Chapter 5: Gold And Silver
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
After five days of training, relying on his good eyesight and body foundation, Su Yu finally achieved Stage Two. He was only a step away from achieving Stage Three, the peak of Universal Stroke.
At Stage Three, the power of Universal Stroke was even more swift and fierce. It was said that if the practitioner achieved Upper Tier, their fist and leg attacks would be continuous, oppressing the opponent and not giving them a chance to counter attack.
However, Su Yu felt that his level of maturity was not nearly enough to achieve Stage Three in Universal Stroke. He decided to temporarily stop training.
As Su Yu did not have any arrows with him, he could not practice Secret Book Of Hundred-Foot Piercing Arrow. As such, he was only left with Shadow Cloud, which he was looking forward to. He flipped open the book and started to read carefully.
At that moment, Su Yu became worried. After he had read hundreds of words, he felt dizzy. He did not understand the book's content, causing his head to spin.
"Pff! This cultivation technique is so hard to understand; that's why it requires such powerful insight. Seems like mine is not powerful enough." Su Yu discovered a hard truth. However, he was persistent and would not give up on what he decided.
"I don't believe that I can't understand this book!" Su Yu rubbed his palm against his sleeves, and fixed his eyes upon the book. His distinct crystalline pupils appeared.
For two hours, Su Yu was as still as a rock. Suddenly, he fell down on the ground and fell asleep. Without realizing, he activated the abilities of his crystalline pupils. Even though two hours had passed in the actual world, he had been trying to understand the book for a full twenty hours! His mind was exhausted, and he finally fell asleep.
After one hour, he flipped his body back up smartly and continued to read the book of the cultivation technique with great concentration, causing him to enter the time-accelerated space. After two hours, he fell asleep again.
An hour later, he got up and continued reading the book. He repeated this process for two whole days.
Taking away the time he used to sleep and rest, he had been trying to understand the book for 320 hours. He did not eat or drink, did not sleep or rest, for a total of 13 full days!
At this point, Su Yu's eyes turned bloodshot and his head was spinning. However, his face wore a silly smile. "I have succeeded!" Although he had only understood the process of attaining Stage One, it was considered successful! Su Yu laughed.
His insight was not very powerful; it could only be considered above average. However, due to his diligence, he managed to succeed in understanding the book.
Su Yu bent his knees and exerted force on his legs. His body was like a swallow soaring in the sky, with a stride of around two meters. His body was as light as a swan goose feather, floating lightly within the forest.
His silhouette was like the wind, jumping gracefully in the forest, as though he had the shadow of the white clouds, drifting away quickly and freely like nature; it was also as if he was floating gracefully like a duckweed, capturing the attention of those who caught a glimpse at him as he drifted along the direction of the waves.
A young lady wearing a purple shirt was amazed. "Hey, young princess, look at that handsome movement technique. From his speed alone, he should have achieved at least Level Two Upper Tier."
Beside her was a girl who wore a light yellow dress and had a thin, delicate figure. She was petite and dainty, with big, round eyes that made her look adorable. She had an exquisite face, looking as though it had been carefully carved. Her skin was as white as snow, resembling a porcelain doll.
After hearing what the young lady said, the beautiful lady opened up her eyes big and looked around. However, she did not see anyone. The beautiful lady suddenly stared at the lady wearing the purple shirt. "Humph! Cut the crap, let's quickly enter the mountain, kill the beasts and sell them for money, buy spirit elixir to raise our inner strength which will then strengthen our body!"
"Stupid father, he had frozen all my money, causing me to take the risk and enter the mountainous forest! I am going to go on a hunger strike!" the beautiful lady complained angrily.
The lady wearing the purple shirt laughed, turned around and rushed towards a 15- or 16-year-old bodyguard who had been following them and instructed him, "Li Minghai, please take note to protect the young princess from any threats."
"Understood!" the young man answered excitedly. When his eyes swept across the beautiful lady's back, they hid a burning passion.
The beautiful lady turned around and glared at him, replying with disdain, "Protect me? You? Humph, I only brought you here to help me carry the prey! I do not need anyone to protect me!"
As the martial arts training institute only holds duels in the arena once every six months, it attracted a lot of attention. It was like the monthly examinations in schools on Earth.
There were 100 students sporadically waiting at the side of the arena. They were students who were participating in the duel. Some of them had been issued a challenge by the challenger, while some of them had issued challenges to the others.
"Who is Su Yu?" a sweet and charming voice echoed among the crowd.
Su Yu tilted his head. An ugly-looking young lady around 15 years of age, wearing a loose and comfortable black shirt, with disheveled hair and her face full of pimples, was glancing left and right, looking for Su Yu.
In that area, the crowd automatically separated for her. The crowd was fearful of her but detested her at the same time.
"You were the one who issued me a challenge? Chen Feng!" Su Yu did not cower in fear. Anything that came his way, he would have to face sooner or later.
The black-shirted young lady was indeed Chen Feng. Her bright eyes fell on Su Yu. As she came closer, her eyes seemed to be filled with charm. She looked up and down, nodded her head with a slight laughter and commended, "Not bad; handsome and delicate, you are to big sister's liking."
"It is a pity that I am not interested in that face of yours which says 'I'm sorry' to the crowd." Su Yu crossed his arms and stood up. Even though he was secretly defending himself against being poisoned by Chen Feng, he was still rude to her.
Since she was his enemy, why should he be polite?
"Hey, look at that kid; is he looking to die? Chen Feng hates anyone who calls her ugly!"
"Shh! Keep it soft! Chen Feng is narrow-minded. The pretty female senior who was disfigured last year secretly called Chen Feng ugly. Hence, she was issued a challenge by Chen Feng and was secretly poisoned."
"The frightening part about Chen Feng is that her poisoning techniques were strange; you would not realize that you had been poisoned. When the poison starts to take effect later on, the institute is unable to catch her red-handed. As such, up until today, she still remains at large."
"This kid Su Yu doesn't ring a bell. However, he probably secretly called her ugly and she found out. Now, he is going to suffer."
At this moment, a white-bearded referee slowly walked into the arena, and declared emphatically, "Begin the duel!"
Chen Feng showed no signs of anger but instead she smiled even more. No matter how one looked at her smile, it looked evil when combined with her toad-like face.
"Little boy, big sister will treat you nicely later!" Every word she said sounded cold and vicious.
"It is still unknown who the winner will be!" Su Yu said cold heartedly.
"First round, gold student, Li Minghao, versus silver student, Xu Sen."
Li Minghao had achieved Level Three Lower Tier of the Martial Path! Xu Sen had also achieved Level Three Lower Tier of the Martial Path.
Li Minghao was a student in the same batch as Su Yu when he was recruited. After being in the training institute for one year, he achieved Level Three of the Martial Path.
As for Xu Sen, he belonged to the previous batch of older silver students. He only managed to achieve Level Three of the Martial Path after two years. Moreover, among the silver students, Xu Sen's abilities were above average. This was the gap between gold and silver students; it was also the difference between their talents!
"Xu Sen, you have the guts to challenge me!" Li Minghao crossed his arms and stood up, looking at Xu Sen scornfully.
Xu Sen stared at Li Minghao with reddish eyes and had an expression of hatred. He gnashed his teeth and said, "Li Minghao! Both of us cannot exist together! Qian-er and I are childhood sweethearts who grew up together. However, you forcefully robbed her from me. If I don't take my revenge today, then I am not a man!"
Xu Sen was a bit agitated to the point that he said this out loud as though the crowd was nonexistent. Beneath the stage, Su Yu's heart was slightly moved. He had a similar experience to Xu Sen.
Li Minghao laughed loud. "You're speaking of Li Qian, that little lady? Ha ha, she threw herself at me; why do I need to forcefully snatch her away? Although I had had enough fun and dumped her, I must say that she was not too bad and gave me a good time."
Even though Li Minghao was only 15 years old, as the son of a prestigious family, he found it easy to play with women.
"If you wanted to blame someone, blame it on your own inability to capture the heart of the lady you like." Li Minghao laughed coldly. "It is still not too late for you to take back that trash now? Maybe she would have a change of heart Ha ha…"
"I will kill you!" Xu Sen's inner strength rose to its maximum, and he had lost any form of reasoning.
"Swift Horizontal Knife!" Xu Sen roared loudly. His inner strength was like a rainbow, fierce and astonishing. He took out a black horse-slaying knife, held it firmly and plunged towards Li Minghao's neck.
The execution of his moves was astonishing, fast like a startled swan.
As Su Yu watched the match, his heart was racing. If he were the one facing Xu Sen's knife, he would have no chance of surviving.
Li Minghao sneered, "Heartless Fallen Petals!"
His palms were so swift and tactful like the shadow of a beautiful snake, floating and twisting its body. He was as fast as lightning, and his speed was superior to the horse-slaying knife.
A layer of shadow flickered. Li Minghao's palms were wrapped around the back of Xu Sen's knife, and they continued to wriggle upwards. Immediately after that, Li Minghao's five fingers came together to form a crane mouth and ruthlessly pecked at Xu Sen's wrist.
When Xu Sen felt the pain, the horse-slaying knife dropped from his hand. Given this opportunity, Li Minghao casually stretched his palm forward and jabbed Xu Sen in his chest.
Ahh－
As though he got an electric shock, Xu Sen screamed loudly and was sent flying backwards. As he flew, he spit out a pool of blood and fainted on the spot.
Su Yu's pupils shrunk.
He is so strong! Even though both of them had achieved Level Three of the Martial Path, Xu Sen is unable to block a single move of Li Minghao! Su Yu was stunned.
One side of the arena was full of shocked silver students. Among the silver students, Xu Sen is ranked number three. Even though he is this strong, he still suffered a crushing defeat!
This was the difference between gold and silver students! Not only was there a big difference in their talents, the difference in power between their cultivation techniques was great as well.
Heartless Fallen Petals belonged to medium-level cultivation techniques while Swift Horizontal Knife belonged to basic-level cultivation techniques. When compared, the difference in power between them was huge.
Li Minghao walked down the stage, relaxed. As he walked past Xu Sen, he took out his student number plate. Every student had a number plate that was used as a form of identification in the martial arts training institute. Li Minghao's student number plate was light gold in color. As for Su Yu, his student number plate had a dim and silvery grey color.
At that moment, Xu Sen's silvery white student number plate in his chest glowed dimly for a few minutes. A ray of silver light then flew into Li Minghao's number plate, and the light gold color became slightly brighter for a minute.
Upon seeing that, Li Minghao spit at Xu Sen's face with disdain. "Only this much martial art energy! What a waste of my time!"
Martial art energy was what the martial arts training institute used to measure the students' standard of ability. With the least amount of martial arts energy like Su Yu, the student number plate would have a dim and silvery grey color, meaning that his ability was one of the lowest.
With the most amount of martial arts energy, such as Li Minghao, the student number plate will be light gold in color.
Apart from duels and the student's cultivation base, a comprehensive consideration of the student's ability could also affect the color of their number plate.
The only way for a silver student to become a gold student was to fight continuously and seize their opponent's martial arts energy to become stronger. There would come a day where the martial arts energy reached its maximum. At this stage, the student number plate would change into that of gold student's, meaning the student would officially become a gold student.
From then on, if a gold student wished to have special resources for training, the martial arts training institute would open their doors to them.
All the silver students wished to become gold students; becoming a gold student was their target.
The crowd saw Li Minghao off with respect, and they did not dare to breathe heavily. A few more matches followed, but none of them involved any gold students.
"Tenth round, silver student, Chen Feng, versus silver student, Zheng Tao."
Su Yu's face turned to that of fear; it was an opportunity for him to observe Chen Feng.