Transmigration: Children of The Plane

Archery Training

The week quickly went by with a few events happening.

Li Huo was also given a Yggdrasil Fruit and was let in on the secret. Xue Bai also visited Li Huo several times to keep the man company. As besides some guards and people to keep his Mansion clean, he lived alone. The last thing that happened was that the Wang Twins moved a courtyard down from Xue Bai.

Now, after a week of preparing, Li Rou had prepared a field in the core region for Xue Bai to practice on. Xue Bai initially wanted to practice on the army grounds, but after talking to his mother, he gave up on it. Since he would practice archery, he would take up a lot of space while most soldiers would either spar or do body exercises. Adding on to the fact that he might hit a nearby soldier since he was new to archery.

Today Xue Bai stood on the field in some tight practice robes with Li Rou standing in front of him. Li Rou still wore her usual attire but now had tied her hair into a high bun instead of letting it fall down her back.

After some quick stretches, Li Rou handed Xue Bai a bow and an arrow.

Li Rou pointed to a target about 50 meters away and spoke, "Bai'er, before I teach or show you anything, just take a shot at that target."

While he was confused, Xue Bai still did what she said and took a shot but couldn't even nock his arrow correctly.

After three failed attempts, Li Rou finally stopped him. As a master archer seeing someone struggle at the most superficial thing hurt her. So after realizing that her son was a complete rookie at archery, she realized where she needed to begin.

She first taught Xue Bai how to correct his stance first. "Bai'er in archery stance in everything if you don't have a stable stance your arrow will never go where you want it to. So I want you to train this first."

"Mother, how do I practice standing correctly?" Xue didn't know where she was going.

"Follow me, Bai'er. I prepared something for this situation." Li Rou then led Xue Bai to a different section in the practice field.

The place Li Rou took him was still in the open field, but this section was special. In front of Xue Bai were dozens of thin wooden pillars that stood two meters tall. Seeing this, Xue Bai knew almost instantly what she was planning for him to do, but he still waited for her to explain it to her and not steal her thunder.

"Bai'er, you will practice keeping a stable stance here with these pillars. Each of these pillars can only hold one foot and are extremely unstable. One bad landing, and you'll fall instantly." Li Rou explained.

But Xue Bai was still apprehensive, so he asked, "Mother, that's like two meters high. Won't that hurt a lot?"

But surprisingly, his mother didn't coddle him like usual and looked at him calmly and replied, "Everything in the cultivation world hurts. So I would rather you be in pain here with me instead of on the battlefield in front of someone trying to kill you."

Xue Bai didn't ask any further. His mother was right. If he wanted to ascend, he would need to higher his pain tolerance. He would die if he took the time to hold a wound and scream in pain in front of an enemy.

So with his mother's help, he climbed onto a pillar and tried to stand. However, it didn't last long, and he fell only after five seconds.

But while he was on the dirt and wincing in pain, he didn't notice the look of pain in his mother's eyes, as a look of willpower quickly replaced them. Li Rou constantly reminded herself, 'Remember what Big Brother Huo said. Coddling him will only lead to an earlier death.'

"Mother, when do I finish this training?" Xue Bai asked after swiping off some dirt.

"We will move onto the next step when you jump and land on every pillar without falling in between." Li Rou answered with a sinister smile.

Hearing this, Xue Bai started to regret asking his mother to train him, but the ship had already sailed. So he tried to push through.

But Xue Bai fell a lot and very often as well, and though his mother had tried to let Xue Bai face pain and hardships, she couldn't force the seven-year-old to damage himself beyond repair. So she only allowed him to train with the pillars for 3 hours a day. And after every session, she would give him a medical herb bath that would heal him quickly but also reduce any soreness he would feel the next day.

At first, Xue Bai had thought this would be impossible and tried to give up, but his mother showed him that it was very possible, so he started to take it seriously. It took him almost 2 days for him to stand on a pillar freely, which raised his spirits, but he soon realized the main challenge was for him to jump to the next one.

Jumping to another pillar wasn't just jumping and landing. It took a myriad of things to consider. First, Xue Bai needed to calculate the distance. He also needed to keep in mind to jump and land with as little force as possible since jumping too hard would knock it down with how unstable the pillars are. And jumping with not enough power wouldn't give him the air time to land onto his targeted pillar. And after landing, he would have to immediately adjust his balance before falling.

So after a lot more falling Xue Bai managed to jump onto and land cleanly on the next pillar took Xue Bai in a week, and after that, the rest of the training was quickly completed in 3 months.

After finishing the stability training, Li Rou took him back to the same spot from three months ago when he first shot the arrow.

Now a little taller and with a straight back, Xue Bai stood in the same spot he did a little over three months ago and attempted to shoot the arrow again.

This time while he managed to nock it, he never managed to fire it because he still didn't know anything about archery.

"Mother, it seems we were too focused on the stability exercise. You forgot to teach me the basics of archery." Xue Bai and Li Rou looked embarrassed.

They had wasted three months on the pillar exercise and forgot what they were initially trying to do.

"Bai'er, come with me to my courtyard; we'll start your lessons now." Then, turning not to let her son see her blushing face, she walked out of the practice field.

The following week of training was spent in Li Rou's courtyard teaching Xue Bai to basics of archery and how to hold the bow correctly and nock the arrows cleanly.

Li Rou had thought it would take Xue Bai longer to learn all the theoretical knowledge. However, he learned it all in a week. No matter what she told Xue Bai, he would absorb it almost instantly and not forget, no matter how much time had passed.

Xue Bai was indifferent about this. His character in the game had become a famous scholar in his late teens. His comprehension was naturally extraordinary. And learning simple theoretical knowledge about archery was nothing.

So for the third time, the Mother and Son Duo stood at the practice field in front of the same target, and after some reminders from his mother, Xue Bai shot the bow. His arrow had landed on the target, but it was only on the white outer circle and not a point section.

Xue Bai seeing that he had missed the points, turned and looked at his mother, expecting to see her disappointed but saw her looking at him like she saw a ghost.

"Mother, was my shot that bad?" Xue Bai was a complete archery rookie, so he had assumed he was horrible and untalented.

"Bai'er, have you truly never shot an arrow before?" Li Rou asked in a trembling voice

"Mother, if I had, I would've never gone through that wooden pillar exercise for three months." Xue Bai replied sarcastically.

Li Rou was floored. Her son just landed an arrow fifty meters away on his first shot. She had placed it that far to humble him and was planning to make it closer after every failure. But instead, he had landed it first try.

Li Rou then, with great difficulty, put a stern look on her face and said in a stern voice, "You missed. The target wasn't even that far, I was expecting you to at least hit the third layer, but you didn't even hit one. Try again. We won't leave until you hit the third layer!"

Xue Bai nodded. Since he was a rookie, he didn't know he had utterly destroyed his mother's pride of being an archery genius and genuinely thought he had ashamed her. So Xue Bai nocked another arrow and shot again. This time it hit the first layer, but since his mother said the third layer, he kept shooting until he made it, which he did after ten tries.

Li Rou seeing this, couldn't keep a calm face and had her pride whittled away from witnessing her son get visibly improve after every shot. So after he landed it in the third layer, she stopped him and called it for the day.

Though he was sad, Xue Bai still said goodbye to his mother and returned to his courtyard to bathe and rest.