"Ah, so it"s you."

The teacher at the front of the training facility, Teacher Kun Lian, looked up when I stepped through the automatic gla.s.s doors. Before I even reached his desk, he grunted as he pulled out his tablet to make a note that I was here to book another of the room.

"Teacher Kun," I greeted with a bow.

"Here, room 404." Teacher Kun pulled out a key card and handed it to me. I straightened up and accepted it, thanking him. "2 hours. Don"t overstay."

"Sorry. Thanks."

Teacher Kun merely waved me inside. Stepping into the shiny, spotless corridor, I could see dozens of other students using the middle school training facility.

While many of the major sects had their own resources and could provide their disciples s.p.a.ces to train in, many students chose to utilize Wu Ling Academy"s ultramodern and state-of-the-art facilities. Some of them had no choice, coming from smaller sects that did not possess the necessary resources (which made me doubt the Martial Arts Alliance"s claim that they were giving every disciple equal opportunity based on meritocracy), but many chose the academy"s facilities because they were simply better than the facilities that even a lot of the richer sects possessed.

"Cla.s.smate Fei Wu."

"Oh? Ban Zhang, you"re here too?"

As I strolled toward Room 404, I encountered the cla.s.s representative. He was toweling off as he proceeded toward the reception desk, no doubt intending to return the key card in his hand. Evidently he had just finished his own training session.

"Yes. Been practicing some of the new techniques that the Black Tortoise Sect taught me." Ban Zhang nodded, and then clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Good to see you training diligently too. I"m glad you didn"t take this whole One Star Const.i.tution thing too seriously."

"Yeah." I nodded. "Can"t let Qi Fu Ren bully me just because I"m weaker. I"m going to fight back."

"Heh." Ban Zhang shook his head before giving me an encouraging pat. "Try not to get into fights. If you really want to duel him, apply for an official match."

"I"ll think about it."

I watched as Ban Zhang left, and then continued toward my room. While pa.s.sing by the countless doors, I could hear noises and crashes inside as various students practiced their techniques and sparred with training dummies.

"There you are."

Stopping in front of the door labeled 404, I inserted the card key and stepped inside. The room was almost bare, but padded with ceramite and ferrocrete, materials designed to withstand the powers of our attacks and almost any form of destructive martial arts techniques. In theory, anyway, but it was common for the repair crews to come in to restore the damaged training rooms at the end of every day, after the students were done with them.

Stepping to the center of the room, I held out my hand and waited as a blue-tinted hologram came to life. Studying the diagrams on it, I then picked an icon that was labeled Level 2 Training Dummy.

Woo…

A whir echoed at the back of the room. The walls slid open, like double doors made of stainless steel, and an automated puppet staggered outside. Cables and wiring dangled from above, disappearing inside the chamber from where the puppet emerged, connected to its limbs.

Hiss…

With a hiss, the wires fell away and retracted. The mechanical puppet trembled for a bit, and then suddenly straightened up. A red light flashed in the single optical lenses built into its cylindrical head.

"Level 2," it murmured in a robotic voice.

And then it suddenly lunged at me.

"!"

The clumsiness and jerkiness from earlier was no longer present. The battle puppet"s movements were sharp, crisp and precise. I almost couldn"t react in time as it spun above me to fluidly swing its silvery leg at my head. I parried its strike with both my hands, but was pushed back by the tremendous impact. Immediately my arms went numb from the blow.

So that"s the difference between level 1 and level 2.

However, I had beaten not just the three seniors from Iron Mountain Sect, but also the de facto leader of the Dark Shadow Sect today. I wasn"t going to let a mere puppet beat me.

As the puppet descended upon me with a crash, its kick resembling that of Mohawk"s from yesterday, I stepped to the side. Its scything mechanical foot smashed into the ground, carving up concrete despite the floor being made from reinforced material. Even as some of the debris bounced upward, I braved the storm of concrete and stepped into range in order to slam my elbow into the puppet"s gleaming, metallic chest.

At level 2, the battle puppet wasn"t that strong, and even someone as weak as me was able to knock it back a little. But the battle puppet was quick to recover, immediately straightening p and switching its stance.

But it was too late.

I slammed my foot under its guard, rocking it, and then spun around to deliver a roundhouse kick to the head. The battle puppet was sent hurtling head-over-heels into the wall, spinning in a clumsy manner that contrasted against its graceful movements from before, and vanished in a tiny explosion of dust.

"Phew…"

I watched as the puppet slid down to the floor, the malicious red light in its lenses dimming. Then the puppet spoke.

"Level 2 training dummy incapacitated. Shall I switch to level 3?"

"Er…" I pondered for a moment, and then shrugged. "Why not? Okay."

The automata puppet picked itself back up, and then straightened itself. The red light flared in its single optical lens again, giving it a demonic yet mechanical visage that made it seem eerie. I was astonished to see that there was no sign of damage. d.a.m.n, but these things were built tough. Well, that was no surprise, considering they were designed to endure the full brunt of martial artists" attacks. Of course a thirteen-year-old amateur like me wouldn"t be able to put a scratch on it.

"Anytime you"re ready," the puppet droned emotionlessly. I nodded.

"Go ahead."

The puppet disappeared. Before I knew it, I was thrown off my feet. Slamming into the wall, I collapsed, blood leaking from my mouth. I couldn"t even get up. Falling over, I clutched my chest, coughing and wheezing.

The automaton puppet mercilessly crashed down upon my position, and I barely avoided being pulverized into a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp by rolling away.

"I surrender!" I shouted, blood dribbling from my lips. "Cancel duel! Stand down!"

The puppet immediately deactivated, kneeling and awaiting further orders. Its optical lens continued to flare in bright crimson, but otherwise it was utterly still.

"d.a.m.n it…"

I had no idea there was such a ma.s.sive difference between level 2 and 3. Clearly I was still a long way from my goal.

"Hey…" I wiped the blood from my mouth as I staggered toward the training dummy. Given my injuries, it was clear my sparring was done for the day. At least I learned something – never underestimate your enemy, even if it was a mechanical puppet. "Is there a level 2.5?"

The puppet seemed to consider my question, its optical lens glowing as it processed my words.

"I am afraid not."

"d.a.m.n…"

I sighed, shaking my head. Level 2 was a little too easy for me, but level 3 was impossible for me to spar with right now. Why was there such a huge difference?

"Well, thanks anyway. I guess we"ll end the session early today."

It would be too dangerous to continue. I had to heal my injuries first. I wouldn"t be surprised if I had broken a few ribs, or if at least one of my internal organs had been ruptured. I had best see Doctor Yi Liao after this.

"Acknowledged."

The automaton puppet nodded and stood up. It then proceeded back to the chamber, the walls sliding open to allow it entry. Turning around to face me, it disappeared behind the closing metallic doors even as unseen machinery connected wires and cabling to its mechanical limbs in the darkness. The last thing I saw was the red light in its optical lens before it flickered off, and the doors concealed the whole training dummy from view.

Grimacing, I picked myself up and began staggering to the exit.

*

"Hey, you"re back."

Zhu Jiao looked up when I walked through the door of our dormitory building. Apparently he had just returned from a training session and hadn"t returned to his room just yet. Same as me, I suppose. I waved at him and nodded.

"I"m home."

Having lived in the dormitory for three months now, it now felt like a genuine home to me, as if I had lived here all my life. Zhu Jiao stayed in the room a few doors away from mine, so it wasn"t common to run into him. As we stayed in the same level, I followed him to the elevator.

"Went to the training facility again?"

Even though he was still seething from the bullying from earlier, Zhu Jiao had finally calmed down and refocused his energy into meditating. He was adopting a totally different approach from me, and as such didn"t agree with mine.

"Yeah," I nodded. Zhu Jiao smiled in approval.

"Had a good workout, I a.s.sume?"

"Sort of. I got beaten up instead."

I winced as I rubbed my chest. After returning the keycard to Teacher Kun, I had headed to the infirmary. Teacher Yi Liao told me off for being reckless in training, but she used her qi to heal my injuries. As expected, it didn"t take her more than a minute to completely restore me back to full health.

"You got beaten up by those stupid training dummies? Really?"

Zhu Jiao stared at me in shock. I chuckled in embarra.s.sment.

"Well…yeah. Level 2 was a bit too easy, so I set it to level 3. Big mistake."

"Huh?!"

Ding!

Zhu Jiao"s voice overlapped with the elevator"s chime. The doors slid open and I stepped out. Still in a stupor, Zhu Jiao hurried after me.

"You were trying to fight a level 3 battle puppet?"

"Yeah, I was."

"Why?!"

"Because level 2 was too easy."

"How is that possible?!"

That was a fair question, to be honest. While most of our cla.s.smates were on par with level 2 battle puppets, the two of us should still be on level 1 because of our One Star Const.i.tutions and slow progress. There was no way I should find level 2 too easy, because it meant I was on equal grounds or even superior to most of our cla.s.smates.

On that note, Qi Fu Ren had beaten a level 3 battle puppet, so that was probably why I was thrashed by him so easily.

However, I had experienced a fight with multiple seniors, so that must have helped me grow stronger somehow. Furthermore, I didn"t buy these whole levels and strength quantification bulls.h.i.t. Certainly, the level 3 battle puppet was much stronger and faster than a level 2 one, but exactly what that meant in terms of values or numbers was overly vague. Was there a whole band of ranging values, or was it the median? What did level 3 mean with respect to level 2? How exactly do you define or quantify the difference?

Was level 3 ten times stronger than level 2, for example? Or twenty times?

Ugh, all these levels and whatnot are meaningless to me anyway.

For me, personally, I just a.s.sumed the levels were stages of difficulty, much like a game. But other than that I didn"t take the whole level thing too seriously.

"You"re amazing!" Zhu Jiao exclaimed.

"No, I"m not." I was feeling sheepish right now, regretting having told Zhu Jiao that. "Please don"t tell the others about this."

"But why not?"

"I would prefer to keep a low profile, especially right now."

Qi Fu Ren was one thing, but after two consecutive days of seniors coming after me, I would prefer to lay low and stay hidden from view for a while.

Zhu Jiao considered for a moment, and then he nodded.

"Sure." He grinned. "But if Qi Fu Ren knows about this, he might think twice about attacking you! We can start paying him back!"

"Yeah."

I nodded in agreement, but I picked up some sense of discontent in Zhu Jiao"s otherwise bright tone. He was genuinely happy for me, I could see that, but…he seemed frustrated somehow.

He doesn"t want to fall behind, I realized. Taking a deep breath, I patted him encouragingly.

"Don"t worry," I a.s.sured him. "You"ll catch up and overtake me immediately."

I had no idea how true my words would become.

*

The next day, we managed to get through cla.s.s without Qi Fu Ren and his cronies coming to bother us. I was also relieved that the seniors didn"t confront me this time. Perhaps they finally realized that I wasn"t some inheritor or successor of the Heaven and Earth Sect. or maybe they were just afraid of me.

If they were, then great, but somehow I doubted that. Aware of the usual clichés, I predicted that stronger seniors would come to take revenge for their defeated juniors, just like in every wuxia web novel where antagonists were shameless enough to beg their seniors to take revenge for them. If this was fiction, I might welcome it, as no doubt the plot would have me thrashing the stronger seniors too, most likely in front of everyone so as to prove my strength and Mary Sue-ness. You know, typical wuxia protagonist fare.

Unfortunately, this was reality, and I knew for sure that I would be the one getting destroyed one-sidedly instead.

As I neared the completion of my twenty kilometer run, I suddenly caught sight of Zhu Jiao in the distance. As Zhu Jiao adopted a different training regimen from mine, we usually trained separately, which was why we weren"t running together. As always, Zhu Jiao finished his physical training way before I did, so he had more time to meditate. Or to relax.

Relax…? Was that what Zhu Jiao was doing right now?

I watched as Zhu Jiao moved toward a deserted part of the academy, which was a huge hill located inside a vast courtyard of sprawling green gra.s.s. Despite the great expanse of verdant fields free from human buildings and residence, we were still clearly within academy grounds. Curious as to what Zhu Jiao was up to, I altered my running route and followed him.

Zhu Jiao climbed up the slope until he reached the peak of the hill, which was high enough to overlook the tall walls that served as a perimeter for the academy. He stood atop the very edge of the cliff, glaring down at the buildings of Martial City, which were beginning to look like Lego toys from this height. Fortunately, I was behind him, but I remained out of sight. I was going to call out to him, but my voice died in my throat when I saw what Zhu Jiao was staring at.

He had shifted his gaze toward the skies. Even though it was still afternoon, the weather appeared to be unusual. The sun was still high in the heavens, yet there were already streaks of gold spilling from between the beleaguered clouds that were being churned and torn apart by a fierce gust of wind.

"Hey…"

I was about to call out to Zhu Jiao, but he paid no attention to me. Instead, he made a fist and punched toward the heavens, as if imitating a martial arts strike from one of our cla.s.smates who he saw practicing within the inner academy grounds or the training facilities.

"If there comes a day when I can punch through the heavens, then I will be able to die without any regrets."

"Why the f.u.c.k are you saying such a cheesy line?" I demanded, annoyed by his pompous att.i.tude, but Zhu Jiao didn"t hear me. He was too busily imagining that his punch had somehow penetrated the golden hued clouds, the force of his strike mercilessly and gloriously hurtling toward the stars beyond.

"Heh! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Zhu Jiao must have realized just how idiotic and cheesy he sounded, for he suddenly burst out laughing. He shook his head, and was about to turn around as if he was going to descend the relatively large hill.

However, he suddenly stopped, stunned.

What"s the matter?

Wondering, I stepped out to wave at him, but froze as well. This was because the clouds were splitting open, ruptured by a sudden elemental force that surpa.s.sed the fury of the winds from earlier. A golden beam of light pierced through the broken clouds, tore through the skies and sped toward Zhu Jiao so quickly that he didn"t even have time to blink.

"Watch out!" I yelled, but I was too late.

Zhu Jiao wasn"t able to respond. His body was frozen, his eyes staring blankly at the onrushing ray of golden light. Then the light struck him, bathing him in an intense glow so brilliant that I was forced to shut my eyes to protect them.

"?!"

There was a huge explosion that hurled me off my feet. I almost fell off the steep slope, and had to scramble to grab hold of a clump of gra.s.s, struggling to pull myself up before I fell to my death…or at the very least, a serious injury. While I yanked myself back up the hill, I watched in awe as ma.s.sive amounts of qi swirled and billowed around Zhu Jiao.

"What the h.e.l.l is this?"

I tried to approach him, but there seemed to be an invisible barrier between us. The moment I took a step forward…

Bang!

"Ugh!"

I was hurled across the air and landed at the base of the hill, where it rose from the ground. Thankfully I didn"t roll all the way to the bottom of the hill, or I would have missed this spectacular sight and not know what was going on with my friend.

Now that was something I really didn"t want to happen.

"Huff…huff…"

Heaving, the wind knocked out of me, I gulped down air and slowly rose to my feet. I staggered and fell over, unable to stand. Perhaps it was the tremendous pressure of whatever qi was being emanated from Zhu Jiao"s body, but I felt as if there was an enormous weight crushing down on me, pinning me to the ground.

"Ugh…!"

As much as I struggled, I couldn"t get any higher than kneeling. Never mind walking, I couldn"t even stand up straight!

"Zhu Jiao!"

Concern for my friend outstripped everything at this moment. I called out to him, hoping that he was still alive, that he wasn"t being obliterated by this strange new force. If I was already being overwhelmed like this even though I was such a far distance away, how much worse must it be for Zhu Jiao, who was at the center of this mysterious power?

However, in contrast to me, Zhu Jiao woke up with a smile.

"What a pleasant dream!"

What the f.u.c.k?!

I wanted to shout, but I found that my voice was gone. The pressure seemed to increase even further, drilling my knees into the ground. I gritted my teeth and focused all my strength into my legs, trying not to get squashed to death by a power that vaguely resembled gravity.

Unfurrowing his brow, Zhu Jiao beamed brightly, his expression vigorous and lively. He looked around, as if staring at the sky. I realized he must be wondering how much time had pa.s.sed. It had only been a few seconds…probably a minute or two at the most. But he couldn"t tell, having been knocked unconscious by that strange light.

Nonetheless, from how the sky was still bright, he probably knew it wasn"t that long.

"What just happened?"

Zhu Jiao continued to glance around. Puzzled, he reached up and ma.s.saged his forehead, and then he suddenly jumped up.

"Whoa! Isn"t this my family heirloom?"

I craned my neck and looked, only to see Zhu Jiao produce a golden amulet out of nowhere. He was holding it up with his hand, closely scrutinizing it in curiosity.

"What happened to it? It has never glowed like this before. Don"t tell me…it was that golden light?"

Huh? What the heck?!

Why did this development sound so familiar?

And where the f.u.c.k did Zhu Jiao get a family heirloom from? He had never mentioned it before. I mean, I never asked and he had no reason to show off his golden amulet to me, but this sounded like some plot device arbitrarily that had been thrown in for the sake of it. Whatever happened to foreshadowing? At least make some mention of it a few chapters ago, idiot!

But before I could complain about this scene being suspiciously similar to some wuxia novel about a Mary Sue protagonist who was arrogant as h.e.l.l and beat up everybody in his path while learning countless martial arts techniques left and right, the golden amulet glowed and sparkled.

"Whoa!"

Zhu Jiao cried out again and almost dropped the golden amulet.

"Oi! Be careful with that!" an old, wizened voice shouted out. Zhu Jiao blinked, and then gaped upward when he realized that there was where the voice came from.

There, above his head, a single ghostly old man with no legs however, his long white hair dropping and disappearing into smoke-like wisps.

"You"re pretty lucky, lad!" the old man chuckled as he met Zhu Jiao"s gaze. "For us to be able to meet like this…fate sure is a fickle thing!"