Excitement of any move to any place tends to wear off for me in a week or two. Previous life. Current life. Even via transmigration.
Same shit ,different planet, different body- that realization hits like a jackhammer into the neural circuitry, and sears into the grey matter of the brain. Stuff that.
Boredom took me to Tianjin's brutal and bruising exercise classes to build up the weakened body. Well, he offered, and I stupidly took it up without checking for references.
Tianjin is a first class slave driver and a grandmaster of torture. Lianfeng must have a rough life with that father of his. Tianjin nearly broke Ji Feng's body in the first two classes. I got the privilege of suffering in Ji Feng's stead.
No point having the innate knowledge of martial arts in spirit, the po specifically, when the flesh is unwilling. Or to be fragile like glass.
No pain.
No gain.
Shit doesn't just drop from the sky because I want it to. Only when I don't.
This reminded me of Wing Chun training in my previous life. In Wing Chun, sandbag punching ensured micro fractures on knuckles to 'thicken' bone mass for optimum forceful delivery of a knockout punch, Bruce Lee style.
Tianjin would push every joint and ligament into their maximum threshold of flexibility. If your fingers had a slight possibility of bending backwards, this man will guarantee that it will, within weeks.
Bones were not spared with his bamboo correction method - one painful, numbing whack with a thick bamboo cane to the offending limb, which performed the wrong move. Princes are not spared the corporal punishment.
No one can escape that accepted form of child abuse…I mean…strict discipline in his class. Pain resistance training, perhaps.
Every joint and ligament were either complaining loudly or too torn to make noise after class. No fracture. After class, the body felt like gelatinous jello. I was wobbling on my way out.
Lucky me.
A prince can't unceremoniously crawl or slither back to his room. I was hauled back by my two bemused bodyguards. They were probably wondering about my choice to train.
Black and blue, from the bamboo beating.
That's only exercise. The fight training sessions were worse, according to some of my classmates.
Yet, culture shock awaits the unwary in every country and on every planet. It was a predator that waits to pounce on its ignorant victims. Yet, I held the golden pass of a Royal plus its previous owner's po, whose every faux pas was ignored, coupled with ardent a** kissing from eager social climbers. Exercise class excluded.
From personal experience, keeping a low profile often keeps trouble at bay. Polite smiles, greetings and general small talk, mostly about the weather, helped to maintain civil terms with others. Regardless of whether we were in the exercise class or meeting each other on the way to our quarters.
Ye Jian's case was free from any hair raising profile. No 20 year old wants to announce to the world that a 13 year old kid bought his way out of debt collectors. Ye Jian, with my secret support, had renovated his dump of a rest stop. That had increased business.
He's happy. His sister is happy, and we are all happy bunnies.
Lianfeng was still in recuperative seclusion and Cangtian left me alone.
Zaixing has been missing for a week now.
Life would be peacefully chugging along.
Then again, nothing lasts forever.
Murphy's Law 101 - When you think things are starting to look up, that's when a crash will happen. In my case, it was a Lamborghini on earth. If any comfort to me, death by luxury.
Enters the gatecrasher named Qu Xiaohua, 16 years old, who smashed every requirement, and beyond, to be an a**hole and all round d**khead.
Qu Xiaohua's story is the stuff of legends. Two months ago, he was attacked by a fair few mo beasts, which appeared outside his farming village during one frigid winter night. Miraculously, he was not mauled beyond recognition.
A group of wandering cultivators found him near the brink of death. Not from his injuries. In his birthday suit covered on the snow, 'hugging' a dead carcass of a mo beast in the most awkward compromising position.
Xiaohua himself did not help with his proud public proclamation of 'I f**ked up a mo beast butt naked'. In Lingyu language, that could be misinterpreted as bestiality taking place, in polite terms.
That's how the raunchy rumours started from a disgruntled cultivator in that group, who had a bit too much to drown his sorrows. Gossip spreads like wildfire. Xiaohua's tale of survival was like an out-of-control wild inferno among the astonished and superstitious peasants.
Well, that's not surprising.
If that former was not believable, this joker went from a nobody half-dead simpleton of a peasant to an overpowered warrior practitioner of level 9 ling qi cultivation, in two months. Anyone would be resentful of such incredible growth.
Surely, it must have been gained through screwing a mo beast.
Sounds like Zaixing's peculiar brand of disastrous jokes.
One of the cultivators had brought him to Xuanlong sect today. One would have to wonder why. Most cultivators prefer to take geniuses under their wings. For fame. If not, why not recruitment by the top sects?
Then one realises the reason after meeting Xiaohua.
To enter Xuanlong sect as a disciple, there was a standard hazing procedure of entry - fight as many disciples as you can. That's typical of a cultivation sect which specialises in martial art - to see how long you could remain standing against a queue of fighters.
Earth's novel, Fight Club, sounds placid now.
Done in the formerly mo beast devastated clearing of a training arena. Less trees. Same crappy barren look.
In Xuanlong, there were ten elders. Si Tianxiang, and Si Tianjin were the only two whom I was familiar with. Both were regulars. Of the other eight, they rotated into cultivation seclusion every three months. Four in, four out. Each with their own special skill set, which I can't learn due to the level limit of my ling qi.
Their names were unknown to me except for Master Jianfa, a grandmaster of the sword. That old man sometimes wandered into our exercise classes to nose around. Probably checking out potentials.
All the elders were out in full force to see the genius.
With Wugang and Lianfeng in recuperative seclusion, the rest were itching to show off their trashing skills on the new boy. Catch the attention of an elder and you may be selected as an exclusive inner disciple. Wealth and power did not and could not grant one such an access.
Like Ye Jian. He is one of the three inner disciples under the personal instruction of Master Jianfa. Selected on the basis of capability and speed.
Xiaohua's sheer arrogance exuded heavily from his pores, and mouth. Was he using this act to attract the attention of the elders?
Wrong. Not a bone in his body bore any semblance to modesty.
"Which one of you sissy girls want to fight me first?"
This guy was unbelievably suicidal.
And he has lost his chance at wooing the only three girls in the sect, who were shooting murderous stares his way.
Even with Wugang and Lianfeng out of commission, there were still a fair few who were on par, or stronger. Especially the senior and inner disciples.
He was starting to remind me of the hilarious tropes about an invincible smug protagonist in poor written films on earth. The type who would smash every opponent and save the world.
His way or the highway. No compromise.
The first group of ten voluntary fighters queued up for their turn to bash him. Those were probably around level six or seven fighters.
One by one, they fell like toy soldiers. It was like watching a factory line up, except they were humans and not manufactured products. One bright burst of light, another went down. Followed by another. Soon it was ten despatched to the healing hall. Xiaohua was easily smashing them horrendously with his Raging Fire Phoenix.
Wugang would definitely want to challenge this fellow once he recovers.
"Why is he using so much strength?" I overheard someone muttering in disgust.
Another replied, "because he is showing off."
Murmurs of agreement came pretty fast. Xiaohua was exerting too much for opponents of that caliber. Nearby stood a made-shift betting table of sticks and branches, with enterprising disciples calling for bets on how long he could last. So far, everyone was betting on Xiaohua's good name to win despite the resentment. Oh hey, money is a top priority.
"Are you challenging?" Another asked his friend.
"Nah…that phoenix will decimate my snoring panda…it is still in eternal cultivation of alchemy leveling stage."
WTF. That poor sod actually had a snoring panda as a ling beast. What does it even do? Cast sleeping spells on opponents? Or deafen them with the snores?
Some had ventured towards the surviving trees and climbed on them for an unhindered view. Yeah, the elders had activated the ling qi jamming spells surrounding the arena again. A mo beast appearing too soon may scare future recruits far away from this region. Well, except for Xiaohua.
"I will meet the challenge then," Panhong, Cangtian's slightly oversized lackey, called out. "With one condition, magic weaponry only."
Tianjin turned to Xiaohua and asked, "do you agree?"
Xiaohua shrugged nonchalantly.
Going by the shouting at the betting area, Xiaohua was no longer the hot favorite to win the match. Panhong's name was being roared by a large crowd in unison.
Cangtian was there leaning leisurely on a tree far from me, while smirking deviously on his face.
Xiaohua was in for a lot of trouble.
"Why is everyone betting on Panhong now?" I asked the guy next to me.
"Panhong is highly skilled in the use of the staff. His staff can shape shift into anything, qiang or a halberd. And it can be elongated or shortened for both long range and close quarter combat," he explained excitedly. "Not many can wield it like him."
Ahhh. Shape-shifting weapons. I wondered if Yoturuki, my sword, could transform too. Too early to say since the last swing nearly took me flying like Superman across the garden. My curiosity grew. Maybe his staff was like Sun Wukong's, the Chinese monkey god on earth.
"State weapons now," Tianjin ordered.
Panhong declared confidently to the cheering howls of the audience, "Staff"
With that declaration, Xiaohua swiftly pulled out a bluish flaming sword out of mid air. Impressive as it was, the crowd was still chanting Panhong's name. No one appeared to care for this misfit.
"Sword."
Crickets.
The instantaneous silence of the crowd. Awwwwkward.
One clap.
The poor intimidated clapper was being stared down by his fellow disciples. Cowed, he quickly hid the hands behind his back. No one likes a standout. A jutting nail must be hammered down.
Same for Xiaohua.