Chapter 28: Daoist Arts and Practical Combat
Freehand Combat Level 2 (0/20) → Freehand Combat Level 3 (0/30)
In an instant, the fifteen stances of Freehand Combat became profoundly more familiar in his mind. Even the follow-up variations and transitions for each move grew exceptionally clear and distinct.
The magic power circulation for every stance became as instinctual as breathing. Zhang Yu felt that if he were to execute a move now, the magic power within him would shift on its own, flowing naturally to his limbs.
The passive breathing exercise of the Celestial Cycle Qi-Gathering Method also played a part in this process.
As Zhang Yu sensed the circulation of magic power in his body, he could feel that because it was constantly coursing through every part of him, his magic power manipulation had become much more fluid when performing Freehand Combat.
He was struck by how much the Celestial Cycle Qi-Gathering Method helped beginners, benefiting not only their breathing exercises and body tempering, but even their practical combat skills.
However, with the exam about to start, Zhang Yu had no more time for reflection.
After a brief breathing exercise to recover some stamina, he hurried to the examination hall.
The first exam in the afternoon was on Daoist arts, and the second was the Martial arts practical combat exam.
The content of the Daoist arts exam mainly covered the recognition and use of talismans.
After all, those in the Qi Refinement realm had yet to master true Daoist arts and could only use their knowledge and magic power to activate talismans, so the three years of high school Daoist arts curriculum was fundamentally related to them.
Talismans referred to the secret arts through which mortals communicated with gods and commanded divine power.
Inside the computer lab.
Having arrived at the exam hall, Zhang Yu sat before a computer, silently reviewing his knowledge of talismans.
Not far away, Zhao Tianxing was frantically flipping through his textbook, repeatedly memorizing key points he was afraid of forgetting.
Bai Zhenzhen was resting her head on her desk for a quick nap, seemingly not the least bit nervous about the upcoming exam.
Just then, a bell rang, and the students all placed any items unrelated to the test on the desk at the front of the room before returning to their seats.
A moment later, the computer screens before them flickered to life, displaying this exam’s test paper.
Question 1: Which of the following talismans belongs to the God of Myriad Roads and Unimpeded Passage from the Department of Transportation.
The relevant information instantly surfaced in Zhang Yu’s mind.
The Department of Transportation, one of the eight great divine ministries of Kunxu, governed all matters of roads, aviation, and maritime traffic within Kunxu, possessing the authority to inspect all transportation in the world.
The God of Myriad Roads and Unimpeded Passage was a righteous god within the Department of Transportation responsible for urban roads, and Zhang Yu recalled that one of the deity’s powers was the recording of all surveillance data from city roads and vehicles…
Through this talisman, one could borrow the power of the God of Myriad Roads and Unimpeded Passage to access all sorts of surveillance within the city’s road network, a power said to reveal three hundred years into the past, leaving no detail uncovered.
After the memory flashed through his mind, Zhang Yu continued on to the options below.
There were four options in total, looking something like this:
A. ！*★，°*:.☆(￣▽￣)/$: *.°★*。
B. (o>ε(o>ｕ(≧∩≦)(￣ー￣)X(^▽^)
C. *)\)*▍`)*)((()
D. 『』～o(▽｀o)=▊=▋=▍
All four options are the beginning of a talisman, and judging by the style, they’re all from righteous gods in the Department of Transportation… Heh, trying to mess with my head right from the start?
It should be option D, the Vehicle Surveillance Talisman, right?
Zhang Yu mulled it over and chose D, then the next multiple-choice question popped up.
“Among the following talismans, which one is not a Reporting Talisman?”
Zhang Yu paused for a moment.
A Reporting Talisman? We never learned that. Another question that’s beyond the curriculum?
Frowning, he randomly picked one that looked right and moved on to the next question.
After finishing all the multiple-choice questions one by one, he was met with fill-in-the-blanks and short-answer questions, where the difficulty spiked sharply.
There were questions like, “Please compose a Health Check Talisman to respectfully request the God of Health and Verdant Spring from the Ministry of Health to check your gastrointestinal tract for any tumors.”
And also, “What talisman could be used to quickly subdue three mortals without magic power located 30 meters due north? Please draw the talisman. The specific data for the three mortals and the surrounding environment is provided below…”
Damn it… if it’s just three mortals, can’t I just beat them up? Why would I need a talisman for that?
Just as Zhang Yu was sweating over composing a Detainment Talisman, he heard the sound of a chair being pushed back.
He looked up to see his classmate, He Dayou, who had already finished the test and was preparing to leave.
Zhang Yu remembered that this He Dayou had placed third overall in last month’s monthly exam and was a filthy rich person, just like Qian Shen.
But unlike Qian Shen, who was focused on his grades, this He Dayou loved to flaunt his wealth and generally had very little interaction with Zhang Yu.
Turning in his exam paper early like this was, in itself, a form of flaunting.
This was because talismans were a subject where one could only truly succeed by pouring money into it, making this exam the clearest dividing line between the poor and the rich.
Many people even referred to talismans as the language of the rich.
Specifically, the so-called drawing of talismans allowed one to mobilize the power of the Eight Great Divine Ministries to accomplish all sorts of incredible feats, and these eight ministries were often referred to by the world as the Eight Ministries of Righteous Gods.
But schools only taught the most basic methods of talisman creation; to learn more advanced ones, or even many talismans not taught in schools at all, one had to purchase Talisman Tomes.
And besides the exorbitant cost of purchasing these Tomes, there were also membership fees, offerings to the gods, faith level requirements, and other massive expenditures.
It could be said that besides being categorized by a cultivator’s realm, the most important criterion for the talismans provided by the Tomes was money.
Only by spending enough money on a Talisman Tome could one attain a sufficient faith level to unlock more permissions, thus mastering more advanced talisman creation methods and various different types of talismans.
Only after fulfilling these prerequisites did one earn the qualification to study and practice talismans diligently, which included things like one-on-one talisman dialogues with the Eight Ministries of Righteous Gods, divine-guided talisman debugging, and talisman optimization while practicing under a god’s guidance… of course, this diligent practice was also incredibly expensive.
One could say that learning talismans outside of campus was a process entirely built on money.
And throughout this entire process, if one violated the rules set by the Eight Ministries of Righteous Gods, such as by privately sharing talismans or using them to break sect laws, they would be punished—with light penalties being fines and severe ones being complete financial ruin.
Every time Zhang Yu attended a Daoist arts class to study talismans, he couldn’t help but lament that this was a subject that was anything but fair and just, and it was the best way for the wealthy to rack up points on the college entrance exams and widen the gap with the poor—truly worthy of being called the language of the rich.
But Zhang Yu had also once heard Zhou Tianyi say that talismans were not even the most expensive among the Daoist arts.
Many of the various Daoist arts that could only be learned after Foundation Establishment required enormous sums of money, enough to leave even a university student deeply in debt.
After finally surviving the Daoist arts exam, Zhang Yu had just stepped out of the classroom when he saw a large crowd surrounding He Dayou, checking their answers.
He Dayou smiled faintly, took out a jade-like tablet, and then traced a series of ghost-like scribbles on it.
As the magic power in his hand fluctuated, a golden, illusory figure slowly emerged from the jade tablet.
He Dayou said with a smile, “This is an Answer Talisman from the God of Celestial Knowledge and Myriad Questions. If you have any questions, just ask him.”
Many of the students who witnessed this scene gasped in amazement, their eyes filled with envy as they looked at He Dayou.
As Zhang Yu’s gaze was fixed on the jade tablet in He Dayou’s hand, Bai Zhenzhen’s voice sounded from the side.
“Is that a Talisman Tome? He even got a jade-colored skin for it. That guy must have been planning this flex for a long time, huh?”
Zhang Yu turned his head to see Bai Zhenzhen beside him, indignant and contorted with jealousy.
Zhang Yu asked, “How did you do on the test?”
Bai Zhenzhen replied with dissatisfaction, “How else? At least a quarter of it was talismans we never learned.”
“The college entrance exam went 20% beyond the curriculum the year before last, and this year it’s pushing 25%? If this keeps up, by the time we take the exam, will half the content be stuff we were never taught? They have absolutely no shame.”
“They’d better hope I don’t run into those filthy rich kids in the practical exam, or I’ll beat them until they fail.”
On the other side, He Dayou seemed to sense the gazes of Bai Zhenzhen and Zhang Yu. He turned his head and gave them a slight smile.
Bai Zhenzhen instantly switched to a calm and detached expression, nodding slightly at him.
A short while later, the next exam was about to begin, and He Dayou walked towards the Martial arts practical exam hall with a few of his companions.
He Dayou was the kind of person whose elementary school essay could be titled “My Father, the School Director.”
Because his father was, in fact, a director on the board of Songyang High School.
But despite being born with a silver spoon, he didn’t feel his life was easy, for he was merely one of his father’s thirty-something children.
It was only after passing numerous assessments, countless competitions, and repeatedly meeting family KPIs that he became one of only two high school students, one of only two cultivators, among those thirty-plus siblings.
As for his other mortal brothers and sisters, they had long since gone to work at their father’s company to pay back their upbringing debt.
Although I am the child of a wealthy family, the fact that I’ve made it this far is ultimately due to my own effort and talent.
I earned my father’s investment through my own hard work, so why can’t I flaunt my wealth?
Those poor ghosts do nothing but whine all day, thinking I got to this point just because I have a rich dad? What a bunch of naive and ridiculous fools.
With these thoughts in mind, He Dayou had always looked down on those who were both poor and had bad grades.
And after he entered Songyang High School as the son of a director and gained a deeper understanding of the school’s many unwritten rules, he gradually began to look down on the poor students with good grades as well.
Good grades are ultimately temporary. These poor people have no idea… from the moment of their birth, they never stood a chance of getting ahead.
Perhaps they and we can no longer even be considered the same species.
Holding such views, He Dayou had always maintained his rank as third in the grade, flaunted his wealth from time to time, and lived a peaceful campus life, waiting for the moment he would be admitted to a top university.
Until the change in one person shattered his inner peace.
Watching Zhang Yu work harder and harder over the past half-month, even sparking a competitive frenzy throughout the entire class, made him feel disgusted.
This kind of poor ghost… counting his loan payments on his fingers every month, rushing off to a part-time job right after school to earn a few hundred or a thousand in pocket change, scrimping and saving just to cultivate, dreaming of striking it rich overnight and living a long life.
They have no idea what kind of people they’re competing against in the college entrance exams.
And they’re still scrambling around at school.
So poor it’s ugly.
He Dayou couldn’t stand the sight of Zhang Yu’s frantic efforts, as if hard work could actually let him win against wealthy people like them.
This was especially true after he heard the rumor that Zhang Yu had been accepted as a disciple by a Golden Core True Person; the director’s son specifically used his connections to confirm the news.
After confirming that Zhang Yu had not been taken as a disciple by any Golden Core True Person, his aversion for the person reached its peak.
He’s intentionally not clarifying it. Is he trying to bluff by borrowing the tiger’s might?
Therefore, he planned to use the practical combat exam as an opportunity to teach this poor ghost a lesson and make him recognize his true place.