The proclamation of the Mock Teaching Duel set off a blast wave across Hongwu Lower Academy.
By nightfall, every pavilion, tavern, and gambling parlor in the outer city was taking bets on the outcome.
The rules of a Mock Teaching Duel were ancient and brutal. Two instructors selected a single student from their registered rosters to represent their pedagogical philosophy in an open arena combat trial. The losing teacher was needed by academic statute to publicly burn their teaching credentials, kowtow to the victor, and vacate the principality in disgrace.
In the high-end private dining halls of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, Vice-Principal Lu Xun hosted a fancy banquet for thirty academy elders and high-born patriarchs.
At the head of the banquet table sat a handsome youth clad in pale celadon silks, a jade crown binding his hair, streaming the crisp, whistling aura of Mortal Tier 2 Layer 1.
It was Young Master Bai Heng.
Bai Heng was the main branch heir of the prestigious Bai Clan, whose old family Falling Leaf Sword Art had dominated the northern territories for three hundred years. At just eighteen years of age, he had successfully opened his Sea of Qi. He condensed genuine liquid gale-energy within his dantian.
“Young Master Bai,” Vice-Principal Lu chuckled, raising a cup of spiced plum wine, “tomorrow’s trial will be a mere formality. Lu Zhen’s only card is that thick-skinned brute Shen Shitou. But an iron plate with no mobility is nothing more than a stationary practice dummy for your Falling Leaf Sword.”
Bai Heng smiled with high-born disdain, fingering the ornate silver sword sheath resting against his knee.
“Vice-Principal Lu may rest easy,” Bai Heng murmured softly. His voice carried the delicate rustle of autumn leaves. “My clan’s Falling Leaf Sword possesses nine distinct spinning flourishes. Each flourish generates sixteen razor-sharp wind blades that bypass physical armor to sever internal tendons. Within ten seconds, that cripple will be begging for mercy on his knees.”
The elders cheered and raised their cups, laughing at the certain destruction of Classroom 404.
---
Meanwhile, on the wind-swept granite ridge overlooking the abandoned quarry, Classroom 404 was running on an entirely different hum.
The smell of freshly sawn pine sawdust filled the room.
Shen Shitou was standing on a wooden bench. He held a four-foot level against the newly framed eastern doorway. Meanwhile, Jiang Ling’er sat by the iron stove. He watched a copper kettle that was singing with golden, solar-heated steam.
Frank stood at the front podium, reviewing his tool inventory and checking the posture of his framing square.
In the corner, Niu Mang was sitting cross-legged on an overturned nail keg, carefully scraping dried clay off the blade of his hard dark metal trench spade with an oily rag.
Frank looked up from his blueprints, tapped his pencil against his teeth, and pointed directly at Niu Mang.
“Niu Mang,” Frank called out. “You’re up.”
Niu Mang paused in mid-scrape, his massive head snapping up in confusion. “Master? Up for what? Should I dig another foundation footing for the porch?”
“No,” Frank said. He walked over to the stove and pouring himself a mug of hot water from Ling’er’s kettle. “The Mock Teaching Duel tomorrow morning. You’re our representative.”
A dead silence fell over Classroom 404.
Shen Shitou froze with his hands on the doorframe, his eyes wide.
Jiang Ling’er nearly dropped her tea ladle, her golden irises flashing in disbelief.
“Master!” Shitou leaped down from the bench, bowing at a ninety-degree angle with intense urgency. “Student begs Master to reconsider! Vice-Principal Lu has selected Young Master Bai Heng! Bai Heng is a Tier 2 sword prodigy wielding an old family wind blade! Junior Brother Niu Mang has only practiced with Master for forty-eight hours! Let this student enter the arena! My star-forged iron body can endure Bai Heng’s sword qi!”
“Your star-forged iron body is busy hanging the door,” Frank said deadpan, blowing across the surface of his mug. “If the door isn’t hung by four o’clock, the wind will draft into the bedroom and warp the pine casing.”
Frank turned to look at Niu Mang, who was staring at his trench spade with trembling hands.
“Besides,” Frank added, “the shovel needs field testing under dynamic combat loads. We’ve tested it on shale and topsoil. But we haven’t gathered hands-on performance metrics against high-speed rotating steel. It’s a basic quality assurance check.”
Jiang Ling’er stood up from the stove, her violet-gold eyes shimmering.
Master isn’t choosing Niu Mang out of fault, Ling’er realized. He considers an elite Tier 2 sword prodigy as nothing more than a testing rig to measure the health of a farm shovel.
Niu Mang looked down at the rusty hard dark metal spade in his hands. His broad face set with resolve.
“Master,” Niu Mang rumbled. “Student is clumsy. But if Master commands the shovel to strike, student will strike.”
“Stop gripping the wooden handle like you’re choking a chicken,” Frank sighed. “Hand me the shovel.”
Niu Mang scrambled up and handed the spade to Frank with both hands.
Frank took the three-foot implement, resting the blade on the edge of his podium. He pulled out a fine-grit silicon hardened carbon-iron oilstone from his apron and applied three drops of stone oil to the edge.
Scritch... Scritch... Scritch.
With smooth, careful strokes, Frank filed down a tiny, tiny burr along the left cutting edge of the hard dark metal blade.
“Listen to me carefully, Niu Mang,” Frank said, his voice quiet, calm, and analytical. “Swordsmen who practice flourish arts like the ‘Falling Leaf Sword’ have a major design defect: they confuse aesthetic beauty with moving delivery.”
Frank held the spade up to the lantern light, checking the glow of the oiled edge.
“They spin. They leap. They flourish their blades eight times before making contact because their style was designed to look impressive during royal court banquets. But in physical mechanics, every rotation introduces angular driving force that must be slowed down before you can reverse direction.”
Frank handed the sharpened spade back to Niu Mang.
“When you enter the arena tomorrow, don’t look at his sword. Don’t look at the wind blades. When an opponent jumps into the air, he has zero ground traction. He can’t change his vector without thrusters. Watch his landing foot.”
Niu Mang gripped the ash handle, nodding with solemn intensity. “Watch... The landing foot.”
“The instant his front heel touches the arena sand,” Frank said, demonstrating a short, forty-five-degree scooping motion with his empty hand, “you step in on Movement Fourteen from the butcher paper. Drop your balance point three inches. Insert the spade beneath his pivot point, engage your hamstrings, and lever your body weight backward.”
Frank took a sip of his hot water and picked up his framing square.
“Torque equals force times distance. When his balance point passes over your pivot point, physics will do the rest. One stroke. One second. Don’t waste energy on a second swing.”
Before Niu Mang could reply, the sound of cheering, shouting, and crackling spiritual fireworks drifted up from the central campus valley below.
Shen Shitou stepped to the window, squinting down into the misty dark.
“Master,” Shitou called out. “The central arena is blazing with lanterns. Young Master Bai Heng is staging a public test of the Falling Leaf Sword Art before the entire student body!”
Frank reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a brown paper bag of roasted salted watermelon seeds. Then he tucked it into his shop apron.
“A public test?” Frank muttered, wiping his fingers on a rag. “Free beta-testing data. Excellent. Let’s go inspect the competitor’s frame data before launch.”
---
Twenty minutes later, the four of them stood in the shadowy, unlit upper tier of the Grand Freshmen Arena.
Below them, the stone arena floor was lit up by dozens of glowing floating rune-lanterns. Over a thousand students and faculty members packed the tiered marble seats, cheering enthusiastically.
In the center of the ring, Young Master Bai Heng stood surrounded by seven heavy, seasoned hardwood training dummies. Each dummy six inches thick, heavy with cold-rolled bronze bands.
Bai Heng drew his old family sword.
The blade hummed with a pure, piercing azure light that smelled of sharp ozone.
WHOOOOOOSH!
Bai Heng moved!
His body transformed into a blur of swirling azure leaves. He spun across the arena sand like a tiny tornado, his blade flashing in seventeen directions at the same time!
SLASH! SLASH! CRACK!
Wind blades screamed through the air, carving the six-inch hardwood dummies into dozens of clean, even wooden blocks in less than three seconds!
The crowd erupted in wild, ear-splitting applause.
“Incredible! The Nine Leaves Swirling in Storm!”
“Seven hardwood dummies wiped out in three seconds! Who on earth could possibly withstand such speed?!”
“Classroom 404 is finished! If Lu Zhen’s ox steps into that ring, he will be diced into mincemeat before he can blink!”
In the high spectator box, Vice-Principal Lu Xun stroked his beard. He smiled with smug, triumphant arrogance.
Up in the dark, dusty back row, Frank was sitting on a stone step, casually cracking watermelon seeds between his teeth.
Snap. Crunch. Spit.
His eyes were locked on Bai Heng’s lower legs. At the same time, his internal DAO-QA console ran a nonstop, high-speed movement frame-data analysis.
Frank spat a watermelon seed hull over the railing, wiped his fingers on his trousers, and stood up.
“Fourteen frames of startup lag,” Frank muttered to his students. “He poses on his left heel for nearly half a second to let his silk robe flutter in the wind. A toddler with a wooden soup ladle could trip him.”
Frank turned around and headed toward the exit tunnel.
“Show’s over, kids. Go to bed early. Niu Mang, make sure you eat three bowls of rice for breakfast tomorrow. You’ll need the carbohydrates for leverage.”