At last, the morning classes came to an end.
Slumped over his desk, Li Su began seriously questioning his life.
Because besides language, there were lessons on clothing, etiquette, sitting posture, and walking.
And after that came acupuncture points, meridians, and ancient linguistics.
Looking at the textbook in his hands, for the first time in his life, he realized that if you really got dumped into a wuxia novel from the start, forget learning divine skills and becoming invincible—just surviving the first day would be damn difficult.
The eras depicted in Huaxia's wuxia stories were generally the Sui and Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties.
Aside from the Song, which was a little weaker, the other two were indisputably world powers.
And both were great Celestial Empires.
Every country around them treated them with reverence and learned their rites and laws.
A modern person going there would easily be branded a barbarian who knew nothing of etiquette.
And once that happened, you would be in real trouble.
Even the street beggars would look down on you.
That's right!
As the great Celestial Empire, Huaxia in those eras was just that proud.
Once you were branded a barbarian, if someone beat you to death, they could settle it by paying a little money. If you had no family, they'd simply haul you off, find a hillside, and bury you.
Did you know?
Even as a commoner, in a place like Chang'an, there were taboos about walking along the streets. Some roads were completely off-limits, and on others you couldn't walk down the middle.
Those scenes on TV where a high-ranking official had people carry his sedan chair down the middle of the road while commoners stood by were complete nonsense.
The rules dividing people into nine ranks were no joke.
Take hygiene, for example.
In ancient times, there was no soap. Commoners could afford soapberry, which barely cleaned anything and was damn expensive to boot. Ordinary people couldn't bear to use it. They were too busy digging food out of the soil every day to find time for a bath.
So most people had some body odor.
One person was one thing, but a whole crowd? The stench.
That was why dignitaries and nobles used one road, while commoners stayed on another.
Those scenes where a Minister arrives and a whole row of commoners kneels along the roadside basically never happened.
This was the age of cold weapons. If a big crowd harbored ill intentions, the Minister, precious as his life was, could end up trapped there.
Even if not, ordinary people wouldn't go near officials.
Life wasn't that innocent.
Unless they were specifically arranged to put on a show, commoners kept as far away from officials as they could.
After all, in those days, one careless offense could cost you more than your own head—it could get your entire family killed. Who would take that gamble?
This was what life in ancient times was really like.
And then there were acupuncture points, meridians, and ancient languages.
Why were they studying these?
Heh. Let him tell you: if you didn't study, you could forget about practicing martial arts.
For starters, martial arts manuals were basically all written in classical Chinese. And when it came to circulating qi during training, the whole body inevitably involved meridians and acupuncture points.
What did classical Chinese value? Compression and concision.
Hundreds of words boiled down to just a few.
Then there were the body's meridians and acupuncture points, packed together in a dense mass.
What? You didn't know?
Then what the hell were you talking about?
Uh, you said the manuals should have diagrams, right?
Heh, they did.
An arm only a finger's width wide, with a line drawn across it even bigger than a fingernail.
And what was ancient Huaxia's style of painting? Ink wash, not realistic art.
The artist might dare to draw it, but would you dare follow it?
Looking at the diagram Devil Yi had hung on the blackboard, Li Su shuddered.
It showed the Cloud Gate Point.
It lay on the chest, in the hollow beneath the collarbone, along the inner edge of the coracoid process, six inches from the body's midline. But the diagram placed it roughly on the shoulder.
Anyone who practiced using that would die.
Imagine getting the Northern Dark Divine Skill, just about to embark on a glorious life of invincibility—
Then you turned around, qi went haywire, and you died.
The image was simply too beautiful. Too beautiful.
Transmigration novels were damn unreliable. Far too unreliable.
Getting sent over with no preparation at all would mean a truly miserable death.
You could get your head chopped off just for walking down the street.
Although his worldview had been somewhat shaken, Li Su was nervous. Damn it, he was already in his senior year of high school, which meant they were reviewing material. They moved incredibly fast, basically skipping over things and just explaining the main points.
And obviously, he had none of the memories from before he transmigrated.
Damn it, no way!
What would it feel like to be holding a copy of the Nine Yang Divine Skill and be unable to read it?
*******
After class, Wang Meng suddenly asked Yang Kai, who was beside him, "So, have you decided? What kind of martial arts are you planning to study?"
Yang Kai thought for a moment. "It depends on which world I go to. I'm more partial to Daoist sects."
Wang Meng furrowed his brow. "Daoist sects, huh? True, they cultivate both life and nature. If we get the chance to enter a world where immortals once appeared, maybe we could even make the transition. But have you really thought it through? As far as I know, there aren't any top-tier techniques left on the Daoist side. There's the Quanzhen Innate Skill, and the famous Nine Yin Manual, Longevity Formula, and Small Formless Skill. People have already learned all of those. I've also heard that the Xu Family in G City is trying to get the Nine Yang Divine Skill from Zhang Wuji. They're almost there. Then there's the Xie Family in J City, which is after the Xiaoyao Sect's signature Northern Dark Divine Skill. They're making good progress, too—it should happen within a year or two."
Yang Kai spread his hands. "What else can we do? Even Shaolin, with its seventy-two arts, has had most of its martial arts learned and taken away. The only top-tier techniques left are the Muscle Tendon Changing Classic, the legendary Marrow Cleansing Classic, and the Indestructible Diamond Divine Art—the three secret arts that the sect keeps from outsiders."
Beside them, Li Su had been concentrating on taking notes and trying to memorize some of the material. He couldn't help raising his head.
Holy crap.
He'd found plenty of information online, but there were obviously no records of how many martial arts had been brought out of the World Fragments.
Apart from a few famous ones like Star Shift, almost none of the others were mentioned.
He'd thought there were still plenty of techniques inside the World Fragments that no one had managed to get out. But now it seemed that after centuries of exploration, plenty of secret arts had been taken, even without knowing the stories' plots.
He couldn't believe someone had even taken the Innate Skill, the Nine Yin Manual, and the Xiaoyao School's Small Formless Skill. Who the hell were these people?
Wang Chongyang hadn't even taught the Innate Skill to his own disciples, and the Nine Yin Manual had basically always been in the hands of the Five Greats.
But, wait—something felt off.
Li Su raised his head and blurted out, "So what if someone learned them? Can't you just go in and learn them too?"
The two of them turned around at once, staring at Li Su with strange expressions.
What? Li Su was utterly confused.
Yang Kai sighed, patted him on the shoulder, and said no more.
Wang Meng laughed helplessly. "Old Li, were your ears out swatting mosquitoes during class? Once someone learns a top-tier technique and takes it out of that world, no one else can practice it, even if they get the manual. And they can't bring it out, either."
What???
Li Su's eyes widened, and his face went green.
If someone else learned it, he couldn't learn it anymore???
Suddenly, he remembered something.
Whether it was the Murong Consortium or Dharma King Tianlun, they had openly announced that they'd learned Star Shift and the Dragon-Elephant Prajna Art. Yet whenever anyone mentioned Star Shift or the Dragon-Elephant Prajna Art, they thought of those two and no one else.
That was extremely abnormal in itself!
In an instant, Li Su clenched his fists, his breathing growing labored.
The Xu Family in G City was after the Nine Yang Divine Skill.
The Xie Family in J City was after the Northern Dark Divine Skill.
And clearly, these two techniques were, without a doubt, the easiest to obtain from the novels he'd read by Jin Da, without spending a fortune or going through much trouble.
Damn!
How could this be allowed!!!