Zhen chose demon yang. He wanted to since he didn't see himself using yin energy, and he had no choice but to lock to demon yang. He only hopes that his friends don't reject him for it.
Being a demonic martial artist can be a horrid situation if you're in a region that lacks a high tolerance for the demonic arts. You can very much be at risk of death. Thankfully, Zhen was near Ren who was a demonic martial artist and was willing to protect him given that he trained under him and was sort of a member. The details are foggy but basically:
Zhen trained under Ren after he failed the exam to join the Murim Alliance Academy, which stung for him. But when Ren found him angrily crying in the street, about to make a bad decision, the two of them talked and he decided to be under Ren's tutelage, basically getting a shortcut into his progress. He didn't get his qi awakened though. Ren stated that Zhen wasn't under the right emotional circumstances to awaken carefully yet.
Either way, Zhen had arrived at his decision and chose demon yang doing so by closing his eyes again and imagining a great and powerful force moving around the void and then like lightning he heard a boom and a sharp feeling in his lower abdomen as he looked down and saw a black core with a glowing center, the sign of demon yang qi, as Zhen took a breath of relief and then closed his eyes again.
And noticed he didn't leave the realm yet as the system said:
{Congratulations you have completed the tutorial mission choose one of the following rewards}
{Miracle body/Weapon/Martial tome?}
Zhen was reminded of what Jaune said a while back, that when a system user completes a tutorial mission this happens to them, as Zhen thought long and hard about what he wanted as he decided that having a second miracle body wouldn't hurt until he saw a new notification.
{Due to user already possessing 2 miracle bodies, they unfortunately can't get another miracle as that will go past the maximum for their Level of body manifestation(note; for some odd reason, despite being at level 1, you have 2, Zhen) as Zhen was confused since he only had 1 miracle body as he says
"N-no, I should have one only bod-" before Zhen could continue, the system said
{incorrect, you possess 2 miracle bodies, albeit one is latent inside you and can't be accessed or spoken about until you're strong enough, please choose either a weapon or a martial arts tome} Zhen was confused and worried, he never noticed he had another miracle body and the fact he can't speak about it unnerved him as he said
"A weapon can be broken, but a martial arts tome can always be useful, so I'll take the tome" he says as he sees a wheel with 5 colors on it and words in the colors and a needle at the side, as the Gray colored section had common, the Green one had uncommon, the blue one had rare, the purple one was very rare, and the Red one was legendary as the wheel began to suddenly spin as Zhen waited for 30 seconds until the wheel slowed down and the needle on the side tapped down on the side, it was over, that being the Blue side meaning rare as Zhen saw a blue energy that turned into a book that the notification said was named
{Demon Beast School- Emerald Serpent Style-Beginner}
{This martial art is used by the Great Beast tribe of the northern plains, manifesting the power of the great demon snakes that reside in the region. The user practices manifesting Qi as a controlled force with quiet, precise strikes. It has 2 variations in the text: the fist style and the sword style.}
Zhen notably sweat-dropped at reading this since while the fist techniques seemed easy to learn, Zhen had an unfortunate little secret he was ashamed of.
Zhen sucked. At swordsmanship. You'd think he'd learn to be better, but he was never good at the sword. Hence, why he stuck to a baton and a shortstaff rather than relying on a style he wasn't good at. So, he's going to have to rely on the fist style as he entered the stance and began to mimic the shadow, mimicking the kicks, punches, knees, etc., until he got a notification that he learned the techniques. Then, he closed his eyes.
And woke up to see his friends watching over him nervously as Zhen said, "What? Is there something on my face?" As Zhen tries to lighten the mood, immediately Jeo ran up and hugged Zhen as Lee said, "Thank goodness you're fine." As Lee and Jin were silent in thought, Lian ran in and said,
"Zhen! Did the people who attacked you sneak any form of qi on you?" As Zhen simply said, "No, not that I remember. I had managed to avoid taking a majority of the damage by hiding away and activating the magic tag." He says lying about the fact he got gutted by the only named bandit, Long Wu. As Liam took a deep breath and was about to say something else, the doors opened and Zhen saw Jaune and 2 women who oddly enough had his hair and one had his eyes as Jaune said,
"You good Zhen?" As Zhen nodded as he stood up and Jaune said, "Mind following us for a second?" As Zhen nodded and followed as the door closed behind him and Jaune said,
"God, there's no way I can say it without making you confused…These 2 women are Dan Jue and Dan Yang…your aunties." Zhen's eyes widened as he said, "Are you joking, Jaune?" As Jaune simply shook his head, Zhen began to nervously chuckle as he says,
"C-cmon, Jaune, they can't be. I grew up with no aunties to look to, so why would…shit, you're serious." He says as he stopped chuckling when he saw Jaune's face. Jaune had a look that can best be described as apologetic as Zhen began to chuckle without mirth and say,
"…you 2 really are my aunts." Zhen says calmly as he mentally feels a panic attack coming, but he shoves it down. He's fine. He's fine. "So where were you for most of my life?" immediately Dan Jue said.
"Zhen…I can only offer a reason for why we couldn't be there. It was your mother. She had plans for you that can only be described as cruel and unnaturally evil, even for her. Me, Yang, and your uncle took you from her. But we couldn't take care of you because she would've known about it. We had to leave you here, otherwise, she would simply take you back and kill us." She says sadly as Yang looked angry at the memory of what happened. As Zhen just tried to calm himself, he says, "Oh, great, I also have an uncle I never knew about. Anyway. So, uhm…why are you here now?" Jue and Yang calmly said back.
"Well, since you are now a martial artist, we thought about finding a teacher for you and helping you progress. Ren can't teach too much due to his work as the leader of the New Beggars Association, and because you aren't a Buddhist, you can't learn the Buddhist martial arts, so we gotta find a good teacher, especially since we have to figure out what weapon you're good at-" Jue began to ramble as Yang said, "Okay, kid, what's your weapon?" Zhen thought kid was much given he was 23, but either way, he answered.
"I use a shortstaff and a baton." Zhen says as Jue hears this and goes to think, "Maybe we can have Gonma teach him? He does use a set of blunt staves too?" Yang nodded and said, "Gonma's probably the best option" as the 3 are silent as they notably don't know what else to say to each other. As they heard a war horn sound, Zhen said, "An attack now of all times?" As a lesser Mudang disciple ran to them and said,
"There's been an attack by bandits!? One is the Son of the great Demon of the South, Long Wu." Immediately Zhen's eyes widened as he quickly took a deep breath and says, "That's the name of the leader of the bandits who attacked me." Immediately Jue and Yang said,
"You were attacked!? Today?" At the same time as Zhen replied.
"Yes they had attacked me while I delivering stuff to Gongmen" immediately Jue and yang nodded at each other and yang said "Go take the Mudang, mt hua, golden spear vermillion school, Zhongnan, and Sorim disciples that are inside the city to defend the walls of Gongmen to keep the attackers out" the disciple nodded and went to organize the disciples as Zhen took a deep breath and turned to see all 3 martial artists were already on the roof of another building alongside Ren and the Leader of Mudang as he says "man this is stupid." As he feels himself he picked up as he sees Geuk Jeo who says "need a ride?" As Zhen nodded and Geuk jumped up to the Walls of Gongmen as Zhen saw Long Wu who had…oh dear god that's a massive army of bandits, way more then the small group he attacked the transport convoy with, where did he get this many?
"Long Wu is the child of Long Ba, the great demon of the south , So it's likely the old man gave his son the means to get revenge on his failed hunt, by attacking Gongmen himself" Gumyeong Lee said, as zhen notably took a deep breath as Long Wu turned and Zhen mentally said "oh no." As long Wu yells to Zhen
"YOU. I HAD KILLED YOU. SPLIT YOUR BELLY IN HALF AND SAW YOUR GUTS. HOW ARE YOU ALIVE!? ANSWER ME." Long Wu yelled as Zhen mentally swore when the others looked at him with Lian stating "…Zhen, what is he talking about" as Zhen panicked and said.
"Oh, nothing. I don't know what he's talking about. I wasn't dead. I was pretending," he says as Doyun immediately said "he's lying. His heart beat increased after he said that and he's looking to the left" with his eyes glowing black, which is a sign he's using Zhi as Lian said.
"Zhen. Explain." As Zhen sighed and said "…I may have been gutted." As immediately everyone gets silent. As Gumyeong said "…Zhen…You'll explain later in 3 hours. Right now, we have a fucking bastard to kill." As immediately Zhen felt the extreme pressure of unleashed Qi from, Doyun Lee, Gumyeong Lee, and Jin Soryu, alongside Geuk Jeo, his aunties Jue and Yang, with Jaune and Ren standing there unaffected as Jaune said "okay, can y'all stop before you kill Zhen." As they stop and just jump down.
You know, until now Zhen never really was aware of the immense power gap between him and his friends. He knew his friends were powerful. He saw Geuk Jeo crack boulders with a punch, but he didn't expect to be paralyzed in fear by them. So Zhen just watches the 5 fight and he's amazed at how strong they truly are.
Soryu, Gumyeong, and Doyun were the three who worked the best together as they were the three swords of Mudang. They were often training to complement each other's strengths, with Doyun being able to accurately tell when an attack was going to hit, Gumyeong using his defensive techniques to control the attacks sent at them into hitting other enemies, leaving room for Soryu to attack moving as if he was one with the earth itself, cutting apart foes with ease as Zhen looked amazed as the system said {those are the 3 principles of Mudang in action. Zhi, Zhuan, and He, these principles create a whirlwind of dangers for any foolish enough to try and fight them.)
Zhen watched amazed as he turned and saw Geuk Jeo…and he was amazing.
Geuk Jeo is invincible, which is shown by the fact that he is literally shattering blades by blocking their swings with his arm. Even the hardest weapons like cannonballs were shattering into powder against his skin as he used his martial arts. Jeo practiced a style Zhen couldn't pronounce, BhaiSajyaguru, but the style was basically pressure points aimed at vital spots. Now, you may be assigned to witness him poking a man, and the man's arm explodes. How is that possible? Well…combine having a body that makes you strong enough to tank cannonballs with a style that relies on the fingers precisely aiming at vital spots…and you get this. Hell, the beads around his neck are meant to hinder most of the force of his strikes, and the arms are still liquidating themselves.
Meanwhile, with Lian, he notably was getting the most blood on him. See, Lian used to train under a poisoner from a sect who were skilled at this odd poison hand technique, and this translates to his sword aura being mixed with poison. As he saw Lian's sword become covered in a noxious green aura as he ran to his foes and began slashing the enemies moving past each one as the poison spread through their bodies and began to cause them to bleed profusely, Lian said,
"Man. It's weird. I thought Long's Wu dad had good bandits?" As he talked to Jin, who said, "I've heard that his dad doesn't give him the good soldiers to make sure Wu can only rely on himself." As Zhen watched, he immediately felt an immense sharp sense of danger in the back of his head as he turned and saw a bandit about to attack him with a knife. As Zhen, on instinct, struck the man with one of the techniques he got, the Emerald Serpent Kick, he heard a loud crack as he saw the man's eyes bulge as he collapsed. As Zhen immediately began to look around for more bandits as he pushed down a rising bile-inducing thought about what just happened, he grabbed his baton and shortstaff and ran up to take on bandits as well.
As Zhen notes, how rough his emerald serpent techniques are, since he's applying sword forms to a shortstaff and baton who use very different techniques than a sword, especially since the emerald snake sword style is one-handed and not meant for duel-wielding, so Zhen was moving rougher as he used his techniques on bandits, relying less on the practiced forms and more on his body's momentum, even at one point ducking and crouching to then jump in a diagonal direction and smack a bandit upside the head with his legs as he heard another crack as Zhen said, "damn, I got good legs." As he rolled into a ball when he landed on the ground and rolled for a bit before jumping up and smacking another bandit as he said, "System! What's my current ratio of defeated enemies?" As he got an answer, "{defeated enemies are 8, you have 10 more to go in front of you}"
Zhen said "Tch" at that. He still wasn't as good as his Allies who would see this as child's play as he decides to try and perform a more aggressive technique in his book known as emerald serpent rush as he got into the stance and rushed as he swung his short staff like the sword was swung in the depiction, with the hand holding it twirling the weapon for momentum before smacking 3 bandits with it and then using the baton to perform the other half cracking 5 bandits upside the head and knocking them down before jumping up and kicking 2 more as Zhen looked and saw one of the bandits he hit with the baton was implanted into a wall as he says
"I shouldn't have had that much force." As he looked at his baton which is cracked at the end as the system says "{ batons has the unique feature to where you can increase your chance to perform a critical hit, or to explain what that means, increases your chance to do more damage to a target by unintentionally striking a vital spot}" as Zhen smiled and said
"I assume different weapons have different bonuses?" As the system said {"yes. Bows increase accuracy, Swords increase attack speed, Axes and cleavers increase Attack power etc"} as Zhen sighed looking at his weapons and saying
"But my Wooden shortstaff and baton look pretty damaged. Guess the techniques requirement for a sword is more strict than I thought," as the system replied back. "{Improper use of Qi can cause damage to weapons}" As Zhen looked annoyed, he walked out of the building he was in and saw a lot of dead bodies on the other side, all spread about as he saw the culprits.
Jaune was one of the culprits, swinging his sword like a terrifying master as Jaune said, "I LOVE CONSECUTIVE CUTS." As Jaune slashed his way through bandits charging up him, as he dodged his way through a wall of spears, cutting them apart oddly, dodging the metal parts as he cut one and immediately began to speed up, slashing more and more, as Jaune had a demented grin on his face and his eyes began to turn red, and unless Zhen was losing his mind, Jaune's skin around his eyes began to turn a metallic gray color as he kept up the speed as Zhen says,
"System, why is Jaune going feral?" As the system answered, "{Jaune Aurelius possesses the sword demon miracle body and the body is one of polarized demon energy. Jaune, however, is pure Yang, so the body often can't use its full power. Jaune solved this by learning several sword abilities and using them to give a gate that opens to his body's demonic energy, letting him use its power. Consecutive cuts was a technique Jaune developed using an understanding of demon energy. By letting his bloodthirst take control, he gives the sword demon body the ability to manifest its insane demonic abilities such as the one he's charging up.}"
The system says as Jaune enters a stance where he holds his sword in a two-handed grip but rests the blade on his shoulder and twists his upper body to show his non-dominant shoulder as Zhen saw {SWORD DEMON ART: MALICIOUS SWORD AURA VORTEX} as Jaune swung his blade and a tornado of red energy appeared around him, cutting the bandits open as Jaune stopped and said,
"Who knew a baseball stance would be so effective." As he looked at Zhen and said "Long Wus in the area next to us fighting Ren" as Zhen ran past him to the other area and saw Long Wu and Liu Ren fighting like demons, Long Wus hair had grown longer and…More silky looking as He was also shirtless revealing how honestly Buff he is as he also saw how Wus blood veins were a Black color and his eyes were glowing crimson red as he began to get faster and faster as Rens eyes began to flash a variety of colors as he blocked Wus cleaver swings with his staff even spinning it to knock the cleaver almost out of Wus hands before doing a rising Axe kick to Wus chin as Wu turned and looked at Zhen and says
"YOU. EXPLAIN HOW YOU'RE ALIVE RIGHT NOW." As Zhen developed a feeling of dread, he entered a combat stance as Wu said with a sadistic smile, "okay then." You won't talk, fine. I'll break your body until you start talking…plus" he blocks Rens staff swing as he smirked and said "My Calvary has arrived" as they turned and saw an army of bandits charging at them as ren said "lemme guess, your brother Long Tais unit?" Wu nodded as he said "little bro always comes when I need him" as Zhen immediately said
"But why are you attacking more? Your presence has already altered several powerful disciples and your likely gonna be surrounded" as Wu smirked and said
"You think I don't know that, pretty boy? My plan was simple. Lure out as many masters to the center of Gongmen, and like my dad always says, Put the snakes in one jar their eggs are free for the taking" As Zhen immediately realizes "your plan wasn't to kill
Me or destroy Gongmen, it was to lure as many warriors to get free access to ransacking their sects…why?" As Long Wu smirked and Laughed and said
"ITS MY DADS BIRTHDAY TODAY DUMBASS. AND WHATS A BETTER GIFT A SON COULD BRING THEN MARTIAL TOMES FROM THE SECTS HE HATES SO MUCH!" As he charged at Zhen and Zhen tried to block his blade only for his 2 Weapons to break as a massive gash appears and he's sent flying as Zhen said "o-ok what the hell." As the system said "{That attack was empowered by one of Long Bas Great Demonic blood techniques, this one was crimson blood, which increases the speed and force behind attacks using Qi in the blood stream, its demon yang but it's too advanced for you to copy Zhen, if you want I can memorize it for later" Zhen says "please do." As he breaths in and out hacking up blood as Wu focused on fighting Ren as Zhen tried to stand up only for the system to say "{Zhen your body has sustained major injuries. If you move you risk hastening the blood you lose}" as Zhen sighs and sits down as he watches and says
"Just learned a martial art and I still can't fight Long Wu." As the system seems to sigh and say, "{zhen}. You're still only recently awakened. Your body's been forced to rapidly deal with the sudden progression of your cores. And Long Wus's been training for so much longer."} As Zhen sighs and rests as he saw Long Wu and ren fight in rapid succession as Zhen looks around for something he can do to help, and finds something that may be a silver lining, a Box of fireworks bought in advance for a festival as Zhen limped his way over to the Box and using Yang energy lights the fuse and pushes it with as much strength as he had towards Wu as Wu turned and saw the cart as the cart hit him and then it immediately went Kaboom as Wu came out of it with his Shirt deserted and his flesh pretty burnt not enough to weaken him but enough to slow Him down so Ren can swing his staff and send him flying as Jaune arrived covered in blood with a blackened sword form how dense his sword aura has gotten, to the point Zhen almost assumed it was an aura blade as Jaune says "so think Ba Will come soo-" cue a giant loud sound as Zhen says "dammit." *as he turned and sees Wu with his hair and skin turning a Pure red color as he says
"Oh yeah, Your deaths will be painful."