The Five Streams

After completing the test, although Zhou Wuwei still had one more question he wanted to ask Xueming, which was about the test in the second round. If looking at the power that Xueming himself demonstrated to Zhou Wuwei, Xueming should have passed the second test easily. Why did reports come out that he was in such a dire condition? Despite having killed the Qi beast, he only barely survived the battle.

Before he could ask Xueming for clarification, The President of the Azure Dragon Academy named Si Chai called Zhou Wuwei to meet for an urgent mission, thus leaving him no time to ask a question or further investigate. Therefore, he could only give Xueming the self-invented martial skill manual he always carried around, so Xueming could study by himself while waiting for him to come back from the urgent mission. ... They both were unaware that this urgent almost separated them forever.

After handing over his martial skill textbook, Zhou Wuwei then used the telepathic talisman to notify Zi Hui that he had accepted Xueming as a direct disciple and asked Zi Hui to take Xueming to stay at his place in the Purple Jade City, as Zhou Wuwei was on an urgent mission of the Academy of which he had to take care quickly. He would catch up with them as soon as things got done.

After Zi Hui joined the Azure Dragon Academy's new disciple initiation ceremony, he hurriedly left to take Xueming to the house of Zhou Wuwei who was his own grandfather immediately. During the first month as a new disciple of the Azure Dragon Academy, he had a lot of missions and things to do. Therefore, Zi Hui could not stay to accompany Xueming. When Zi Hui had already ordered the servants at his grandfather’s to take care of Xueming, he excused himself and left. Thus, inside Zhou Wuwei's house, apart from two old servants who were not cultivators, there was only Xueming staying there.

Of course, the news about a young man named Long Xueming proposed a challenge for the Azure Dragon Academy to accept himself as a disciple became known, and the one who accepted the challenge was Vice President Jiu Ing who was the chairman of the Azure Dragon Academy admission this year. But the story was even more interesting when the person taking sides with Xueming was equally great, that is another Vice President of the Azure Dragon Academy named Zhou Wuwei. The condition of this challenge was that Xueming had to defeat the Azure Dragon Academy's inner disciple within a month, or else Vice President Zhou Wuwei had to relinquish his position as Vice President. But if Xueming won the challenge, Vice President Jiu Ing had to relinquish his own position as Vice President as well.

The story got spread like wildfire. Most of the people in the Purple Jade City were puzzled, wondering who exactly this young man named Long Xueming was, which caused a dispute between the two great Vice Presidents of the Azure Dragon Academy. Yet, unfortunately, no one obtained a clear answer.

Although almost all the people in the city were puzzled and curious, in the Li Family’s mansion, everyone had known Xueming well for a while. Moreover, after completing the Azure Dragon Academy's new disciple examination in the second round, Li Biao who had returned to the house forbade everyone from mentioning Xueming’s name ever again. If anyone did, they would be severely punished. But before anyone could be punished, the news of the challenge between the two Vice Presidents of the Azure Dragon Academy reached him first. Li Biao's frustration suddenly changed back and forth, from smiling momentarily to laughing. When the opportunity he thought he had lost returned, Li Biao did not hesitate, and this time he preferred no more mistake, thus immediately ordering his people to stalk Xueming.

Just after two hours passed, the ten hired spies—on whom Li Biao didn’t mind wasting money—took turns to report the situation back to him periodically. Until when it was reported that Zi Hui already departed from Zhou Wuwei's residence, Li Biao's eyes sparkled for a second. He was determined that this time he must succeed in exterminating Xueming.

Therefore, the five skilled assassins that he hired were all cultivators with the fourth level of the basic Qi. In the Purple Jade City, an assassin of this level was considered the city's cream of the crop. But Li Biao could not put his mind at ease. He gave an order to Jian Chen—a cultivator with the Pulse Harmonization level (the fifth level of the basic Qi), or half a step before breaking into the first level of the natural Qi—to follow and take care of this mission by himself. He instructed Jian Chen explicitly that Xueming must be dead in order for the latter to undo the mistake made in the first round of the Azure Dragon Academy’s entrance examination. But if failing again, Jian Chen knew well the consequence without Li Biao having to say a word.

After taking the order, Jian Chen readily assured him. Even though he knew that having five elite assassins with him was like taking a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, in order to forestall any error, Jian Chen did not dare to be reckless, so he planned the assassination himself.

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After Zi Hui left, Xueming did not go outside at all. He entered the training room in the house, practiced his skills, and reviewed the experiences having gained over the past three days.

When evening came, an old servant in Zhou Wuwei's house knocked on the door and brought food to him. Xueming thanked him before bringing the food to hungrily eat in the training room.

After dinner, Xueming did not go back to his bedroom but chose to continue the training. When finished practicing the Qi flow regulation, Xueming took out the martial skill manual made by Zhou Wuwei to read the Punch of Five Streams. Despite the word five in its name, this punch set only had three moves. Yet, Xueming could guess that the word five probably had to do with the inventor’s name; hence, he stopped caring about it.

This set of punch moves—despite being not so lethal, powerful, or precious—was considered nobler than the Serpent’s Punch move that Yong Sue used, as the latter was the lowest punch move at the human-level Qi skill. Each of these three moves was used for clearly different purposes.

The first punch move is called ... River of No Return. It was a fist motion that imitated the strong flowing water, like a river that destructively overflowed in one direction with no return. The punch move was full of destructive power but hidden with flexibility and smoothness like a stream. Just the first move from the martial skill manual causing Xueming’s eyes to sparkle brightly, because, for all his life, this manual contained the noblest martial skills that Xueming had ever encountered.

Even though he had not used his physical body to try out the punch move, his mental self was dancing around following the pictures and descriptions in the manual. Although he could not steer the normal Qi in his body to move along with the physical posture (because the propulsion of Qi could only be done when one attained the fourth level of the basic Qi), the peculiar scalding heat in the body unknowingly became unified with Xueming’s flesh after having had a near-death experience in the Sphere of Illusionary Spell.

His mind imagined according to the pictures, and the hot Qi ran and followed like a shadow. Without Xueming’s knowledge, when reading the manual, he was completely immersed in concentration, the mind was steadfast, forgetting about the outside world. Until he unconsciously moved his hands and feet according to the punch move in the manual: River of No Return Punch. The fist moved as his eyes were closed, amenable to the subconscious mind. It suddenly turned into a fiery fire that burst out until one side of the training room’s wall accidentally caught fire.

The flame in the body, despite the scalding heat, did not have any harmful effect. Instead, it helped to recover the body and heal injuries. Yet, the flame that had blasted off and burned an object did not have the same effect. The scalding heat from the outside, therefore, awakened Xueming from a trance. Moreover, the training room was built entirely from wood. Despite having inscribed the magic character to prevent the destructive power, the builder did not think of this kind of fire prevention. Therefore, the flames quickly spread out.

Xueming realized things could get out of hand, thus shouting out to the old servant but didn’t hear any reply. He was shocked and afraid that the flames would spread and burn to a great extent. Suddenly there was the sound of the crashed wall on one side.

Although it was a dark night, Xueming could clearly see the incoming persons because of the bright light from the great fire. Two men dressed in black camouflage plunged through the wall of the training room. Realizing that the incoming men were unlikely to have goodwill, Xueming hurriedly put away the martial skill manual, before rolling away from the scene to the opposite side. Yet, it looked like the two villains that invaded was not all of them, as on the right side of Xueming there was a loud noise of more invaders crashing through the wall.