she was capable of teaching her. Karni knew the reason, but they couldn't just tell the teacher.

So how did Karni get his success rate higher? Despite him being able to distract opponents now, becoming more proficient in body movement and dual wielding, and his future sight, he still didn't have attack power. The only thing that helped him were his muscles.

While three years of training muscles and body was a lot, it still couldn't be compared to an Agility System's attack and defence, especially so if your soul skills were mainly based in supporting control.

Yet despite that, his muscles' sturdiness and flexibility had increased at least tenfold. He didn't know quite what caused it. Perhaps it was his movement? If he compared purely his body's capability of bending, it was actually greater than Siduo's.

He could bend his hands, knees, back, all in the most unnatural of ways.

This greatly helped in increasing the speed at which he changed the Staff's form. The more aggressively he changed the form, the more force there was.

With his new control and flexibility of the body, and the faster switching, the Stacks have become much stronger as well. When building them up, all he had to do was let the Bo Staff shake on its own whenever a physical object hit it, whether itself or someone else's.

If he didn't have the flexibility, the bo staff's vibrations would likely make his hand numb as well, yet his body accepted them.

Through experimenting, he has so far found a few things. Physical force itself wasn't the cause of the additional power. It wasn't force itself that stayed inside the staff.

Secondly, the staff seemed to be vibrating when it was done right, when the Stacks were high enough, and he didn't quite yet know what those were, the staff started humming.

Soft taps were the best way to build it up, as it made the staff vibrate more than physical force put into the staff. This confused Karni quite a bit and with this current method he has managed to get up to 19 soft taps before he couldn't add more. The reason wasn't that he couldn't control it, but that the vibration simply didn't increase afterwards. Hence the power stayed at 19 Stacks. It has stayed like this for more than 2 months already.

He somehow felt that the way he built up the vibrations wasn't the correct way. When he played the drums they increased much faster and he's even got them above 19 Stacks at those times. They also didn't build up the same way. Sometimes the Stacks would jump straight to three or four when drumming.

This unfortunately led to buying new drums, it's better you don't know what happened to the first ones.

These days he controlled how much he could build Stacks up during drumming. But how would he replicate a drumming effect during fighting?

These 19 Stacks of vibrations were currently his strongest weapon. This was why Siduo attacked him at 8, any more and she might have lost immediately.

The attack he unleashed wasn't too damaging, but it was capable of stunning an opponent to a great degree. Those vibrations transferred to a person. When reaching Stacks above 10, it would truly imbalance a person. Their body would start vibrating, and if you couldn't handle it, you would simply lose control of it.

Meanwhile, they haven't truly tested yet what his 19 Stacks were capable off. The increase wasn't linear, but it wasn't exponential either, it was actually quite inconsistent.

Karni called a new Stack if it felt like the power increased enough and that was the only way of actually measuring it for now.

Despite the regular sparring sessions between themselves, in combat class, they were often put together to fight against their seniors in a 2v2 situation.

This was where Karni's ability as support control truly shined. The only time they have lost so far, was when they faced three ringed opponents. When Karni shared his first soul ring with Siduo, through the second one, she seemed untouchable.

The only interesting thing Karni noted was that when he first shared his vision with Siduo, she clearly commented. "I missed this feeling."

He was going to ask her about it, but just as the words were at the edge of his mouth he got a dreadful, stifling feeling that he was going to regret asking this question. He figured it was the same situation as the other ones. The headache would've definitely come if he asked.

"Shall we go get some lunch?" Asked Karni remembering the memory.

"Sure, to the canteen then?" Siduo answered, now already stretching her neck, as the fuzzy feeling stopped.

"To the canteen."

It wasn't just the classes that were special for them. Food was too. It became much more extravagant and rich in nutrients, ever since their graduation from the Elementary Academy.

This didn't only make them grow faster. Their cultivation got a boost, as did their bodily strength.

To say that the academy didn't give them special resources would be a severely inaccurate statement.

After they finished their lunch Karni went to a tree in the academy park and simply laid down in a shade. He wasn't in a meditative pose, he was just lazing around.

Siduo didn't find this weird and simply sat down next to him and started her cultivation.

Karni's world was black as he focused on his inner body. Whenever he lazed around like this he would enter a special state. It was connected to his Panda Martial Soul.

Panda's were lazy beings, ones who were in tune with nature and whenever he laid down like this, a soft green stream would appear in his inner pathways.

Around the green string there were a few other colours as well. There was blue, turquoise, red, yellow, brown and a few others. He guessed it was connected to the food he consumed.

This was the best way for him to ingest his nutrients, it seemed like this state of his was good for solidifying his cultivation, making his soul power in his body have better quality. It unfortunately didn't increase his cultivation.

On the other hand, his regular meditation stance allowed him to increase his soul power and as a bonus increase his spiritual power. This was when a golden string appeared in his pathways. His guess was that the laziness was connected to the Panda, while the latter was connected to his Bo Staff.

"Haaa. This is the best." Karni released a relaxing sound, this was his favourite time of the day. He did nothing, yet he got benefits anyway. He wasn't a fan of constant cultivation and sparring.

He was motivated to do it, but he didn't enjoy it that much. He wasn't a hard working person in his previous life either. If anything, a chronic procrastinator.

"Since you're enjoying yourselves so much, why don't you break that monotony up a little bit." It was a womanly voice that came from some distance away.

"Eh, Teacher Ye, good afternoon!" Said Karni with a bit of an awkward smile.

"Yes, yes, I know, you don't have to search for excuses, you've told me at least five times about how this is beneficial to you." Teacher Ye rolled her eyes.

Siduo opened her eyes at this point as well. "Teacher Ye, is there something going on?"

The teacher nodded. "We will be switching up your combat lessons from now on."

Karni looked a bit guilty. "Teacher, I really don't just laze around when I do this, I mean I do, but-"

"Stop it, it's not because of that." She put her hand up to quiet him up.

She then chuckled, seeing Karni's and Siduo's confused faces as she described in greater detail.

"I have confirmed with the academy that you two have advanced enough to get the final benefits academy has gotten for you." She put on a mysterious smile.

Before Siduo and Karni could answer, she simply nudged them to follow her. "We will meet your teacher there as well, so we better hurry up and not keep the vice-headmaster waiting."

Karni and Siduo were now even more confused.