Dense White Bone Contemplation

"Zhang Fusheng, eighteen years old, Linshu Middle School graduate. One term of tuition prepaid: one hundred thousand eight hundred."

The young woman at the front desk typed at lightning speed, her fingers dancing over the keyboard. Without even looking up, she said:

"One term is three months. Today is June 29th, so your next tuition payment is due before September 29th."

"The beginner courses are divided into four main categories: visualization, breathing, stance training, and combat techniques. Which would you like to start with?"

"Visualization!" Zhang Fusheng answered without hesitation.

"Mm."

The young woman at the desk nodded.

"Visualization classes are held once every three days and personally taught by the School Master. There happens to be one at ten this morning, in Training Room Two on the third floor. If you go now, you'll make it in time."

Zhang Fusheng took his Student Card, hung it around his neck, thanked her, and hurried toward the elevator.

Hong Ji Martial Arts Hall was one of Jiangzhou City's top martial arts schools. After much deliberation, it was the one Zhang Fusheng had ultimately chosen. Located in District Three, it occupied an entire five-story building in the city center.

As for its School Master, Hong Tianbao, the information said he was a Martial Arts Master who had surpassed the Twelve Refinements. Rumor had it that he had even served as a special instructor for a certain military unit.

A figure like that was superior by who knew how much to the teachers of Jiang University's Martial Arts Department—though naturally, the tuition was also exorbitant.

Three months cost one hundred thousand.

And that was only for the beginner course.

After reaching the third floor, Zhang Fusheng slipped into the training room marked "2." It was extraordinarily spacious, roughly five or six hundred square meters. Prayer cushions covered the floor, and incense burned in the corners in all eight directions.

With a sweep of his gaze, he saw thirty or forty students seated on the cushions. Most were chatting among themselves, while a small number sat with their eyes closed in cultivation. Very few noticed Zhang Fusheng.

Oddly enough, the cushions were arranged in nine rows and nine columns, yet the students had tacitly chosen to sit in the rear rows. Only a sparse few occupied the second and third rows, while the first row was completely empty.

After thinking briefly, Zhang Fusheng passed everyone by and, amid several surprised looks, sat down alone in the first row.

He had come here to learn the true teachings.

He needed to be "noticed."

"Could he be an expert?"

Someone murmured.

"Not necessarily. He might just be some greenhorn who just arrived. New students all want to show off. He'll suffer for it soon enough."

The honest-looking youth seated behind Zhang Fusheng quietly warned him:

"Classmate, sitting that far forward puts you under a lot of pressure."

"Pressure?" Zhang Fusheng asked humbly. "What pressure?"

The honest youth thought for a moment, then said:

"The pressure from visualization methods."

Zhang Fusheng was somewhat puzzled, but his expression did not change.

"The way you put it only makes me more curious. I have to try it, don't I? My name is Zhang Fusheng."

"Niu Dali." The honest youth nodded politely.

As they spoke, the chatter behind them abruptly died away. Zhang Fusheng sensed something and quickly straightened up, only to discover with a shudder that a plump, round old man had somehow appeared and seated himself directly before him.

The fat old man looked kind and genial, carrying the unmistakable air of an Old Master Wang from next door. He wore a beaming smile, like the pot-bellied Maitreya of the Buddhist Sect from his previous life.

"School Master!"

The students spoke in unison.

So this was Divine Elephant Hong Tianbao?

"Mm."

School Master Hong gave a soft response through his nose. The tiny sound, upon entering the ears, was like the sudden toll of a mountain bell that scattered the morning mist.

The vague drowsiness Zhang Fusheng had been feeling was scattered as well.

"I happened to have some free time today, so I'll guide you through a session of Visualization Cultivation. Are there any new students?" School Master Hong's voice was unhurried, carrying the feel of a spring breeze brushing past.

"I am." Zhang Fusheng raised his hand.

School Master Hong glanced at the youth in front of him and gave a slight nod.

"Have you practiced any visualization methods before?"

"Reporting to the School Master, no."

"No?"

Zhang Fusheng saw the round, plump School Master lift his eyelids and meet his gaze.

Boom!!

The martial arts hall vanished.

He looked around blankly. All around him were bones—dense white bones. Broken blades and shattered halberds, splintered armor and cracked helmets. He also saw a colossal prehistoric elephant standing amid the distant field of dense white bones, trumpeting at the heavens and stirring up eight thousand gusts of baleful wind that froze the very marrow!

Zhang Fusheng felt his body, mind, and will freeze together, as though he had fallen into the Avici Hell, sinking, sinking.

Sinking.

"There truly are no traces of visualization practice."

That spring-breeze voice sounded by his ear once more. The illusion vanished without a trace, and he was back in the training room.

He panted heavily, his expression a mixture of shock and delight—there was actually such a method in this world?

There truly was such a method in this world!

"Since there's a new student, Ah Niu, explain it to him." Old Master Hong spoke slowly.

Drenched in sweat, Zhang Fusheng watched the honest youth rise and walk forward.

"Yes, Master."

Not School Master, not teacher—Master? A true disciple?

Niu Dali turned around to face Zhang Fusheng and the others, giving a simple, honest grin.

"Everyone can treat this as another review."

He began with a brief explanation.

"Visualization methods are divided into Entry, Minor Accomplishment, Great Accomplishment, Perfection, and Limit-Breaking, corresponding to the five great levels of visualization."

"Namely, External Manifestation, Internal Realm, I Observe as I Should Be, He Observes as I Should Be, and As It Naturally Is."

The honest youth began speaking in an unbroken stream.

"Low-grade visualization methods, such as the Morning Sun Basic Visualization Method and the Snow Mountain Basic Visualization Method, can at most be cultivated to Great Accomplishment, to I Observe as I Should Be."

"Mid-grade visualization methods can at most be cultivated to Perfection, which is He Observes as I Should Be."

"Our Hong Ji Martial Arts Hall's visualization method—Dense White Bone Contemplation—belongs among the high-grade visualization methods. In theory, it can be cultivated to 'Limit-Breaking,' the final level among the five great visualization levels: As It Naturally Is."

The more Niu Dali spoke, the smoother he became. Zhang Fusheng, too, cast aside his initial shock and his sigh that one should never judge a person by appearance, listening with utmost care.

After a long-winded explanation.

Niu Dali scratched his head, then said solemnly:

"It still comes down to this: visualization methods are the beginning of cultivation, and also the most important part of cultivation. Martial cultivation does not merely cultivate our bodies. It also cultivates the mind, will, and soul. Those are even more important than physical strength."

"Now, please observe the visualization painting."

A man and a woman carried over an ancient-looking scroll. Zhang Fusheng looked toward it and saw a person seated cross-legged within. The figure's left half was rotted like decayed wood, while its right half was stark white bone.

Its rotten left hand touched the ground, while its skeletal right hand pointed toward the sky. Its face seemed to be smiling and crying at once, both compassionate and savage.

The entire scroll exuded an eerie, terrifying, horrifying, forbidden aura.

Zhang Fusheng swallowed.

Was this thing even proper??

"Dense White Bone Contemplation: contemplate your own body first rotting and decaying, then becoming but a skeleton. Both born and dead, both withered and flourishing. It is the moment when spring and winter trade places, the instant when sun and moon turn in their cycle."

Niu Dali's voice was low as he spoke, then suddenly rose high:

"Everyone, observe this painting!"

The students' spirits jolted. Instinctively, they all stared fixedly at the White Bone Scroll. The old School Master rapped his knuckles in the air three times, and actual knocking sounds rang out!

Within those three knocks, Zhang Fusheng's vision was completely consumed by the White Bone Scroll.

He felt a cold tide sweep through his entire body. His surroundings became the field of dense white bones once more. Vengeful ghosts let out soundless roars, while corpses crawled toward him!

He would die. He really would die!

The overwhelming sense of deadly crisis swept over him. Like a drowning man, he wanted to speak, wanted to call for help, yet could only make hoarse, rasping sounds!

The grim skeletal remains had already reached him.

"Calm your mind and focus your spirit. Contemplate yourself as a rotting corpse, contemplate yourself as white bones, become one with them!"

A thunderclap-like voice pierced his mind.

Zhang Fusheng instinctively followed the words, attempting to imagine himself as a grim white skeleton, as one of these monsters' own kind, but he failed.

His comprehension was too poor.

The dense white bones lunged at him and swallowed him whole.

Noon.

The students in the last row were the first to awaken.

After every student from the second row onward had struggled free from the nightmare-like illusory scene, drenched in sweat, and left one after another,

the vast training room held only Old Master Hong, Niu Dali, and Zhang Fusheng, who sat alone in the first row with a pained, struggling expression, still sinking in purgatory.

"Let's go."

Old Master Hong stood, patted his backside, and paid no attention at all to the bold youth who was still sinking.

Niu Dali scratched his head foolishly.

"Master, I warned him not to sit in the very front."

The farther forward one sat, the more easily one was influenced by Master's "spirit." The illusion would become more real and more terrifying, and one would sink for longer—thus, the older students all sat as far back as possible.

Old Master Hong smiled.

"If next time he still dares to sit in the first row, then regardless of his talent, it will at least prove that his temperament is not bad. Mm, just like you."

Niu Dali gave a simple, honest smile.

"Maybe this student's talent is formidable too. Maybe, just like me, the first time he faced the White Bone Scroll, he entered the visualization method and comprehended the External Manifestation level?"

Old Master Hong gave a derisive snort.

"Where are there so many geniuses?"

As he spoke, he slowly left the training room.

"Come on. Once this little fellow's will collapses, he'll naturally awaken from his sinking."

"Yes, Master." Niu Dali hurriedly followed, no longer looking at that new student.

Every so often, there would always be ignorant yet fearless newcomers who refused to listen to advice and sat in the first row. Those students either dropped out or became permanent residents of the last row.

It was a common sight.

The training room became completely empty, and time trickled away bit by bit.

Zhang Fusheng remained curled up on his prayer cushion, his expression twisted in pain.

Still sinking.

In his senses, countless skeletal remains submerged him, one after another gnawing at his flesh, tendons, bones, and organs.

They gnawed away a piece, and a piece grew back.

It was like an endless execution by a thousand cuts, with no end in sight.

"No fucking wonder nobody wants to sit up front."

He had neared collapse countless times, yet whenever his will and mind reached their breaking point, the Contract Book within the Ancestral Aperture between his brows would tremble faintly.

Then he would regain clarity and continue sinking, enduring the torment.

Time continued to pass, until the sun set beyond the western hills and the jade rabbit hung in the sky.