Approaching the ma.s.sive shelf, I took a step into the aisle. Suddenly, the air around me shimmered and I detected a ripple in the dense qi that permeated the library. To my amazement, the shelf in front of me seemed to warp and shapeshift, and suddenly transformed into a small shelf.

"Whoa!"

Instinctively, I took a step back. Was this yet another kind of martial magic that this timeline adhered to? Nonetheless, I could guess what happened. Either the librarian had programmed the shelf, or the shelf itself had intuitively adjusted to my request, saving me the trouble of rummaging through countless manuals for the right one.

"Near the bottom of the shelf…right?"

Recalling what the librarian told me, I squatted down and tilted my head to get a better look at the bottom of the shelf. There were a few manuals stacked against each other, all of them level 1 techniques. I suspected that Shelf 408B held more than just level 1 techniques, but the higher level ones did not appear because I wasn"t qualified to browse through them.

This must be it!

Spotting the Shadow Steps manual somewhere in the middle, I reached out with my fingers and pulled it out. The crisp, papery feel of the scroll felt dry and coa.r.s.e against my fingers, the surface yellow with age.

But that wasn"t what surprised me.

The moment my fingers came into contact with it, I felt a tingle. That tingle grew exponentially when I pulled it out and held it in my hand, turning into a raging current that threatened to devour me. I staggered back, stunned by the manual"s response.

I see…so that"s why they don"t upload the martial arts manuals digitally into the school"s intranet system. The manuals themselves contain power!

The Shadow Steps manual was just bursting with qi, arcane qi that was not part of the library but originating from the ancient scroll itself. Martial arts manuals weren"t just mere copies of books, but ent.i.ties that seemed to possess life and qi of their own. The martial arts inscribed into their pages had imbued them with some sort of arcane power. It wasn"t the same type of strength that physical martial arts possessed, but something more mystical…something spiritual.

No wonder Wu Ling Academy preserved archaic copies of martial arts manuals rather than just render everything digital. There was power to be held within these physical scrolls, power that simply couldn"t be replicated digitally and electronically.

Ah…so that"s why the librarian told me to beware of the shadows.

The shadowy qi was creeping out of the Shadow Steps manual and wrapping around my hands, almost like a silkworm spinning silk over my arms. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to resist the dark embrace, exerting my will in stopping the shadows from spreading around and encasing my entire body. The shadows slowed noticeably, but its movements continued inexorably.

d.a.m.n it…

I had no idea how to deal with this. Teacher Jiao never mentioned this, and even my fuzzy memories of this timeline said nothing about manuals coming to life and attacking the bearer. The librarian"s words were the only one…

Like h.e.l.l I"ll let you devour me!

With an explosive force of will, I yelled at the dark shadows that had now reached my shoulders and were threatening to wrap around my neck in a suffocating grip. The shadows abruptly stopped, and suddenly retreated. I glared at the fleeing tendrils as they escaped back into the scroll, trying to exert my willpower onto it.

Then…nothing.

"Phew…"

I sighed in relief after a few seconds when it seemed that the shadows intended to stay in the scroll for good. Shaking my hands as if it would loosen whatever remnants of shadows on my skin – not that there were any visible traces on my arms – I turned and left the aisle. Despite conquering the Shadow Steps manual, I could still sense potent qi swirling from the other manuals stacked within the shelf, circling around my body as if threatening to strangle me.

So that"s the other risk of trying to learn more than one martial arts at the same time…you"ll get overwhelmed by the manuals.

With manuals behaving like this, it was no wonder that they established an ancient tradition of banning pract.i.tioners from learning martial arts not from their sects. It was as much for the pract.i.tioners" safety as it was to protect the sects" secrets and martial arts.

Staggering out of the aisle, I approached the librarian shakily. He looked up and smiled.

"You didn"t take as much time as I thought you would. Impressive."

"Huh?"

I stared at him blankly. Well, come to think of it, I did spend less than a minute before conquering the manual and bending the shadows to my will…

"All right, you"re good to go." The librarian had made some note in his tablet, allowing me to sign out with the Shadow Steps manual in hand. He waved somewhat impatiently for me to leave. "Good luck with learning Shadow Steps."

"Thanks." I craned my neck and glanced in the aisle where Zhu Jiao had disappeared to. That was weird. He had went in to retrieve his book earlier than me, so he should be out by now. Well, it was fine. I didn"t mind waiting for him.

The librarian noticed that I was still dawdling at the front of the reception desk and staring at the aisle. He smiled.

"If you"re waiting for your friend, he has left already. I told him to head back without you."

"Eh? That was fast!"

"No, not really." The librarian chuckled. "To be honest, I expected you to take a while longer, but you still took quite some time to escape the grasp of the shadows."

"What do you mean…?" the question died in my throat when I caught sight of the clock. It had been approximately 3.30pm when we stepped into the library, but now the hands were indicating that it was a little after four.

Huh?! How…?! Did I really spend thirty minutes fighting with those shadows?

"Your sense of time can get confused when you"re in there, especially when you"re dealing with darkness-type elemental qi such as shadows," the librarian explained kindly. Then his smile widened. "To be honest, I thought you would take an hour, but you only took half of that time. Oh, don"t worry," he added when he saw me looking aghast. "If anything untoward happened, I was ready to step in and help you. We can"t have our students dying from manuals before they even start embarking on the path of martial arts."

I nodded numbly, then bowed to express my thanks. My head still swimming from the revelation, I turned to leave the library.

"Oh, and you have six months to return the Shadow Steps manual!" the librarian called out after me. "But you"re more than welcome to apply for an extension to your loan if you still have not finished making a copy or studying the scroll by then!"

"Thank you."

Then I paused when I thought of something. Since I had come all the way to the library, I might as well pick up more books.

"Do you have encyclopedias? Normal books?"

"…encyclopedias?" the librarian frowned when he heard my question.

I nodded "Yeah, history books…books that provide general knowledge on the world…like on monsters and stuff."

"Ah…we do have monster encyclopedias and history books." The librarian rummaged through his tablet again. "Hmm, that shelf. I would recommend these t.i.tles, though."

A buzzing sound roared by the side of the desk and a printer churned out a small slip of paper bearing several t.i.tles.

"Here you go."

"Thanks!"

I accepted the slip of paper and scanned through the list of t.i.tles. Then I proceeded to the shelf and earnestly took the books out to borrow them. Having come from another timeline, or a different dimension, I needed to stock up on my knowledge regarding this world. I knew next to nothing regarding this timeline, and knowledge was a very important commodity.

As they said, knowledge is power.

"Phew…"

Once I picked out the books that the librarian recommended me, I then ferried them to the desk for him to scan.

"Six months for them as well." The librarian raised an eyebrow at the number of volumes I had checked out. "Will that be all?"

"Nope. For now, anyway. Thank you very much!"

Trying to carry all the books with both my hands, I bowed awkwardly one last time before stepping out of the library and into the vast courtyard that surrounded the complex.

*

"Okay, so how do I start?"

I was browsing through the manual, checking how many pages it had. Weirdly enough, it was pretty thin, and was only about twenty pages long. There weren"t that many techniques, and in fact, it was focused on building the body.

"…so I have to run everyday, and gradually increase the distance?"

Sounded like the typical training regimen. There were instructions on how to strengthen my body, build up my fitness and increase my stamina. h.e.l.l, it reminded me of the military exercises that I went through in my previous lifetime when I served the mandatory national service. Conditioning, strengthening and acclimatization.

Well, that makes sense. Martial arts is a physical activity, after all. The whole point is to strengthen your body and build up your fitness.

It wasn"t as if I was expecting to copy wuxia novel protagonists who spent all day sitting down and meditating, and suddenly they had awesome spiritual powers and could level mountains or destroy concrete with their bare hands just because of qi. As if you could just rely solely on meditation to grow physically powerful.

There was also the fact that this was a step or movement technique with a few kicks inscribed into its nature. It was only natural that the first…uh, step to mastering it was to strengthen my legs and ensure they were fit and strong enough to execute what seemed like complex maneuvers. Plus there was no point relying on kicking as my main offensive methods if my legs were weak. Of course, it made sense to strengthen my legs if I wanted to kick people to death. Or at least to knock them out. I wasn"t a psychotic murderer, after all.

Pushing up my gla.s.ses, I took a deep breath, closed the scroll and stood up.

"Might as well get it done and over with."

The first step was always the hardest and most boring, but I recognized that it was essential if I wanted to build a solid foundation. When my Traditionalist cla.s.smates were already surging far ahead of me, I had no room to complain about the methods. I couldn"t afford to be picky about my methods, nor could I attempt to compete with them. I could only establish a firm, solid foundation, and build upon there. It was the same whether I was in a sect or not, I was sure.

Changing into a jersey, I left my room and began jogging along the campus. There was a winding track that snaked along the perimeter of the vast academy grounds which was perfect for jogging. There were even markings on the ground to indicate how far you had covered, and from the ever-changing numbers – which was powered by qi – I could estimate the distance.

The entire perimeter was about sixteen kilometers long, and the campus ground itself covered about approximately sixteen square kilometers in terms of area. I doubted I could run the full sixteen kilometers on my first try, so my goal was four kilometers. I was only thirteen, I had just recovered from an accident, and I hadn"t built up my fitness prior to enrolling in Wu Ling Academy, so it was preposterous for me to attempt to cover all sixteen kilometers…or even half of that distance in one go.

"Huff…huff…"

It wasn"t even two kilometers and I was already perspiring from head to toe. It was a good thing that the temperature was cooling, about ten degrees Celsius and chilly, so I wasn"t suffering as badly as I would when I served National Service in my home country to the south. Sucking in a lungful of air, I powered on, refusing to give up. It didn"t matter if I had to stop and walk some of the way, I was going to complete all four kilometers.

It took me almost forty minutes, but I did it. d.a.m.n, but I was definitely out of shape. My drill sergeant would definitely yell at me if he saw how pathetic I was right now. I could already imagine him frothing at the mouth, his face red, and bellowing at how I was an embarra.s.sment to the army.

Speaking of which, if I remember correctly, there is no National Service in this timeline…

Since military prowess was determined by martial arts, qi and other mystical techniques, there was little point in having a citizen-conscripted military to defend one"s nation. Apparently one martial artist was equal to a hundred, or even a thousand normal men. In fact, the higher-ranked martial artists could be considered as either one-man armies, or weapons of ma.s.s destruction. No, seriously. They were actually using that term to describe some of the legends out there.

Well, that"s way out of reach for someone like me. I"ll just focus on strengthening myself for now.

Wiping the perspiration from my face, I glanced at the numbers that layered itself upon the jogging track. It was 4.012km. h.e.l.l, the technology here was so advanced that they actually measured the distance to three decimal places. I couldn"t help but be impressed. Best of all, they were using natural qi, so there wasn"t any pollution or environmental degrading.

Looks like I have a long way to go…

Feeling a little discouraged, I trudged back to my room for a much-needed rest.

"You okay, my friend?"

On my way back, I pa.s.sed by Zhu Jiao. He also looked pretty ruddy and reddened, his skin glistening with perspiration. Evidently I wasn"t the only one working hard on learning martial arts techniques or trying to improve my fitness.

"Yeah. You?"

Zhu Jiao grinned. "Couldn"t be better."

Infected by his enthusiasm, I raised my hand in response to his waving hand we traded a fist b.u.mp.

"We"re going to do this, aren"t we?" Zhu Jiao declared determinedly. "We"re going to become stronger than everyone else and make them regret ever looking down on us."

"Yeah," I agreed half-wearily and half-angrily. "Screw the whole Star Const.i.tution thing. We"re going to prove their bulls.h.i.t method of measuring strength wrong."

Then my legs buckled and I had to grab onto the railing to prevent myself from toppling over. Way to go. That was humiliating.

Zhu Jiao laughed and slapped my back, but I felt the trembling in his hand, as well as saw the blisters.

"Let"s go rest. You look like you really need it."

"Yeah. You too."

Zhu Jiao didn"t argue, and we returned to our rooms to grab a clean change of clothes before hitting the showers.

*

And just like that, three months pa.s.sed.

I kept up a slow and steady progress, increasing my distance by a kilometer every week until I could finally run all sixteen kilometers by the end of three months. And that was just the start. I planned on increasing the distance to twenty once I had built up the adequate fitness.

I had also begun adding more exercises to my training regimen, as advised by Teacher Jiao. As our homeroom teacher, he took an interest in the techniques that Zhu Jiao and I picked, and was on hand to advise or make adjustments to our training regimen. It appeared that he had great knowledge of Shadow Steps as well, and was thus able to help me better than when he tried a.s.sisting Zhu Jiao with mastering the Red Jade technique.

"It"s good that you"ve considered building up your physical strength and stamina as your first step, to establish a solid foundation," he told me during my first few days. "I think I can help with that. Here"s a training schedule I"ve come up with."

He also did one for Zhu Jiao, and monitored our progress. It was fairly easy for him to do so because we were the only two Experimentalists in his cla.s.s, and the other students all had their masters to learn from.

After the first three weeks, I was instructed by Teacher Jiao to add pushups and sit-ups to my regime. He also advised me on which training room to book, where I would practice kicks that he demonstrated for me. Right now, my kicks were still pretty weak – judging from the measuring gauge that quantified and measured the power of my kicks. But predictably enough, the values fluctuated wildly, depending on how tired or frustrated I was. Like I said, the person who decided that our whole life or "talent" could be quantified, measured and coded by a fix number was an idiot.

On the other hand, I could see the benefits of qualifying one"s power. I was a little heartened to see the numerical values increase day after day, week after week, month after month. At least psychologically wise, I was encouraged from seeing a steady pace of progress.

By now I was doing a hundred pushups, a hundred sit-ups and sixteen kilometers everyday. Normally, such a punishing training regimen was ill-advised because it put tremendous stress on my joints and would cause my body to break down. Over-exercising was not a good thing and would often cause more damage than enhancement.

But in this timeline, such problems and injuries were mitigated by qi. Qi was an omnipotent natural energy that could do everything, from powering electronic devices to creating spirit pills to healing one"s injuries. Some said that if one reached a certain divine level that allowed him to tap and wield the power of heavens, he could even use qi to restore lost limbs. Probably the only thing it can"t do was bring back the dead.

"Huff…huff…"

And thus, after the end of three months, I found myself panting upon the completion of my sixteen kilometers. Forcing myself to straighten up, I took a huge swig of water from my bottle and then proceeded toward my dormitory. I had already completed the pushups and sit-ups prior to my run, and now all that remained was some rest. Then I would probably hit the training room in the evening to practice my kicks.

I had barely mapped out the rest of my daily routine for the day when a fist flew toward my head.

"!"

I instinctively ducked under the punch, then brought my arms up in reflex to parry a kick that lifted me off my feet and sent me flying a few meters away."

"Kuh!"

Stumbling, I landed on my feet and slid about half a meter back, leaving two trails in the broken soil. Lowering my trembling hands, I looked up to glare at my a.s.sailants.

"As expected of the disciple of the Absolute One."

Blinking, I gaped as a trio of heavily muscular guys stepped forward, hunching as they tried to intimidate me. Personally I was more annoyed at the shadows they were casting over me than being terrified of their immense sizes.

They were wearing the same Wu Ling Academy uniform as I was, which meant they were also students of this school. But I hadn"t seen them before, at least not in the first year building. That must mean they were seniors.

"What can I do for you, seniors?"

I watched them warily, wondering if they were here to bully me. I had escaped bullying for the last three months, and I had thought my peaceful life would continue like this, but it appeared that the cliché bullying event was inevitable. As with every other bulls.h.i.t wuxia novels out there, you always had a bunch of characters who decided to peak on people weaker than them for no reason other than because they were bullies who could. Or, if I were to apply real-life logic, because they wanted to a.s.suage their egos and feel powerful by a.s.suring themselves that there existed people weaker than them.

However, their response surprised me.

"Where is the Absolute One?" the first guy, with hair cropped close to his scalp, demanded.

"Absolute One?"

I had never heard of that t.i.tle before. Not that the trio cared. Their leader, the senior with the crewcut, stepped forward intimidatingly.

"Where is what?" I repeated dumbly, still not comprehending the situation. Baldie reached out to grab me, but I withdrew beyond his reach. There was no way I was going to let the b.a.s.t.a.r.d touch me with his filthy hands.

"The techniques!"

"What techniques?"

"Stop pretending! We know you have them! Give them to us, now!"

What the f.u.c.k was this moron blabbering about? I had completely no idea what he was shouting about, and I honestly didn"t want to waste too much time listening to his indecipherable nonsense. That said, I could sense that he was dangerous.

Even as their mountainous figures blocked out the sun, I could see the swirls of energy flowing around them. These guys were similar to me, packing dense amounts of natural energy in their bodies. Yet the differences between us were as vast as the gap between heaven and earth. It wasn"t merely a matter of them having more energy than me.

Rather, it was the quality of their qi. While mine was crude, raw and infantile, these guys" qi were hard, solid and unyielding. Their qi matched their brutish and large physical appearances. It was almost as if I was looking at human-shaped rocks.

This can"t be good…

I took another step back, trying to put as much distance between myself and these guys. Even if they were somehow superior in terms of brute strength, it didn"t necessarily mean they were clumsier and slower. I didn"t possess the same amount or quality of qi/energy (I was beginning to warm up to the idea of calling this energy qi) as them. In terms of cultivation, I was a complete amateur. I wasn"t delusional enough to think I could outfight or outrun my present opponents.

Even so, there was no way I was going to stand around and let them push me around.

"I"m not pretending," I growled in a low voice. "I really have no idea what the f.u.c.k you are talking about."

"Quit your acting!"

The first guy threw his fist, but I ducked it. Nonetheless, I could literally feel a sonic boom bursting past my face. While I spun away, I watched in horror as the guy punched the wall behind me and shattered the concrete.

"Holy…!"

I retreated a few steps, my eyes still fixated on the destruction. Flickering my gaze to my a.s.sailant in anxiety, I gulped.

"How the h.e.l.l did you do that?"

"Hey, Tie Shan…maybe he really has no idea what you"re talking about."

One of the other seniors – a guy with messy hair – spoke up. Tie Shan merely glared at him.

"Don"t be gullible! You know as well as I do that the Absolute One met and talked to this punk!"

That did it. I couldn"t help but snap, a vein throbbing in my temple as I fought to control my temper. I didn"t care if they were my seniors. They had no right to expect respect and deference from me after all the bulls.h.i.t they were pulling.

"f.u.c.king idiot. You show up suddenly, ambush me and try to punch me while shouting all sorts of incomprehensible questions, and get angry when people don"t understand you? I can"t read your f.u.c.king mind. Not that you have a mind for me to read in the first place."

"What did you say?!" Tie Shan roared. I sighed and shook my head.

"Why should I answer your question when you won"t answer mine? In the first place, who the h.e.l.l is this Absolute One?"

"Stop pretending!" Tie Shan bellowed as he punched at me again, forcing me to duck. Another pillar was reduced to rubble as his fist smashed into it, and I staggered back as pieces of concrete and dust billowed into me.

"Dude, I"m not pretending. Get it in your thick skull already!"

"Why should we believe you?!"

"If you can"t even believe the truth I"m telling you right now, why even bother asking me stupid questions about some technique or whatever in the first place?"

"Tie Shan! Calm down!"

The senior with messy hair and the third guy quickly seized Tie Shan and stopped him from a.s.saulting me further. He thrashed about wildly in their grip, but the combined strength of his two juniors finally managed to arrest his struggle and he stopped.

"Now, can someone please explain to me what in the nine h.e.l.ls are you guys talking about? Who is this Absolute One?"

"Liar! You met and talked to him! How can you not know…?"

"Tie Shan." The senior with the crewcut shut up when the senior with messy hair spoke up. The latter then turned to me. "Do you really not know?"

"I talk to a lot of people, and even if I somehow did run into him and spoke to him, he"s not going to introduce himself as the Absolute One, is he? Unless he"s suffering from middle school syndrome. But I haven"t met any such people lately."

The senior with messy hair guy sighed. "The old man who visited you in the hospital…"

I stared at him. "Which old man? My uncle? I"m pretty sure he doesn"t call himself the Absolute One…"

"Not that one," the third senior interrupted. This time, he sported a Mohawk, so I decided to call him that. "The old man you saved from the truck. He gave you his techniques as a reward for saving his life, didn"t he?"

"Oh, that old man." I finally understood which old man they were referring to. But that last part made no sense whatsoever. "Uh, no? He didn"t?"

"Liar!" Tie Shan tried to lunge at me, only for his two buddies to hold him back. "Stop lying! I know you received his techniques!"

"I did not." this guy was getting annoying. I really had to resist the urge to kick him in the face. "All he did was thank me for saving his life. Then he left. That"s all."

"Liar!" Tie Shan howled. "He definitely gave you his techniques! There"s no way he didn"t teach you! No way that he wouldn"t leave a successor!"

"Successor?"

"To the Heaven and Earth Sect," Mohawk supplied helpfully. "The Heaven and Earth techniques."

"Sorry. Doesn"t ring a bell." I stared at them dumbly. "What, you think I"m the protagonist of some s.h.i.tty martial arts story? That I"ll automatically be ent.i.tled to learn martial arts upon meeting some old man? And why the heck would that old man just teach some kid he randomly encountered in the street? Even if he wanted to reward me, he couldn"t have taught me anything. I spent a couple of the months in the hospital with three out of my four limbs broken. You think I can learn martial arts in that sort of condition?"

"…he"s got a point," the senior with messy hair conceded. "Besides, if he"s really the successor of the Heaven and Earth Sect, then why is he in Wu Ling Academy? From the other intelligence I"ve collected, he has spent the last months doing basic physical training. It seems like he"s an Experimentalist who"s learning the Shadow Steps for now."

"Whoa! How do you know that?!" I demanded, my jaw dropping. "Are you guys stalking me or something?"

"Oh…well…information is pretty easy to obtain as long as yyou have the credits and right contacts." The senior with messy hair smiled and offered me his hand. "Sorry for causing you trouble, Junior Fei."

I bowed respectfully. At least this senior was the only guy who treated me decently and had the decency to listen to my side of the story.

"Are you really going to believe him, Luan Fa?!" Tie Shan demanded. "It"s obviously that he"s lying!"

I couldn"t help but sigh, irritated. "The old man only visited me once, only to leave after a few minutes. Do you think that"s enough time to teach me anything?"

Mohawk scratched the bald part of his head. "We certainly haven"t seen the Absolute One contact or talk to him other than that one meeting…"

"You fools!" Tie Shan hollered. "He"s lying! Don"t fall for it! This is the Absolute One we"re talking about here! He has ways of transferring his skills!"

"Like what?" I asked, annoyed.

"By transmitting all of his techniques to your mind directly!"

"And did you actually see him do that?"

"…"

Tie Shan said nothing, but his silence conveyed everything.

Slumping onto the ground, dejected, Tie Shan punched the ground in frustration. His two buddies released him and stood off to the side uncertainly.

"Well, of course it wouldn"t be so easy to get the Heaven and Earth techniques…"

"Yeah. Why would he teach it to some random kid?"

"Looks like this guy is some uninvolved outsider…"

"The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. This kid only has a One Star Const.i.tution. The Absolute One would pick much better and more appropriate candidates for his successors."

Oi, I can hear you guys, you know?

"Then who would he choose?!" Tie Shan thundered. The other two seniors were unable to answer.

Well, I didn"t want to get wrapped up in this farce any longer, so I turned away. The sun was still up and it was still relatively early, but that didn"t mean I wanted to stick around any longer than was necessary. I wanted a shower to cool off, and I still had kicking practice in the evening, in addition to homework for theoretical lessons. I had no time to waste.

"Wait!"

Tie Shan sounded so desperate that I actually felt sorry for him. Shaking my head, I turned back to glance at him. He looked so pitiful, kneeling on the ground. He glared at me, his fists clenched and his teeth gritted.

"The Absolute One must have given you something!" he insisted stubbornly. Guy just didn"t know when to give up. "What was it?!"

"Well…" I slipped my hand into my pocket and produced the golden dragon medallion that the old man gave me. "This is the only thing he gave me. I swear. Nothing else."

The three seniors froze when they saw the golden dragon medallion glinting in my hand, the yellow rays of the sun reflecting off its shiny surface.

"What? What"s this thing?" I asked when I saw their unusual reactions.

For a second, they didn"t respond. The next thing I knew, the three of them were back up on their feet and launching themselves at me, emitting guttural shrieks of bloodl.u.s.t and violence.