Mind Cultivation Demonstration

After listening to Tao Xue's answer, the various people, from students to the Vice-Principal, all of them had their mouths wide open, and they had an awestruck expression on their face. The Vice-Principal took the least time to recover from the initial shock that he and the others had suffered, and his surprised expression soon turned into a smile.

What Tao Xue had said wasn't wrong in any case, and the logic he had used was also correct. The students were still shocked, though, but teacher Jun Yao, standing next to the Vice-Principal, and teacher Bao Tan had already retracted their gazes. As teacher Bao Tan had previously explained, there was no predefined way to distinguish correct answers from wrong answers, as all of the answers were deemed correct.

The objective of this test was to understand the way each student thinks, and by the frist question's answer that he had given, they had already understood that Tao Xue was no ordinary person.

They all had their hopes set up high for Tao Xue, and they were already waiting to see what was in stock for them, if he answered the rest of the questions, but surprisingly, he didn't even look at the rest of the test. He was satisfied with just answering one question.

There were quite a few questions, which were of the same kind as the previous one, like, "Who would you team up with if you were a Soul Cultivator?" There was the same question for all the three types of Cultivations, and the answers sure varied a lot. There had been quite a few heated discussions, like the first question, but none of them were that amazing after they had seen the first one, previously.

For most of the questions, there were some students answering the questions, even though less than one-third of the population of the class, there were still answers, but when the questions were related to Mind Cultivation, there were no students raising their hands, and the only thing they said was that they still weren't familiar with Mind Cultivation, and hadn't seen it yet, so they weren't sure of what to do.

Through all this, Tao Xue watched quietly, from the back of the room, as if he were trying to conceal his presence by blending into the shadows. The reason to this was but obvious for him.

Since he wouldn't be graded for the test, he didn't care if he answered the rest of the questions or not. Answering the first question gave him a little bit of attention from the other people present, but he didn't want to be a very famous students, or the valedictorian of his class, who answered all the questions all the time. That just made him feel as if he were a nerd.

Vice-Principal Huan was surprised, as well as both the teachers. They had expected Tao Xue to answer all of the questions, and each of them in a special way, as he had done for the first one. But, they had already found out that he had a very complex way of thinking, and he wasn't any normal student, and he had surprised them again,by not doing what they had thought of. He was just like a being whose actions couldn't be predicted. He would surprise them at the last moment by doing something they hadn't even the wildest dreams that he would do.

After the test was over, teacher Bao Tan stood on the little stage, and looked at each of the students, and addressed them, "As I was previously saying, this was a test solely about your own way of thinking, and I had just prepared it for the sake of understanding you and the way you think better."

He then pointed towards a weird chess-like game placed at the front of the arena in which there was all sorts of weird-looking stuff, and said, "This chess-like game here is one of the equipment us Mind Cultivators use to refine our mental and thinking skills, as well as to plan strategies for battles, and plan counter-measures in case the enemy also has a strategist on their side. Come over here and observe me."

He took out a page from underneath the board game, kept inside a drawer inside the table, and sat on a chair. He then showed the page to all the students. It spelled, "Rotating Blade Formation".

He said to the students, "This, here, is a very basic and simple attacking formation for Cultivators fighting in a group. This is a formation best suited for beginners, both for strategists, and also for the real fighters who will be a part of this formation, because it is very flexible, and is easy to learn. Another thing is that this formation has very little requirements. In this formation, there is a straight line of Cultivators, a Body type at the front and another Body type at the back. Between them will be Soul types, and, there can be as many of them you want to keep. The Body types use their physical strength to attack the enemy, while the Soul types use their Soul attacks, for example throwing a fireball at the enemy, from relatively longer distances. The straight line keeps on moving, in the same manner as rotation, in which the member in the middle stays put, and the group of Cultivators in front of him struck the enemy first, instantly after which, they move back, and the group standing at the back comes and delivers the attacks from its members. There can be variations of this formation, as if there are two lines simultaneously attacking, or if there is another situation in which there are two or three Body type Cultivators at the front. These will form new variations of the original techniques. Now, I will set all of these pieces, which are Cultivators, but look like wooden blocks, on their places."

He arranged the formation on the side of his opponent, and put the page in a slot next to the chess-board like board on which he had placed all of the figures. There was a Body type Cultivator at both the front and the rear, in between which, was a series of five Soul type Cultivators. All of these were level 4 Cultivators.

He smiled slightly, and pulled out a page, which also had a formation written on it. This spelled, "Mountain Trio". He looked at the students, and said, "This is also a very basic formation, and is usable by almost everyone. In this formation, there will be three 'mountains' of Cultivators, each having a Body Cultivator at the front, and two Soul Cultivators behind the Body type. The Soul Cultivators in the triangular shape in the middle, will each act as one of both the triangles, the middle one, and the one on the side they were on. Just as in the previous formation, the Soul Cultivator in the center would face a high amount of stress, as he would have to attack all the time, in this formation, these two Soul Cultivators have the stress of being a part of two whole triangles. Now, I will put this formation on my side of the board."

He then placed the Cultivators, rather, wooden blocks, in place, and put the page at the place where it would supposed to have been, like in the previous formation.

He then said, "This way, I'll ensure that I have a strategy ready for countering that of the opponent's strategy."

Tao Xue was pretty impressed, to such and extent, though, that he had already partially decided that he had to become a Mind Cultivator. He was impressed by the game that teacher Bao Tan showed, obviously, but he was also impressed about the fact that he had now got to know another job of Mind Cultivators, which, fortunately was, something over which he did not need to sweat it out.

He thought to himself, "The next time I'll come here, I'll surely play a game of formations with some person, eve though someone of a level higher than mine, I'll still win for sure, no matter what!"