The Grand Freshmen Arena was built to hold three thousand spectators. This morning, not a single stone seat was empty.
Tier upon tier of white marble bleachers rose toward the autumn sky, packed with wealthy merchants, high-born clan patriarchs, and hundreds of senior instructors clad in shimmering brocade robes.
High above the arena sands, on the grand gold-trimmed balcony reserved for the Academy Board, sat Dean Shang Chen.
Dean Shang was a venerable scholar with a long silver beard, wearing the heavy crimson velvet robes of a Three-Star Master Teacher. But his face was tight with suppressed agony. Beneath the lavish silk hem of his robe, his right boot was swollen to twice its normal size, heavily wrapped in thick healing bandages to numb forty years of painful, incurable gout.
Beside him sat Vice-Principal Lu Xun. He leaned back in an ebony armchair, sipping spiced tea with a smug, triumphant smile.
“Dean Shang,” Lu Xun chuckled, setting his fine china cup down, “I apologize that your recurring foot ailment forced you to leave the secluded chambers today. But this Mock Teaching Duel is a matter of academic strength. We must formally prune the dead branches from our faculty.”
Dean Shang grimaced, shifting his swollen foot an inch to relieve the throbbing pressure in his ankle. “Lu Zhen was appointed by the founder’s promise, Vice-Principal Lu. If his students show genuine progress today, the Senate must abide by the statutes.”
“Progress?” Lu Xun sneered softly, looking down at the arena floor. “A crippled ironworker, a shivering beggar girl, and an illiterate ox-herder. Let’s see what ‘progress’ Lu Zhen can show against the premier sword prodigy of the northern territories.”
GONG—!
The master judge stepped onto the sand, his voice magnified by an azure deep ring magic charm:
“The Mock Teaching Duel shall start! In the eastern corner: representing the Academic Senate, Young Master Bai Heng of the Heavenly Wind Pavilion!”
The crowd erupted into thunderous, ear-splitting cheers!
Silk banners fluttered from the balconies, and young noblewomen tossed fragrant rose petals onto the arena sand.
Walking through the eastern gate was Bai Heng. He was clad in sweeping azure-and-gold battle robes. His hair was bound by a polished jade coronet. In his hand was the old family Falling Leaf Sword, its sheath carved from thousand-year cloud-bamboo, streaming the crisp, whistling pressure of Tier 2 Layer 1!
Bai Heng raised his sword horizontally, bowing with graceful, high-born perfection toward the Dean’s balcony.
“And in the western corner,” the judge announced, his voice dropping several octaves into uncomfortable confusion, “representing Classroom 404... Student Niu Mang.”
The western iron gate creaked open.
Walking onto the white arena sand was Niu Mang.
He wore patched hemp trousers, a sleeveless coarse linen tunic that exposed his massive, sun-darkened shoulders, and no boots at all. His large, calloused bare feet crunching rhythmically into the sand.
Rested casually over his right shoulder, like a laborer arriving for a shift on a ditch-digging crew, was his rusty groundskeeper’s trench spade.
A stunned, disbelieving silence blanketed the three thousand spectators.
Then, an explosion of mocking, derisive laughter tore through the arena!
“A shovel?! Is that a digging spade?!”
“He brought a farm tool to duel the Falling Leaf Sword?!”
“Hahaha! Look at him! He looks like he’s about to dig a latrine pit behind the stables!”
“Lu Zhen has fully lost his mind! He couldn’t even afford a wooden practice sword for his student!”
In the high balcony, Vice-Principal Lu Xun burst out laughing, clapping his hands in sheer delight. Even Dean Shang closed his eyes in a weary, painful sigh.
Down in the coach’s corner, Frank was sitting on an overturned wooden fruit crate, his arms crossed over his grey linen robes. Beside him stood Shen Shitou. It leaned on his twenty-pound demolition hammer, and Jiang Ling’er. She held a warm enamel tea mug.
Frank reached into his pocket, pulled out his bag of salted watermelon seeds. Then he popped one between his teeth.
Snap. Crunch.
“Master,” Niu Mang called back from the center line. He looked nervous as thousands of people pointed and mocked him. “They’re laughing at my shovel.”
Frank spat a seed hull into the sand.
“They’re laughing because they don’t understand simple machine design,” Frank replied. His calm voice carried cleanly through the noise. “A sword is a third-class lever with poor clockwork advantage. A trench spade is a first-class lever with high-pulling hard dark metal reinforcement. Remember your kinematics: forty-five-degree wedge, engage the lats, pivot through the heel. Treat him like six inches of wet clay.”
Niu Mang nodded, his face setting into solid granite. “Yes, Master. Six inches of wet clay.”
Across the ring, Young Master Bai Heng’s handsome face twisted with cold, insulted fury.
To be forced to share an arena with a barefoot peasant was an insult. But to have that peasant bring a rusty farm shovel to face his old family sword was a mortal humiliation that could only be washed away in blood!
“Illiterate brute,” Bai Heng hissed. He drew his blade with a high-pitched, singing shriek of azure steel. “You dare mock my clan’s sacred art with a ditch-digger’s tool?! Today, I’ll sever every tendon in your arms and legs!”
The master judge raised his hand, sweeping his gaze across both combatants.
“Duel rules: Open martial combat! The match concludes on surrender, blackout, or fatal incapacitation! Starting in three... Two... ONE! BEGIN!”
WHOOOOOOSH!
The instant the judge’s hand dropped, Bai Heng moved!
A blinding explosion of azure gale-qi erupted from Bai Heng’s boots. His body blurred into nine swirling illusory silhouettes, soaring ten feet into the air like an eagle riding an autumn storm!
“Nine Leaves Swirling in Storm: Starry Gale Shredder!”
Bai Heng let loose his total ultimate art from frame one!
Nine swirling wind blades dropped toward Niu Mang’s skull, shrieking with enough razor-sharp striking force to carve three-inch granite paving stones into sawdust!
The crowd gasped in horror, many spectators covering their eyes to avoid the sight of the barefoot boy being diced into ribbons!
Niu Mang didn’t look at the sky.
He didn’t look at the nine swirling wind blades whistling inches above his brow.
He remembered Frank’s core order. When an opponent jumps into the air, he has zero ground traction. Watch his landing foot.
Niu Mang dropped his hips three inches. He rotated his torso forty-five degrees to the right. It slid his left bare heel deep into the arena sand. It locked his skeletal frame into Stance Fourteen from the greasy butcher paper.
He gripped the ash handle of the trench spade with both hands. He held the hard dark metal iron blade low, hovering two inches above the sand like a poised wedge.
Ten feet in the air, Bai Heng finished his third decorative flourish.
His silk robes fluttered majestically. His hair billowed in the wind.
And then, his left foot dropped toward the earth to establish his pivot for the final killing stroke.
Frame fourteen.
The 0.42-second startup window opened.
Bai Heng’s velvet heel made contact with the sand—before his weight could even settle. Then, before his knee tendon could engage—Niu Mang moved!
BOOM!
Niu Mang’s left heel blew up against the arena floor with the earth-shaking rumble of the Ancient Primal Bull!
He didn’t swing the shovel like an axe.
He drove the flat hard dark metal blade forward in a low, vicious scoop. It slid the oiled iron wedge directly beneath Bai Heng’s dropping left ankle!
And then, Niu Mang carried out Frank’s tuned Sledgehammer Pivot Strike!
He planted his back foot, threw his entire three-hundred-pound body weight backward. Then he levered the ash handle across his knee like a heavy-duty pry-bar!
Torque equals force times distance.
Fourteen thousand two hundred Newtons of packed moving leverage slammed directly into Bai Heng’s pivot point!
THWACK!
The sound was not a martial clash.
It was the hollow, total CLACK of a heavy mallet striking a ripe melon!
Bai Heng’s forward driving force was instantly arrested by the unmoving hard dark metal pivot point.
His balance point was wildly upended. His left leg was yanked skyward. At the same time, his upper torso was whipped downward toward the granite arena floor like the tip of an uncoiling whip!
Bai Heng spun three complete, level rotations in midair, his arms flailing, his old family sword flying fifty feet into the spectator bleachers!
KRAAA-SHHHH!
Bai Heng slammed face-first into the arena sand in a sprawling skid!
A cloud of dust erupted into the air as the young master plowed a six-foot furrow with his nose, his coronet flying off and his robes tangled in a heap.
Bai Heng bounced once, his legs twitched in the air, and then he went fully, utterly limp.
Knocked out cold.
Total elapsed combat time: 0.84 seconds.
One stroke. One shovel. One pivot.
A dead, choking silence dropped over the Grand Freshmen Arena.
Three thousand spectators sat frozen in their seats. Wealthy merchants dropped their teacups, the fine china shattering against the marble steps. Clan elders stopped stroking their beards, their hands frozen in midair.
In the high balcony, Vice-Principal Lu Xun’s teacup slipped from his fingers, spilling scalding spiced tea all over his stitched purple robes. But he didn’t even notice the burns. His eyes bulged out of his skull, his mouth hanging open like an empty cave.
On the arena floor, the master judge stood numbed. He looked at the unconscious sword prodigy lying in a pool of dust, then looking at the illiterate farm boy holding a trench spade.
Niu Mang stood over Bai Heng, panting softly.
He looked at the flat of his shovel, wiped a speck of marble dust off the blade with his thumb. Then he turned around to look at Frank in the coach’s corner.
“Master,” Niu Mang called out, his deep voice echoing across the silent arena. “The clay was softer than expected. Shovel didn’t bend.”
Frank spat another watermelon seed hull into the sand, pulled out his pocket watch. Then he checked the second hand.
His DAO-QA console chimed with brilliant golden text.
Frank closed his pocket watch with a satisfying click and stood up from his wooden fruit crate.
“Zero point eight-four seconds,” Frank remarked to Shitou and Ling’er, stretching his arms over his head. “A little slow on the hip rotation, but the lever held its shape. Good. The shovel passed its field testing. Now let’s see what excuse the building checker tries to file.”