Chapter 53 Accomplishment
“Why?” Dick was standing in the Headmaster’s office. Anxiously, he continued, “Fang Xingjian does not respect his elders, he’s arrogant, and he has beaten up badly a student from the academy. We should expel such students immediately!”
“Sigh, youngsters tend to be hot-blooded. Even if they raise their hands against each other, it’s not such a big deal.” The Headmaster looked at the documents in his hands, and said without even lifting his head, “It’s sufficient to keep him in confinement for ten days. He is so talented. Do you really want to see him expelled?
“Are you the Headmaster? Or am I?”
Having said these words, the Headmaster put on a grim face, his gaze towards Dick filling with discontent.
Under such a gaze, Dick suddenly broke out in a cold sweat as he lowered his head and said, “I was too anxious. I apologize, Headmaster.”
Seeing that Dick had stepped out, the Headmaster gave a cold snort and said, begrudgingly, “Old chap, this student of yours is too good at creating trouble. In all these years, no one else has dared to be so ruthless in the academy.”
“This is considered ruthless?” Huang Lin stepped out of the shadows and looked in the direction where Dick had walked out. Killing intent flashed in his eyes. “If someone dared to speak ill of my parents, I would definitely wring off their necks, to have them with my wine.”
“You are really...” The headmaster pointed at Huang Lin, smiling bitterly as he shook his head. “If it wasn’t for you, I would definitely have confined him for three months!”
Huang Lin said, disdainfully, “Talents, geniuses, should definitely enjoy special privileges. If they were to be treated on equal terms with ordinary people, then there would not be an Empire today, let alone all these academies, Knights, Conferred Knights and Royal Knights.”
…
“Hahahaha!”
In his villa, Kaunitz was lying down on the sofa, laughing copiously. With a slight movement of his finger, the force enclosed the red wine within the force field and poured it into his mouth.
“Fang Xingjian is an idiot. I only wanted to mess up his rhythm a little, but to think that he is foolish enough to take action…
“Now that he is kept in confinement, the delay will make it even harder for him to become a Windstorm Sword Hero.”
Barbara, seated with her legs crossed, was looking at Kaunitz and that great wine held by the force field, her gaze filled with both wariness and envy. She smiled and said, “A commoner like him is all brawn and no brains, he only knows how to train relentlessly. And now, haven’t we made a fool out of him?”
Kaunitz sneered and said, “He actually said that he will teach me a lesson when we battle? Hmmm, hmmm. We’ll see who will be the one to teach the other a lesson.”
While they had been exchanging words, all the furniture and fittings within ten meters of Kaunitz under his force field crumbled to dust with a series of explosive crackling sounds.
“Someone! Come clean up this mess and replace everything here.”
...
In the northern side of the academy, there was a stone house built from big chunks of marble, with no windows on any of its four sides. It was pitch dark inside, only a small ray of sunlight the size of a palm shining in from a small window on the roof.
This was one of the academy’s confinement rooms, especially used to confine students who had broken the academy’s rules.
It was a pity that only Fang Xingjian was in there now.
However, although Fang Xingjian was kept here, he was still carrying out his daily training, as usual. Huang Lin had also instructed people to bring him all sorts of food and drinks. Other than having no one to do the laundry or to clean for him, and apart from having no soft bedding or exquisite furniture and fittings, it made almost no difference to him whether he trained here or whether he trained outside.
Of course, this was all due to Huang Lin’s special attention.
After Fang Xingjian had relieved his fury the other day, he had found his own way of practicing the Ice Age Meditation. For the past few days, his training progress had gone exceptionally well, even his Waves being much smoother now. Even if he did not activate them deliberately, they were already 70-80% similar to the ones that the man had left behind.
‘Excellent! There’s no one to disturb me here. Without external stimulation, I’ll be able to focus better on my training.
‘The confinement lasts only ten days. During these ten days, I’ll completely master the Waves and the mental cultivation method.’
Fang Xingjian lightly clenched his fist, a slight confident smile flashing across his face as he exhaled a long stream of current. He was practicing the Waves again.
Therefore, during the days he spent in the confinement room, Fang Xingjian acted as if he were outside, completely forgoing his sword arts practice, and focusing entirely on circulating the Waves and the mental cultivation method.
...
On the morning when the ten days of confinement were up, an instructor headed for the direction of the stone building.
Before he got close, he heard the crackling sounds of collisions.
‘This is...?’
His expression changed and he walked up. The collision sounds were now clearer.
This was the sound produced when currents collided against the stone walls. And now, this sound was highly controlled in a rhythm similar to that of a tide, which meant that the air currents knocking against the walls were as stable as tides.
‘Could this be his breathing?
‘How could it be? Even a Knight who would have completed the first transition two to three years ago wouldn’t exert such oppression when circulating his Waves.’
The instructor’s expression was one of extreme astonishment. The motions in the stone building were as if a prehistoric dragon was sleeping inside. He quickly unlocked the lock with the keys, and pushed the door open.
He saw Fang Xingjian quietly sitting in the middle of the room with his legs crossed and both eyes closed. Each time he exhaled an air current would start flowing in all directions, with him at the center. It was as if strong gusts of wind swept by, eventually colliding against the walls.
“This is?!” The instructor’s eyes popped wide open at this sight. The breathing cadence seemed to have set the whole room in a specific rhythm.
It was the Mistral Windgod's Waves, Waves which could control air currents by communication with ether particles.
Just when he was staring, astonished, at Fang Xingjian’s Waves, the person in question suddenly opened his eyes and slowly stood up.
Along with this move, the previous strange happening disappeared as well. A tinge of cool light flashed across Fang Xingjian’s eyes. With a slight twist of his body, a series of crackling sounds came from his joints.
He had not moved for over twenty-four hours, devoting all of his efforts only to circulating the Mistral Windgod's Waves and Ice Age Meditation Art.
This also meant that with the over ten days of studying before being confined, plus the final ten days of tough practice in the stone room, over twenty hours out of twenty-four, he had finally mastered the Mistral Windgod's Waves and Ice Age Meditation Art.
Therefore, there were two more additions to his Techniques Column now.
Mistral Windgod's Waves level 1: when the Waves are activated, all attributes increase by 1 point.
Ice Age Meditation Art level 1: when the Ice Age Meditation Art is activated, it increases one’s observation skills, reaction and judgement, bringing one extremely close to absolute rationale and calm.
As long as the Waves were circulated, one’s attributes would increase. One could not look down on this little increment. It would increase by 1 point when one’s strength attribute was 10, and then increase by 1 more point when one’s strength attribute was 100. When it was over 100 points, a one point increase would make a vast difference, and one would need to deplete at least 100,000 potential points or more, just to increase the attribute by 1 point.
From this, one could tell how nature-defying Waves were, since they could change the practitioner’s life essence, bringing it closer to the structure of ether particles. They were just like ripples in the water, having the effect of amplification. The stronger the force, the greater the increment, thus allowing for the same increase in points to one’s attributes.
Ice Age Meditation Art was even better, especially in battles. However, as Fang Xingjian’s way of training this mental cultivation method was different from others, his temper would appear to be very bad in others’ eyes. He had to release all his negative emotions, trying his best not to leave even a tinge of it in his heart.