บท 7: Class Promotion Competition and Rank 20
I thankfully woke up naturally this time, but now with a blaring headache, aching muscles all over, and a shit ton of pain coming from my left arm. How fucking magnificent. I let out a groan, before propping myself up with my not-broken arm. Finally sitting up, I fully opened my eyes. Looking around, I noticed my teacher, Wu Zhangkong, on a chair in front of me, as well as Wulin beginning to wake up.
"Ah. Fuck. How long have I been unconscious?" Wu Zhangkong just looked at me indifferently, before motioning to Wulin as to tell me to wait until he wakes up. After a few seconds of waiting, Wulin sat up with a groan.
"What happened? The last thing I remember was being pricked by Xie Xie's dagger, then my thoughts got foggy. And why does everything hurt so much?" I looked at Wu Zhangkong, motioning him to explain.
"After Xie Xie pricked you with the dagger, you went into a rage. Golden scales appeared on your body, boosting your power immensely. However, that's not what I'm mainly here to speak about. I'm here to talk about your performances in the battles." He praised Wulin for his 'fine' performance in battle, before absolutely laying into him about putting his all into cultivating, and less on blacksmithing. Wulin nodded, but I could tell through his eyes that he wasn't going to be giving up on forging anytime soon.
And now it's my turn. Fuck. A bit after his speech to Wulin, Wu Zhangkong began to talk about my performance. "And you. Xie Xie. Out of all of the people in the class, you seem to be the only one to have done even moderately well. However. You. Are. Still. Trash! While your strange techniques did allow you have to a fighting chance, the mastery of your spirit is still severely underdeveloped! And even with your twin spirits, your attack range is still very short. Since both of your spirits are daggers, you lack the versatility most twin spirit users have. On top of that, you are an Agility type Soul Master, which gains the most restrictions when they become a Mecha Master."
While I was a bit angered by his declaration that I was trash, I knew his criticisms are all valid. I've been focusing way too much on my Anime Techniques, and I've been neglecting my Spirit. This was evidenced by me not using [Duplication] much in the match, due to me not being able to control the amount of spirit power I input very well. Sometimes I put too much, creating an extremely durable dagger, or I put too little, making brittle daggers.
On top of that, if I had spent more time meditating, especially with my heightened Spiritual Power I probably would have broken through to Rank 20 by now. After all, a few days before I entered Eastsea, I could feel my Spiritual Power break into the Spirit Connection Realm around the same time I reached [Arnament: Hardening]. On top of that, with my [Zone], I'd be able to go into deep meditation much easier, allowing me to advance my cultivation faster.
That aside, Wu Zhangkong began to speak again after giving me some time to digest his criticism. "Every new academic year, the academy has a grand tournament. There's one for both the intermediate division and the advanced division. Our intermediate division has a total of six grades, and all of them will participate. This tournament is known as the Class Promotion Tournament."
"The Class Promotion Tournament?" Wulin tilted his head in curiosity.
Wu Zhangkong gave a short nod, before he continued, "The weakest class starts first and each clas picks the students that participate. Class five will challenge class four, and so on. If the challenger is victorious, the class numbers will be switched. In other words, if we beat class four, we won't be the lowest-ranked class five anymore, but the first grade's class four. The class rankings ultimately depend on the victor of the challenges. If the challengers are victorious, they can continue to challenge higher-ranked classes until they lose. For all six grades, the most victorious will be the class one. If they then proceed to challenge the next grade and win, they will be rewarded."
I pondered over this information for a while. "I see. So that means our class is the first challenger. That just means we'll fight more right? Don't worry, I'll win all of our matches for us and destroy the sixth grade. This is gonna be fun!"
Wu Zhangkong snorted coldly. "Don't be arrogant. Even with your strange techniques and twin spirits, you are far from peerless. There is no lack of geniuses in this world. And while you may be able to match up to some geniuses on your own, the competition requires a minimum of two participants for each team."
I gave him a wide grin, slinging my arm over Wulin's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. Wulin and I will fucking destroy them."
"Huh? We will? I mean- of course we will!"
Wu Zhangkong just stated for a few seconds, before giving an exasperated sigh. "The tournament begins in a few months. Thus, from tomorrow onwards, outside of regular classes, I will have you two undergo special training every night. I'll formulate a simple schedule for you two, so you better turn our class into the first-grade class. Also, I'll be imparting a cultivation technique to you that'll make your cultivation faster." He handed both me and Wulin a manual, causing both of us to pocket it and give him a nod in thanks. After safely stashing it away, I spoke once again.
"Don't worry about it we'll fucking pound those other classes. But just hypothetically, if we do lose by accident or something, what would happen?" All I got in response was a cold laugh. Creepy fucker. As I was thinking, Wulin spoke in an uncertain voice.
"Do you really think that we can win?"
"Of course, we'll fucking pound them. Hard." He was already used to my 'unusual' way of speaking, so he didn't mind it much. My words seemed to reassure him, causing him to give me a small smile.
"Yeah, you're right. We got this." Whether he was trying to reassure me, or himself, I'll probably never know. After talking for a while, we both split up. After the match where I fought Wulin, I decided that I am in sore need of training. If Wulin had retained his consciousness while in Berserk mode, I definitely would have lost.
In a berserk state, going only off of instincts, Wulin was able to break my arm and force me to use the [3rd-Stance Dragon Sign Hwechook], causing us to tie. If he were able to retain his consciousness, he wouldn't have allowed me enough time to execute it. On top of that, while he is a power-based fighter, Wulin still knows how to stay calm and analytical in battle, meaning that he would likely be able to formulate a plan that incorporates his tyrannical strength to beat me.
The only way to make up in the difference of pure power between me and Wulin is training. Working on my spirit is a given, but other than I definitely need more physical training and more training in the [Breath of the Sun]. Both of those are things that are can't be trained in the mindscape, so I went over to the sports field.
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After grabbing a few weights, I went out to the track to run, while constantly maintaining [Breath of the Sun: Total Concentration Breathing]. And I realized that I definitely over-estimated my lungs. After only a minute, I felt like I was dying due to the pain in my lungs. But if I wanted to reach [Total Concentration Breathing: Constant]. I knew I had to keep pushing through. So that's all I did for hours straight.
Running, meditating, running, meditating. After training for so long it felt like days, I could feel a breakthrough in my meditation. I could feel it. I was nearing the threshold of Rank 20. I activated the [Zone], causing me to fall deeper into meditation. My spirit power circulated through the new route I learned from Wu Zhangkong. After a while, I felt my spirit power breakthrough a bottleneck. As I opened my eyes, I found that both of my spirits were summoned, with an extra spirit ring circling around them both.
Of course, I couldn't hold them fully with my broken hand, but I was still able to get the information on my new spirit ability. And oh boy is it broken. Especially when combined with [Duplication]. It was called [Re-Forging]. It allowed me to change the form of my dagger, as long as I knew how the form change worked. Or at least the basics of it. For example, since I didn't know how to make a gun, I couldn't use it. However, since I knew how a sword worked, I was able to change it into that. On top of that, the effects of the form would change depending on whether I used my [Shadow Dragon Dagger] or [Light Dragon Dagger].
However, such an overpowered ability naturally had a downside. First of all, the form change was only temporary. Based on how much Spirit Power was injected, the length of the form change varied. Using a small amount of Spirit Power only allowed a small length of time for the form change, while if I exhausted all of my Spirit Power at once, the form change could last up to an hour.
Immediately after gaining the Spirit Ability, I released my [Shadow Dragon Dagger]. Then, I used [Duplication] to create a fairly brittle copy of the dagger. Using [Re-Forging] on the original, I created a bow with an invisible string that lasted for around ten minutes. Using [Re-Forging] once again, but on the duplicate this time, I changed it into an invisible arrow that lasted ten seconds.
I notched the arrow onto the bow, before releasing. Of course, since I was never trained in the bow before, it didn't hit anywhere near where I wanted it to be, but I verified the function. However, just as I was about to start training my [Breath of the Sun] again, I was hit with an idea.
I repeated the exact same process as last time, with the only change being that the arrow only lasted for 5 seconds. 2 seconds were used to notch the arrow. 3 seconds were left. 2 now. Once there was only 1 second left, I released. As the arrow sailed through the air, it morphed back into its dagger form, before missing the target and hitting the ground.
I stared at the dagger for a few seconds, motionless, before suddenly bursting out into laughter. I can't believe that actually fucking worked. Imagine seeing some fucker shoot an invisible arrow out of a semi-invisible bow before it suddenly morphs into a fucking dagger and stabs you. I can't believe I'm such a genius. Making sure that no one was around me, I let out a quote that I felt perfectly fitted me. In completely horrible Engrish, of course.
"I am mad scientist! It's so cool! Sonuvabitch." God, I fucking love anime references. But if anybody saw that, they're definitely dying. That's going to be part of my black history forever. And no one will ever know. After making sure no one was around once more, I broke out into mad cackling once again. And kept cackling for like a minute, before calming down. I'm honestly doubting my sanity at this point. What is sanity, though? It's just a concept it isn't real, isn't it? Maybe I'm just a concept. Am I even real? Nah... that's stupid.
After having a brief existential crisis, I went back to training. This time, however, with [Advanced Uchiha Shurikenjutsu] and [Emiya Archery]. Both of these are things that require special abilities that could be substituted using [Observation Haki] in place of [Sharingan] and [Clarivoyance] respectively. I chose both of these abilities due to my need for more ranged attacks, as well as my new combination of [Duplication] + [Reforging], allowing me to create as many invisible shurikens as I need, as well, as allowing me to create a Bow + Arrow combination.
While I trained these, I used [Breath of the Sun: Total Concentration Breathing] so that I could achieve [Total Concentration Breathing: Constant] by the time the tournament comes around. I got so engrossed in my training, causing me to not even realize that the sun went down. Checking my phone, I found that it was already 10:00, 2 hours away from lights out, causing me to rush back to the dorms.
As I entered the room, I saw a small package with my name on it. After opening it, I realized that it was the newest model of the SoulPhone, before chucking it at Wulin. He was startled, causing him to fumble with it before grabbing it and realizing what I just threw.
[A/N: Honestly don't know what the phones are called, so that's what I'm calling it for now.]
"Wait, this is the newest model! This costs 50,000 Federation Credits! And you're giving it to me? Are you su-"
I didn't let him finish, just cutting him off by telling him, "Yes, I'm giving it to you. It's yours nows. Now, I'm tired, so good night."
He just stared, dumbfounded, at me for a while, before giving up and going off to sleep.
ความคิดของผู้สร้าง 
ImProcrastinating
ImProcrastinating About the Reforging. I know a lot of people will dislike it, but I decided to add it due to Xie Xie's lack of ranged moves. I think the abilities I gave him were both quite versatile and reasonable for abilities given by a Hammer Spirit Soul.
Now the thing I want to ask is this: Should he learn other weapon styles too? Like spear or sword arts, or just stick to the dagger? Also, give me a better title for this fanfic, I really dislike the current one.
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