For five full seconds, the only sound in the Grand Freshmen Arena was the whistling of the autumn wind through the marble rows of stone pillars.
Then, an explosive roar of pure, frantic rage blew up from the executive balcony.
BOOM!
Vice-Principal Lu Xun leaped over the gold-trimmed marble stone railing, his purple scholar robes billowing like wings of poison smoke as he dropped fifty feet to the arena floor, landing with a ground-shaking thud that sent white sand splashing in all directions.
“FOUL!” Lu Xun’s voice shrieked through his vocal amplification magic charm, so loud it rattled the ears of three thousand spectators. “Cheating! Vile demonic sorcery! Disciplinary Hall, draw your weapons! Surround this ring right away!”
Fifty armored punishment guards surged through the outer edge gates, their heavy broadswords drawn. They formed a wall of cold steel around Niu Mang, Frank, and Classroom 404’s bench.
Lu Xun stormed across the sand. His finger pointed at Niu Mang with trembling, homicidal fury.
“He used an unapproved peasant trenching implement!” Lu Xun roared, his face flushed purple. “The Falling Leaf Sword is a sacred art of the empire! Young Master Bai Heng was executing a supreme aerial maneuver when this illiterate brute struck him with a vulgar ditch-digging tool! This is a mockery of martial ethics! A rule-break of the sacred statutes of Hongwu Academy!”
Lu Xun turned toward the surrounding spectators, waving his arms dramatically.
“I demand this match be declared void! I demand Niu Mang be carried out for using forbidden demonic tools, and Lu Zhen be stripped of his training and thrown into the deepest pit of the limestone quarry!”
A chorus of murmurs broke out across the bleachers. Many conservative elders nodded along, uncomfortable with the idea that an unranked farm boy with a shovel had just one-shot the premier sword prodigy of the northern territories.
“Silence.”
A single, gravelly word echoed across the arena floor.
It wasn’t loud, but it carried the heavy, choking spiritual weight of a Three-Star Master Teacher.
Walking slowly down the stone steps from the royal balcony was Dean Shang Chen—the Provost and Headmaster of Hongwu Lower Academy.
Dean Shang leaned heavily on an ornate five-foot dragon-head cane, his knuckles white with strain. Every step he took on his heavily bandaged right foot caused his jaw to tighten, cold sweat beading on his forehead beneath his silver hair.
The exam guards and guards right away dropped to one knee, bowing their heads: “Greetings, Provost Shang!”
Dean Shang stopped five paces from Frank, his sharp, weathered eyes sweeping over the unconscious Bai Heng in the sand, then looking at Niu Mang’s rusty hard dark metal spade.
“Vice-Principal Lu makes a serious accusation,” Dean Shang said. His breathing was tight and shallow from pain. “Teacher Lu Zhen. As the defendant in this Mock Teaching Duel, what do you have to say in response to the charge of using illegal weaponry?”
Frank sighed. He reached into the inner pocket of his faded grey robes, rummaged past a coil of copper wire and an extra pencil. Then he pulled out a battered, dog-eared booklet bound in faded yellow hemp twine.
It was a royal-era edition of the Hongwu Lower Academy Academic Statutes & Work-yard Operations By-Laws.
Frank licked his thumb, flipped through the yellowed pages with unrushed builder calm, and stopped at Section Four.
His internal DAO-QA console chimed in sync with the physical text.
Frank tapped his finger against the parchment, his voice ringing clearly across the silent three-thousand-seat arena.
“Section Four, Clause Twelve-B,” Frank read aloud, entirely deadpan. “In open freshman sparring trials, any hand-held metal implement forged from unranked mortal or spiritual alloys weighing under fifteen standard pounds, possessing a defined cutting edge and a wooden or composite shaft, is fully permissible for teaching check.”
Frank looked up from the booklet, staring directly into Vice-Principal Lu’s bulging eyes.
“The trench spade has a hard dark metal-iron blade,” Frank stated flatly. “Weight: four point eight pounds. Ash-wood shaft: three feet long. Total mass is less than one-third of the lawful threshold. In fact, if we want to talk about equipment violations, your student’s sword sheath is bound with three pounds of fancy silver filigree that lacks an official guild safety sign-off. If a checker audited his gear, he’d be fined twenty silver coins for carrying an unlisted decorative accessory into an active combat zone.”
Lu Xun’s jaw clamped shut with a heard click, his face contorting in pure, impotent fury.
“You... You twist words like a slippery merchant!” Lu Xun spluttered. “What about the strike itself?! Bai Heng was mid-flight! He was struck from an irregular angle!”
“Irregular angle?” Frank closed the statute book with a sharp snap and tucked it back into his pocket. “It wasn’t an irregular angle. It was basic Newtonian driving force.”
Frank stepped out onto the arena sand, standing over the unconscious Bai Heng.
“Your student’s sword art,” Frank explained, speaking like a senior engineer reviewing an engine failure at a town board meeting, “has an inherent fourteen-frame startup delay on the third flourish. To make his robes billow for the audience, he hyperextends his left hip, which forces his knee tendon to relax for zero point four two seconds while his front foot searches for the ground.”
Frank pointed at Niu Mang’s bare feet.
“During that half-second window, he had zero ground traction. He was a falling seventy-two-pound mass with zero aimed control. Niu Mang simply placed a hard dark metal wedge under his pivot heel and levered his body weight backward. Torque equals force times distance. Fourteen thousand Newtons of angular striking force inverted his balance point.”
Frank looked up at the tiered bleachers of senior instructors and clan patriarchs.
“Your academy is teaching decorative ballroom dancing,” Frank said, his voice flat and unapologetic. “You’re teaching kids to jump in the air, flourish steel, and pose for paintings, while ignoring the deepest laws of load-bearing leverage. A toddler with a wooden soup ladle could have tripped him during that flourish. If you don’t like the result, update your training list.”
A collective gasp echoed across the arena!
The hundreds of sword instructors and clan elders sat frozen. Their eyes were wide with deep, soul-shaking realization!
Fourteen frames of startup delay...
Hyperextending the hip to let the robes flutter...
Zero ground traction during aerial flourishes...
Dean Shang Chen stood fully motionless on his dragon-head cane, his silver eyebrows arching skyward.
For two hundred years, the Bai Clan’s Falling Leaf Sword Art had been revered across the principality as an untouchable, peerless technique. But Lu Zhen’s casual, dry critique had just peeled back two hundred years of high-born mystique. It exposed the hereditary clockwork flaw that had existed within the style since its creation!
It wasn’t demonic sorcery.
It wasn’t a cheap trick.
It was supreme, total, flawless martial deconstruction!
Dean Shang looked at Frank, his eyes flashing with an intensity that pierced through his chronic pain.
This man... Dean Shang thought, his heart thumping wildly against his ribs. He didn’t teach the boy a counter-technique. He taught him to see the physical truth of the world, disassembling an old family Heaven-grade sword style like an untuned clock.
Dean Shang raised his dragon-head cane and slammed the brass metal ring into the arena floorboards with a thunderous CRACK.
“The Provost’s Hearing is finished!” Dean Shang’s voice boomed across the arena, brooking zero argument.
“Teacher Lu Zhen’s cited statute is valid and accurate. Student Niu Mang’s weapon is fully compliant with academy by-laws. The strike was carried out under standard open combat conditions.”
Dean Shang swept his cold, authoritative gaze over Vice-Principal Lu Xun.
“Classroom 404 is declared the decisive victor of the Mock Teaching Duel! By academic promise, the eviction notice against Classroom 404 is permanently rescinded! The probationary status of Teacher Lu Zhen is hereby overturned!”
The arena erupted into a storm of confused, wild murmurs. The students of Class 404—Shen Shitou and Jiang Ling’er—bowed deeply toward the arena sand, their eyes blazing with triumphant pride.
Vice-Principal Lu’s hands shook so hard his cloud-silk sleeves rustled like dry leaves. He looked at his unconscious champion, looked at the stony face of the Dean, and knew that any further protest would result in his own formal reprimand before the Senate.
“We... We leave,” Lu Xun choked out, his voice hoarse with humiliation. He gestured wildly to his guards, who hurriedly loaded Bai Heng onto a stretcher and fled through the eastern tunnel.
Dean Shang watched them leave. Then, he turned to face Frank, a faint, appreciative nod in his eyes.
“Teacher Lu Zhen,” Dean Shang began, his voice softening with solemn respect. “Your pedagogical insight today has showed—”
Before the Dean could finish his sentence, his body wildly seized.
Gasp!
A strangled, painful shriek tore from Dean Shang’s throat!
His right leg buckled fully beneath him. The dragon-head cane slipped from his trembling fingers, clattering across the white sand.
“Provost!” the surrounding elders screamed in panic, rushing forward.
Dean Shang collapsed onto both knees in the dirt, clutching his heavily wrapped right boot with both hands. His face turned semi-clear white, his lips turning an alarming shade of dark violet as a violent burst of uric acid gout agony shot up through his Yongquan acupoint, fully severing the qi flow to his lower spirit veins!
COUGH!
Dean Shang doubled over, coughing a mouthful of dark, toxic bile onto the arena sand, his eyes rolling back. His breathing turned into wild, dying gasps!
“His foot!” the Head Elder cried in terror. “The Dean’s Yongquan Necrosis has reached his heart spirit vein! Summon the Royal Physicians! Summon Grandmaster Mu from the Medical Hall right away!”
The entire arena dropped into wild, screaming chaos!
Amid the panic, Frank calmly stepped over the exam guards, walked up to the groaning Dean. Then he looked down at the heavily bandaged boot.
His internal DAO-QA console gave off a crisp, high-priority test chime.
Frank tilted his head, folding his arms across his linen robes.
“Uric acid crystal-forming blocking the main drainage line,” Frank murmured, shaking his head. “And your quack doctors wrapped it in hot silk to bake the salt crystals directly into the joint. Unbelievable.”