Chapter 43: Demon King Cram School

Early the next morning, when the first ray of sunlight entered the room, the well-rested Zheng Fan slowly opened his eyes.

He reached out, felt around beside the bed, found the cord, and tugged it.

“Jingle-jingle...”

A crisp bell rang outside, like a playful sprite greeting the morning as all creation awakened beneath the dawn.

Creak...

The bedroom door opened.

Three young women entered.

One carried a washbasin with a towel draped over its rim.

One carried a tray with breakfast arranged upon it.

The last held the clothes their master would wear today.

Zheng Fan sat up on the edge of the bed.

Under the meticulous care of the three young women, he dressed, ate breakfast, and walked to the doorway.

He raised his head, turned his face forty-five degrees toward the morning sun, and softly sighed.

Inwardly, he lamented, This wicked old society has burdened me with far too much.

Sigh.

Today was the first day of school.

The parents no, the study companions were already prepared.

In the spacious hall, Zheng Fan sat in his place while Ding Hao was wheeled out by a servant.

Xue San had built the wheelchair overnight. Dwarves apparently possessed an innate “craftsman” attribute.

Xue San had even enthusiastically asked Ding Hao whether he wanted a few mechanisms installed on it, such as Storm Pear Blossom Needles.

Ding Hao hurriedly refused.

This was the first time Ding Hao had properly faced Zheng Fan the Master of this collection of freaks.

Having served in the army and later become a bandit chief, Ding Hao had always believed in one principle: if you wanted to be the boss among a group of people, either your fists had to be the strongest, or your brain had to be the sharpest.

Naturally, Ding Hao had already placed Zheng Fan into that role. The young man before him might look young, but perhaps he was some heaven-shaking genius who appeared only once in a thousand years within some mighty faction!

Facing a genius—and having to teach that genius martial arts even Ding Hao, who had seen countless storms, began to feel nervous.

In truth, the “student” sitting opposite him, Zheng Fan, was even more nervous.

He was terrified that the next scene would be:

“Dou Qi: third stage!”

“Ah! Trash!”

“As expected, the clan’s useless trash!”

“Pah! What a waste of the clan’s resources!”

A creator’s mind was always packed with clichés.

“Shall... we begin?”

Ding Hao carefully asked Zheng Fan in a probing tone.

“All right.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

“Mm.” Ding Hao looked toward A’Ming standing nearby. “Please.”

A’Ming walked in front of Zheng Fan and removed his tailcoat.

Uh...

Seeing the circulation routes embroidered across A’Ming’s body, Zheng Fan was immediately struck by a sense of unfathomable profundity.

Then, one minute passed.

Nobody spoke.

Five minutes later, Teacher Ding Hao had not spoken.

Student Zheng Fan had not spoken either.

A quarter of an hour later, teacher and student were still silent.

Even the Blind Man Bei standing nearby could no longer bear to “watch” despite being blind.

He could only cough lightly as a reminder.

Ding Hao seemed to come back to himself and instinctively asked Zheng Fan, “Finished?”

“Mm?” Zheng Fan looked completely lost. “Uh... finished what?”

“Do you understand this now?”

“Understand what?”

Ding Hao blinked.

He felt himself drawing dangerously close to a certain truth.

He had genuinely never considered that possibility before.

Perhaps yesterday’s sight of those six monsters advancing at lightning speed had shattered some part of his worldview.

It had directly caused Ding Hao to assume that since Zheng Fan was their Master, he should be the same just take one look, then start glowing.

“Take it slowly. Begin with the details,” the Blind Man Bei reminded him.

The Seven Demon Kings were all old hands.

Even if they did not follow this world’s traditional path of strengthening, every one of them had once been a master within their own field.

So learning a little elementary martial arts was, to them, nothing more than being given an elementary-school math problem written in English.

All they needed was a slight shift in thought.

But Zheng Fan was starting from zero...

Ding Hao released a long breath.

At last, he had rediscovered the feeling of being human.

After considering for a moment, Teacher Ding began.

“The path of the Martial Artist requires two legs advancing together. Only by walking on both legs can one remain steady.”

“What about three legs?”

A’Ming suddenly asked.

“Mm? Three legs?” Ding Hao did not understand.

He knew what three hands could imply, but what did three legs mean?

A metaphor?

An allegory?

Or some specialized term?

He had personally witnessed this group’s talent yesterday, so Ding Hao instinctively began seriously analyzing A’Ming’s words.

It was like a middle-school student answering a literature exam question about the author’s state of mind and the emotions he wished to express.

“Yes. Wouldn’t a three-legged tripod be even more stable?”

A’Ming teased.

“Maintain classroom discipline.”

Class Monitor Blind Man Bei reminded Student Blackboard.

A’Ming shut his mouth and continued serving as both blackboard and projector.

Behind Zheng Fan, Xue San pulled a face at A’Ming.

“Mr. Ding, please continue,” the Blind Man Bei prompted.

“Oh, yes. These two legs correspond to two preparations.

“First is tempering the body. For a Martial Artist, the physique will always be your greatest foundation. Think of it as a barrel: a wooden barrel and an iron barrel can withstand entirely different amounts of force.

“Second is mastering qi. The human body contains qi. Using qi to command the blood creates qi and blood. The physique is the foundation, while qi and blood are the structure built upon it.

“One who can control the circulation of qi and blood is half-step Ninth Grade. One who can maintain that circulation continuously is a Ninth Grade Martial Artist. When qi and blood can be projected beyond the body, one enters the Eighth Grade!”

Zheng Fan listened very seriously.

In truth, none of this theory was difficult. Fantasy and wuxia novels of later generations had explained these concepts countless times under different names.

The problem was that back then, he had read those works for entertainment.

Now that it was his turn to actually learn it...

Damn, it was still hard.

More importantly stop lecturing theory all the time!

Could they talk about the actual steps?

“What do I do first?” Zheng Fan asked.

“Temper the body. Refining the sinews and bones is something you must do every day. At the same time, the other step is... finding the sensation of qi and blood within your body. First find them. Then attempt to tame them and make them serve you.”

“Find them?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Close your eyes and feel with your heart.”

“...”

Zheng Fan.

Zheng Fan desperately wanted to roll his eyes at his crippled teacher.

“Close your eyes and feel with your heart.”

It was the ultimate all-purpose line. Every trade and profession could smear it wherever necessary.

When a teacher did not want to teach you his real secrets and wanted to brush you off, this was exactly the sort of thing he would say.

“Is there... any shortcut?”

Ding Hao frowned slightly, but still nodded.

“There is. This is the very first step through the door, and some people truly have no problem with their innate talent, yet simply cannot sense the circulation of qi and blood at the beginning. So they borrow an external aid.

“Once they use that external aid to sense their qi and blood, their later development will not be restricted merely because they used something to open the door.

“However, that external aid can be addictive. It must be used in moderation.”

“Mr. Ding, may I ask what this external aid is?”

The Blind Man Bei spoke.

A parent’s concern for his child was truly universal.

The six of them, including the Blind Man Bei, looked at Zheng Fan with expectations no different from parents desperate to see their daughter become a phoenix.

There was no helping it.

As long as it could accelerate Zheng Fan’s cultivation, they would accept anything an expensive learning machine or even quantum-physics speed!

“Taking powder.”

Ding Hao spoke the two words.

The Blind Man Bei froze.

Everyone behind him froze as well.

Including Zheng Fan.

“Five-Stone Powder?” Zheng Fan asked.

Ding Hao nodded.

“The fashion of taking powder is very popular in the states of Jin and Qian. In truth, the original purpose of mineral powder was to use the baleful energy contained within it after ingestion to shock the body and help novice Martial Artists sense the circulation of qi and blood sooner.

“But gradually, the substance spread and became a plaything pursued by upper-class scholars. The literati of Jin and Qian take powder as part of daily life even when they do not practice martial arts, merely to pursue that brief sensation of floating among the immortals.

“Here in Yan, however, the previous emperor once had a commandery prince beaten to death for taking powder. Because of that, the custom never spread throughout the State of Yan.”

That was only natural.

For an ordinary beginner, taking powder could serve as a key to the door of martial cultivation.

But if it spread widely and became fashionable, the consequences would be little different from opium in the late Qing dynasty.

In the Wei-Jin period of Zheng Fan’s old world, from emperors down to ordinary wealthy households, taking powder had practically become a cultural form of entertainment.

The true portrait of those so-called celebrated Wei-Jin eccentrics was essentially a crowd gathering to take powder, becoming stimulated by heavy metals and other substances until their skin flushed, their blood surged, their minds grew excited, and then stripping off their clothes and sprinting through the woods while singing at the tops of their lungs:

So freaking high...

Yan had been founded on martial strength. To the north, the desert barbarians remained a threat. In the Central Plains, three great states watched Yan like hungry tigers.

Neither in population nor territory did Yan hold an advantage.

The reason it could remain one of the four great states while strategically suppressing the neighboring states of Jin and Qian was ultimately the ferocity of Yan’s people.

If Yan’s iron cavalry all went off to get high on powder just imagine the opium-addicted soldiers of the late Qing.

How the hell would they fight?

“I’ll go look around the market and see if anyone sells it. This stuff isn’t prohibited in Yan, right?” Xue San asked Ding Hao.

Ding Hao shook his head.

“There are too many varieties of powder and too many ways to obtain them. It would be impossible to ban the sale entirely. It’s simply that the upper classes of the Great Yan Dynasty consider taking powder shameful.”

“I’ll buy some.”

Xue San immediately prepared to leave.

“Wait.”

The Blind Man Bei stopped him.

Then he turned toward Ding Hao.

“The purpose of taking powder is to let the mineral components shock the body and stir up the still water inside, correct?”

“Yes.”

“What matters is the baleful energy inside the mineral powder?”

“Yes. But you needn’t rush to find mineral powder. You can give your Ma—your Master some time.

“During that period, he can temper his physique while trying to sense his qi and blood. Even if it takes three months or half a year, that would be perfectly normal.”

“No, no, no.”

Cultivate slowly?

If we wanted Master to cultivate slowly, why the hell did we capture you?

The Blind Man Bei suddenly seized Liang Cheng’s wrist and lifted his hand.

“Come on. Grow your nails.”

At the Blind Man Bei’s instruction, the nails on Liang Cheng’s five fingers slowly lengthened.

Wisps of black baleful energy curled around them.

“This is good. Pure baleful energy, and controllable. It can completely replace the effects of mineral powder, with none of the side effects.

“It’ll just hurt a little.”

Then the Blind Man Bei instructed Liang Cheng, “When you stab Master with your nail later, be gentle.”

Sitting there, Zheng Fan suddenly found himself completely unable to understand how the first day of school had taken this turn.

Wait.

What?

I...

I only came here for class!

The Blind Man Bei turned toward Zheng Fan again.

“Master, please endure a little pain.”

With that, he pulled Liang Cheng toward Zheng Fan.

Zheng Fan opened his mouth.

“Wait... this...”

(End of Chapter)