Zhang Wan was not afraid to cross swords with them.
But there were too many of them.
He did not want to waste too much time on this.
Of course, he would not do nothing, either.
He memorized all those rumors one by one. Whenever he had the time, he would slowly verify them.
If those firecrackers had really said such things, he would simply drag them to the arena and fight several rounds.
In any case, he needed to fight his fellow disciples to accumulate practical combat experience. Using those firecrackers for that purpose would kill two birds with one stone.
However, Zhang Wan did not plan to do this immediately. He would take it slowly, fighting them one by one.
If he truly let his blood surge to his head and charged straight at those fellow disciples to start a fight without caring about anything else, the wheel battles alone would exhaust him to death.
Zhang Wan also had no interest in investigating those who had schemed against him from behind the scenes and fanned the flames.
So far, the methods those people had used were all extremely covert.
They had basically only given him a push from behind.
It was difficult to find out who exactly was stirring up trouble behind the scenes.
Of course, it was not difficult to roughly narrow down the targets.
The people who could do such a thing and use such methods with such skill were none other than the powers holding authority within the sect.
For the time being, Zhang Wan set his sights on those old Postnatal experts who had conflicts and opposing interests with his two cheap masters, along with their disciples, descendants, and bloodline heirs.
If he got the chance in the future, he would not mind giving those people a ruthless blow!
Of course, he would not go too far, either.
The people scheming against him from behind the scenes were only using underhanded methods and had not gone all the way. Naturally, he would not go all the way, either.
However, whether they fell into a pit then, and how deep they fell, would be their own business.
If he had failed to withstand the corruption and truly become addicted to charm cultivation and gambling houses, his entire life would have been ruined.
His retaliation would be similar.
Underhanded tactics involving sugar-coated cannonballs laced with poison were not something only they knew how to use!
In short, Zhang Wan was not afraid of offending his fellow disciples. He shut the door and ignored those who came to befriend him, acting as though he did not hear even the rumors and gossip. Every day, he put on the demeanor of someone so disciplined and hardworking that he had no friends, leaving those scheming behind the scenes completely at a loss.
They felt that Zhang Wan was truly slippery and impossible to scheme against.
However, this did leave a bad impression of Zhang Wan on quite a few outer sect disciples who had been turned away at the door, which could be considered to have met the minimum requirement of those scheming behind the scenes.
There were only so many sect resources, and there were numerous competitors. Zhang Wan was not their only target, so they soon shifted their attention to other opponents.
Even Xu Shenghua, Zhao Kun's fourth disciple, who was hiding behind the scenes and had concealed himself deeply, temporarily shifted his attention to other outer sect geniuses who were easier to scheme against.
Not everyone possessed Zhang Wan's wisdom from a previous life.
Nor could everyone see through the hidden dangers behind such matters at such a young age.
An ordinary martial artist his age, without guidance and without being mature beyond his years, would probably no longer know who he was after being praised by so many fellow disciples.
If they then took him around to indulge in pleasure a few times, anyone with slightly weaker self-control would be finished for life.
Let alone these young martial artists—even the sect's old Postnatal experts could not withstand eating too many sugar-coated cannonballs!
Zhang Wan had also heard people speak of these matters and immediately saw that someone was using the same methods against these little geniuses who had just graduated from the academy.
He did not interfere.
They were not his friends, so why should he bother with them?
Whether they ultimately sank into it or woke up in time and escaped was entirely their own affair and had nothing to do with him.
However, Zhang Wan wrote all this in his letter, explaining it point by point to his second younger sister and third younger brother.
Zhang Wan had never been reluctant to take these unpleasant matters apart and explain them in detail to his second younger sister and third younger brother.
If he did not tell them many things, was he supposed to expect the two of them to comprehend them out of thin air on their own?
That was far too unrealistic.
Their parents were merely ordinary Spirit Farmers and had little understanding of such matters, so Zhang Wan could only teach them himself.
He planned to tell them everything they ought to know before they graduated from the academy and came to the mountain gate.
Even if some of those things were unpleasant.
If he did not tell them now and give them some understanding, then after graduation, when they plunged headfirst into the mountain gate—a great vat of dye—it would be far too easy for others to scheme against them.
Even with him by their side, it was impossible for him to keep watch over them at all times.
The only people who could protect them every moment were themselves.
If he wanted them to live in peace and safety in the future, the best course was to make sure they understood these things and knew how to deal with them.
Zhang Wan watched coldly from the sidelines, allowing his reputation to worsen among some disciples while remaining utterly unmoved, steady as Mount Tai.
Meanwhile, his two cheap masters, Wang Yue and Li Guannian, observed him in secret for a period of time. Seeing that although Zhang Wan had chosen to handle the matter coldly, he himself had not been affected and was still steadily improving, they left in satisfaction without interfering any further.
Wang Yue and Li Guannian did not care how Zhang Wan handled other people's schemes.
What they wanted was for Zhang Wan to be able to deal with them without allowing his cultivation to be affected.
As long as he accomplished that, he had met their requirements.
After all, as long as one wanted to climb higher and possess more cultivation resources, matters like this would never be in short supply.
Countless opponents would inevitably leap out, and countless schemes and plots would come rolling in like a mighty tide.
Without the ability to handle these schemes, and without a steady mind under such circumstances, one would sooner or later be submerged and drowned by those plots.
Zhang Wan did not know that his two cheap masters were observing him in secret. During this period, he had been busy with his own affairs.
Ever since he obtained the complete Postnatal Five Elements Spirit Planter inheritance and those two Postnatal artifacts, Zhang Wan had been thinking about how to put them to use.
As for the Spirit Planter inheritance, Zhang Wan was not stingy. He directly invested a full three hundred experience points to comprehend the complete Five Elements Detailed Explanation!
Although this was far less than the eight hundred and ninety-one experience points required by the Fire Talisman inheritance, that did not mean the Five Elements Detailed Explanation was inferior.
The more than eight hundred experience points for the Fire Talisman inheritance were needed for both the Fire Talisman runes and more than a hundred talismans!
Unlike the Spirit Planter inheritance, where one only needed to master the unique cultivation methods and then memorize the remaining spirit-plant knowledge by rote, the Talisman inheritance contained far too many areas that required comprehension and insight. Naturally, it required far more experience points.
Although the Five Elements Detailed Explanation was used to cultivate spirit plants, what it actually recorded was mostly the characteristics and methods of using the Five Elements spiritual energy.
With sufficient talent, it would not be a problem to comprehend an entire Five Elements martial art from it.
Zhang Wan did not possess such peerless comprehension, but he had experience points!
Originally, Zhang Wan had not wanted to squander his experience points.
But with the Postnatal upper-grade Earth Tortoise Shield and Postnatal mid-grade Cold Heavy Saber in hand, if he did not create a matching martial art to bring out their power, he would be wasting these two artifacts!
Moreover, using experience points to deduce martial arts was not as conspicuous as using them to raise his cultivation.
After deducing them, he could use them as trump cards kept up his sleeve. Since he would not reveal them before others in ordinary times, there would be no hidden dangers.
Thus, Zhang Wan decisively invested a batch of experience points and deduced two Five Elements martial arts.
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