087 Awakening

I seem to have come to the wrong place,” Tianhai said with an awkward laugh as he struggled to his feet. “I’ll be going now.” He turned as if to leave.

“Come sit here,” the old man said.

Tianhai’s shoulders drooped. He shuffled over and sat down on the floor opposite the old man. For some reason, in the presence of this mysterious elder, he became meek as a mouse before a cat, even more obedient than he was around his father.

When he left the room with Zhong Yun and the others earlier, a voice had suddenly sounded in his ear: “Shake off those two later and come find me alone.”

As if possessed, he had actually come. Thinking back now, he had no idea what had gotten into him.

“Do you know why I called you here?” The old man studied him intently, his eyes growing brighter and brighter. Tianhai felt a little unnerved by that gaze. Why did the way he looked at me remind me of how I look at rare model kits? Don’t tell me—

At the thought of that possibility, a chill ran through him.

Seeing that he did not answer, the old man paid it no mind. The wrinkles on his face twitched, and he forced out a sinister smile. “Do you want to become a powerful martial artist?”

“No.” Tianhai rejected it without a second thought. The old man’s expression and voice made him think of a sleazy uncle luring a little girl with candy.

The smile vanished from the old man’s face, and he returned to that stiff expression.

Tianhai only felt increasingly uneasy, and mustering his courage, he stood up. “I’m leaving.”

“If you want to leave, then leave,” the old man said, his voice unreadable.

Those words made Tianhai feel as if he had been granted amnesty. He turned and walked toward the door. Just as his hand reached for the handle, the old man’s voice sounded again.

“If you wish to remain forever the burden and shadow that trails behind your two friends…”

Tianhai’s hand froze.

The old man’s words struck him like a hammer blow. In that instant, the door seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. No matter how hard he tried, he could not pull it open even a fraction. He stood there, motionless.

“It’s clear you are very close friends,” the old man said slowly. “Chenwen and your other friend are two of the finest young people I have ever seen. Their future achievements will be boundless. And you? You are only an ordinary person.”

“Now you are still young. Friendship can still hold. But what about when you grow up? The gap between you and them will only widen. By then, you will be nothing but a drag on them. Even if they still treat you as a friend, what will others say about you…”

“Enough.”

Tianhai roared and turned around, his eyes bloodshot as he glared at the old man like a beast ready to tear someone apart. The old man’s words were like sharp blades, stabbing relentlessly at the weakest places in his heart until they were riddled with wounds.

Mockery flickered in the old man’s eyes as he said mercilessly, “Others will only say that you’re clinging to their coattails. And by then, you will discover that their feelings toward you have slowly turned into pity…”

“I told you to stop talking!”

The thing Tianhai feared most had been laid bare before him without mercy. Rage and panic surged through his chest, and like a madman he lunged at the old man. But when he was half a meter away, he was hurled back by an invisible wall of force and crashed to the floor two meters away.

“I’ll ask you once more. Do you want to become a powerful martial artist? Do you want to become a man worthy of your two friends?” the old man demanded sharply.

An invisible pressure descended upon Tianhai, making it almost impossible for him to move. He clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles cracked. His teeth ground together, and because he was exerting himself so hard, blue veins stood out around his temples.

Slowly, inch by inch, Tianhai forced himself upright. “You—shut—up.”

He stood up and shattered the pressure the old man had imposed upon him. Under immense anger and unwillingness, he stirred the boundless potential within himself and let out a roar from the very depths of his soul.

A flash of approval crossed the old man’s eyes. Indeed, he was the young man he had chosen; he had awakened so quickly.

Tianhai stood there, feeling an unprecedented surge of power within him. His expression changed several times. After a while, he knelt. “Teach me. I want to become a strong companion for Zhong Yun and the others, not a burden.”

In the hall beyond the door, Zhong Yun had placed his hand on that metal pillar and fallen into a strange state. The primal force within him seemed to be drawn by something, streaming along his arm toward the metal column. At first it was only a trickle, but then it became a raging river, impossible to stop.

Zhong Yun was horrified. Acting on instinct, he used the new method of control he had just learned and decisively severed his connection to the metal pillar.

Pulling his hand away, Zhong Yun staggered back a few steps. Chenwen was already there to steady him. Still shaken, Zhong Yun said to him, “That pillar is kind of evil.”

Chenwen chuckled. He remembered his own reaction had been much the same. After all, if the power you had painstakingly cultivated were suddenly sucked away, anyone would be startled.

At that moment, purple light flashed over the entire metal pillar. After a long while, an electronic voice rang out through the hall: “Challenge level of the martial arts candidate: Level Four. The combat skill test will be held in ten days.”

Everyone in the hall had been straining their ears to listen. When the testing device announced “Level Four,” the whole room erupted in an uproar. How could that young man in school uniform look older than twenty? And he was already at Level Four!

The way they looked at Zhong Yun changed.

The growth of martial arts was strange. Before the age of twenty, progress was extremely slow; only after twenty did it begin to accelerate, peaking at thirty. Then it slowed again until death.

Throughout this process, the primal force was in fact constantly increasing, only at varying rates. Unless the body suffered major injury, it would continue to grow automatically even if one did not know how to cultivate it.

Historically, the highest martial arts level achieved before the age of twenty was set by a woman four hundred years ago, who broke through to the sixth level at nineteen. In truth, the most formidable was Liu Yunqi, but out of protective concerns, those who knew the truth had never revealed her situation, so no one was aware of it.

Reaching Level Three before twenty was already extremely rare. Level Four could be called genius. Level Five and above was monstrous.

So when they learned that this young man was already at Level Four, it was only natural that they were so astonished. People invariably held a certain awe for genius.

“Level Four?” A trace of suspicion flashed in Chenwen’s eyes. By his feeling, Zhong Yun ought to be stronger than that, but the testing device should not be wrong.

He had not imagined that Zhong Yun would actually break free from the testing device’s powerful suction and, unintentionally, retain part of his strength.

The device’s pull was unmatched; even masters at levels seven or eight from Chenwen’s family could not break free during testing. That was why he had never considered that possibility.

“Level Four? Hmph.”

Hearing the result, the man in the corner’s expression darkened, and a cold smile crept onto his lips.

Did anyone guess who this man is?

PS: The big push starts today. Tonight we’re charging the rankings, and there will be another chapter at midnight. Those of you still around then, please cast me a vote. Many thanks.