White Lotus Institute

The White Lotus Institute was founded by the royal family to foster the next generation of nobles. It opened its doors twice a month and nobles were required to attend. During the mornings they were taught poetry and court etiquette while in the afternoon the palace's martial vault would be available to everyone free of charge.

If it was in the past. Logan wouldn't give a rat's ass about the Institute since it was just another place where he would be mocked and ridiculed. However now he could cultivate, his spiritual root had awakened, and he had a crazy powerful cultivation technique in the Sky Dragon's Court that gave him the embryonic version of the Sun Dragon Flame.

Even though it was just the embryonic form, his sun flame had already given multiple benefits. After his night of cultivation, the flame sitting in his dantian hand grown by ten percent.

The purity and strength of the sun flame was something that he experienced after his latest bout of cultivation and even more so during his forging. It was a great support flame and if he ever found himself in a pinch, he could use the flame to attack. Thought that wasn't where its strength laid.

Not only that but the Sky Dragon's Court mystical properties gave him access to eight other amazing flames with their own strength. Just thinking about it made Logan drool himself. When he had all nine dragon flames it would like having a horde of dragons living inside him. Of course, Logan knew that such a cultivation technique went against the laws of nature, even his rare spiritual root was the same. There was no way he could let anyone know about it, or he would bring a catastrophe to himself.

Right now, he needed to continue increasing his strength and the only way to do that was to cultivate and meditate according to the Sky Dragon's Court. The more he understood this mystical technique the stronger he will be.

Right now, he was in the Qi Condensation stage which was just the first step of training in martial arts. Only by stepping into the Blood Condensation stage and having his blood purified by his Qi, would it make his martial powers stronger, it was then that one would be consider a true martial artist

His current base strength was that of a fifth stage martial artist even though his cultivation was that of the fourth stage. He could let out a simple punch and break a vase a couple of meters away. His whole body was brimming with strength like never before.

Right now, his goal in going to the Institute was the Martial Arts Vault. Now that he could cultivate, he could begin learning martial Battle Skills.

Battle Skills were all created by extremely powerful martial artists. They were powerful fighting techniques that used a person' Qi that ran through their meridians to execute them.

Battle Skills were so extremely terrifying, they could allow a martial artist to release an extremely formidable power that was several times stronger than their ordinary strength. Therefore, each Battle Skill was extremely important to a martial artist.

Now that Logan was capable of training in Battle Skills, he was itching to obtain one.

The White Lotus Institute was located to the south side of the royal capital. It spanned tens of kilometers, and other than the Palace, it was the grandest and most imposing building in the entire capital.

Once he got to the Institute, he showed off his identification plate, and went straight to the literature hall where the morning lecture took place and where the noble heirs would listen to lecturers talking about everything and anything, from etiquette to poetry, and even to ancient theories of literature.

Logan had escaped from his mother and because of this he made it relatively early, so the large classroom had only about a dozen or so nobles.

"Haha, Logan, you came."

"Guys it's Logan, make some room."

Several youths came over and greeted Logan enthusiastically. They were all nobles with similar situations to Logan; for various reasons, they had poor cultivating talent. Of course, Logan's situation was worse as he couldn't cultivate at all. Even though they couldn't be considered best friends, they were still fellow sufferers who empathized with each other.

In the golden age of martial arts of the Crystal Lotus Kingdom, these youths might not have been bullied in such a miserable way like Logan was, but they were frequently sneered at and suffered from a cold and indifferent treatment.

"Haha, you guys came here pretty early," Logan greeted them laughing. With the success of awakening his spiritual root, his mood had improved greatly from his formerly depressed self.

"I heard that you beat that pompous bastard Jolk in front of the whole city. Ah, you really make us admire you. Don't tell me that you can genuinely cultivate now?" one skinny teen extremely enviously asked.

Originally, they were all technically more powerful than Logan as they could cultivate, and he could not but they could never hope to beat someone as strong as Jolk. Hearing that Logan defeated Jolk who was at the third stage of Qi Condensation, they were all extremely shocked while also feeling a slight jealousy.

"Hehe, it was just luck. But most recently, I did learn a new Divine Technique." Logan didn't want to continue on this subject, so he brought up a new mysterious topic.

"Divine Technique? What kind?" Sure enough, everyone immediately became distracted by this new change in subject.

"Recently I discover an ancient book on Astrology and after burning the midnight oil it taught quite a few things," Logan said somewhat complacently.

"Astrology technique? Isn't that just what the fortune tellers on the streets use to scam people?"

"Not quite. With what I learned from that astrology technique, I saw that Jolk had come under the purvey of the Winter Dog Star which is a dark omen of misfortune, and it was only then that I decided to duel with him. And as for the result… hehe." Logan laughed and stopped there.

Everyone momentarily was dubious for a moment when someone suddenly brightened with understanding and exclaimed, "It seems to be true! I heard that Jolk seemed to have been bewitched that day, as he was walking towards the arena, he stepped on a pile of dog shit and his body quiver with an evil air. No wonder he was beaten by Logan. "

The details of Jolk and Logan's battle were known to everyone, but there were many people who felt that Jolk's defeat was quite a deep mystery. Nowadays, there was a great deal of speculation about what happened that day.

"Hehe, since you are proficient in the stars, can you help take a look at me and tell me why my fiancée always avoids me? Why won't she agree to see me?" one person somewhat vexingly asked.

"No problem. Come, come, let's first find a place for us all to sit next to a window."

Their group found a table in the corner to sit at, and the table even had some refreshments for them.

Logan pointed towards the table's desserts and laughingly told everyone, "Let's all eat a piece."

"Okay," the other people didn't stand on courtesy and all took a piece. Everyone seemed a bit confused as they looked at Logan not that they would complaint.

"How's the taste?"

"Very good."

"Let's eat another piece?"

"Okay."

The person who asked for help once again picked up a piece and took a bite. But when he had only eaten one bite, his face suddenly brightened, and he respectfully turned towards Logan and said, "Many thanks for your advice. This little brother understands now. I was being too greedy and selfish not thinking about what she wanted and should get her a gift to show her the depth of my feelings?"

Everyone looked at Logan in admiration. Who would have thought that he had such profound skills to use some small desserts as food for thought? However, Logan still sighed and shook his head. "Wrong. What I wanted to remind you of is that you're already this fat, and yet you're still eating this much. Soon you won't even be able to fit through the door. The fact that your fiancée is still with you and hasn't left you is already a miracle; you should be happy with just that. With a body shape like yours, any woman would be scared to sleep beside you. What if you roll over in your sleep? You'd crush her so hard; she'd turn flat."

That person's face reddened, and with Logan's reminder, he looked at his five-foot-tall height with his four-and-a-half-foot wide stomach. He looked like a walking meatball.

"Fatty, don't waste our brother's time; hurry up and go lose some weight. Otherwise if your girl runs away the only way to catch her would be by rolling" A different slender youth respectfully said with a smile.

Everyone couldn't help but to burst into laughter, but just as they were laughing, they suddenly saw two bitter eyes staring at them, causing everyone's laughter to break off.

Logan had noticed that person since he enter the room but didn't care about it. Turning around, they all saw Jolk glaring daggers at them but other than that looking no worse for wear.

"Noble Jolk, are your wounds better now? Congratulations! Your outer wounds seemed to be healed, but what about your internal wounds?" Logan asked, seeming deeply concerned.

Jolk's face twitched. That day, his face had been smashed flat, and he had needed to be carried home. The Nalu family had hurriedly asked for the help of an alchemist from the alchemist guild and paid an extremely large sum of gold coins to let him recover.

Being a merchant noble was truly great because his family had money to buy the best medicines to make his recovery time so short. However, when he heard Logan speak, Jolk's groin started twitching with pain as if recognizing Logan's voice.

That kick had been very vicious, just a little bit off from turning him into a cripple. The thing that pissed him off the most though was that only after he got carried home and was healed did, he notice that he was missing a certain something. When his family noticed this, they hurriedly rushed back to the martial arena, but by that time, they found that the arena had already been cleaned. They viciously interrogated everyone that was there at the time and it was then that they learned that a wild dog had scampered away with that something in its mouth.

When Jolk woke up and heard this news, he fainted from his anger. But now there was no way to fix it, and no matter how amazing an alchemist was, there was no way for them to grow him another one.

Before there was two and now was only one. Although the loss of one family jewel wouldn't tilt him while walking, the loss of the originally symmetric pair was hard on him.

And now that Logan had brought it back up, his face became exceedingly ugly. He grinded his teeth in fury. "Logan, you son of a bitch. I challenge you to a life and death duel! Do you dare to accept?"

Logan's originally amused expression tensed immediately. Being called in such a way was exceedingly insulting, especially since it also insulted his mother.

Some people couldn't leave well enough alone. Fine, if you're so tired of living, then I'll help you on your way to hell.

"Same thing as before. I want to add stakes." Logan stared back at Jolk. Since the idiot wanted to die, then he better offered some benefits for his troubles.

"Fine! No matter how high you make the stakes, I will accept." Sneering in his mind, he thought to himself that no matter how high the stakes were, once Logan was dead, there was no way he could spend it. Jolk was sure that he lost previously due to carelessness on his part. In his mind Logan had just been lucky and he would not make the same mistake as before, so this fight was basically in the bag.

Also this time was different in that he had declared a life-or-death duel; in last time's duel, although you would not be held responsible for killing your opponent with a blow, as long as the opponent conceded, it was not permitted to continue attacking them.

But in a true life-or-death duel, once the two people went onto the stage, it was equivalent to putting their lives on the line. Two went in but only one came back down.

"Okay, tomorrow, three quarters after noon, we will meet on the life and death stage." Jolk coldly laughed, and soon left there was no point in talking with a dead person.

Logan snorted. Now was the perfect time to vent a little more of his anger and if Jolk's death served as a deterrent for the other idiots that wanted to make his life hell even better. Seeing Jolk turned to leave, he slyly laughed, "Careful to stay balanced while walking; don't trip."

Hearing Logan's word, Jolk stiffened, and his face became contorted as he inferred the hidden meaning behind the malicious words. Taking a deep breath, he acted like he hadn't heard anything as he slowly walked to a different part of the literature hall.

But Logan's words seemed to be like a steel needle piercing through his sensitive parts, and every time he lifted his leg, it would trigger memories of that bone-chilling attack.

He continued to act as if nothing had happened, but the more he tried to do so, the more unnatural his gait became, which caused everyone to stare strangely over at him. In the end, Jolk waddled away similarly to a duck.

One person turned to Logan and reminded him to be careful, "Logan, why did you accept his challenge? This is a life and death battle you're going into; one of you will end up dying!"

"No problem. Today I read his horoscope and saw a dark aura of death around him. With it, Jolk is basically a dead man walking." Logan smiled and the rest just nodded their heads. Even though they admired Logan for his daring they still thought he was courting death.

Right now, he needed to get some money fast and the two blades that he had back home were part of his scheme.

As he was contemplating the next steps in his plan, a group of people walked into the literature hall, and the originally noisy literature hall immediately turned completely silent.