Chapter 50 Emotions
The following few days, Fang Xingjian started practicing the Nurturing techniques every morning. After completing the training for all Nurturing techniques and after squeezing out all the potential points he could squeeze, he would start practicing the Meteor Sword Technique in order to raise his reaction attribute.
Even with his talent, by the time he finished practicing the set, it was already noon.
After eating ferocious beasts and various medicinal food, Fang Xingjian would nap for half an hour. This was meant to rest his heart, internal organs and brain, keeping them in good shape and giving him more energy for the rest of the afternoon.
In the afternoon, he practiced the sword techniques in which the Tempest Overlord and the others had trained before their first job transitions. He had learnt an additional six techniques, which in all made ten. However the newer techniques had yet to reach level 10, and goodness knows which ones would provide him with attributes increases.
He looked in detail at the basic sword techniques that the Tempest Overlord, Gale Sword Deity and Aurora Sword Spirit had trained in. In total there were fifteen basic sword techniques. They had each practiced five sets of techniques before their first job transitions.
‘Five sets of sword techniques?’ Fang Xingjian mumbled. ‘Why do they all happen to be five sets?’
Fang Xingjian had thoroughly researched these before. There were no duplicates among the five sets that each of them had trained. All of these sword techniques specifically focused on training different parts of the body, in accuracy.
In other words, be it Tempest Overlord, Gale Sword Deity or Aurora Sword Spirit, when they were young, before their first job transitions, they had deliberately chosen five sets that would cover the training of their entire body, and yet would not overlap with each other.
All the time that Fang Xingjian had spent training… Although he felt that the secret of Perfect Muscles was hidden within these sword techniques, he had not been able to discover the actual clue even after all this time had passed.
Another afternoon passed, and when it was time for dinner, Jack and Anthony knocked on the door and entered, led by the maid.
Spotting Jack’s bruises and swollen face, Fang Xingjian asked, “Were you beaten up by them again?”
Seeing that Jack was silent, Anthony shrugged and replied, “Ever since Kaunitz completed his first job transition, they have been increasingly arrogant. The commoners in the academy are few, and they don’t even dare to resist when they come across the nobles…”
“What nobles?” Jack chided. “Were there not farmers or hunters amongst their ancestors? No commoners? Which family or clan didn’t start out as commoners?”
“But they’re not commoners now.” Anthony sighed.
Fang Xingjian told the maid, “Serve the dishes.”
Watching the dishes being served one after another, Jack and Anthony stopped quarreling immediately, their eyes lighting up. “Master Huang Lin is really good to you. He increased the share of ferocious beasts again, didn’t he?”
Anthony said, a little embarrassed, “We come so frequently for meals… Will Master Huang Lin be unhappy?”
Jack grabbed a piece of roasted meat and began eating, mumbling with his mouth full, “It’s fine. There’s so much food that Xingjian won’t be able to finish all of it anyway.”
While eating, Fang Xingjian asked, “Who beat you up this time?”
“A few guys from the previous batch. They told us to stop looking for you.” Jack spoke fiercely. “Isn’t it just that they’ve become a Knight one year earlier than me? Why should I listen to them? Let me tell you…”
Anthony said, “It’s a good thing that the academy doesn’t allow private dueling. They can only bully you during the martial technique lessons.”
He had heard from Jack and Anthony that they had been constantly bullied by the nobles for the past few days. During this time, since Fang Xingjian did not even step out of the house nor did he go out for lessons, the nobles could only cause trouble for Anthony and Jack, since they were closer to Fang Xingjian.
As he listened, Fang Xingjian felt something strange stirring in his emotions.
He was still trying to gradually sort out the change in his emotions. ‘This feeling… Is it hatred? Pain?’
After dinner, Jack and Anthony left. Fang Xingjian lied on the sofa, thinking, ‘By right, my emotions should all have been stripped off. For this half a year, I have not felt any feelings of friendship, love, kinship…’
Indeed, be it Kyle, or Vivian from The School of Sword Arts, or Jack, or Anthony, or even Huang Lin, in his heart, Fang Xingjian had never treated them as people close to him, even though he had pretended to be like an ordinary person.
However, recently he had been practicing the Waves and mental cultivation methods. Mental cultivation methods guided one’s thoughts and emotions, and after some research, he had felt something wrong weird stirring up in his emotions.
He realised that even though he could not love nor feel friendship or kinship, he could still feel fury, enmity, and hatred.
This was why he had been treating Jack and the others to meals the past few day. He was trying to sense the minute changes in his emotions.
‘Which means that, even though my positive feelings were taken away, my negative emotions were left behind?’
Fang Xingjian slowly drank the medicinal wine in the bottle, as scenes from Demonic City surfaced in his mind, one after another.
Li Shuanghua’s expressions and cruel words; the difficult times and contemptuous looks he had experienced since young; Caroline’s torment, humiliation, maltreatment... All these appeared in his mind, one scene after another.
In that instant, all the muscles in Fang Xingjian’s body tensed up, trickles of blood popping up in his eyes, as if he were a raging wild beast. Green veins popped out from his two arms, neck and forehead.
His consciousness was almost drowned in feelings of vengeance, fury, unlimited rage and hatred.
The next moment, with an angry bellow, he stood up. The table and chairs before him had already been shattered into pieces.
“Li Shuanghua… Caroline… ”
Gritting his teeth and spitting out these two names, Fang Xingjian breathed in with deep gulps, gradually suppressing his anger only after a long while.
Next, Kaunitz’s voice flashed across in his mind, and with a cold grunt, a murderous glint flashed in his eyes. He had gained full control of his negative emotions.
At a clap of his hands, a maid came to clean up the room. Fang Xingjian headed towards the training room. It was time to practice Waves and mental cultivation methods.
Sitting on the floor, Fang Xingjian held a Mistral Windgod's Waves’ secret training manual in his hands.
‘Waves’ was the term for the rhythm in which humans breathed and their blood flowed. As long as one could control the rhythm of one’s breathing and blood flow, one would be able to make changes to the intrinsic qualities of one’s body. From there, people would then be able to communicate with ether particles in the secret realm, and thus gain all sorts of unbelievable powers.
Reading once again through the warnings for practicing the Mistral Windgod's Waves, Fang Xingjian sat on the floor with his legs crossed, his breathing gradually slowing down, slower and slower, slow yet unbroken, faintly discernible.
Every time he breathed, his stomach swelled slightly, his four limbs tensed up, the muscles in his palms and soles contracted, and when they bulged his entire body spread out like a tent.
Each of his breaths had to be part of the rhythm of his breathing as he channeled energy throughout his whole body, changing his physical body little by little.
At the same time, the muscles and veins in his body trembled all at once, continuously leaping. His heart was beating furiously, as if someone was playing drums in the room.
This was him agitating the blood through physical strength, and in turn, controlling the rhythm of the blood flow in every part of his body.
After a good long while, Fang Xingjian’s head was covered with an abnormal amount of perspiration. He spat out a mouthful of foul air.
One hour had passed. This was the longest period of time he had been able to hold on to the state of the Waves.
For one to truly connect Waves, one had to maintain this state twenty-four hours around the clock, be it sitting, lying down, walking, battling or resting, and then change the intrinsic qualities of life completely, little by little.
It was obvious that Fang Xingjian had no talent in Waves cultivation, or rather that he had only mediocre talent for it.
As he completed a cycle of Waves cultivation, a man’s voice resounded, his words filled with disdain and contempt.
“With your talent, you definitely won’t be able to master the Mistral Windgod's Waves even if you were to cultivate for another year.”