Fighter

At five in the afternoon, Cheng Sheng walked out of the Mamba Fighting Arena.

The arena closed from four to six in the afternoon, and by now, almost everyone had left.

As Cheng Sheng headed toward the minibus stop, he noticed a gaunt, dark, skinny man with a copper ring through one nostril glaring "fiercely" at him from the roadside.

When Cheng Sheng looked over, the man spat a mouthful of chewed-up betel nut onto the ground with a "ptui," put down what he was holding, and walked away.

Cheng Sheng frowned slightly. After a moment's thought, he walked over, picked up the newspaper the man had left behind, and glanced at it-

"Cockfighting Expert."

It was a cockfighting paper.

All kinds of animal fighting and betting were popular in Nantu: cockfighting, bullfighting, ram fighting, fish fighting, snake fighting... There were even elephant fights. Cockfighting was the most common.

In his predecessor's memories, "he" had gone with his father, Cheng Shuisheng, to underground cockfighting pits in the countryside a few times as a child.

With cockfighting so popular, cockfighting papers naturally followed. They generally carried information on matches, details about popular fighting cocks, references for predicting wins and losses, and so on.

But now that mobile phones were becoming widespread, many people preferred looking things up online, and few still chose to buy paper newspapers like this.

Maybe he was a spectator who recognized me...

His match with Weiji, the "Blue Dragon," had cost a lot of people money, so it was only natural for some to bear a grudge.

Cheng Sheng shook his head, tossed the newspaper into a trash can, and walked back under the minibus stop sign.

While waiting for the minibus, Cheng Sheng gazed across the street at the darkened neon sign for Mamba Fighting, silently lost in thought.

Sulai had told him he no longer needed to come here starting tomorrow. His introductory special training was over, and from then on, he only needed to visit the gym once every afternoon, where Songpa would teach him the Nurturing Sha cultivation that followed.

The elephant grounds...

Cheng Sheng recalled the elephant grounds Sulai had mentioned earlier.

The mutated saltwater crocodiles in the swamp's crocodile pool were out of his reach for now, but he could consider the elephants raised by his own school.

An elephant would make a suitable offering for the fourth sacrifice. If I want to deal with the Black Tide creatures wandering the Strange Mist zone, I can't do it without strength...

An adult elephant in Nantu generally cost between three hundred thousand and six hundred thousand Nan Currency, a staggering sum.

But...

Cheng Sheng touched the thick wad in his pocket. It contained the twenty thousand Nan Currency the owner of the Mamba Fighting Arena had pressed on him before he left.

Once I become a core disciple, my monthly allowance will be twenty thousand. If I come back here for a fight or two once in a while... three hundred thousand isn't really that far out of reach.

Cheng Sheng hadn't even factored in the discount he should get for buying an elephant as one of their own.

Beep, beep-

The minibus arrived. Cheng Sheng raised a hand to flag it down, then quickly climbed aboard when the doors opened.

What he didn't see was that after the minibus carrying him drove away, the dark, skinny man with the nose ring whom he had encountered at the stop appeared again.

The man's looks and bearing were almost indistinguishable from those of an idle, middle-aged local hoodlum in Qingsha, somewhere in his thirties or forties. Expressionless, he gazed in the direction the minibus had gone and stood there quietly for a long, long time...

When he got home, no one was there, as usual.

Cheng Sheng had been away for nearly ten days, and on his return, he was surprised to find a fish tank in the living room.

The tank stood in the middle of the living room, beside the television. It wasn't large, and a dozen or so goldfish swam back and forth inside.

Lionheads?

Cheng Sheng went up to the tank and looked through the glass at the red-and-white goldfish with fleshy growths on their heads.

Did Mom and Dad buy them?

Cheng Sheng saw a note stuck to the tank. It read, "Each time you feed them..."

A box of fish food sat beside it. The note was probably meant for him and Cheng Yue.

Cheng Sheng took the fish food and casually sprinkled some into the tank. After looking around, he found half a leftover cake in the fridge.

I don't think anyone's had a birthday lately...

Cheng Sheng saw a half-empty bottle of red wine on the sideboard and wondered if something good had happened to Wu Li and Cheng Shuisheng, and the two had celebrated at home.

After tidying up a little, Cheng Sheng returned to his bedroom and, as usual, read the Black Book first.

This "meditation method" unique to warlocks could also increase the Primordial Mark. Although the growth was extremely slow, Cheng Sheng was eager to see what was on the second page of the Black Book, so any increase in speed was welcome.

For now, the offering for the fourth sacrifice will be a live elephant...

After "meditating," Cheng Sheng sat in front of the computer, chewing ice as he tried to suppress the nauseating urge to vomit.

Of course, if I can get a python or a rhinoceros beforehand, that would work too. A Black Tide creature would be even better!

Wuda Island would soon enter its annual period of frequent Black Tides, making it convenient for Cheng Sheng to increase his mark by devouring evil spirits in the Strange Mist zone.

But since he had decided on a large, ferocious beast as the offering for the fourth sacrifice, he would have to find a new place for the ritual-he could hardly lead an elephant onto the campus of No. 3 Middle School.

I'll find time to rent a warehouse at a farm in the suburbs...

Thinking this, Cheng Sheng turned on the computer and logged into his messaging account out of habit.

He found that Song Cai had sent him quite a few messages during his special training, including photos of him working at the coconut sugar factory... The most recent one was already several days old.

After a moment's thought, Cheng Sheng picked a topic from their message history and sent a reply.

"Tap... tap..."

Sulai walked barefoot across the wooden floor, her footsteps neither light nor heavy.

When she reached a wooden door, Sulai stopped, knocked, and said softly, "Senior Brother?"

"Come in..."

A hoarse voice answered from inside, and Sulai pushed the door open and entered.

In the spacious, partially open-air training hall, a bare-chested young man was training in a handstand, supporting a heavy object with his feet while balancing on one hand.

The object was made of solid steel and was about two meters in diameter. Though hollow, judging by its thickness, it probably weighed close to a ton.

Yet now, it was held firmly aloft by just five strong, thick fingers, rising and falling repeatedly with the movement of the young man's arm...

"Exhale... inhale... exhale... inhale..."

The young man performed one-handed handstand push-ups, one after another. Long streams of breath issued from his mouth and nose, forming a prolonged cry like an elephant's trumpet in the empty hall.

The place where his five fingers pressed down was also an iron ingot, and five deep holes had already been pressed into it...

Even Sulai, who was in the fighting world herself and was a Nurturing Sha boxer, was deeply shaken by the sight before her.

Hummm-

With a long, low hum, the young man emerged from his training state. He wrapped both arms around the hollow steel coil weighing nearly a ton and set it on the ground, and the floor of the entire training hall seemed to tremble.

After he did so, sweat poured from his entire body, only to turn into surging white vapor the next second. His body was like a blazing furnace heated to over a hundred degrees.

"Did you need something, Junior Sister?"

Amid the dispersing white vapor, Sha Lie slowly walked out, wiping away his sweat. "As it happens, I have something to tell you too."

By now, Sulai had almost forgotten why she had come to see Sha Lie. All she wanted to ask was, "Senior Brother Sha Lie, have you entered the realm of a true fighter?"

Sulai stared intently at Sha Lie, but he slowly shook his head.

"A true fighter must thoroughly integrate their Qi and blood, spirit, physique, and skills into one, and transform Sha Light into Qi Soul...

"Although I've gained a little insight from observing the vat of black water Teacher left behind every day, I'm still some distance from the realm of a true fighter..."

"Even if you haven't fully broken through, Senior Brother Sha Lie, you can't be much different from a true fighter."

A look of recollection appeared on Sulai's face. After a moment's thought, she said, "I once accompanied my father to visit several senior fighters. Some of them didn't look as impressive as you did while training just now..."

"You can't see what makes a true fighting master formidable just by looking."

Sha Lie couldn't help laughing, then changed the subject. "What did you come to see me about today, Junior Sister?"

"Oh."

Only then did Sulai remember why she had come, and she hurriedly told him what she had come to report.