Her eyes track her falling hands, feet shifting wider, shoulder purposefully not-quite tensed, watching. 

Two fingers up. 

"Two. Your current instincts are wrong. Fox of the Spirit Sylvan Lake includes a training form, with different patterns of qi and blood and motion and speed. Did you know that?"

Small deferential head-hang. 

"No." 

No disclaimed expressions of knowledge that she didn't really have, no ambiguity. 

Three fingers. 

"Three. It doesn't teach you counters to other techniques, or give you muscle memory, not at the most basic level. It'll give you a toolkit, and even a ready-enough option to reply - but not skill." 

"Do you understand?"

Stand at attention, respond. 

"No." 

I don't - I can listen but. 

Expectant gaze, stalk around her.

"I understand at least a version of that idea - that it doesn't give a complete understanding of what to do in the 'micro' of a fight, but merely gives a response and a toolkit. I don't understand fully what that means in practice, the level of preformance difference, or the metaphysical implications of the idea of 'skill', if something like that applies." 

Clipped nod, another finger up. 

"That's four. You need to get mastery of the art - in a way that only training can get, and that you can only properly get from training to fight, training in fighting, in both senses. Better efficiency, better power, better mastery of the associated elements - fist and balance, for yours." 

"Condense Fist qi in your hand. You'll need to circulate your blood there too and drain it into it - but the manual has the complete method. Follow it."

And yes, that's there, of course. 

It condenses fairly smoothly, an thin aura of white fading into existence around her hand. 

She peered appraisingly down at her.

"How does it feel, to hold in your hand?"

"Strained. Loose. Strong. Incomplete. Plain. Firm. Sharp. Mine."

Understanding nod. 

Her hand glides out, and presses against the glowing cupped hand, the strands of qi just stopping against her skin as she instinctively presses back against it.

"This is what passive resistance from a body tempering art feels like - the Iron Immovable Body, in this case. Feel it, and try to break past it." 

She breathes deeply, and the energies that enter her go into her core, form her balance, and intermingle and shift into the condensed fist qi against her hand, as she squeezes hard against her hand. 

It's untouched, firm against her despite the supple softness in her skin, and so she looks deeper. 

The motions of the punching techniques are part of them, of course, though there's only so much she can do like this, but she still remembers them and shifts her hips and arm to follow in accordance with it as best she can, the details of the knowledge forming and shifting in her mind. 

There's other details as well, of course, different degrees of investment optimized for, different targets, different ways to fight and follow up, and of course the meditation technique, to hold it all together and make it real. 

Her qi isn't defective, it's just... stopped, a wall of Metal and a decently large amount of Earth standing firmly against her, the control and power and focus of the technique dissipating as it hits just at the edge of her perceptions, failing each and every moment even as it grow sharper, denser, cleaner, smoother, ignoring attempts to simply build strength in her hand to release in a surge to overwhelm it, sturdy enough to simply let it wash off, burn away, grow around, the elements falling apart against the barrier of it but...

"No true native affinity. Take your hand back, and punch." 

Withdraw, recenter, set into a blow, fist qi spiking - 

Her blow slammed into her open palm as her hips twisted to try to force the blow forwards, this defense much flatter and energetic. 

"Feel the way that the blows power drains as it shifts out of your technique into just wielding the qi by instinct. Repeat as needed." 

Press, surge against as if to throw something off, the same process of optimization pressing against the defense. It wouldn't work - she knew enough to know that 4 realms of cultivation was actually literally an insurmountable gap, and the fact that without any defense she had gotten exactly the same result was more then enough clue to know that her genre knowledge was good enough - but that wasn't the point. 

Back to stance, step forward, let it get caught, don't hesistate - just let the rain of blows sink in, and watch them as they fall.

She catches each and every blow with a single hand - no matter how far her fist qi spills out, it simply stops going towards her when it hits, sometimes simply negated against the bastion of her palm as she did at the start, but more and more of them have little changes - the affinities shift, from radiant strength to tempered steel to sturdy stone to gently licking flame burning her qi to nothing, and it's not just that - 

It bites, a little, as the qi and blood are countered, as her fists fail repeatedly, as the energies fail again and again 'til it can't even quite protect her hand, but the moments start to be a little clearer, the failures a touch more obvious, and it can be moved, changed, just a little, altering tiny things about her breath and stretching arm to adjust it by the tiny fractions of a second that make the way it hits sting a bit more or a bit less, pushing firmly -

Her hand shifts, just a little, pulling back as if to brace better, even though she doesn't need it, or her palm rotates up, to the left, to the right, brushing to either side of the motion to deflect it and stop as she desires - 

There's a certain flow to this too - the changed directions have there own optimal paths, and it wasn't like the techniques were designed without blocking in mind but still she stumbles as the adjustments happen sharply, before correcting to go back at it again. 

She reaches out, beyond just her hand, deflecting her forearm, brushing aside her wrist, even jerking her forward a little to upset her balance - 

Stumbling was natural, and there wasn't quite a lot that she could do about it, but resetting and adapting and even rolling when she needed was... available, more or less, so she just went and tried the standard methods to adapt, flow-forward, or at least retreat in good order.

Her foot swept out slowly, a warning to move back -

She stepped back a little, arching back to still complete the stroke, and the stepping into the fight.