Stab Small Balls

Wang Ruyue stumbled back two steps. Her face flushed red, and she panted hard, staring at Chen Shouyi across from her. He looked shaken, yet had barely even broken a sweat.

She had one word on her mind, though she wasn't sure she should say it.

With skills like that, he still wanted tutoring? Did he think the Martial Apprentice test was the Martial Artist test?

If she hadn't watched him improve by leaps and bounds right before her eyes, she would have suspected he'd come to make trouble.

"Bring me my real sword," she said, her expression cool.

Chen Shouyi was taken aback. "Teacher Wang, someone could really get killed!"

Wang Ruyue glanced at him and sneered. "What are you thinking? I only have two wooden swords and one real sword. The wooden swords are both ruined. If I don't use the real sword to teach, what am I supposed to use?"

Chen Shouyi gave an awkward laugh, realizing he'd overreacted.

But paired with her unapproachable expression, who wouldn't have misunderstood?

Chen Shouyi quickly took the Alloy Sword from the weapon rack and handed it to her.

The Beautiful Teacher said nothing more. She went straight into the lesson. "You'll choke if you bite off more than you can chew. Focus on mastering one sword technique. For now, keep practicing the Sting Sword. You only need a rough grasp of the other forms.

"You've probably heard the saying: 'In the world of martial arts, speed alone cannot be beaten.' The Sting Sword is the fastest sword technique and one of the main schools of swordsmanship. Now I'll teach you the remaining thrusting forms: Knee-lifting Straight Stab, Turning Downward Stab, and Hanging Sword Straight Stab!"

At ten that night,

Chen Shouyi returned to the hotel from the Beautiful Teacher's home and found that his delivery had arrived.

He picked it up from the front desk and went back to his room.

Without bothering to open the packages, he immediately unzipped his briefcase and let Shell Girl out.

Once he peeled off the tape, Shell Girl yelled furiously.

She'd spent the entire day lying in the pitch-black briefcase, falling asleep and waking up over and over. The resentment in her heart had nearly broken through the heavens.

Fortunately, no matter how great her resentment was, one glass marble could settle it.

If one wasn't enough, then two would do.

After feeding Shell Girl some honey, Chen Shouyi turned on the TV. Shell Girl had already forgotten every trace of her earlier resentment.

Once he'd settled Shell Girl in, Chen Shouyi finally opened the package.

He first opened the long, narrow cardboard box, quickly removing its outer layers.

Inside the sword case was a sheathed sword. Its scabbard was made of some kind of hardwood, decorated with patterns that gave it a simple, stately look.

He gripped the hilt and slowly drew the sword.

A gray-white Alloy Long Sword came into view.

Though it was secondhand, apart from a few tiny, sesame-seed-sized nicks along the blade, it looked as good as new. It had clearly been well cared for.

He liked it at first sight.

The blade was about 90 centimeters long; with the hilt, the sword measured roughly 1.1 meters. It weighed about 10.1 kilograms, far more than the wooden swords he used for practice.

The blade was much thicker and sturdier than that of an ordinary decorative sword. A blood groove ran down its center, and Chen Shouyi could almost catch the faint scent of blood.

This was a true killing sword.

He thrust it through the air a few times. It was a little heavy, but surprisingly comfortable in his hand.

The seller had also included a bottle of maintenance oil and a silk cleaning cloth.

He lovingly ran his hand along the blade for a while, then picked up the cloth and gently wiped away any sweat that might have been left on it. He slid the sword back into its scabbard and put it away in the case.

Then he opened the other package.

A recurve bow was designed to come apart, and the package contained only its components. He had to assemble it himself.

Fortunately, with the diagrams for reference, Chen Shouyi put it together quickly.

The bow was about 1.7 meters long, like a pair of outstretched wings. Its limbs were made of multiple layers of highly elastic composite materials, while the grip was metal with an anti-slip, matte finish.

Chen Shouyi tentatively pulled on it, but only managed to draw it halfway.

He realized he'd underestimated it. At 500 pounds, it was a heavy bow for the Martial Artist level, nearly twice as powerful as the 300-pound apprentice-level bow. It was almost at the limit of his strength, nothing like the heavy bow he'd practiced with today.

His expression turned serious. He took a deep breath, his muscles bulging all over, and used nearly nine-tenths of his strength to draw the bow fully.

A moment later, he released the string.

BANG! The sound cracked like the bowstring had torn the air apart.

Even seconds later, its twang still rang on and on.

"Now that's a bow! What a bow!"

Looking at this killing weapon, Chen Shouyi was thrilled. If he'd had this War Bow yesterday, why would he have needed to fight those two barbarians at close quarters, risking his life with a wooden stick?

Before bed, he returned to the Memory Space to practice the power and movements of the few sword techniques he'd learned that day.

The night passed without incident.

Early the next morning, he first went to a trinket shop and bought a pile of odds and ends. Carrying two packages as cover, he went to the other world again.

After letting Shell Girl out,

Chen Shouyi immediately headed to the peak of the Small Island. From his high vantage point, he surveyed the surrounding Great Sea. Fortunately, there was no sign of the barbarians—not even the dugout canoe he'd pushed out to sea.

He breathed a sigh of relief. That was good news.

It meant this Small Island was quite remote, and barbarians seldom traveled through these waters.

He'd already prepared himself for the possibility, but as far as he was concerned, avoiding conflict was always best.

After all, not every barbarian was as "weak" as the ones he'd met yesterday. In this world, where the extraordinary was manifest and gods walked among mortals, the difference in strength between individuals could be as great as if they belonged to entirely different species.

After returning to where he'd started, Chen Shouyi opened both packages and assembled the War Bow.

Then, carrying two weapons and the wooden stick he usually trained with, he went to the largest tree on the island.

Calling it the largest was generous; it stood only four or five meters tall.

Its trunk twisted, its bark looked dry and black, and its sparse leaves made it look like some stunted, misshapen creature.

But for Chen Shouyi's plan, the tree was tall enough.

He took out the fifteen bouncy balls he'd bought that morning at the trinket shop. He drilled holes through them with a small screwdriver, then tied them up with thin Nylon Rope.

Next, he climbed the tree, estimated how far the bouncy balls should hang above the ground, and tied the other ends to branches.

Half an hour later, he'd tied all the bouncy balls to the branches, one by one. They hung beneath them like pendulums.

He clapped his hands and looked at his handiwork with a sense of accomplishment.

"Finally done."

He stood amid the bouncy balls, picked up the wooden stick from the ground, took a deep breath, and quickly thrust at one of them.

The next moment, the bouncy ball shot away under the force of the blow, swinging up into the air. Taking advantage of that opening, he immediately thrust at another.

Then he thrust at a third.

This was the most common Stab Small Balls exercise at the Martial Arts Academy. The Beautiful Teacher had recommended it before he left the previous night. It trained the accuracy of his sword thrusts, his physical and mental reflexes, and his ability to track moving objects.

The more balls he stabbed, the more the difficulty increased exponentially.

By the time he stabbed the fourth, the first ball had already shot toward him.

He reacted in time, quickly turning around and thrusting at the first ball again.

But to his surprise, he missed!

Each bouncy ball was only the size of a longan, and under triple gravity, they moved incredibly fast. It went without saying how difficult it was to hit one in time with a sword.

I didn't realize I still had so far to go!

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