Chapter 1 The First Day

The next morning, as the first ray of sunlight shone into the room, Zheng Fan, who had slept well, slowly opened his eyes.

He reached out,

fumbled on the bedside,

and found the string,

giving it a tug.

"Ding-ling-ling..."

Outside,

a crisp ringing sounded, like a playful elf greeting the morning. All things revived at this moment, full of vitality under the morning light.

"Creak..."

The bedroom door was pushed open,

and three young women walked in.

One carried a washbasin with a towel draped over the side.

One held a tray with breakfast on it.

One held the clothes the master would wear today.

Zheng Fan got up and sat on the edge of the bed.

Under the meticulous care of the three women, Zheng Fan dressed, ate breakfast, and walked to the door.

He looked up,

at a forty-five-degree angle towards the rising sun,

and gently sighed,

thinking to himself,

this damned old society, making me bear so much weight.

Alas.

Today

was the first day of reporting to the new school.

The parents,

no,

the accompanying readers were ready.

In the spacious hall, Zheng Fan sat in his seat, while Ding Hao was pushed out in a wheelchair by a servant.

The wheelchair had been made overnight by Xue San. The dwarves seemed to have a natural "craftsman" attribute.

Xue San had even eagerly asked Ding Hao if he needed to install some mechanisms on the wheelchair, such as the Storm of Pear Blossoms needles,

but Ding Hao quickly refused.

This was the first time Ding Hao had seriously faced Zheng Fan—the master of this group of freaks.

Ding Hao, who had served in the army and been a bandit leader, had always believed in one principle: to be the boss in a group of people,

either you have the biggest fist, or you have the best brain.

Obviously, Ding Hao had already cast Zheng Fan into that role. Don't look at this young man; he might be a rare genius from some great power!

Faced with a genius, and having to teach the genius martial arts, Ding Hao, who was used to seeing big storms, actually began to feel nervous.

In fact, Zheng Fan, the "student" sitting across from him, was even more nervous.

He was afraid that the following plot would be:

Dou Qi, Rank 3!

"Ah, trash!"

"As expected, a family trash!"

"Tch, wasting the family's resources!"

The creator's brain circuit was always full of clichés.

"Shall we begin?"

Ding Hao asked Zheng Fan cautiously, in a tentative tone.

"Okay."

Zheng Fan nodded.

"Mm." Ding Hao then looked at A Ming standing to the side and said, "Please."

A Ming walked in front of Zheng Fan and took off his tailcoat.

Hmm...

Zheng Fan saw the circuit diagram embroidered on A Ming's body, and a sense of profoundness suddenly struck him.

Then,

one minute,

no one spoke.

Five minutes later,

Ding Hao, the teacher, didn't speak,

and Zheng Fan, the student, didn't speak either.

A quarter of an hour later,

the teacher and student still hadn't spoken.

Even the blind man, Bei, who was standing beside them, couldn't stand it anymore, even though he was blind,

so he could only cough dryly as a reminder.

Ding Hao was a little dazed and subconsciously asked Zheng Fan:

"Are you ready?"

"Huh?" Zheng Fan was confused. "Um...ready for what?"

"This, have you learned it?"

"Learned what?"

Ding Hao blinked. He felt like he was getting close to a fact.

He really hadn't guessed that fact before. Perhaps it was the rapid advancement of these six guys yesterday that broke his worldview.

This directly led Ding Hao to believe that Zheng Fan, as their master, was the same—that he could gain enlightenment just by looking at it.

"Take your time, start from the details," Blind Man Bei reminded.

These seven devils were all veterans. Even though they weren't following the traditional path of strengthening in this world, they had all been big shots in their respective fields.

So, learning a basic martial art was just like changing the language of an elementary school math problem; it was just a matter of converting brainpower.

But Zheng Fan was starting from scratch...

Ding Hao let out a long breath. This time, he finally found the feeling of being a teacher.

After pondering for a moment, Teacher Ding opened his mouth and said:

"The path of a martial artist requires taking strides with both legs. Only by walking on two legs can one walk more steadily."

"What about three legs?"

A Ming said.

"Huh? Three legs?" Ding Hao couldn't quite understand.

He knew what three hands meant, but what did three legs mean?

A metaphor? An allusion? Or a specific reference to something?

He had witnessed the talents of this group yesterday, so Ding Hao subconsciously tried to think about what A Ming was saying.

It felt like a junior high school student doing a language arts test, analyzing the author's state of mind and the thoughts and feelings they wanted to express at the time.

"Yes, wouldn't a tripod be more stable?"

A Ming teased again.

"Pay attention to class discipline."

Class monitor Blind Man Bei reminded the blackboard student.

A Ming closed his mouth and continued to act as a blackboard and projector.

Xue San, standing behind Zheng Fan, made a face at A Ming.

"Mr. Ding, let's continue," Blind Man Bei reminded Ding Hao.

"Oh, good. These two legs correspond to two preparations.

First, body refinement. As a martial artist, physical strength is always one's greatest reliance. It's like a bucket; a wooden bucket and an iron bucket can withstand vastly different amounts of force.

Second, the mastery of qi. Within the human body, there is qi. Using qi to control blood is called qi and blood. The body is the foundation, and qi and blood are the building on top of it.

Those who can control the flow of qi and blood are at the half-step ninth rank, those who can continuously circulate qi and blood are ninth-rank martial artists, and those who can release qi and blood are at the eighth-rank realm!"

Zheng Fan listened very carefully. In fact, these theories were not difficult. Later generations of xuanhuan and wuxia novels had already rehashed these things countless times with different skins.

But the problem was that when he read those works, he was just having fun. Now that it was his turn to try and learn them, he suddenly felt...it was still so difficult.

Most importantly,

stop talking about theory all the time; can you talk about the details?

"What's the first step?" Zheng Fan asked.

"Body refinement, tempering the muscles and bones. This is something that needs to be done daily. At the same time, another step is...to find the feeling of qi and blood in your body, and then try to tame them for your own use."

"Find them?"

"Yes."

"How do I find them?"

"Close your eyes and feel with your heart."

"..." Zheng Fan.

Zheng Fan really wanted to roll his eyes at the disabled teacher in front of him.

That sentence: Close your eyes and feel with your heart.

It was simply a jack-of-all-trades, applicable to all walks of life, wherever it was needed.

When your teacher doesn't want to teach you their secret skills and wants to brush you off, they will often say this to you.

"Is there...any shortcut?"

Ding Hao frowned slightly, but still nodded and said: "There is, indeed, because this is the first step, the stepping stone. There are indeed some people who don't have problems with their talent, but they just can't sense the flow of qi and blood at the beginning, so they borrow an external object.

After they use the external object to sense the qi and blood, their subsequent development will not be limited by using the external object to open the door.

However, that external object may be addictive and needs to be used in moderation."

"Please, sir, what is that external object?"

Blind Man Bei asked.

Parents always want the best for their children.

The way the six, including Blind Man Bei, looked at Zheng Fan was no exaggeration to say that they were hoping for him to become a dragon.

There was no way around it; as long as it could speed up Zheng Fan's cultivation process, they would accept any learning machine or quantum physics speed, no matter how expensive!

"Taking San."

Ding Hao spat out these two words.

Blind Man Bei was stunned for a moment, and the others behind him were also stunned, including Zheng Fan.

"Is it Five Stone Powder?" Zheng Fan asked.

Ding Hao nodded and said, "The trend of taking San is very popular in Jin and Qian. In fact, the initial purpose of Stone Powder was to use the evil aura contained in it after consumption to impact the body and help novice martial artists to sense the flow of qi and blood earlier.

But gradually, this thing gradually spread and became a plaything sought after by the upper-class literati. The literati of Jin and Qian, even if they don't practice martial arts, still take San daily, just to pursue that moment of ethereal bliss.

In our Yan, because the late Emperor once had a county king who took San flogged to death, the trend of taking San did not spread in our Yan."

This was natural. For ordinary beginners learning martial arts, taking San could be used as a stepping stone, but if it spread on a large scale and became fashionable, the consequences and impact would be similar to opium in the late Qing Dynasty.

In the Wei and Jin dynasties of another world, from emperors to ordinary wealthy families, taking San was simply regarded as a symbol of entertainment culture.

The real portrayal of those so-called Wei and Jin celebrities was actually a group of people who gathered together to take San, stimulated by heavy metals and other substances, their skin turned red, their qi and blood churned, their brains began to get excited, and then they took off their clothes and ran wildly in the jungle while singing loudly:

How high oh…

The Yan was founded on military strength. The northern border adjoined the desert with the threat of barbarians, and there were also three great powers in the Central Plains coveting it. Yan did not have an advantage in terms of population or land area. The reason why it could maintain its position as one of the four great powers and also exert strategic pressure on the neighboring Jin and Qian was due to the bravery of the people of Yan.

If the Yan iron cavalry all ran off to take San and play, imagine the opium addict soldiers in the late Qing Dynasty. How could they fight a war?

"I'll go to the market to see if they sell it. This thing isn't banned in Yan, right?" Xue San asked Ding Hao.

Ding Hao shook his head and said, "There are too many types of San and too many ways to obtain it, so it's impossible to prohibit its sale. It's just that the upper echelons of our Great Yan consider taking San a disgrace."

"I'll go buy it."

Xue San was immediately ready to go out to buy it.

"Wait."

Blind Man Bei stopped Xue San,

then,

he turned to Ding Hao,

and asked:

"The function of taking San is to have the ingredients in the ore impact the human body, so as to stir up a pool of water, right?"

"Yes."

"It takes the evil aura in the Stone Powder?"

"Yes. However, you don't have to be so anxious to find Stone Powder. You can give this master…your master, some time. During this time, he can temper his body while sensing. Even if it takes three months or half a year, it's not too much."

"No, no, no."

Slowly cultivate?

Why would we capture you back if we wanted to slowly cultivate?

Blind Man Bei suddenly grabbed Liang Cheng's wrist and lifted it up at the same time.

"Come, let your fingernails grow out."

Following Blind Man Bei's instructions, Liang Cheng's fingernails on his five fingers slowly grew longer, and wisps of black evil aura lingered on the nails.

"This is good. The evil aura is pure and can be controlled. It can completely replace the effect of Stone Powder, and there are no side effects. It's just a little painful."

After saying that,

Blind Man Bei instructed Liang Cheng again:

"Be gentle when Cha enters the master's body later."

Zheng Fan, who was sitting there, suddenly couldn't understand the change in direction of today's first class,

No,

this,

I'm just here to attend class, right?

Blind Man Bei turned to Zheng Fan again and said, "Master, please endure the pain a little."

As he spoke,

he pulled Liang Cheng towards Zheng Fan.

Zheng Fan opened his mouth,

"No...this..."