novelraw Chapter 30 : Chapter 30
Chapter 30 : Chapter 30
Chapter 30: Martial Skill
On the morning of his second day at Martial Academy, Lin Bai was immersed in cultivation. His qi and blood circulated through his body, and every movement of his form carried a faint whistle of tearing air.
Suddenly, that familiar “ding” rang out in his mind once again.
“Please proceed to the designated location to have your exact strength assessed. This concerns your student rating. Students are urged to take this seriously and depart as soon as possible.”
Lin Bai’s body did not stop because of the message. Instead, he continued performing his forms, refining the medicinal power.
Only after the medicinal effects were fully exhausted did Lin Bai slowly draw his movements to a halt. He had moved another step closer to the next stage.
Afterward, Lin Bai picked up the jade token and took a look. Sure enough, a route map was displayed on it, and a glowing point was flashing continuously, as if urging him to hurry on his way.
“What’s the rush? Nice and easy.”
Lin Bai tossed the jade token aside, entered the bath chamber for a simple wash, then changed clothes, picked up the token again, and prepared to leave.
But just as Lin Bai stepped out of the house, the courtyard system notified him that someone was waiting outside for him.
Sure enough, once Lin Bai came out, he saw Wang Yu standing there, pretty and poised, waiting for him.
When she saw Lin Bai emerge, a faint smile appeared on Wang Yu’s cool little face as she said, “You’re here. Let’s go together.”
Lin Bai was briefly taken aback, but he returned a smile as well.
“All right, then let’s go together.”
Lin Bai and Wang Yu walked side by side toward their destination. There were not many people on the road around them, likely because everyone had spread out.
As they walked, Lin Bai shared what he had discovered the day before. Wang Yu, too, had not expected that the token would actually possess awareness.
After about ten minutes of walking, an ancient-looking palace came into view. It was not especially large, but it had eight tightly shut gates.
Quite a few people were already waiting in front of the palace. The place was noisy, and most of those present had come with companions and were chatting among themselves.
Lin Bai noticed that people were already coming out from inside.
One of them seemed to be someone of some reputation, because the moment he emerged, the crowd surrounded him and began asking questions all at once.
“Brother Wang, what exactly is the testing inside like?”
The man did not grow annoyed despite being surrounded. He merely raised a hand to quiet everyone down.
“This Testing Palace is one part of the Firecloud Grotto-Heaven used to evaluate the strength of students like us. I am a Qi Practitioner Daoist. Inside, what was tested were various basic spellcasting methods, physical toughness, and finally the most important part—actual combat.”
He paused, then continued.
“That is the broad outline of the three parts. I hope Wang’s explanation has satisfied everyone.”
Wang Xiao answered everyone’s doubts, then gave every sign of wanting to leave. The crowd thanked him and promptly made way for him to go.
The people immediately began discussing the matter among themselves, and quite a few wore troubled expressions.
“What do we do? My Dao Path isn’t suited for direct combat.”
“Exactly. I wonder whether the Testing Palace will set things according to each person’s own circumstances.”
“It should, shouldn’t it? The Dao Paths and strengths of the people here are all different.”
At that moment, another person came out, and the crowd surged forward again to continue gathering information.
But none of that had anything to do with Wang Xiao. He had finally managed to escape the crowd.
As soon as he came out, he saw his younger female cousin standing together with some boy. He raised a brow and walked over to take a look.
“Cousin, you’ve finished your test?”
Wang Yu was delighted to see Wang Xiao arrive. At last, there was someone she could ask directly.
“Yes, Cousin, I’ve finished. And this friend beside you is?”
“This is Lin Bai. Come to think of it, he’s half a member of the Wang Family as well. His mother is from our Yunmeng Shenxiu Wang Family.”
Seeing Wang Yu introduce him, Lin Bai saluted Wang Xiao.
“Brother Wang.”
Wang Xiao more or less understood the situation from that introduction and returned the salute.
“I’ll explain the situation inside to the two of you in more detail.”
What followed was Wang Xiao repeating everything he had said outside the palace gates, only more thoroughly this time. At the end, he also revealed one additional piece of information he had not mentioned earlier.
“Cousin, you’re saying that in the actual combat portion, the longer one lasts, the more Merit Points one receives? And only by passing during this first assessment can one earn those Merit Points?”
“That’s right. But each round is harder than the last. Even I only made it through three rounds.”
Wang Xiao said this quite frankly.
As Lin Bai listened to the implications in Wang Xiao’s words, one of his brows rose involuntarily.
So this was a limited-time event too.
After explaining things to the two of them, Wang Xiao did not linger. He still needed to return and cultivate.
Lin Bai and Wang Yu, meanwhile, drew closer to listen to the experiences of different people coming out from inside.
Some were unwilling to share, while others clearly enjoyed the feeling of being surrounded by a crowd. But those who did share all tacitly avoided revealing the exact details of the final actual combat portion.
Lin Bai also listened to the explanation of someone whose Dao Path was likewise that of a Martial Artist.
The first part was Martial Skill—that is, technique, things like saber arts and sword arts.
The remaining two parts were the same for everyone: physical qualities and actual combat ability.
But there were still quite a few people present, and since Lin Bai and Wang Yu had arrived somewhat late, they still had to wait a bit.
Although there were many people in line, the process moved quickly. After roughly another half shichen, it was finally Lin Bai and Wang Yu’s turn.
During that time, many of those who came out wore worried expressions, and seeing that made Lin Bai feel inexplicably more tense as well.
They each walked toward different doors. After Lin Bai pushed open one of them, he realized that what lay inside could not be seen from the outside at all.
Lin Bai did not hesitate. He stepped straight inside.
Beyond the door was a dark tunnel, dotted only with faint light, enough to barely make out the way ahead. He kept walking forward.
At the end was a soft halo of light. Passing through it, Lin Bai found himself inside a strange silver-white space, surrounded on all sides by flowing colors, as if he stood within a tunnel of time and space.
As Lin Bai made contact with it, the environment was rapidly rendered into a martial arena.
“Tester Lin Bai, have you made your preparations? The first trial, ‘Martial Skill,’ is about to begin. Would you like to choose a weapon?”
A figure of light began to appear before Lin Bai, then swiftly condensed into solid form.
It was a woman.
She wore plain white garments and was tall and slender, but her face could not be seen clearly. The only feature that could truly be seen was her eyes.
Her eyes held a kind of disregard for life itself—not bloodthirst, not numbness, but an indifference so detached that all beings seemed equal before it.
And her gaze was far too lively, as though she were a real person.
Lin Bai did not act rashly. Instead, he asked the space a question.
“What exactly are the rules of this first trial?”
The Spirit of the Space answered him as well.
“In the Martial Skill Trial, the tester will have all strength sealed. Both sides will compare their skills using only the abilities of ordinary people.”
“Tester, surviving ten moves counts as pass, thirty moves as good, fifty moves as excellent, and beyond one hundred moves as Radiant Sun. These are the standards by which the Martial Skill Trial is judged.”
So after ten moves it counts as a pass, and there’s no standard for killing the opponent in return.
Lin Bai frowned as he thought this to himself. He did not believe for a second that the space had simply forgotten to set a standard for passing by defeating the opponent. There could only be one explanation.
It was too difficult. People like them, who came here to attempt the trial, simply could not do it.
The Spirit of the Space repeated itself.
“Tester Lin Bai, are you prepared? If no selection is made, the Martial Skill Trial will forcibly begin in one minute.”
Hearing that, Lin Bai had no choice but to answer loudly, “I choose the saber.”
If the trial was purely about martial skill, then the saber was his best choice. If he chose the bow instead, and the gap between enemy and self proved too great, then the enemy might not even let him touch them at all.
Various kinds of blades appeared within the space for him to choose from. In the end, Lin Bai selected the Goose-quill Saber he was most accustomed to using.
The same Goose-quill Saber also appeared in the hands of the woman opposite him.
As the trial began, Lin Bai discovered that his Force had been sealed, and his body too had been reduced to the level of an ordinary person.
Lin Bai was still adjusting to the jarring weakness of his body when he saw the woman opposite him “come alive.” With her saber in hand, she slowly began approaching him.
Lin Bai also set his stance and prepared for battle.
The woman moved faster and faster, until in the end she broke into a run. Lin Bai knew exactly what she was thinking—she wanted to use speed to add power to the force of her saber strike.
Lin Bai did not choose to meet that strike head-on. Instead, he shifted sideways to evade. To his surprise, the blade folded back the instant it passed him.
Lin Bai gave a cold snort. As he stepped half a pace backward, the Goose-quill Saber in his own hand shot out like a venomous snake, stabbing toward the other party’s throat.
The faceless woman had no choice but to retreat, while also changing the direction of her own blade to block Lin Bai’s strike.
Unfortunately for her, she was changing her blade mid-motion. How could the strength behind her saber compare to Lin Bai’s? She suffered a hidden loss and was forced a step back.
After that round of probing, the woman seemed to realize that Lin Bai was no reckless fool.
She adjusted her position and continued exchanging blade strikes with him.
Over the next several clashes, Lin Bai judged that the other party’s sabersmanship was roughly at the level of someone who had immersed herself in the art for several years. She was better than he was, but he could still cope.
Yet the moment he survived ten moves, the woman’s saber suddenly changed!
Her attacks became more and more vicious and strange, and her movement technique fit her blade-light perfectly, clinging to Lin Bai like a disease attached to the bone.
Damn it, this thing really does get stronger step by step.
Gritting his teeth, Lin Bai began dodging left and right to evade her saber. If he could not avoid it, he used his own blade to force her into defense. And if even that failed, he did his best to keep the attack from landing on a vital point.
But it was as if the woman could see through his intentions. Her blade deliberately attacked non-vital areas in order to wear down his stamina and reduce his mobility.
For a time, Lin Bai felt as though he were being flayed alive. Blood streamed from wound after wound, and his strength was draining away with terrifying speed. Before long, he was already gasping for breath.
“Seventeenth strike, eighteenth strike, nineteenth... strike...”
By now, Lin Bai no longer dared to hope for a “good” rating.
He only hoped he could endure a few more strikes.
Unfortunately, on the twenty-first strike, Lin Bai was “bitten” by the woman’s strange saber technique, and a large chunk of flesh was sliced from his left arm.
The sharp pain and blood loss caused his movements to falter for a split second, and the woman seized that opening at once. Her next strike folded upward, heading straight for Lin Bai’s neck.
Lin Bai wanted to recover and defend, but the pull of exhaustion and pain dragged at him. He could only watch helplessly as that saber cut toward his throat.
The moment the cold blade bit into Lin Bai’s neck, everything scattered like smoke.
The faceless woman, the martial arena, the wounds covering his body—everything dissolved like mist.
He had returned once more to the original silver-white space. His strength and body were restored exactly as before, but the cold sensation at his neck and the woman’s indifferent eyes still lingered.
Lin Bai’s strength and body had already recovered to their original state, but he himself collapsed directly onto the ground, panting heavily.
“Hah... hah...”
He was simply too tired.
Not physically tired, but exhausted in spirit.
That final illusion of death, when the blade had sunk into his neck at the end, still circled in his mind.
To tell the truth, he had just about thought he was going to die.
It took a good while before Lin Bai managed to steady his state of mind again.
He touched the place where he had been injured just now, only to find it perfectly intact.
Was that an illusion? Or some law of life or time? Forget it. It doesn’t matter.
Lin Bai began reviewing the battle he had just fought.
“On the twenty-first strike, I shouldn’t have turned my body sideways. I should have used my saber to defend first, then pulled back and created distance.”
In the end, it all came down to one thing: his actual combat experience was far too limited. Since awakening, barely more than a month had passed. The road had been smooth all the way up until now. When had he ever gone through a life-and-death battle like that?
But that did not mean it was an excuse.
A loss was a loss.
Just like that killing strike to his throat a moment ago—it would never listen to your reasons.
So Lin Bai was reviewing everything now, absorbing these invaluable lessons.
Coming to Martial Academy this time was precisely a good opportunity to make up for such shortcomings.
While Lin Bai was resting, the silver-white space also announced his result.
“Tester Lin Bai survived twenty-one moves. First trial result: Pass.”
When he heard that result, Lin Bai accepted it gladly. After all, his martial skill really was only at that level right now. And with every battle, he improved.
One must not underestimate Lin Bai’s talent of one hundred twenty-nine thousand six hundred star charts.