At dawn, Yun Qiang arrived at the training ground of zone 5. The training zone was well maintained; the stone ground was flat and smooth, and the weapon racks were filled with spears and swords. It looked minimalistic, but for beginners who had yet to learn special techniques, this was already more than what was needed.
To Yun Qiang's surprise, including him, only five people were present in the training zone. While Yun Qiang was looking around the training ground, they approached him.
"Hey, what are you doing here? We've never seen you around."
The man who spoke was tall and broad-shouldered; his muscles were defined, and there was no sign of fat on his body. The man had a friendly smile on his face and looked like the leader of the group.
"I'm looking for Instructor Jin. I was assigned to this class."
Hearing this, a man who was at the back of the group fell to his knees and started crying.
"Finally, God really exists, he sent us an angel." His words were a bit mumbled due to the crying, but everyone understood them. He looked at Yun Qiang. "You, sir, are my savior. If you need anything, just know that I, Brook of the Fan family, owe you a favor."
The situation was strange. Why did he suddenly cry? Yun Qiang was baffled. Was I assigned to a psychiatric ward? Adding to the weirdness, the man who had approached him earlier put his hand on Yun Qiang's shoulder. His eyes were full of pity, and his long blond hairs were swayed by a sudden breeze.
"Little one, just know that your pain is our pain. Your sacrifice is for the greater good, and one day, someone will take on your burden."
The strange man was about to say something else, but Yun Qiang cut him off. The situation was already weird; he didn't want to hear anything more.
"What do you mean by this? Also, why is he crying? And don't call me 'little one'—my name is Yun Qiang."
He spoke quickly, not giving them a chance to say more nonsense. However, before he could get any answers, a stern voice came from the entrance of the training ground:
"Everyone in line. You have five seconds."
This voice was like a cold bucket of water—everyone's thoughts cleared up as the group, Yun Qiang included, hurriedly formed a line in front of the man. The man was young, around his thirties. He wore a white uniform with golden edges, signaling his status as an inner disciple, while the golden emblem of two crossing swords sewn onto the upper part of his tunic certified his status as an instructor. This was Instructor Jin.
A cruel glint passed through his eyes.
"Oh, new arrival?"
Yun Qiang was about to present himself, but Jin stopped him with a gesture of his hand.
"No need to present yourself. I'm Jin, your instructor; you may address me as 'Sir' or 'Lord.'" Disgust was clearly present in his voice. He pointed at the weapon rack. "Now go and take a weapon. I want to see your level."
"Yes, Sir."
Yun Qiang started to have a bad feeling about this instructor, so he didn't dare to delay and took a spear from the weapon rack. The spear was light and made from ordinary material.
He weighed it for a second then stood in front of Instructor Jin.
He started to bow. "I'm ready, Sir."
However, before he could finish , Jin attacked him. Out of reflex, Yun Qiang placed his spear in front to defend the attack. Jin's palm and Yun Qiang's spear collided, but just as Yun Qiang was retreating, a strange energy came out of the palm, making him feel dizzy and causing him to stumble backwards. Before he could recover his footing, another palm reached him, hitting him in the chest. He fell to the ground without resistance. It took Jin two moves to win against him.
While struggling to breathe, he looked at his "companions" who were still in line. He could see the pity and sympathy in their eyes. He then glanced at Brook—the crying man from before. His body was full of bruises, both old and new.
At that moment, Yun Qiang realized the situation he was in. Jin clearly liked to torment new arrivals; before Yun Qiang showed up, Brook must have been the "new entry" of the group and had been bullied by Jin. When Yun Qiang arrived, Brook couldn't contain his happiness and started crying, since it wasn't his turn to get beaten up anymore.
"Get up, the test is over."
Yun Qiang struggled to get back on his feet and then bowed, still hoping he had misunderstood Jin's character.
"Thank you for the advice, Sir."
"Your skill is low. If I had to give you a score from one to ten, I would give you a zero."
"How can I resist you," Yun Qiang cursed inwardly, "you are a cultivator while I'm a mortal!"
Still, he was the student and Jin the instructor, so he tried to put on a respectful face and apologized while trying to sound remorseful.
"Now watch my movements. I'm going to introduce you to our sect's spear technique."
Yun Qiang's ears perked up; this was his chance to learn some real skills. He started to watch Jin with eager eyes. Even his "companions" seemed eager to watch Jin execute this spear skill.
Seeing that everyone's attention was on him, Instructor Jin put on a pleased smile and got into position. Then he put on a serious look and executed three lunges and two swipes in quick succession.
Yun Qiang's smile froze.
Spear technique? These moves are clearly standard training moves. Like the ones that Old Qiang forced the village kids to learn. How can you call this a spear technique? There's nothing special about this!"
Yun Qiang was loudly screaming in his mind. He felt deeply deluded by Jin.
While Yun Qiang was cursing inwardly, his "companions" looked ecstatic and were clapping cheerfully.
Is this another of Jin's characteristics? Just show a basic sequence of moves and call it a skill or a technique? Yun Qiang was trying to wrap his head around what had just happened when Jin's words interrupted his thoughts.
"Did you like it?" He was obviously displeased by the lack of clapping.
"Yes, Sir! I was just too impressed with your moves, I didn't know how to react!" responded Yun Qiang. He tried to look and sound astonished. He clearly couldn't tell his true thoughts to Instructor Jin.
"Good, then tell me, why is this technique special?"
Yun Qiang paused for a second while trying to make his best pensive face.
"Speed?" said Yun Qiang tentatively. He couldn't say "nothing," so he might as well say something obvious. In fact, the only difference between a mortal executing this set of moves and a cultivator was the speed of execution. This was because cultivators had stronger bodies, so they could do things faster than a mortal even without using Qi.
Jin's eyes flickered.
"Good, you've got keen eyes. Not everyone can see this," his voice carried a hint of surprise.
Yun Qiang was stumped; however, if he still wanted to walk out of this unharmed, he had to keep up the facade. He put on a humble tone and deeply bowed.
"Thank you, Sir."
"Now do them. I want to see what you managed to learn."
Yun Qiang didn't hesitate and executed the three lunges and two swipes as fast as he could. These were just basic moves, so Yun Qiang didn't have any trouble repeating them. In fact, even a complete beginner could pull them off without putting in much effort. For someone like Yun Qiang, who had trained every morning since he was ten, it was almost effortless.
Jin said, "There are some imperfections. Repeat it."
Yun Qiang started executing the sequence again. However, when he was about to do the second lunge, Jin hit him with his palm. Yun Qiang fell to the ground while struggling to breathe. Every breath he took hurt; the last hit had probably inclined one of his ribs. While Yun Qiang was trying to get up, Jin started talking nonsense again.
"You see, you weren't fast enough, so I could hit you easily."
Yun Qiang then understood: Jin wasn't trying to teach him some kind of technique or special skill. He was just finding an excuse to beat him up.
Obviously, I can't dodge your move or defend because I'm forced to do this sequence till the end. In a real fight, you can't execute an arbitrary sequence of moves and expect to win.
In his mind, Yun Qiang was constantly scolding Instructor Jin, but he wasn't a true cultivator yet, so he had to endure this kind of treatment.
In the next hours, Yun Qiang repeated this technique at Jin's request. Every time he executed the technique, Jin would hit him with his palm while spouting some random excuse like:
"You weren't straight."
"Your spear was too low."
"Your muscles weren't tense enough."
By lunchtime, Yun Qiang had been thoroughly beaten up, and he could barely stand. Luckily, at that point, a man entered the training ground and called Jin for lunch.
"I will go and have lunch. I want to see you here in an hour."
When Instructor Jin finally went out of the training ground, Yun Qiang slumped to the ground, breathing heavily. Now he could go and have lunch.
Brook, the bruised man, got closer. His tone was still full of gratitude, but now Yun Qiang understood why.
"Say, Qiang, do you want to have lunch with us?"
"As long as I don't have to move, yes," Yun Qiang replied with a dry laugh, trying to keep his spirits up.
"Don't worry, we usually eat here. Jin said one hour, but he meant half an hour—he always comes back early," he continued. "I think you know what will happen to latecomers, right?"
Yun Qiang knew the answer—they would be beaten up.
"But what about the food? Where do we get it?" Yun Qiang didn't think he could hold out without it.
"I have some friends in the kitchen," Brook smiled. "They already gave me the food."
Yun Qiang relaxed on the ground for a few minutes, then started getting up.
By the time he got up, they had already prepared everything. He had to admit they were very efficient. The food came from Brook's friends; the table, tableware, and chairs were taken from a nearby house. In less than five minutes, lunch was ready.
The food wasn't anything special, since it consisted only of plain rice, but Yun Qiang didn't complain—he was too hungry. While ravenously eating, he voiced his doubts.
"So, it's always like this?"
"Yes. Instructor Jin is like that. Our training sessions are always the same. He shows off the Ward technique," Brook looked at his old bruises, "then he calls the last arrival and asks him to demonstrate."
"That thing is a real technique?"
Yun Qiang was shocked that something so impractical could be a real technique. If someone really uses that technique in a real fight, I'll write my name in reverse, he inwardly swore.
"Anyway, why are there only five of us?"
"Because we all have first-level spiritual roots. Once we're able to sense Qi and start absorbing it, we're placed into combat training.The others are divided according to their talent—like cooking, medicine, special combat, etcetera."
"So we're just punching bags?"
"Yes."
"If we break through and become cultivators, what training will we receive?"
"I don't know. The closest to that is Sun." He pointed to the blond man who had greeted him earlier. "He should become a cultivator in a year or so."
"Eight months," Sun cut in. "Just give me eight months."
"What about the others?"
"The others?" Brook shrugged, then started pointing to the rest of the people at the table. " I'll need at least four years. Qui will need at least three years, while Fergusson will take four years.
He got closer to Yun Qiang.
"Don't listen to him when he says he'll need less than a year. He likes to brag."
What Yun Qiang really meant to ask was what happened to the ones who had taken the class before them, but from this conversation, Yun Qiang felt something was wrong.
According to his calculations, he was halfway to opening his dantian and becoming a cultivator. However, he had only cultivated for about one year. Since the Qi density here was higher than in his village, he estimated that it would take him about half a year to reach the Qi Gathering realm and become a cultivator.
So why did they need two or more years to reach Qi Gathering?
"What about the disciples with higher-level roots? How long do they need to cultivate?"
"This is basic knowledge. You should know it," Brook joked. "Did they send you directly here without giving you the basic course?"
Yun Qiang knew Brook was joking, but he was directly assigned to Jin—he hadn't taken any basic course before coming here!
"Yes, I arrived yesterday..."
"Then stop wast—" Brook looked at him. "Wait, what? Then how can you cultivate if you don't use the sect method? Did you hav—"
Sun interrupted him again. "Just tell him. He probably received a cultivation method from a wandering cultivator. Stuff like that happens all the time."
"Fine..." Brook paused for a second, then started explaining in a professional tone.
"Every time you go up a level, the time needed to reach Qi Gathering is cut in half.
So with a level 1 spiritual root, you need 5 years. A level 2 needs about 2 and a half years. Level 3 needs a little more than a year, and so on, until you reach level 8. Those guys can reach Qi Gathering in less than a week."
Yun Qiang suddenly thought of his brother, who had a level 9 spiritual root.
"What if someone has a level 9 root?"
"A day, maybe two depending on the conditions. Also bear in mind, I'm not counting the resources the sect would assign to them and stuff like that. So you can expect the timing to be shorter than my estimates if a disciple receives resources from the sect."
Yun Qiang fell silent. His brother was probably a cultivator by now. He felt aggrieved. A year of hard work had only gotten him halfway, while his brother had surpassed him in one day.
Still, if he thought about it, the timing described by Brook didn't make sense, because according to that timing, his cultivation speed was closer to that of a level 3 spiritual root, not a level 1.
Was there a mistake during the talent test?
He was about to ask if something like that was possible, but Brook's smile froze, and his body became tense.
"What time is it?"
Everyone at the table stopped talking, then locked eyes and started to put away the table and the plates.
"Sh.. He should be here any seconds" There was an hint of panic in Sun's voice
Barely a second after they finished cleaning, Instructor Jin walked in, and the training session began again. By dinner time, the session finally ended. Yun Qiang had dinner with his class mates and started walking home. He had totally forgot about the issue of his cultivation spped.His body was full of bruises, and he could barely walk using a spear he borrowed from the training ground.
Once he arrived home, he suddenly didn't mind the small room and the hole in the roof, he meditated for as long as he could then fell face first on the bed and started sleeping.