"Eh?! My friend said Xu Ziming and Zhao Yong from Class Three agreed to compete in the class placement assessment four days from now!"
A startled shout broke the tense standoff.
The person who had been somewhat afraid a moment ago burst out laughing.
"Hahaha, Zhao Yong? You mean Zhao Yong, one of the top ten students in the whole school and a recipient of a first-class scholarship?"
He looked at Xu Ziming with a smug expression, as if he were Zhao Yong himself.
Xu Ziming didn't say anything. He wasn't the kind of person who lost his temper easily; he merely stared at the man with a cold gaze.
He had no time to fool around with this piece of trash.
"Then let me wish you a glorious victory in advance. Hahaha!"
He laughed, making it obvious that he was looking forward to the spectacle and firmly believed Xu Ziming wouldn't win.
He wasn't the only one. Most people—even those who had admired Xu Ziming moments earlier—thought he was being rather irrational.
Zhao Yong had been one of the top ten students in the entire school for three years straight. The Martial Way was like a snowball: the stronger you were, the better your resources.
And the better your resources, the stronger you naturally became.
Xu Ziming came from an ordinary family. Where did he get the confidence to say he could beat Zhao Yong?
"What the hell is this Zhao Yong? A-Ming only needs one sword strike to beat him!" Dai Fei shouted at once, standing between the two with a fierce look.
"Fine, I'll be watching."
Even if he wasn't the one who was impressive, now that the competition had begun, he absolutely couldn't back down.
He gritted his teeth and agreed, then slunk away.
"What's with these people? We're all in the same class. Why are they so hostile?" Dai Fei scratched his head, then turned to Xu Ziming with a grin.
"A-Ming, are you really confident you can beat that Zhao Yong guy?"
"When have I ever lied to you? Just wait. I'll win!"
Dai Fei: ... Didn't you tell me before that you absolutely wouldn't secretly grind away at your studies, and that we'd go to a junior college together?
Of course, he didn't say that out loud.
After leaving the classroom, Xu Ziming went straight to the combat training room and climbed into a Virtual Pod.
In yesterday's match, Angry Haki-mi's spear technique seemed to have reached a new realm.
Every movement combined the use of the spear with his blood and qi, leaving no wasted energy.
Today, Xu Ziming was going to see whether he could touch the threshold of that realm.
He picked up the Type-1 Zero-Energy Sword and returned to the same pose he'd used when he first started training in swordsmanship—the Opening Stance of the Basic Sword Method.
[Basic Sword Method (Initiate, 87.9%)]
After five days of training, the Basic Sword Method was on the verge of breaking through the Initiate realm.
At first, he'd wondered whether reaching the Initiate realm was all it took to grasp Sword Momentum. But after searching online and reading many examples, he'd discovered that wasn't the case.
Sword Momentum depended entirely on talent. If your talent was good enough, you could grasp it even before reaching the Initiate realm. If it wasn't, even mastering the Basic Sword Method wouldn't help.
And Xu Ziming's Natural Sword Bone meant that talent was no problem for him.
That was how he'd immediately mastered a realm that wealthy kids spent more than a decade training to reach.
But he'd been so focused on cultivating the Basic Body Forging Method lately that he'd neglected his swordsmanship. He'd been left with nothing but the same repetitive moves, lacking the fluidity that was uniquely his.
Thinking of this, he tightened his grip on the sword, calmed his mind, and immersed himself completely in the sword arts.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, an hour.
Time trickled by. Xu Ziming stood motionless, holding his sword, as though someone had pressed the pause button on time.
Yet the aura around him grew more and more imposing, several times stronger than it had been when he first condensed his Sword Momentum.
Finally, after two hours of stillness, he moved, as if his energy channels had suddenly opened.
Streams of blood and qi coursed through his body, taking the shape of a sword as they flowed through his meridians. Sword Qi radiated from his whole body.
Then his movements quickened. Thrust, sweep, slash, lift. The familiar movements he'd repeated countless times came alive in his hands once more.
Even the air around him seemed to leap for joy, crackling as he danced with his sword.
Sword Qi surged, now like a gale, now like a gentle rain—at times brimming with life, at times filled with killing intent.
At last, his sword dance seemed to reach some kind of limit. Everything changed.
He stood there, as if he'd become one with his sword, becoming a true sword, the embodiment of the blade.
Bang! His aura surged, then drew back in an instant.
The blood and qi that had been churning inside him gradually settled, too.
"Phew—" Xu Ziming let out a long breath.
The entire day had passed, and the moon was already high in the sky.
But he wasn't tired at all. As he'd kept practicing his swordsmanship, he'd completely mastered the use of the blood and qi in his body and no longer wasted it carelessly.
And on his status panel, his Basic Sword Method had finally entered a new realm.
[Basic Sword Method (Minor Achievement, 1.8%)]
How refreshing. He hadn't felt this refreshed in a long time. Ever since he'd obtained the Equipment Slot, he'd been putting pressure on himself all week.
He couldn't disappoint his teacher or his parents, and he couldn't waste this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
He just hadn't realized how much he'd given up along the way.
But at that moment, he understood: cultivating the Martial Way was a process of enduring hardship.
And all that hardship would one day become nothing more than a casual remark as he stood at the top of the world: "This is but a bit of wind and frost!"
After leaving the Virtual Pod, Xu Ziming strolled out of the school.
The night breeze brushed past, cool and refreshing. It was only March, the perfect season for warm spring days and blooming flowers.
But it was too late, with the moon perched atop the branches, and he wasn't in the mood to admire the scenery.
"Shoot, it's almost eight. I wonder if my family's worried."
Xu Ziming usually left not long after school and got home by seven at the latest. Today, he was a whole hour late.
He couldn't help worrying, but when he checked his watch and saw no message from his mother, he finally relaxed.
He quickly sent his mother a text to let her know he might be home a little late, then went to get his bicycle.
Although it was spring, there was no nightlife in Suzhe Province. By eight o'clock, the streets were already nearly empty.
Most of the places that still had their lights on were Martial Way tutoring centers. Inside, children were sweating buckets as they worked hard at practicing the Basic Body Forging Method.
As soon as he returned to his residential complex, Xu Ziming sensed that something was a little off.
He couldn't explain it. All he knew was that he felt uncomfortable on a physical level.
"Bzzzz." A strange sound rang in his ears. He looked up and saw a peculiar figure emerge from the darkness.
The only thing he could make out was the deep scar on the figure's left cheek.