Flying Snow

Outside the temple.

Jiang Ding did not choose the main road. He found a thicket and burrowed into it.

Though nearly a hundred people sounded like a lot, within the vast area of five square kilometers, they were insignificant. After walking casually for a while, he had already avoided them.

Their encirclement route had not changed.

The target isn't me!

Jiang Ding relaxed slightly, yet still decided to keep moving farther away.

He noticed that these people were split into eight or nine squads, each with a vicious hunting dog. They seemed to be tracking something. It would be best not to approach and cause a misunderstanding.

Whoosh... whoosh...

The mountain wind howled, mixed with faint sounds of something slicing through the air.

"Who's there!"

Jiang Ding barked.

His sword left its sheath and slashed diagonally in a precise arc, only to be intercepted midway by a snow-white blade, producing a piercing shriek.

The snow-white sword recoiled the instant it struck, trying to flee, but it was already too late. Jiang Ding condensed the strength of every bone and tendon in his body into a single point. His sword struck the white blade, knocking it away.

That was the Sword Unfurling Form!

Jiang Ding felt a numbing force rush toward him. The arm holding his sword trembled slightly, but the force was swiftly dispersed through the fully tempered muscles throughout his body, leaving him unharmed for the moment.

His opponent was an internal-force martial artist!

Yet compared to his classmates, the opponent's internal force was extremely weak, less than one-third as strong.

A figure in white flew backward, blood spraying from her mouth and staining her dress before her towering chest with plum blossoms.

"How is this possible? You clearly aren't an internal-force martial artist!"

The other party spat blood and cried out in disbelief.

She had crumbled at the first touch!

Though she was injured, with internal force protecting her, even a body-tempering martial artist born with divine strength should have been unable to stop her from escaping. This defied common sense.

"Why did you attack me?"

Jiang Ding gripped his sword and advanced slowly. His tailbone shuddered repeatedly as threads of killing intent spread uncontrollably.

Civilian drones were far too unreliable!

He had never encountered anything like this before.

Since childhood, his teachers had guided him and his classmates had sparred with him. Even when people were unhappy in daily life, they only wanted to deliberately beat each other up. He had never faced such coldness, where a meeting meant deciding life and death.

"Sir, I'm sorry."

"I mistook you for someone else. I realized it just now and tried to run, but I couldn't escape you."

The woman pressed her palms together, looking deeply apologetic. "Sir, this was my mistake."

Jiang Ding continued approaching step by step, not believing a word of that nonsense.

Anyone who took the initiative to attack him and put his life in danger should pay the price!

"Sir!"

"It was this servant's fault! I mistook you for those pursuing and killing me!"

The woman had snow-white skin, slightly chubby cheeks, and an adorable appearance. She was around one and a half meters tall.

Her dress was filthy, but her face and hair were clean. She seemed to be someone accustomed to comfort and privilege, utterly out of place in this wild mountain forest.

"My name is Gong Caiyu, a disciple of the Seven Profound Sect. The Golden Saber Sect destroyed my sect and slaughtered my entire family. I reacted too rashly. I beg you, sir, to forgive me!"

Tears shimmered in her eyes as she pressed her palms together and pleaded.

Jiang Ding halted.

Not because of what she said.

From the drone's perspective—

A large number of black-clad men with golden sabers embroidered on their chests changed their route again, closing in from this direction as the hunting dogs barked furiously.

"Since it was a misunderstanding, forget it."

Jiang Ding's expression changed.

He was certain that these black-clad men were after this woman. Since she was an internal-force martial artist, he might not be able to finish her in one or two moves. He did not want to get entangled and invite disaster, so he immediately turned and left.

"Thank you, sir!"

Gong Caiyu said gratefully, staggering away.

She did not suspect him, because this strange man before her had almost completely overwhelmed her in her current state. If he were an enemy, why would he go through such unnecessary trouble?

Jiang Ding ran several kilometers in succession, crossing mountains and ridges before finally hiding within the crown of a large tree.

"Those people really were chasing her."

"This is good. I wasn't exposed."

Jiang Ding let out a breath of relief.

The black-clad men's route changed repeatedly, almost always following the woman's path. Before long, they disappeared from the drone's field of observation amid the pursuit.

He had no intention of having the drone follow them. This was none of his business. The grudges and vendettas of another world should have nothing to do with him, much less bring disaster upon him, because he owed no one any favors or karmic debts.

In the room, Jiang Ding opened his eyes.

The furnishings were simple. Outside, traffic flowed endlessly and neon lights flickered.

The heart he had kept tightly strung finally relaxed.

He practiced his sword for a while, waited for his mother and Jiang Yuan to return, and chatted with his family for a time. At eleven that night, Jiang Ding went to sleep on schedule.

By the time he arrived at the classroom, the iron lockers had already been unlocked, and many students were changing into military-green camouflage uniforms.

The same models could be bought online. They were bulletproof, could change color, and could transform, but these were shared school teaching aids. They could not be taken out of school and had to be returned upon graduation.

"The first two periods are firearms?" Jiang Ding said casually as he set down his backpack.

"Yeah, and the last two are roughly the same." Li Junhao changed into a well-fitting camouflage uniform and put on a bulletproof panoramic helmet. His thin, small frame suddenly gained a trace of heroic spirit. "Zhang Dingjun is retired military. Being late by even one second has serious consequences."

The dark circles beneath this guy's eyes and his pale complexion made it obvious that he had stayed up studying until at least two or three in the morning.

Jiang Ding changed rapidly.

Ring, ring...

After waiting a while, the preparatory bell before class rang at seven fifty.

"Stand!"

On the podium, class monitor Hua Bing stood valiant and spirited as she shouted.

Swish!

Thirty-two senior-year students rose in unison, standing straight as nails.

"First squad, move out."

"Yes, Class Monitor!"

Sun Xiao, an inner-qi martial artist, saluted and jogged out of the classroom first. Others followed one after another from different parts of the room. There were six in total, forming a perfectly straight line.

"Second squad..."

"Third squad..."

Jiang Ding and Li Junhao hurriedly followed, running behind fellow inner-qi martial artist Li Hu.

The three squads were like three lines. They went from following one another, to running side by side, and finally formed a neat square formation. Every student's stride and arm swing matched perfectly; from afar, dozens appeared as one person.

Students heading to class automatically moved aside.

They jogged out of the teaching district, where tall buildings stood in clusters. Wild grass, scrub, and sandy ground began appearing beneath their feet, while the surrounding population thinned. Live-ammunition shooting was common here; it was a semi-military exercise zone.

"One, two, one..."

Several other classes were also jogging nearby, but they were not headed the same way and soon branched off in other directions.

"Accelerate! Twenty kilometers!"

Li Hu, captain of the third squad, roared over the squad channel.

"Yes!"

The formation began accelerating, shifting from a jog to a run. The wind howled around them as their orderly square loosened into a scattered oval.

Huff~

Jiang Ding exhaled lightly and eased his muscles. A twenty-kilometer long-distance run was nothing to him, but sprinting twenty kilometers at this speed still placed enormous strain on him.

Li Junhao's running form beside him had already warped out of shape.

A wisp of clear wind swept past.

Jiang Ding looked back. Class monitor Hua Bing led two squads of fourteen pure Qi Refinement students, catching up with ease.

Their strides were not fast, and their pace was not high. They looked as though they were merely taking a stroll, without shedding a single drop of sweat.

Yet they were simply fast—far faster than him. Within moments, they overtook his squad and soon vanished from everyone's sight.

"A first-tier military formation—the Gale Formation."

Li Junhao connected to Jiang Ding's communications channel. Slightly out of breath, he said enviously, "Those guys really aren't human."

"You should think about your health." Jiang Ding could not help saying, "You stay up every night, and neither rest nor exercise enough. How can your martial cultivation possibly improve if this continues?"

"You don't understand. My martial talent is too poor. My only path lies in academic courses."

Li Junhao shook his head.

As long as he could enter the School of Dao Cultivation, high-level cultivators would specially refine rare spirit pills for students with such lopsided abilities. It might not turn him into a genius in one step, but at least his martial talent would become better than most people's.

Moreover, students with lopsided abilities who managed to enter the School of Dao Cultivation all had real skills. Once their aptitude problem was resolved, they could grow at breakneck speed.

More than ten minutes later, the formation began to break apart.

Li Hu and the other three inner-qi students quickly vanished from the sight of the students behind them. Next came Jiang Ding and the other peak bone-forging martial artists, followed by the flesh-forging martial artists.

Li Junhao was unsurprisingly at the very back.

Jiang Ding panted heavily. He did not know how long he had been sprinting when he saw rows upon rows of students standing as straight as nails ahead.

Before them stood a middle-aged man built like a bear. Merely standing there, he radiated an invisible pressure.

"Reporting!"

"Enter."

Zhang Dingjun's voice was low.

Jiang Ding entered the formation, still behind Li Hu. The third squad was the sequence the teacher had assigned them.

Students continued filing into formation behind him.

Ring!

At eight ten, the alarm clock in Zhang Dingjun's hand rang.

Jiang Ding looked around. Li Junhao had not arrived yet.

Five or six minutes later, Li Junhao finally arrived, gasping for breath. Weakly, he said, "Reporting!"

Zhang Dingjun gave him a cold look. "Forty kilometers after class. I don't care what plans or arrangements you have. If you fail here, then you fail!"

"Yes!"

Li Junhao's face fell.

There would be no real danger. The Immortal Sect had spells and professional treatment methods, but swollen, bleeding knee joints and several days on crutches would be unavoidable.

"You may move about freely for now." Zhang Dingjun looked toward Hua Bing and the other Qi Refinement cultivators.

"Yes, Instructor!"

Rustle!

Zhang Dingjun pulled back a thick camouflage tarp.

Sunlight gleamed off metal. Heavy machine guns over two meters long stood upright on the ground, with piles of ammunition crates beside them. The pungent smell of gun oil spread through the air.

"On the battlefield, there are no pistols or submachine guns. Those toys can't even break a cultivator's defenses!"

Zhang Dingjun casually lifted a heavy machine gun weighing over two hundred jin with one hand and pulled the bolt. "If you join the military or take the college entrance examination in the future, this is the only companion you can rely on."

"Type 89 Heavy Machine Gun, made from N2702 Spell-Breaking Alloy. Its barrel is inscribed with quasi-artifact runes. Falcon-1 scope, 12.5-millimeter caliber, overall length 2,140 millimeters, theoretical rate of fire six hundred rounds per minute, theoretical range five kilometers. At that distance, it can penetrate the conventional shield of a ninth-level Qi Refinement cultivator."

"If it hits a Foundation Establishment cultivator's shield, it can also consume a small amount of their magical power."

Jiang Ding knew it was not that simple.

Unless a ninth-level Qi Refinement cultivator was stupid as a pig, they would evade, conceal themselves, and take cover. Hitting one with divine sense from five kilometers away was extremely difficult.

Forget the ninth level—even a first- or second-level Qi Refinement cultivator could learn an optical invisibility spell, charge in, and casually wipe out groups of martial artists with a fireball.

The heavy machine gun's purpose lay in large-scale battlefields!

Infantry Spirit-Particle Radar detected enemies, heavy artillery bombarded the area in advance, and dense barrages poured forth. That was how one fought cultivators.

"Firearms are simple to use, but accurate shooting within five thousand meters is not easy. It exceeds the limits of ordinary human vision." Zhang Dingjun pointed to the small boxes beside the ammunition crates. "You will need drones. The ones issued to you are military-grade Swallow-1 models."

"Beyond that, you need to practice the martial techniques Vajra Seal and Thousand-Thread Guidance. The former ensures the stability of your shooting; even while firing on the run, your upper body remains as unmoving as Mount Tai. The latter ensures your shooting accuracy. One force can be divided into a thousand threads, allowing you to accurately hit a squirrel even from five thousand meters away."

"Practice these two martial techniques until minor mastery, and you will be a qualified Immortal Sect soldier. It's that simple."

Zhang Dingjun paused.

"Now, take your guns. One per person, two ammunition belts, and one drone."

"Yes, Instructor!"

Jiang Ding stepped forward quickly, grabbed a Type 89 Heavy Machine Gun, and slung it over his back. Its one-hundred-and-twenty-five-kilogram weight made his steps sink. He then picked up two ammunition belts and crossed them over his chest, each belt holding one hundred rounds.

The Swallow-1, together with its case, was the size of a basketball. It had a hook that he fastened at his waist. He returned to the formation and stood at attention, the entire process taking seven seconds.

He quietly glanced to either side. Everyone carried heavy machine guns and ammunition, standing straight and silent as cicadas in winter.

"Spread out. Raise your guns," Zhang Dingjun said again.

"Yes!"

Everyone quickly dispersed, leaving more than ten meters between each person. They raised their guns with both hands, pointing them diagonally toward the sky, their legs in bow stances.

Jiang Ding silently visualized a mountain falling from the heavens into the arms of a giant. Immense gravity descended, dispersed throughout the giant's limbs, then flowed through both legs into the earth, taking root there.

The giant in his mind was divided into countless lines. How force dispersed and converged within them, how much force each muscle bore, and how much force it needed to exert in turn, all served to let the body neutralize external force to the greatest extent possible.

"Twenty minutes."

Zhang Dingjun left those words behind and walked toward Hua Bing and the other Qi Refinement students. Faint voices drifted over.

"The three foundational spells of the Qi Refinement realm: the Electromagnetic Wave Sensing Method, spell attachment, and spirit control technique. You all..."

Not long after, the roar of tank engines began. One Type 59 tank after another drove into the distance.

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