Cruel Reality

Kong Bin, Zhang Zheng, Li Chong, and Duan Rong, who stood beside Li Chong, planted themselves in the courtyard as though roots had grown beneath their feet. They held their stances for a full shichen. All four were drenched in sweat, steam rising from their heads.

As for the four Menial Disciples standing behind them, they lost their strength after barely half an incense stick's time. Unable to summon their breath again, they could only disperse.

It was not until mealtime that Duan Rong's stomach began to rumble.

Only then did Duan Rong press his hands down through the air before his chest, exhale a plume of white vapor, and stride out of the courtyard.

Kong Bin, Zhang Zheng, and Li Chong each dispersed their power as well.

Kong Bin watched Duan Rong's retreating back. His sweat-soaked shirt clung tightly to his back, and Kong Bin's expression remained blank as his pupils contracted slightly.

"There's something strange about that kid." Standing at Kong Bin's side, Zhang Zheng spoke.

"Have you noticed him before?" Kong Bin turned and glanced at Zhang Zheng.

Zhang Zheng shook his head. "A fellow who doesn't like talking. His talent for martial arts isn't particularly outstanding either."

Kong Bin fell silent at that. Duan Rong truly had not had much of a presence before, but now...

While Kong Bin was deep in thought, Li Chong walked over and said, "He just performed that move a little better today. It was nothing more than a blind cat stumbling across a dead mouse. Didn't you see that when he was holding his stance, Escort Master Zhao Mu didn't even correct his posture? Only a proper stance can generate power. Without power, even the finest forms are just flowery displays."

Hearing Li Chong put it that way, Zhang Zheng secretly nodded as well. He too thought it made sense.

Yet Kong Bin's face remained expressionless. He had seen the steam rising from Duan Rong's head and the shirt soaked through with sweat.

The more standard one's stance, the greater the exertion. The greater the exertion, the more power it could nurture.

But by the same reasoning, greater exertion also meant a more standard stance. Working backward from that, there had not been a single problem with Duan Rong's Perfectly Round Stance.

I need to keep an eye on this kid, Kong Bin silently told himself.

After leaving the courtyard where firewood and charcoal were stored, Duan Rong first went to the dining hall to collect his dinner. Then he left the escort agency, bought two donkey-meat flatbreads by the street, and drank a large bowl of lamb offal soup.

With his belly round and full, Duan Rong wiped the red oil from the corner of his mouth and returned to the escort agency.

The moment Duan Rong returned, he found an empty corner and began holding his stance again.

After digesting the experience of the beginner-level Five Tigers Herd Sheep Saber, the forms posed no problem for him at all.

But nurturing power through stance training had to be done bit by bit. The assessment day was drawing near, and he could not afford to be careless.

After feeling things out, Duan Rong had more or less grasped his body's limits.

He had just stubbornly held his stance for over a shichen, and together with the shichen from that morning, he had already trained for two shichen.

Yet by shifting his center of gravity between his left and right legs, he could still stand for another two shichen or so.

That would more or less exhaust him completely. In simpler terms, it meant training himself through.

Only by training oneself through could one gain power.

But the balance between training oneself through and training oneself into injury was extraordinarily difficult for a beginner to grasp.

If Duan Rong had not possessed the experience of the beginner-level Five Tigers Herd Sheep Saber in his mind, he would not have been able to gauge such a balance at all.

Duan Rong trained until his entire body was dripping with sweat before dispersing his power and reining in his strength, then headed toward the dormitory.

At that moment, he felt utterly drained, and every step was difficult. Yet with each step he took, a current of heat seemed to rise from the soles of his feet, travel through his body, and gather in his Dantian.

Though Duan Rong still had not figured out the knack of inner breath these past few days, he knew that this current of heat was merely power generated by his muscles, not inner breath cultivated through an Inner Power Cultivation Method.

Duan Rong returned to the courtyard of the Menial Disciples' dormitory, washed himself by the well, then crawled beneath the blanket on the Large Shared Bed and fell into a deep sleep.

The next day, at Shen Time Six Quarters.

After working all day, Duan Rong once again arrived at the training courtyard reeking of horse dung.

The instant Duan Rong stepped through the side gate, he paused in slight surprise.

Only Kong Bin, Zhang Zheng, and Li Chong remained in the courtyard. The four Menial Disciples who had stood in the second row yesterday had not come back.

In truth, those four Menial Disciples knew perfectly well that they had no chance of being chosen as apprentices. But opportunities to learn martial arts were rare, so they had wanted to learn as much as they could.

And yesterday, Zhao Mu had said that Leopard Drilling the Forest was the last form he would teach before the assessment.

Since they had already learned every form there was to learn, there was no point in coming again. Zhao Mu would not instruct them as he did those three promising candidates, so they might as well rest instead.

Duan Rong seemed to understand what those Menial Disciples were thinking. He sighed, then took his place beside Li Chong.

"You stink to high heaven. Don't you know that yourself? Can't you stand farther away?" When Li Chong saw that Duan Rong had actually stood beside him again, anger immediately rose in him. His face flushed red as he snapped.

Duan Rong kept his eyes on his nose and his nose on his heart. As though he had heard nothing, he continued standing there on his own.

Just as Li Chong was about to flare up, Kong Bin suddenly coughed. Li Chong gritted his teeth and turned around, only to see Zhao Mu's broad figure already standing at the courtyard entrance.

Zhao Mu walked in, his gaze sweeping over the four of them. He seemed to find it perfectly normal that only four Menial Disciples had shown up during training hours. In an even tone, he said, "I have already taught you all six forms. Though these six forms are only a small part of the Five Tigers Herd Sheep Saber, they are actually a small system. Some are defensive, some balance offense and defense, and some are killing moves."

Zhao Mu paused abruptly, took the sheathed Oxtail Saber from his arms, looked at Li Chong, and said, "Come here. Maintain my saber."

"Me?" Li Chong froze.

"What are you standing there for? Take the linen cloth soaked in castor oil and wipe it down carefully." Zhao Mu sounded somewhat impatient.

Li Chong looked into Zhao Mu's eyes, his expression turning incomparably ugly. In a daze, he walked over and accepted the saber from Zhao Mu.

Zhao Mu telling Li Chong to maintain the saber seemed like only a minor instruction, but it revealed a clear message.

That was, in Zhao Mu's eyes, Li Chong had trained the worst among the four of them and had the least hope of being selected as an apprentice.

Without question, this was a tremendous blow to Li Chong's confidence.

Li Chong naturally understood that he was inferior to Kong Bin, but he had believed he held a slight edge over Zhang Zheng. As for Duan Rong, he had never regarded him as worthy of notice at all.

But that was not even the main point. Because if he truly was the worst-trained among the four, then he absolutely could not be chosen as an apprentice.

After all, at most one or two people could be selected as apprentices from a batch. There had never even been three, much less four.

If he was not selected as an apprentice, then he could only remain a menial for the rest of his life...

No, Escort Master Zhao must have made a mistake! How could that kid Duan Rong possibly have trained better than me?

Li Chong bit his lip. He simply could not accept the cruel reality of being a menial for the rest of his life. A trace of madness appeared in his eyes. He bit his lip until it bled without even noticing, and he did not hear a single word of what Zhao Mu was saying.