Chapter 124: Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple 3

Words : 1445 Updated : Oct 9th, 2025

In the evening, I returned to our group’s primary classroom for Instructor Sun’s cultivation training. The instructor spaced the five of us out around the room so that he could watch us all at the same time while giving us enough separation so that we didn’t interfere with each other. “You already have the cultivation techniques you will use for this portion of your training. I hope you have all been studying them carefully.” I hadn’t been, but I didn’t expect that to be an issue. He had given me a very basic Peak-Yellow earth qi cultivation technique. I only needed to pull it up in my mental library as a reference to know exactly how to place my filters and vortices. There wasn’t much to it. “You will come here every night and cultivate it to the best of your ability. Your requirement is to break through a stage of cultivation exactly once every week.” He looked at us and smiled evilly. “That means you will be Peak Disciples in only a few weeks, right? Not so fast.” He reached into his storage bag, pulled out a small pill, and held it up for all of us to see. “At the end of each week, I will give you one of these. It will expel all the energy you cultivated that week, returning you to your previous state.” I looked at the pill in his hand. It was a variant of a Perfect Rank 1 Qi Expelling Pill that was formulated to only affect one’s most recent stage of cultivation. I couldn’t help but think that even if these only cost a gold each, between the formations, pills, and instructors, the school was investing a lot of money in this class. “Right now, you are all Martial Disciple 3. This will remain true until every single person in this room is able to form a pristine foundation for Martial Disciple 4. At the end of the week, if even one person’s cultivation base is lacking, the entire group will take a pill and try again. Is that understood?” “Yes, instructor,” we all muttered. “Very good. Now, start cultivating.” I mentally pulled up the technique in my library and got to work. It was peaceful and relaxing. “Stop!” Instructor Sun was standing over Shi YuLong who was cultivating the same earth qi technique that I was. “Did you even read the technique? Your filter is barely passable, and your positioning is completely wrong.” He looked around the room at my classmates. “Everyone, get out your techniques and look at the positionings and angles called for. You must match them precisely.” I didn’t think too much about it but did as he said. I pulled the technique from my storage bag, checked it, then put it away and continued cultivating. I felt Instructor Sun’s eyes lock onto me. After a few moments, I heard him mutter something, but I couldn’t quite make it out. He spent the next half hour helping my classmates get their filters and vortices into a position that was as close to correct as they could manage. This entire time, he kept looking over at me, but when he did, he only shook his head. “Su Fang,” Instructor Sun shouted once everyone else had been seen to. “Outside.” I followed him out of the classroom. He glared at me but then breathed out in defeat. “Just, don’t help them. The Grandmaster has his own thoughts about how much assistance students should be given. For the rest, they need to learn on their own. The process of slowly understanding the importance of positioning and how to do it correctly will be very beneficial to them.” I nodded. “I understand.” “I can’t find anything wrong with the way you are cultivating. It’s as perfect as I’ve ever seen. You don’t need these lessons. However, you will still be provided with the pills each week. I suggest you take advantage of this. Cultivate wrong. Do things you wouldn’t usually even consider, like only half constructing a filter before trying to use it. The more you know about such things, the better it will prepare you for when you are a Master.” We went back inside, and I followed his advice. Instructor Sun might not have any way to help me during cultivation practice, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to learn something new on my own. --------------------------------------------------- We had decided to follow a simple strategy. With no information to work from, we would just go up in the order of our ability: LiTing, Yan, me, JiaQi, and finally YuLong. If we noticed something strange during the match, or if we gained information about our opponents’ capabilities, Yan would be in charge of making adjustments to this order. LiTing’s fight was rough. She took a lot of blows, but she was able to absorb them all, so she didn’t take any damage. Her only risk was running out of energy. Fortunately, her opponent slipped up and she was able to take advantage, ending the fight quickly. Yan wasn’t so lucky. His opponent was stacked with bulging muscles, and he was a far better fighter than Yan was. Also, it seemed like he wanted to make up for his team's defeat in the first round. The large boy was great on the offense, but he had a bad habit of simply absorbing blows instead of blocking. This allowed him to counterattack more freely, but it also ate up a lot of qi. Yan capitalized on this by focusing all his attacks on the boy’s upper right leg. It took time, but he was eventually able to deplete it of all its qi and deliver a devastating blow. With one leg out of commission, the boy conceded the fight. Yan stepped down victorious, and it was my turn. My opponent was a petite girl with long hair in a braid behind her back that reached down to her waist. As soon as the fight started, she charged me. She focused all the qi in her legs on letting her run as fast as possible. In the blink of an eye, she was right below me, sending a powerful blow toward my midsection. I didn’t have time to think. On instinct, I crossed my arms and fortified them as much as possible. At the same time, I shifted the energy in my legs and torso to keep my feet firmly planted. Her blow hit me like a sledgehammer with bone-breaking force, but my fortifications held, and she bounced off. Taking advantage of the opening this created, I shifted the qi in my legs, increasing my speed, and ran toward her. Glancing in qi vision, I saw the energy in her forearms was disrupted, but attacking there wouldn’t have much of an impact. Instead, I focused on a small flaw I found on the right side of her abdomen. It wasn’t much of a weakness, but she would have difficulty moving qi to defend that area. When I arrived in front of her, she had already regained her balance and was ready to defend, but the energy in her arms hadn’t yet stabilized, so she didn’t have the force or speed necessary. I punched out at the weakness I had identified, but halfway through the motion, I pulled back and did my best to escape. The ‘weakness’ had been a way of concealing a talisman against her body. Lightning exploded out, and I was barely able to dodge. If I had let my blow land, I would have taken that blast at full force, and it might have been difficult to even survive. I had expected a purely martial competition, but if this was the way things were going to be, I was prepared. I reached into my robes and pulled out a handful of small pebbles. Using Master Tan’s stones as a template, I had shrunk the design down so that I could toss half a dozen stones at once. This was a shotgun approach. I energized the pebbles and threw. The girl tried to dodge, but there was nowhere she could go. The blast of qi that struck her wasn’t very powerful, but it forced her to close her eyes. I rushed forward and struck her hard in the solar plexus, sending her sprawling. After that, the fight was quickly decided, and I walked away the victor. YuLong and JiaQi fought next, but there was no suspense. The other team’s best fighters had already been eliminated, so we won easily.

Chapter 124: Life 65, Age 16, Martial Disciple 3

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