Chapter Ninety-Four: Weapon Pavilion, Battle Runes

These few days back at the academy were the most relaxed of all. Every day, one could sleep soundly without worrying about strange beings or gene-bodied raiders, and without fearing that anyone would be hurt.

Every morning, Ye Bai rose on time and went with Yao Ling and Cao Xiaoseng to the training room to work out. He took up the Startling Rainbow Saber and practiced his cuts and slashes again and again.

At first he had wanted to find a saber manual from before the Dark Epoch to practice with, but Cao Xiaoseng said that anything from before that age was no longer suited to the present. These days, what they faced were mostly mutated beasts and the like; those saber and sword manuals had been intended for duels between people and were mostly flashy things of little practical use. The rare authentic volumes that could still be used had largely vanished long ago.

Yao Ling trained even harder than before. Every day she was in the hyper-pressure training room, where the gravity had gradually been raised to seventeen times normal. Each time she came out, she was drenched in sweat, her wrists swollen and red. Watching her, Ye Bai could not help but feel distressed, but Cao Xiaoseng acted as though he saw nothing at all.

Of the three, Cao Xiaoseng led the most leisurely life. He spent his days drifting between a chair and his naps, either sleeping or staring blankly into space, no one knowing what he was thinking about.

During that time, they entered the ruin again. By then, all three had already lived and died several times in the radiation zone, so they were no longer as frightened of the monsters in the ruin as they had been the first time.

Cao Xiaoseng still spent his days sitting and sleeping, yet inside the ruin his movements were even more uncanny, and his finger-guards had never fully manifested before. This time, however, the three of them, as if unfolding a new branch in a game’s scenario, discovered a new monster: the Pharaoh King’s Guard.

The Pharaoh King’s Guard stood in the passage leading directly to the golden coffin. The last time, the three had been hurrying through the trial and had not noticed the hidden niches in the corridor walls.

Perhaps because Ye Bai had broken through, on their second passage through the corridor he noticed something on the wall. After pressing it, a chamber appeared, slightly smaller than the Pharaoh King’s tomb room.

Inside were five Pharaoh King’s Guards in all, and this was the first time since his return that Cao Xiaoseng had fully manifested his finger-guards. They no longer looked like mere gloves; the golden guards had extended all the way to his wrists.

After her journey through the radiation zone, Yao Ling had grown completely in strength. She could now face a Pharaoh King’s Guard alone and cut it down. One must know that a Pharaoh King’s Guard was a monster of the initial entry level. Time passed like this for four days, and on the morning of the fifth day, Zhang Jian informed them that class was in session.

After a month apart, the small class of fifteen gathered again. The girls had lost some of their youthful awkwardness and gained a touch more allure and maturity. Compared with the last time Ye Bai had seen them, their faces were no longer heavily painted, and they had not buried their delicate features beneath a thick layer of foundation. The boys remained as usual: some sat in a daze, while others, after having experienced a single monthly exam, had seen their feelings warm rapidly and were now leaning close together, whispering softly.

Whether it was the girls who had grown, or the boys who sat quietly to one side, all of them had gone through something once and understood the cruelty of the world beyond the academy. Compared with dozens of rounds of simulated training, a single monthly exam was enough to make them mature.

Ye Bai strolled into the classroom with a somewhat lazy air. The night before, he had looked up some saber manuals from before the Dark Epoch. Though they were of little use, they still offered a few techniques for generating force. From this experience, Ye Bai understood that when it came to strength and elemental power, one should save what one could.

Behind Yao Ling sat Cao Xiaoseng, the eternal sleep god. Once back at school, Cao Xiaoseng returned to his old state. His bright yellow pajamas never left his body, and he could fall asleep anytime, anywhere.

Who knew whether what he said was true: that one could sleep one’s way into a ghostly movement technique? If so, that would be terrifying. Their little group could be said to have picked up a treasure.

“Did you not sleep last night?”

Yao Ling looked at the two dark circles under Ye Bai’s eyes, took a bottle of cosmetics she used from her pocket, and handed it to him. “Put some around your eyes. The dark circles will fade soon.”

Ye Bai had meant to say it was unnecessary, but the bottle was already in his hand. He squeezed out a little onto his fingertip and spread it around his eyes. It felt cool, as though someone were slowly massaging the skin with their hand.

“I spent a while reading a saber manual last night. I found some of the force-generation techniques useful, so I stayed up late.”

“Was Xiaoseng called by you?” Ye Bai suddenly asked.

“Mm.” Yao Ling answered openly, which surprised Ye Bai a little, though he did not say anything. He took a seat in front of Yao Ling and waited for Advisor Zhang Jian to arrive.

Yesterday, Advisor Zhang Jian had said that everyone should assemble at nine this morning. Ye Bai arrived in the classroom right on time, and not long after he sat down, Zhang Jian entered.

Every time Zhang Jian stepped into the classroom, it felt as if the temperature inside dropped several degrees. Even though the sun outside blazed in midsummer, everyone still felt a chill.

Those eyes, cold as ice, swept over everyone below. His seemingly slender body gave the impression of containing boundless strength.

“Not bad.”

That was the first thing Zhang Jian said, and it was not clear whether it was praise or consolation. Then he walked back and forth once down the aisle.

The classroom was utterly silent. It seemed Advisor Zhang Jian placed too much pressure on everyone, even more than the threat posed by mutated beasts outside, those creatures that could truly bring life and death.

“Only one team’s mission failed. I had thought we would have to merge classes again today, but instead you all gave me a surprise. There are only three teams left in Class Six, so they will be broken up, and one team will be joining our class.”

Zhang Jian stopped beside the seats of the team that had vanished, lightly stroking the desktop as though imagining the three of them.

“Your results have made me rather curious, especially the first team.”

As he spoke, Zhang Jian sat down, and when Yao Ling heard the advisor mention their team, her heart jolted and she felt a little anxious.

“Your team truly surprised me, and the other two advisors as well. One of you ranked second individually, one ranked fifth, and then there was another who placed fifty-fifth. What puzzles me most is why your team ranked dead last overall.”

Zhang Jian muttered to himself. He did not ask Ye Bai and the others for the reason, as though he already knew it.

“I know you are all young and spirited, and that having a little strength can make one arrogant enough to think the heavens are low and the earth is thin, daring to charge into any place. But you will not always be so lucky that you can walk back out. There are those who were even more dazzling than you, and in the end they vanished as well.”

Ye Bai understood that Zhang Jian was speaking about them, warning them not to overestimate themselves and also cautioning the others not to treat their own lives as a joke.

With Ye Bai’s first team, anyone who paid a little attention could see that something was off. It was impossible for an individual to rank high while the team ranked last. Clearly, after completing the task they had gone deeper in, hoping to stumble upon some opportunity, and had pushed in their submission time until the very end.

“Still, among you there is someone who has surprised me somewhat. He actually managed to bring something out from that old man, and he is still carrying it to this day. Since we have seen it now, I might as well explain.”

At some point, Zhang Jian had moved back to the front of the podium.

“I believe you all have read the new student handbook, so you know that outside the academy there is the Weapon Pavilion and the Book Pavilion. The items there are extraordinary, but they are not something everyone can obtain. This is especially true of the weapons in the Weapon Pavilion. Every weapon has its own master. Anyone who knows even a little about the pavilion would not go there to buy a weapon during the freshman stage. League credits are one thing, but if you spend them and the weapon still fails to awaken, you will have gained nothing and lost everything.”

“A few days ago, someone awakened a weapon from the Weapon Pavilion. We still do not know who it was, but the odds are said to be one in ten thousand. Before you are promoted to your second year, I suggest you do not buy weapons from the pavilion. There are many other places where your credits will be needed.”

With that, Zhang Jian’s right hand condensed fire elemental power, taking the shape of something like a gauntlet. When the flames of power faded, a crimson gauntlet appeared before everyone’s eyes.

“Next, I will teach you about battle sigils.”

Zhang Jian slipped the gauntlet onto his hand, then condensed elemental power within his body once more. The entire gauntlet began to glow red. He then pointed with a finger at the knuckle area.

“See these red marks? These are battle sigils. They can greatly enhance the user’s attack power, recovery power, or the weapon’s own toughness, allowing it to fight for a long time.”

Zhang Jian withdrew the gauntlet back into his body and returned to normal, then continued his lecture.

“For weapons in the Weapon Pavilion, battle sigils are engraved into them. No one knows how battle sigils came into being, but every weapon born with them is something that can be encountered only by chance and never sought at will.”

“As for the Flame God Gauntlet in my hand, it does have battle sigils, but they were imitated by the old men of the Technology Academy. Even then, it has only three sigils, and its power is not as great as those weapons born with their own sigils.”

After speaking, Zhang Jian gave a faint sigh, as though regretting that he did not possess a weapon naturally born with battle sigils.

“As far as is known, the weapons with the most battle sigils in the world today are the ancient sword of the Xiao family, the Battle Dragon Saber of the Sha family, and the Flowing Sea Zither of the Xing family. Each has ten sigils, and they are the three kingly weapons. However, as far as I know, none of the weapons in the hands of the Three Kings has ever activated more than eight sigils.”

Zhang Jian played the recording just captured by his smart brain. When the battle sigils appeared, he paused and enlarged the image, then asked, “What do you see?”

“An eye?”

“An eye shape made of rings of fire elemental power? In the middle, where the pupil should be, there seems to be a character.”

“What character is it? Can anyone tell?”

This was the first time Zhang Jian had interacted with the class, and he no longer seemed so distant.

No one spoke. Nearly everyone seated there was hearing the term battle sigil for the first time. Before this, the weapons they used had all been high-tech arms, such as pulse guns, laser guns, and the like.

“It should be ‘soldier.’”

Yao Ling’s voice suddenly broke the classroom’s silence. She then continued, “If I am not mistaken, Advisor, your Flame God Gauntlet should only bear the three sigils: Presence, Soldier, and Battle.”

Zhang Jian smiled, confirming Yao Ling’s answer, then added, “That’s right. The sigil I activated just now was the character for ‘soldier.’ Soldier represents energy. It can greatly increase one’s offensive power, and it also symbolizes longevity and a vigorous, almost youthful vitality. It can rapidly raise the body’s state of excitation and its resistance to blows for a short time.”

“Activating each sigil requires sufficient comprehension. One may awaken a sigil through understanding oneself, elemental power, or the natural environment.”

Zhang Jian had only ever taught Ye Bai and the others two classes in total, yet every time class ended, Ye Bai felt that time had passed with astonishing speed. Each time, he also felt how ignorant he had been before, like a frog at the bottom of a well, believing that the world ended wherever his eyes could reach.

Three hours passed in this way, one hundred and eighty minutes, and to Ye Bai it felt as though they vanished in the blink of an eye.

After Zhang Jian left, they would have to wait until the next month to see him again. But before departing, he informed all the freshmen that a ceremony would be held three days later. Everyone had to attend, and the monthly exam for this month would be canceled.