Chapter 168 Exchange
Faced with Ferdinand’s question, Fang Xingjian shook his head without hesitation and said, “I’m not interested.”
Ferdinand let out a sigh. Seeing that light on Fang Xingjian’s fingertip, Ferdinand knew that he was still cultivating the Radiant Light Sword Technique. He suddenly asked, “Xingjian, could it be that you’re still thinking of participating in the upcoming Regional Selection?”
Fang Xingjian kept quiet for a while. He thought that there should be no problem for him to say this and, thus, nodded, “That’s right. I do have plans to participate in the upcoming Regional Selection.”
Ferdinand continued to ask, “Then do you know how competitive the upcoming Regional Selection will be?”
“It affects the budget for all the Prefectural Academies for the next year. It should be the most competitive one in the past few decades.” Fang Xingjian said calmly.
“Then do you know that in the Regional Selection, other than battle style competitions such as arena battles and hunting, there’s also a test for one’s talent?” Ferdinand said, “The test for one’s talent is usually to observe the Pantheon Monument.”
The Pantheon Monuments were the eight giant stone monuments the eight Divine level experts had created when the Empire was founded.
The Pantheon Monuments recorded the comprehensions of the eight Divine level experts and there was one such Pantheon Monument in each of the Regional Academies in the respective regions.
The final test in the Regional Selection was to comprehend martial arts through the Pantheon Monument Observation. At the level of the Divine level experts, weapons were no longer able to hold them back. Pantheon Monument Observation allowed one to comprehend any kind of martial arts, including sword arts, saber arts, staff arts, and spear arts.
Moreover, there were a total of eight such Pantheon Monuments and some of them had words, while others had drawings. There were even those with lines, sketches or even unknown words which appeared to be meaningless to ordinary people.
As for the one in Kirst, it was one with countless weird lines and circles.
The victory for this stage naturally laid in who was able to comprehend the most from the Pantheon Monument in a shorter amount of time.
Having lost his sight, Fang Xingjian had lost the stage before it had even started. No matter how powerful his senses were with his sword Qis, it was impossible for him to even be able to sense the various prints and colors on the monument.
Fang Xingjian gave it some thought before saying, “It’s true that I had not tried to find out the content of this stage. Thank you for telling me.”
Ferdinand smiled, “But you still don’t plan on giving up?”
“I still want to attempt it.”
“Since you plan to continue despite knowing about this, then you must have thought through the consequences. I shan’t try to convince you any further then.” Ferdinand continued, “But you should still make some changes to how the classes are held. How about letting everyone have a one day trial class? With this, you should be able to get even more students.”
Ferdinand trusted that with Fang Xingjian’s ability to guide, as long as the others have tried it, they would definitely be craving for more and would, therefore, sign up for the class. This would also allow Fang Xingjian to earn more tuition fees and relieve some of his financial stress.
“And…” Ferdinand smiled and said, “You don’t have to go too hard on yourself either. Those Knights will definitely come back if they can get half the results they got today. Of course, you must still take better care of me.”
…
After Ferdinand left, Fang Xingjian went back to his training room to continue his cultivation, but he did not need to guide others now. His sword fingers glowed and as he cultivated the Radiant Light Sword Technique, his mind continued to think about sensing ether particles.
‘The ether particles are omnipresent. Since an ether particle is both a wave and a particle, based on the Earth’s theories, it should be really similar to electromagnetic waves.
‘Electromagnetism… Based on the Earth’s theories, the way to receive electromagnetic waves is to sense electric currents.
‘But how do I sense ether particles? Heat, electric current, various radiations… Ether particles can be transformed into almost anything…
‘It’s too hard to study its intrinsic qualities. I need to think of some other ways.’
As he gave it some thought, he suddenly thought of one more thing. ‘That reminds me. My Boundaries Negation can make up for the lack of the other attributes to complement my agility attribute. It can even allow me to temporarily transmit information through ether particles and increase my reaction.
‘Maybe I can start pondering over it from the Boundaries Negation.’
Just as Fang Xingjian was pondering deeply, occasionally activating his Boundaries Negation, occasionally sending out sword ripples at the slowest speed possible and then slowly attempting to sense the ether particles, someone knocked on the door.
Lina walked in, looked at Fang Xingjian and said, “Sir, someone has come to look for you. He said that his name is Manny.”
A short moment later, Fang Xingjian was seated in the study. Manny walked in, looking at him with great curiosity.
“Although you’ve lost your sight, you’re already able to discern the location through the wind. It’s as if you’re not blind. Is this for real?”
Fang Xingjian let out a cold snort and, with a tap of his sword fingers, sent three streams of sword Qis toward Manny. The latter laughed out loud and retreated three steps, dodging the streams. He was just about to tease Fang Xingjian for being a tad weaker when he noticed, with a bang, his belt had broken and dropped onto the floor.
He exhaled, shook his head and said, “You’re great.”
Fang Xingjian said calmly, “You’re the great one. The Headmaster’s son, hidden in the library and acting like a normal person. Not everyone can have so much restraint.”
“Hehe.” Manny grinned and tried to change the topic, seeming as though he was unwilling for the other party to dwell too much on this topic. He said directly, “The old man feels that he has let you down and feels apologetic. That’s why he has sent me with a gift.”
With that, he took out a large stack of books and said to Fang Xingjian, “These are all books with the records of how well-known Conferred Knights from over the generations had strived to attain the Heaven’s Perception. Take a look, they should be useful to you.”
Seeing Fang Xingjian’s frown, Manny broke out laughing, “I’m just joking. I know you can’t read. I’m here to specially read them out loud for you.”
Fang Xingjian asked, “Read? Don’t you need to cultivate? Didn’t you make a comeback this time in order to participate in the Regional Selection?”
“Sigh, I’ve been cultivating for so many years that these three months would not make much of a difference. However, if I can sense the ether particles and attain Heaven’s Perception before the Regional Selection, both my battle prowess and talent would be raised greatly. It would mean that I’m one step closer to passing the Regional Selection.”
Heaven’s Perception allowed one to sense the information in the ether particles. This allowed one’s senses to be escalated when in battle. It could even go one step further if one could transmit information through ether particles, escalating the body’s reaction greatly. One’s battle prowess would naturally greatly be increased.
Another thing was that one could, through Heaven’s Perception, sense various external changes, the minute existence of various techniques as well as mental states. It was equivalent to increasing one’s talent at a crazy pace.
Manny grinned and said, “If I can attain Heaven’s Perception before the Regional Selection, putting aside everything else, at least I would have gained a great advantage in the Pantheon Monument Observation. I wonder what martial arts I’d be able to comprehend.
“And how amazing are the rewards for this Regional Selection? I reckon that there will definitely be students who will receive excessive investments, leading to the creation of one or two geniuses with Heaven’s Perception.”
As Manny spoke, he flipped open a book and started to read its contents.
“Mmm, this was written by a Westerner called Scholar Huang Long, a Conferred Knight from over two hundred years ago. This is an expression you guys have.”
By you guys, he was naturally assuming that Fang Xingjian, with his yellow skin and black eyes, was exactly the same as the Westerners in the Miracle World.
“If the heart moves, the will follows. Stop without stopping, move without moving…”
“… Relax the spirit, be flexible and move the spirit with your heart…”