Chapter 277: Target
Translator: Cynthia Editor: KLKL
Su Qingye was never aware that he had an aunt.
And now, all he knew was that this aunt was from Silver City. His father told him that she was a capable person, and asked him to learn from her and follow her directions in training. She would give him training directions? Su Qingye didn’t really take it seriously. He hadn’t even finished half of the training tasks arranged by his teacher. Compared with Hua Xiaoyun and Zhou Wen, who were his companions in the training hall, he was already the slowest.
Hua Xiaoyun was a water elementalist who lived in the adjacent Cloud Ridge City and came to the training hall twice a week. She could always come up with cunning ideas, and Su Qingye believed she was the cleverest of them three.
Zhou Wen was a person of few words and he was of metal attribute. Ever since he learnt from his teacher that keeping his sword in hand could improve his proficiency, he had never put his sword aside, even when sleeping.
Of the three students, Su Qingye was the most unlucky one, as he was of earth attribute.
Nowadays earth and fire elementalists were fellow sufferers. Those without wealth and power could hardly survive in such an era. Su Qingye was the slowest in training of them three, for which he was always depressed.
Finally there was someone who would like to listen to his complaints, so he poured out his grievances all at once.
Huaijun was a bit curious, "Your teacher only teaches swordsmanship? Then how do you get trained? You all practice the same inheritance of sword?"
"Of course not. We are of different attributes." Su Qingye took it for granted, "I practice Sand Puppet Swordsmanship, Zhou Wen practices Heavy Swordsmanship, and Hua Xiaoyun Rosy Cloud Swordsmanship."
Huaijun was surprised, "Three inheritances?"
Su Qingye shook his head, "My teacher said they’re not inheritances, but only training plans."
Huaijun uttered a sigh of relief, and thought to herself that she was probably thinking too much. Although swordsmanship was becoming increasingly popular and had attracted more students these years, there were still very few well-known inheritances of swordsmanship so far.
Su Qingye continued, "Our teacher said we are still young, and the most important thing is to lay a solid foundation, with which we can create our own inheritances of swordsmanship."
Speaking of this, Su Qingye’s eyes were filled with longing.
Huaijun couldn’t help laughing out, "Create your own inheritances? That’s not as easy as you imagine. This is nonsense!"
Su Qingye was unhappy, "Nonsense?"
"Isn’t it?" Huaijun asked disapprovingly, "All the inheritances are passed from generation to generation and have gone through constant improvement during the process before they become what they are today. How can your teacher think it’s so easy to create an inheritance? Who does he think he is? At first I thought he was different. But now it seems that he is only a swaggerer. So forget it. Let’s go home."
"You go home yourself. I’ll go to the training hall." Su Qingye was extremely angry. But since his father had asked him again and again to listen to what his aunt said, he tried to calm himself down and replied coldly.
"You don’t need to go to a training hall with such a teacher." Huaijun said patiently, "You are still young, and haven’t seen the real world outside or a real expert. It’s easy for you to be cheated by someone’s blandishments. You can just learn from me. It will be much more effective than any deceitful teacher."
Su Qingye’s patience ran out and he said, "I’ll never learn from you!"
Having said this, Su Qingye ran away without looking back.
Huaijun was a short-tempered person without much patience. Seeing Su Qingye’s obstinacy, she didn’t even bother to persuade him. Although she had promised his father to help Su Qingye on his training, she was more than happy now that she didn’t need to, since this was Su Qingye’s own decision.
Therefore, she began to stroll through Peace City alone. The See You Later arrows she bought yesterday aroused her interest in this small border town.
The ten See You Later arrows had been packed and sent to the Silver City in a trade caravan. She bought them not for her own use, but on someone else’s request. She’d never heard of such a weird name before. It was said that the arrows were popular within a small circle. It was always out of stock and very hard to buy. A noble who heard that she was coming to the Peace City specifically asked her to buy some for her.
Since it was a noble’s request, she didn’t dare to slight it, and began searching for it the first day she arrived.
Seeing the busy trade caravans, she thought to herself that maybe she could get some useful stuff here. Besides, she would stay here for a long time anyway, so it was necessary for her to get familiar with the city.
The Silver City and the Peace City were at the two ends of the Silver Mist River, but they were of totally different local customs and practices. She had abundant travelling experience, had been to numerous places and watched the decline of many cities. The three-year war had a profound influence. While everywhere else was destitute and going through economic depression, the flourish and vigor of the Peace City cheered her up.
Suddenly, she noticed a group of people ahead. It was led by a graceful, pretty lady surrounded by her young companions.
They were also here.
She was surprised, and lowered her head, walking past them as if she was going somewhere in a hurry.
"…I never expected we could get a demonic remnant. We are so lucky!"
"Yeah. Fortunately Big Sister insisted on watching them fishing, otherwise we would have just missed the opportunity!"
"That King of Anglers is really skillful…"
Huaijun heard their conversation and laughter, and the words "demonic remnant" caught her attention. Before she came to her senses, the crowd of people had already left.
When Su Qingye, who was filled with anger, arrived at the training hall and heard the yelling inside, his rage suddenly disappeared.
Having been practicing like this for almost three years, he felt training was already a part of his life. All his rage and distracting thoughts were gone, and instead the only thing he was thinking about was – Zhou Wen was earlier than him again!
He felt a bit unhappy.
As soon as he walked into the training hall, he caught sight of a thin figure. Of all the three students, Zhou Wen had the most straitened family background. His parents had passed away. As an orphan, he couldn’t even afford the tuition, so he had to sell himself to their teacher for ten years to pay off the tuition.
Their teacher was too good-hearted.
Su Qingye was born in a merchant family. He knew that in such troubled times there were too many orphans like Zhou Wen who had nothing at all . Zhou Wen was unsociable and eccentric. All he did everyday was practice like crazy, and simply treated everyone else like air.
What made Su Qingye most dissatisfied was that this guy was far more hardworking than himself. However, his foundation was too weak, so his overall capacity was the weakest of them all. The strongest one was Hua Xiaoyun. It was said that her grandmother once served in Rainbow Division and later retired due to injury.
"Good morning, Qingye!"
Su Qingye was happy to hear Lou Lan’s cheerful voice. He smiled and replied, "Morning, Lou Lan."
They all liked Lou Lan very much, especially Su Qingye. He was an earth elementalist, and his affection towards the sand puppet was like an instinct.
Su Qingye asked, "Lou Lan, is Teacher in?"
"He is having a rest." Lou Lan answered, "Qingye, you have finished fifty four percent of your training plan. Keep going!"
Su Qingye suddenly remembered his aunt’s words for no reason, and asked, "Lou Lan, is it difficult to create an inheritance?"
"Yes, Qingye." Lou Lan nodded, "Any inheritance is the result of profound accumulation of practice and talent."
Su Qingye was confused, "Then why did Teacher asked us to create our own inheritances in the future?"
"Do we give up simply because the thing we are going to do is difficult?" Lou Lan asked, "We do something not because it is easy, but because it is our objective, don’t we?"
Su Qingye’s face flushed with embarrassment.
Suddenly he heard a sniff from someone beside him, and it turned to be Zhou Wen who stopped practicing, held the sword in his hand and looked at Su Qingye with scorn. He said coldly, "Coward."
Su Qingye became furious, "Zhou Wen, are you looking for trouble?"
Zhou Wen was emotionless, "I hope you will not whine for mercy."
"Oh, so I think we can adjust our training plan today. How about a real combat match?" Lou Lan’s smiling eyes were like two crescent moons.
"Sure!" They both blurted out simultaneously, which made them dislike each other more.
"Where is your sand puppet, Qingye?" Lou Lan asked.
Su Qingye was a bit upset and said, "It was destroyed yesterday."
"If so, to be fair, let’s do this in the sandpit. Zhou Wen, will you please use a soft sword? Is that fine?" Lou Lan asked.
"No problem!" Su Qingye answered loudly. He was thinking fast to balance the advantages and disadvantages. Although his ability was largely reduced without the sand puppet , fighting on sand was advantageous to him. Besides, Zhou Wen usually practiced with a heavy sword, so he could not adapt to using a soft sword within a limited period of time, which was also in Su Qingye’s favor.
Zhou Wen simply said, "Okay."
Seeing that they both agreed, Lou Lan said with a broader smile, "The result of the confrontation will be kept in your records."
Hearing what Lou Lan said, both of them became more serious.
The results of daily confrontations was worth a large proportion in their performance score, and would directly influence their teacher’s final judgment of their performance. Anyone whose performance was scored as excellent would get their teacher’s special tuition, have Lou Lan as training partner and be awarded with equipment tailored by the teacher.
The heavy sword Zhou Wen was using was a reward.
"Start!"
Hearing the word, the two figures immediately came to blows.
A crowd of people walked past the lane. An assistant wearing the costume of Evergold Enterprise was leading the way.
When they arrived at the gate of the training hall, the assistant said reverently, "Sir, this is the training hall of Wang Han."
"Thanks!" Fu Renxuan said. The assistant got a tip from him and left happily.
The crowd looked at the dilapidated training hall up and down. The gate of the training hall was open, and they could hear shouts from inside now and then. But apparently there were very few people in it.
"Swordsman Training Hall."
Fu Yonghao looked at the wood board and read it out aloud. Then he frowned and said, "This is a training hall? It’s so shabby. How can you open up a training hall just by hanging a name board in front of a shabby warehouse?"
Yesterday they had asked the person in charge of the enterprise for information about Wang Han, and learned that Wang Han had a training hall in the Peace City. They were all interested in taking a look. After all, his performance at the Silver Mist River was so amazing yesterday.
But when they came to his training hall in high spirits, it was a great disappointment to see nothing but this poor warehouse.
A streak of disappointment flashed in the lady’s eyes too, but she soon adjusted herself and smiled, "Since we are here anyway, let’s go inside and have a look."
Then she walked towards the gate first. Seeing this, the others had to follow her lead and walked in.
In the training hall, they saw two youngsters fighting against each other fiercely, and a sand puppet was standing by. The sand puppet said nothing, but only gave them a glance and then turned back to watch the two students fighting.
Only two students…
Fu Yonghao was speechless. This was the worst training hall with the least students he had ever seen. He thought of the Dragonrise Training Hall in the Silver City which was magnificent and majestic almost like a small city.
The lady’s eyes fixed on the two students.
As if no one was around, the students were totally uninfluenced and devoted themselves to the confrontation.
After a while, the lady couldn’t help but let out a soft yelp of surprise.