“Fire is nothing more than a source of life. It gives warmth, melts metals, devours forests,” weak waves of spiritual energy from the outside were absorbed into the spiritual core of Tian Zhe. “Fire as a primary element obeys all that exists, and all worlds obey the one who absorbed the flame with all his heart.”
Reading the techniques for developing his family to himself, Tian Zhe improved. Even while reading the techniques of development to himself, each word of the technique resonated with the flows of spiritual energy inside its core, making this flow rotate madly.
Due to the fact that the Fire Orchid family specialized in spells of the element of fire, the techniques for developing the family were also associated with the fire element. The spiritual energy that entered the core from the outside, under the influence of the cultivation technique, was cleansed of impurities of other elements and slowly merged with the spiritual flow of Tian Zhe. In contrast, inside the core itself, the spiritual currents resembled a vortex. Strengthening the vortex of spiritual energy pressed on the core walls, gradually increasing the diameter of this metaphysical sphere, thereby increasing the capacity of the spiritual core and the strength of the flow of spiritual energy. Tian Zhe was in great discomfort from these actions.
This was his first true spiritual practice since his “awakening.” Despite the fact that he knew that, most likely, he needed to change his cultivation technique, his academic interest still prompted him to perform meditation practice as an experiment.
After finishing his meditation, Tian Zhe put out the candles placed in his room and looked around. During spiritual practice, the practitioner's consciousness is slightly clouded, due to which the sense of time is lost. For this reason, Tian Zhe wondered how long his practice would last if he read the development technique several times. He began at sunrise, when positive energy "Yang," entering the world with sunlight, mixes with negative energy "Yin" of the night. In total, his practice took about an hour and a half.
“For fiery techniques of cultivation, fire is needed. Therefore, it is also better to practice next to the corresponding element for other elements,” Tian Zhe reflected on his first practice, analyzing his feelings during the process of spiritual practice and its consequences.
Mentally scanning his body, his face twisted in displeasure. The surplus of external energy released from his spiritual core accumulated in the meridians and felt differently in comparison with his own. There was no lightness or warmth; on the contrary, he felt a slight pain.
Despite the fact that Yin energy is also an integral part of all living things, its overabundance for a practitioner below the silver rank can lead to negative consequences, disrupting the internal flows of energy in the body, due to which practitioners can not only get stuck at the bronze rank but also undermine your health.
Since Jade City was erected after the destruction of the Black Dragon Empire, much information about cultivation was lost. Along with it, knowledge about concomitant diseases that could arise from improper cultivation was lost.
“So it’s too early to practice at dawn?” It will be necessary to compare with daily practice,” after reflection, Tian Zhe strained his muscles and his own spiritual energy, accumulated in the muscles over the past week, penetrated with force into his meridians and squeezed out the remnants of external energy.
“That's better.”
The boy was definitely lucky that from the moment of his “awakening,” instead of spiritual practice aimed at absorbing the world's external energy, he learned to manage his own spiritual energy. If he started practicing before realizing what kind of world he was in, then just one week of night training could be enough to slow down his own development for the rest of his life. He was also very lucky that this world so strongly resembled the world from the novel he had read, so Tian Zhe knew how to remove these excess negative energy from the body. Not to mention that he has accumulated his own pure spiritual energy in his muscles.
“Still, even the Divine Phoenix technique is something mediocre,” Tian Zhe walked through the empty corridors of the academy, talking about his recent practice. Due to his excellent spiritual perception, he noticed that his spiritual strength did not increase much during the one and a half-hour practice.
If his assessment of the developmental technique would have been heard by the ancestors of the family, who knows how much pain their hearts experienced in the afterlife. In the end, it was the strongest developmental technique in the Fire Orchid family, and only the direct descendants of the head of the family could learn this technique. Of the current family members, only four people have used this technique, including Tian Zhe himself.
The boy came to the conclusion that by absorbing the energy of the world using his own powers, he could achieve a similar, if not greater, result and without reciting the Divine Phoenix mantra or lighting candles. Consequently, the attribute and the form of his spiritual core conflicted with the development technique, not to mention that this development technique absorbed a very small amount of energy through energies' resonance.
“I wonder if such an “excellent” technique as the Divine Phoenix makes it possible for the practice to absorb about a tenth of one's own energy at a time, then how bad are the generally available techniques in the academy?” the natural energy absorbed by its core from the outside, for the most part, was scattered. Only its grains mixed with Tian Zhe's own spiritual flow.
Thinking about this, Zhe decided to go to the city to buy the items needed for his further practice, as well as to get practical clothes, instead of elaborate robes and canopies hanging below the knees.
On the Jade City streets, passers-by now and then turned around because of a strange young man. He walked as if nothing had happened and read a book. The strangeness was added by the fact that he did not look up from the book for a second, even if thereby he could bump into a random passerby. Still, to the surprise of onlookers, the boy continued to read instead of constantly bumping into someone. He deftly avoided any collision... A step to the side, a jerk, a series of steps with rotation, the young man walked as if he was dancing at a social event. All this gave him an eccentric who never wanted to tear himself away from the book.
Since it was a half-hour walk to the market, before leaving the academy, Tian Zhe looked into the library and took a couple of books related to cultivation and began to read them while walking. Using his spiritual perception, it cost him nothing to avoid passers-by. As for how he was perceived from the outside... He didn't care deeply.
“Look where you are going!”
Tian Zhe jumped back, where he had just been, a fat man fell to the ground and began to scream as if from wild pain. A couple of thin men ran up to him, one tall, the other short.
“Brother, how are you?” said the high one.
“Big brother, what's wrong with you?” echoed him low.
“My arm, I broke my arm because of this geek!” the man held on to his left hand and then pointed to the young man with it. “Because of him, I broke my arm!”
“Are you kidding?" He himself shouted, “look where you are going. He himself flew and fell to the ground, and even waving in my direction with an allegedly broken arm.”
“I don’t believe you. There is no theatricality in you. Try to repeat the whole scene from the very beginning!” Tian Zhe did not let the men play the classic scheme of blackmailing the street punks with a cheap staging of a broken arm.
“What?” three men were speechless from shock. Even the pretender forgot about the “broken” hand and stared at the impudent boy stupidly.
“Deaf or what?” Tian Zhe smiled, examining the men in front of me. “Big brothers, if you want me to pay for this fat man's broken arm, let me break his neck.”
The fat man choked on the young man's insolence, and his tall accomplice forgot what to do.
“Puppy, did you confuse anything?” only the thin man did not lose his composure and began to approach threateningly. His friends came to their senses and followed his example. "Give me your money, or you will regret it!"
Tian Zhe was not scared. Taking a step back, he waved his right hand.
“This money?” a gold-colored metal card emerged from the space ring of Zhe. At the sight of the map, the men forgot how to breathe. The gold tael, a plate worth ten thousand bronze taels, completely took over the minds of men.
“Give it to me!” the short man shouted and swung to take the card, but Tian Zhe increased the distance between them with a light step, and his right hand, with a biting movement, released a golden card, and it stuck into the man's eye.
“Gyaaaa!” the neighborhood of the market pierced a prolonged cry, the man grabbed his injured eye, but before he could understand anything, a figure of a young man appeared next to him. Tian Zhe stood on one leg, and in the next instant, his right leg slammed hard into the man's neck. The force of the kick was enough to knock the man back.
“Sinhe!” shouted the fat man, and meanwhile, along with his cry, Zhe closed the distance with the tall man. Everything was happening too fast for the swindlers. Having reduced the distance, Zhe, falling in a wide stance, turned sideways and, with the force of acceleration of his body mass, plunged his elbow into the man's stomach. The man flew away, spitting breakfast, and because of the severe pain, he felt like he was spitting his insides.
“Bolin! The fat man shouted the name of the man. Men were thieves, occasionally trading in robbery or extortion, freeing the wallets of lonely wandering simpletons. This time, being slightly tipsy, they saw Zhe reading on the move and considered him easy money with a lot of money. How wrong they were, because an ordinary person did not stand next to Zhe, whose purely physical development, although he did not reach the bronze rank, was only slightly inferior to the weakest with his spiritual strengthening of the body bronze warriors.
“Stop!” the fat man screamed in horror when closing the distance, Zhe put his left hand on his forehead. The next second, the young man sharply dropped his hand. The fat man screamed from the unbearable pain that pierced his body. First, his upper, then the middle, and lastly, the lower dantian was cut by the blade of spiritual energy that arose in the left palm of Tian Zhe. Together with the Dantians, the man's spiritual core was damaged, completely losing the ability to accumulate energy.
The man collapsed and lost consciousness, choking on pain and his own saliva.
Occasional passers-by, in horror, stared at the young man. Among them were those who wanted to appropriate the golden tael taking advantage of the turmoil but changed their minds when they saw how a teenager dealt with three adult men in a matter of seconds.
“Now I know the difference between an ordinary person and a practitioner,” muttering to himself, Zhe walked over to the first man and took the gold card. In the same instant, the card disappeared into his ring.
From the very beginning, Tian Zhe could run away or call the guard for help, but the reason for his trick with provocation was that he deliberately ran into trouble, just to assess his capabilities. Practitioners who did not reach the bronze rank, like ordinary people, were equated to the initial iron rank.
In fact, until a practitioner strengthened his spiritual core and a “bronze cloud” appeared in his spiritual body, he was considered an ordinary person. The iron rank was not official. It was used to refer to all those who had not yet reached the bronze rank.
The amazing thing was that even without cultivating, an ordinary person could easily reach the bronze rank by the age of thirty, simply because his body was strengthened from hard physical work, and spiritual strength was passively accumulated in the core.
The only thing is that such people were still stuck at the initial stage of the bronze rank, since they had neither development techniques nor a mentor that could help them, not to mention the fact that they long ago grew out of the age of building the foundation and therefore even found a teacher and received from him the technique of development, all that such a lucky guy could achieve is to raise his development by two or three stages.
As a rule, such people headed the families of commoners, effectively working in the field or at worst were hired as city guards. What no, but these are people who reached the bronze rank, although they were considered weak compared to other fighters.
The Fat Man, whose spirit core was damaged by Tian Zhe's attack, was one of those people and almost reached the bronze rank. Tian Zhe soberly assessed that such an individual posed a threat and therefore concluded that it was better to destroy his foundation.
“It would be better to become a guard, not a street swindler with shitty acting skills,” Tian Zhe could only sigh while looking at the unconscious men. He opened the book and, returning to reading, wandered on.
“You will pay for this!” He heard from behind.
“Lord, I didn’t even have time to take two steps,” sighing again and putting the book in the ring, the boy turned around.
A tall, wardrobe-like man of about forty was moving toward him. He was a head taller than other people, only his arm in the girth was like Tian Zhe's leg.
“Damn,” only the young man could utter. His face twisted with tension, and this was not the size of the man, who was much larger than him, but the spiritual strength emanating from him.” “Bronze rank, and apparently, it is at the peak of the rank.”
An ordinary person could not achieve such results, especially living by robbery. The only thing that came to Zhe's mind was that he was a former guard turned bandit.
Zhe thought about how to get out of this situation. Despite the fact that he was approaching the peak of the iron rank, the difference between him and a man in heaven and earth. Zhe knew that his spiritual flow was in the region of sixty, maximum seventy, and his physical capabilities were somewhere in these values. His opponent is at the peak of bronze. Hence his spiritual strength alone was in the region of five hundred, not to mention physical strength. You can't just run away from him. He'll catch up instantly. Noticing a bucket of slops next to him, Tian Zhe smiled, looking into the man's eyes.
“Have you come to bargain?” confidently and loudly addressed the boy.
“What?” the man fell into a stupor.” “What else is to bargain?”
Taking advantage of the fact that he managed to distract the bronze bandit, Zhe launched a bucket at him.
A man accustomed to street fights and even more so reaching the heights of the bronze rank did not need to dodge the bucket. But Zhe's goal was not to hit the bucket in his face but to have the scattering slop make him cover his eyes.
“Guards, kill!” as soon as the bucket was released, Zhe screamed at the top of his lungs and took off.
He jumped over stalls, slipped between passers-by, looking for the perfect escape route. Sensing the approaching spiritual energy of the bandit, Zhe turned sharply and ran towards the nearest house.
The man did not know what the boy was doing. He closed the distance to grab him and beat him properly for what he did to his henchmen. When he thought that he was about to catch the boy at the wall of the house, Zhe jumped and took a step along the wall, jerked upward, followed by throwing his hands forward, grabbed the railing, and pulled himself to the second floor of the building. Fortunately, it was a restaurant, whose second floor opened onto the street with an open loggia.
This man did not expect. It was difficult even for the bronze ones to jump three meters top, and this guy, who did not reach bronze, made the impossible with dexterous acrobatic movements.
The veins on the man's forehead swelled with anger and almost burst. It was furnished not once, but twice. Having missed the prey, he did not give up. Crouching low, he pushed himself off the ground with force and literally flew to the second floor, breaking through the wooden railing.
Noticing where Zhe ran away, the man, throwing tables, ran after him. Meanwhile, Zhe, having overcome the floor, jumped into the street on the other side of the building, grabbing a knife from one of the tables. How he regretted that among the things in his space ring were not a single weapon.
As soon as he landed, Zhe jumped to the side. Where he was a moment ago, a man crashed into the ground, trying to crush the boy in a jump.
“Do you know that you are neither intelligent nor quick-witted?” Knocking down breath from the flight, Zhe could only laugh it off. “What kind of genius does it take to attack someone in the daylight?”
“I will kill you for what you did to my people!” the man did not even listen to the words of Tian Zhe and only threatened.
If there were guards nearby, she would have appeared long ago, and judging by the fact that none of the passers-by intervened, to the luck of the man, there were no other spiritual practitioners nearby, which means that no one is stopping him from taking revenge.
The man moved towards Tian Zhe. Even if the boy has reached the heights of the iron rank and is armed with a knife, he is not a rival to him. The man was a bronze-ranked warrior, and his hands were wrapped in bandages made of silk from an iron silkworm. Such a fabric will easily stop a sword strike. What can we say about a small knife in Zhe's hands?
When the man got close enough to overtake the boy with one jerk and break his skull with a blow of his fist, a blade appeared next to his neck.
“One more step and your head will fly off your shoulders.”
