8 One Man's Trash

Cha Ming woke up early the next morning, eager to claim his Green Leaf jade and learn some combat techniques. Fighting as a path for self-improvement was not new to him. He had taken martial arts in his past life, and he rather liked the intense but forgiving atmosphere that accompanied a friendly spar. He had already washed and changed into a fresh uniform before sunrise and would be one of the first people to get his breakfast. The sight of an empty bed on the other side of the room made him wonder if he would get to have his own room for the remainder of the year.

The administrative building was a small building built with pure black stone. It was not made from obsidian but rather a very pure marble that fit together so perfectly that it seemed to be made from a single piece. The building stood in stark contrast to the lush wooded gardens that were maintained around the building. To make his way to the building, he walked along a white stone road similar to those found in the richer areas of Green Leaf City.

The administrative building was no longer as crowded as it had been on the first few days of recruitment. Cha Ming was able to walk out of the building in the time that it took an incense stick to burn. The bright green jade he received was half a finger width thick, the size of a playing card, and was engraved with a green maple leaf, the symbol of Green Leaf Academy. The reverse side displayed his full name, the number of contribution points stored on the card, and a single drop of blood that had been absorbed by the jade in a small red circle. This blood contained his aura and prevented other people from using the card should it be stolen.

Cha Ming made his way to the library once more, this time with his Green Leaf jade containing one thousand contribution points. This time he was not accompanied by Elder Ling and had to wait in line for an hour before being allowed entry. Access was limited to a certain number of people per floor to ensure that each student had a quiet atmosphere with which to browse skills.

"Halt!" said a middle-aged man in green robes. He regulated entry into the library. "Please present your Green Leaf jade and specify which floor you would like to access."

The man had a golden emblem on his chest engraved with the character for "supervisor." Each student allowed in the library would first need to prove that they had sufficient points to purchase a technique in the library. This was done to prevent loitering by wishful students.

Unlike the fourth floor, the first floor contained hundreds of shelves packed full of techniques and other reference information.

How am I supposed to look through all of these? he wondered. Unlike most people, I can't just look through a narrow section in the library, and I can literally practice all of these techniques if I set my mind to it.

It was better to start somewhere than be overwhelmed by the amount of choices, so he picked a bookshelf and started browsing by price. If possible, he wanted to purchase one technique for each element. The techniques on this floor were Mortal Tier techniques separated into grades 1-5. The grades were dependent on the quality of the skill—typically a higher-grade skill would have a much greater effect per amount of qi or an overall greater power than a lower-grade technique. There were no bronze, silver, or gold techniques on the floor.

After two hours of browsing through wood techniques alone, he realized exactly how poor he truly was. One thousand contribution points might sound like a lot, but having to split between five different techniques, he only had 200 points per element. The minimum cost of techniques on the first level was 100 points, while the highest cost was 5,000 points.

"Do you need some help finding anything?" said a squeaky voice behind him.

Du Cha Ming jumped upon hearing the voice and looked behind himself. He didn't notice anyone and continued looking around. Once he confirmed that no one else was present, he continued rummaging through the books.

"Ahem." The sound of a throat clearing could be heard immediately behind him. He looked back once again and noticed a strand of hair. Following the strand of hair, he looked down and noticed a small figure. The figure was a short old man. In fact, he was a little too short—three feet tall at the most. Cha Ming hadn't heard there were dwarves in this world. Or perhaps he was a halfling?

He clasped his hands apologetically and bowed. "Greetings, Elder. My apologies. Is there something you need?" He didn't dare to elaborate on the reason he initially ignored him. Who knew if this short man would have a disproportionate temper? Much to his relief, the short old man smiled, brushed off the unintentional insult, and started speaking.

"My name is Elder Xiao . Yes, it is a very ironic name, so please don't laugh. My family has always been of this… stature, supposedly from ancient times. Regardless, it looks like you're not sure what to pick for techniques. I am the overseer on the first floor, and perhaps I can be of assistance. Otherwise, the other students may not get a chance to browse the library, as you might be here all week."

A little embarrassed, Cha Ming nodded and accepted his help. He truly did have too many options, and a little help would go a long way. "I am currently cultivating the Lesser Five Elements cultivation technique," Cha Ming explained as he walked through bookshelves behind Elder Xiao. "While I have one thousand points to spend as an acceptance bonus, I am pretty insistent on cultivating at least one technique for each element."

The elder looked over at him, surprised, but allowed him to continue.

"I have a significantly lower qi pool in each element than most people, around one-fifth, and so I would need skills that emphasize variety and decision-making. They must be of low cost but must give me tactical advantages as opposed to skills emphasizing brute force. I cannot compete with others based on brute force or skills that emphasize large amounts of qi for a single technique."

The elder pondered for a few moments, contemplating Cha Ming's thought process. Indeed, this was really the only way he could compete, which was to outwit his opponents and catch them by surprise. After a while he turned around and motioned for Cha Ming to follow him. They passed several bookshelves until they reached a small room. There was a large black stone inside the room, and the stone gave off a glossy lustre similar to polished obsidian.

Elder Xiao stood in front of the stone and intoned, "Computer, please show all skills below three hundred contribution points in the elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water."

Cha Ming was quite shocked. Elder Xiao called the stone "computer." It seemed a little too coincidental.

Elder Xiao frowned as a list of over a thousand scrolls popped up on a screen in the back of the room. "Please remove all water-element techniques that focus on aspects other than evasion and freezing. Remove all non-defensive earth skills. Remove all non-offensive fire skills. Remove all wood skills that do not heal and grow plants. Remove all metal techniques that are not physical offense and physical defense skills." The list narrowed to 200 skills.

"Different elements have different specialties," explained Elder Xiao. "Often, single- or dual-attribute cultivators need to obtain a variety of skills in an element to ensure they have a variety of skills, even if the element is not particularly good at these types of skills. For example, earth skills focus on all types of defenses, but you can't win only by defending. Therefore, earth cultivators will also practice mediocre attack skills. Water skills are good at slow, freezing, and redirection techniques, but their attacking power is also not as strong as fire or metal, and their defensive techniques are not as strong as earth and metal. They have healing techniques, but wood is far superior in this regard. While water is good at entrapment, it is worse than wood skills, which provide the best physical restrictions.

"Since you don't specialize in an element, it would be best to go for efficiency. That is, focus on the skill that each element is good at." After his explanation, he turned back to the black orb. "Computer, remove all skills that cost more than three drops of qi at the level of initial mastery." The list narrowed down to twenty skills.

"Typically you want to be able to use a skill more than once, unless it is a finishing move. You don't have the qi pool to have a finishing move, so I suggest you don't study those yet. The skills currently on the list are the only skills you can practice with your small qi pool. The qi requirements for each skill will increase when your mastery of the skill increases.

"Normally you would want skills that are able to augment each other in the generation cycle. However, these are all dual-element skills of a higher grade, which you can't afford. As your cultivation advances, be sure to get such skills, as you will start to have access to high-qi finishing moves and combination specialties. For example, the best attack moves would have fire augmented with wood, while the best defensive moves would have earth reinforced with steel. The best healing skills are water-fed wood techniques."

Cha Ming looked at the skills carefully. Eventually, he was able to choose a total of five skills.

Wood Auxiliary Skill, Mortal Grade 1, Entrapping Vines—100 contribution points

Water Auxiliary Skill, Mortal Grade 1, Frost Cloud—100 contribution points

Fire Attack Technique, Mortal Grade 1, Blaze—100 contribution points

Earth Defense Technique, Mortal Grade 1, Earthen Wall—100 contribution points

Metal Attack Technique, Mortal Grade 1, Finger Slash—100 contribution points

Cha Ming had 500 points remaining, but he felt like he was missing something. These skills only took up 20% of his qi pool per usage, and he felt like he was lacking a movement skill and perhaps a basic attacking skill to make up for a potential qi deficiency.

Elder Xiao, sensing his predicament, went through a few dropdown menus and brought up another two skills.

"This basic fist technique, Tiger Fist, doesn't really require any qi to activate. It's based on your fleshly body strength. While your body strength isn't very high, your opponent's qi pools aren't high either, and it will give you a lot of flexibility with your attacks. If both you and your opponent's qi pools are exhausted, you can still use this basic fist technique to deal with them. What are your thoughts?" asked Elder Xiao.

Cha Ming agreed quickly, and another hundred contribution points were deducted. Elder Xiao continued to look through the techniques until he found one last skill:

Physical Movement Technique, Mortal Grade 3, Ghost Steps—400 contribution points

"This technique is very good for its price. It's also a fleshly body technique, and it will help you position yourself to execute attacks and evade attacks. It would be a very sad situation if you didn't have the qi to execute a movement technique when you are in critical danger." This time Elder Xiao didn't wait for Cha Ming's reply before making a copy of the technique.

The whole trip to the library had taken Cha Ming four hours, and he'd obtained seven scrolls. These scrolls were valid for one month, as they were not especially valuable.

--

Cha Ming started practicing the skills he obtained at the library that same day. The skills were not very challenging, and he managed to learn each skill in the next six days, all of them learned to the initial mastery level. Perfection in these skills would take a long time, and higher levels in each skill required a larger qi pool. He also continued to cultivate as much as possible every day, and while the amount of qi he had stored did not change, it appeared to be constantly trying to break free from its bindings.

He continued to have supper with Xin and Xun. Xun was about go into the forest on a mission to gather medicinal herbs, and he made sure to spend extra time with his sister. On this sixth day after Cha Ming started training his techniques, Xun departed with a group of five other students, leaving Xin in Cha Ming's care. Xin was a girl, after all, and Xun felt reassured that Cha Ming was around to prevent her from being mistreated.

--

Cha Ming was convinced that lectures were perhaps the most boring way a human being could teach a subject. There were many better ways, such as teaching by repetition in a martial arts class, through games, and by getting a student to practice under guidance. Unfortunately, Cha Ming once again found himself sucked into compulsory lectures. The lecture was packed with 300 people and was taught in the same way as in university.

A professor would read through a flowing script that was projected on a white stone in the background. His dull voice droned on and on for the next eight hours, only halting for a one-hour break at lunch. The students had all packed lunches from the cafeteria and ate at their seats. The structure made Cha Ming wish the teachers would just write an overly expensive textbook, which at the very least would enable him to skip lectures and obtain a passing mark if he passed the final exam. But there was no exam for this class, only mandatory attendance.

The class focused on the basics, such as the different cultivation elements, their strengths, and their weaknesses. The lecture also covered common techniques in both single-element and dual-element combinations. There was also an introduction to the different professions, types of magical items, and low-rank magical beasts and herbs, which the students would likely go gather in their early stages of qi condensation to accumulate contribution points.

One interesting lecture touched on the importance of basic body strengthening and finally touched on the concept of body cultivation. The majority of young cultivators would possess a fist strength of one to two hundred jin, the strength of a strong adult. Body cultivation could increase fleshly body strength, the rate of healing, the body's natural defenses, and the body's reflexes.

Body cultivation could also be broken up into three stages containing three grades each. In early-stage body cultivation, one would train their body strength to the average adult strength of 200 jin. Building body strength past this point would become increasingly taxing, reaching 400 jin by the end of mid-stage body cultivation. The body's natural healing abilities would also increase during this period.

Late-stage body cultivation would increase one's fist strength to 1080 jin, the very limits of strength deliverable by a normal human body. During this stage, the body's defenses would also increase substantially. Very rarely, cultivators would finally be able to purify their body's flesh. While this step would not deliver an increase in strength, it would eventually lead to the destruction of one's mortal shackles, and one's body would be reborn. The body cultivator would then be considered as a Xiantianlife-form, natural and pure. From then on, he would be able to embark on the true journey of body refining.

Cha Ming learned that body refining to become a Xiantian life-form was extremely painful, and the vast majority of people would not attempt it. In addition, one could usually obtain a better and less painful advantage through qi refining for the same amount of effort. Much less effort was required to reach the peak of early-stage body cultivation in early adulthood.

The path of body cultivation was the right path only for a select number of people. Some people were born with innately strong bodies and were especially suited to body cultivation. Others were born with special physiques that give them innate Xiantian bodies, which means that they would reach the Xiantian stage early on in life without much effort at all.

In addition to all of these, destructive dual-element cultivators yielded very good results in body refining. This was because the first element could be used to reinforce the body while the other opposite element rid the body of the impurities generated by this element. The combination of strengthening and refining was ideal since body refining was usually limited by the physical stamina and healing power of the person in question.

While Cha Ming was quite interested in body cultivation, he decided to postpone trying it for now, opting to do some running in the morning to at least increase his stamina. He had many things to work on, too little time, and far too few contribution points.