The first round concluded swiftly. Aside from Shen Xiaoxiao, whom Fang Zhiyi had excluded from participating, everyone else took their turn—only to be instantly defeated.
Fang Zhiyi called them over and scolded them one by one.
"Master, may I... take my leave now?" Ren Xuan asked cautiously.
Fang Zhiyi waved him off. "Go on, but remember—no, wait, come back in a month. Sparring, you know."
"A month later?" Ren Xuan tensed. "This sparring business is..." He truly didn’t want to relive the feeling of being under the constant scrutiny of a Nascent Soul expert.
Fang Zhiyi grinned. "I think your suggestion for regular sparring is excellent. From now on, come every month. If you don’t, I’ll come find you."
"But, Master—"
"Scram!" With that single word, the crushing pressure of a Nascent Soul cultivator surged forth. Ren Xuan coughed up blood, clutching his chest as he staggered back.
"Senior Brother!" Shen Wanwan cried out in alarm, rushing forward with the others.
"Quit dawdling. Do you have any idea how busy I am?" Fang Zhiyi’s cheerful expression darkened in an instant.
Not daring to argue, Shen Wanwan and her group slunk away in defeat.
Fang Zhiyi then had his disciples change into matching uniforms. After inspecting them, he nodded in satisfaction.
"Now, it’s time for your second lesson."
"Master, we haven’t even had the first one yet," Jiang Leng pointed out.
Fang Zhiyi shot him a look. "The first lesson was just now—learning how pathetically weak you are."
The disciples fell silent.
"Did you cultivate immortality just to be trampled on by others?"
"No," Jiang Leng shook his head.
"Louder!"
"NO!"
"Good." Fang Zhiyi nodded approvingly. "Understanding your own limitations is a crucial lesson."
Jiang Leng nearly wept. Master, you didn’t have to let us get beaten up just to prove that. We already knew how weak we were.
Another disciple, however, perked up. "Master, does that mean we can become powerful cultivators too?" At those words, all the disciples turned hopeful eyes toward Fang Zhiyi.
Fang Zhiyi paused, then shook his head. "With your talent? Not a chance. The second lesson is about how to make the most of your weakness."
He stood up. "I’ll demonstrate now. Follow me."
Baffled, the disciples trailed behind him. Fang Zhiyi glanced back at them—bruised and battered, though thankfully without internal injuries, despite their opponents holding back.
Meanwhile, the Sect Leader was listening to Shen Wanwan’s report. Upon hearing that his disciple had been injured by Master Qingxu, he immediately prepared to demand an explanation—only for Fang Zhiyi to arrive first, leading a group of disciples.
Before the Sect Leader could react, Fang Zhiyi pointed at his disciples. "Sect Leader! Look at them! My disciples were beaten black and blue in a friendly spar. You must uphold justice for us!"
The Sect Leader’s gaze swept over the group—all bruised except for one young girl. His frown deepened as he glanced at Shen Wanwan.
Fang Zhiyi didn’t give her a chance to speak, instead demanding compensation outright.
"Compensation?" The Sect Leader gaped. Though unfamiliar with the term, he grasped its meaning.
"Ah, Sect Leader, you know how poor Qingxu Peak is. We can’t even afford medicine for these injuries. It breaks my heart as their master." Fang Zhiyi put on a pitiful expression.
The Sect Leader turned to Ren Xuan, who looked indignant—he hadn’t struck hard, nor dared to! And yet, he was the one who’d suffered internal injuries!
"About my second disciple..." the Sect Leader finally remembered.
"Oh heavens! What are we to do? My poor disciples, injured beyond my ability to heal!" Fang Zhiyi wailed, his Nascent Soul-level spiritual energy flaring erratically with his theatrics. He slammed a fist on the table. "This master has failed you!"
The millennia-old ebony table shattered into dust.
The Sect Leader was no fool, nor did he have the patience for Fang Zhiyi’s antics. Who would’ve thought that restoring his foundation would turn Master Qingxu into such a troublemaker—now extorting compensation with sheer seniority and power!
As Fang Zhiyi eyed a nearby vase, the Sect Leader hastily relented.
Once the spirit stones were handed over, Fang Zhiyi straightened up, gave a perfunctory bow, and swaggered out with his disciples in tow.
After they left, Ren Xuan couldn’t hold back. "Master, why let him act so shamelessly?"
The Sect Leader’s face darkened. "What else could I do? His current cultivation..." He paused, eyeing Ren Xuan. "And you—a core disciple, stooping to spar with those worthless outer disciples?"
Ren Xuan wilted under the reprimand. The Sect Leader scoffed. "The compensation will be deducted from your monthly allowance!" With that, he stormed off.
Shen Wanwan bowed apologetically. "I’m sorry, Second Senior Brother."
Ren Xuan forced a smile. "It’s fine." But inwardly, he was bleeding—the Sect Leader had given Fang Zhiyi a hefty sum. How many months would it take to repay that?
Rumors spread across Xuantian Sect that Qingxu Peak had been unusually busy. Yet when curious onlookers spied on them, they saw nothing extraordinary—just basic Foundation Establishment training and lectures from Master Qingxu.
Nothing noteworthy.
If only they’d dared to get closer, they might’ve heard Fang Zhiyi’s actual teachings.
"Forget the rest. What’s a sword cultivator? They pack a punch, sometimes enough to challenge those above their level. So when facing one, protect your vitals."
"Pill refiners? Excellent targets. Why? Because they’re weak. Perfect for greenhorns like you to practice on. Got it?"
A month passed in relative peace. The chores originally assigned to Qingxu Peak’s disciples were redistributed among other outer disciples.
Others occasionally crossed paths with Fang Zhiyi’s followers, now clad in uniforms reportedly designed by Master Qingxu himself—embroidered with the character "Qing." Though stylish, their cultivation remained pitifully low.
Whispers spread: Not even a powerhouse like Master Qingxu could change the fate of these hopeless cases.
Some even considered switching to his tutelage, only to be told he no longer accepted disciples—regardless of talent.
Two months later, Qingxu Peak’s disciples remained unchanged in strength, but their eyes had taken on a wolfish glint.
"Pill refining? Fine. By the rules, half the materials go to me," Lin Zhiyang, the head disciple of the Pill Refining Peak, said dismissively.
The disciple before him nodded. "Understood. I’ll prepare them, then?"
Lin Zhiyang waved him off. Once alone, he smirked. Pill refining is the life—no grueling cultivation, just concocting pills to ascend. And fools keep delivering materials to my doorstep.
Another disciple took the seat across from him.
"Pill refining? Wait six months. Can’t wait? Then scram."
But this one just smiled. "Senior Brother Lin, I’m not here for pills. I’m here to spar."
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ose... to cooperate with the protagonist! Shen Yuan: I have a system! Protagonist: What? System: Holy crap, you're just spilling it out like that? Shen Yuan: Let's team up, we'll split the system rewards! Protagonist: Fifty-fifty split? Shen Yuan: No way! Protagonist: What!? I'm the one getting beaten up, and I don't get half? Shen Yuan: Forty-sixty split, I get forty, you get sixty! Protagonist: Deal! Big brother, come on, hit me! As long as it doesn't kill me, beat me like you mean it! Shen Yuan: Don't worry... I will definitely protect all of you! No one but me can lay a finger on you! Guard our Heaven's Chosen Ones! I'm the only one allowed to bully them!
world slacker. But a genius female disciple just had to get clingy, insisting that he take her as a disciple. Not only that, she was always making advances on him, thoroughly disrupting his peaceful slacker life...
