The Grand Colosseum of Hongwu Academy roared with the clamor of ten thousand spectators.
Tiered stone bleachers rose in steep nested rings around the central arena, carved directly from the gray granite of the mountain peak. Banners of vermilion silk and gold leaf fluttered in the crisp winter wind. The heavy snow from the two-day blizzard had been cleared by heating arrays. That left the massive arena flat stone slabs gleaming under a pale morning sun.
In the raised VIP boxes sat the ruling elite of the entire principality. Clan elders draped in rare sable and ermine furs, country judges with polished jade tablets, and guildmasters with heavy gold signet rings.
“A historic turnout!” a fat merchant remarked, cracking roasted pine nuts between his teeth as he gestured toward the center ring. “I hear Class 1 has three direct bloodline heirs competing today. Young Master Lu Yan alone is said to have mastered the Golden Crow Sword to the seventh stage! The bookmakers are giving fifty-to-one odds on his clean sweep!”
“Indeed,” a nearby judge nodded with a flattering smile. “The Lu Clan has spared no expense. Today is merely a coronation ceremony for the academy’s true aristocracy. The lower classes are just fodder.”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Three huge war drums thundered from the arena castle walls. It shook through the bones of the spectators.
The heavy bronze gates on the eastern side of the arena ground open with a dramatic flourish.
Marching through the gates came Class 1, led by Lu Yan and his senior peers. They wore matching robes of shimmering golden silk stitched with dancing sky cranes, their boots made of white dragon-scaled leather. Each student carried a polished, mirror-bright sword at their hip, their chins tilted upward with haughty aristocrat disdain.
The crowd erupted into thunderous, ear-splitting applause.
“Class 1! The Pride of Hongwu!”
“Look at Young Master Lu! His sword intent is already piercing the clouds!”
Lu Yan waved gracefully to the cheering stands, basking in the adoration. His earlier humiliation on the western ridge was fully masked behind an icy, confident smirk. In his mind, the arena was an open killing ground. Without Dean Shang’s immediate personal intervention, the rules of combat allowed ‘accidental’ injuries.
CLANG.
A single, rusty iron gong sounded from the western gate.
The spectators quieted down, turning their eyes toward the lower tunnel in mild curiosity.
“And now entering the arena,” the arena herald announced. His voice carried a clear note of awkward confusion. “The unranked wildcards... Class Four-Hundred-and-Four.”
A truly bizarre sight emerged from the dark tunnel.
Walking at the head of the small procession was Frank.
He was wearing his usual unpressed gray canvas work trousers, sturdy leather suspenders, and heavily scuffed steel-toed work boots. Under his left arm, he carried a pine clipboard with an iron clamp and a brass-tipped pencil. He walked with the relaxed, unrushed stance of a general builder arriving twenty minutes early to inspect a plumbing trench.
Behind him marched his three students: Shen Shitou, Jiang Ling’er, and Niu Mang.
They didn’t wear silk robes. They didn’t wear floating crane brocades.
Instead, all three wore spotless, heavy-duty brown linen work aprons tied around their waists, fitted with rawhide tool loops.
On their heads, gleaming brightly under the morning sun, were their yellow-lacquered gourd hard hats, with thick felt padding and rawhide chin straps buckled securely beneath their jaws.
And in their hands, they carried their tools.
Shitou rested a twenty-pound forged iron sledgehammer across his broad shoulder, its hickory handle polished smooth by calloused palms.
Ling’er held a pair of sharp cold-chisels and a polished brass posture pin nestled neatly into her apron pouch, her stance poised and upright.
Niu Mang carried a long-handled, square-nosed trench spade with a sharpened iron blade. He held it upright like a battle spear.
For three long seconds, the ten-thousand-man arena was dead silent.
Then, a wave of frantic laughter blew up across the stands!
“What in the nine heavens is that?!”
“Are those... Dried yellow gourds on their heads?!”
“Hahahahaha! Look at their weapons! A sledgehammer? A trench shovel? Are they here to fight in the Grand Tournament or are they here to clear out the arena latrines?!”
“Teacher Lu really brought a sewer repair crew to the championship!”
Laughter rolled through the stone tiers like a rolling tide. Students from Class 2 and Class 3 pointed and slapped their knees, tears of mirth streaming down their faces. Several young noble ladies hid their faces behind painted silk fans, tittering wildly.
Frank didn’t even blink.
He led his students to the wooden staging benches on the western outer edge, pulled out a clean rag. Then he wiped a speck of dust off his clipboard.
“Ignore the peanut gallery,” Frank said calmly, checking his pocket watch. “Crowds always laugh at protective equipment until the first fragment of shattered steel embeds itself in an unprotected eyeball. Keep your chin straps tight. If I see a strap dangling loose during engagement, you’re doing thirty pushups on gravel.”
“Students obey!” all three responded in sharp, disciplined all at once.
Shitou adjusted his chin strap, his gaze steady. “Teacher’s order preserves the physical vessel. Let the fools laugh while they leave their skull spirit veins fully exposed to upright impacts.”
High above the arena, inside the grand central VIP box reserved for the supreme martial families, several elderly figures were leaning forward against the carved dark wood stone railing.
Sitting in the center was Patriarch Shen, the total ruler of the powerful Shen Clan.
Five months ago, Patriarch Shen had personally signed the decree banishing his eldest grandson, Shen Shitou, from the old family estate after Shitou’s spirit veins hardened into useless iron melted rock waste. In the clan’s eyes, a youth who couldn’t circulate Qi was worse than dead.
The crowd began laughing at Shitou’s yellow gourd helmet. Then, Patriarch Shen raised his fine china teacup to take a sip. But as his gaze locked onto Shen Shitou’s gait, his weathered hand suddenly froze.
The teacup slipped from his fingers.
CRASH.
The delicate celadon cup shattered on the marble floor, spilling hot green tea across his stitched boots.
“Patriarch?” the clan elder beside him gasped in surprise. “What’s the matter? Did the tea burn your tongue?”
Patriarch Shen didn’t look down at the broken fine china. His ancient, sharp eyes were dilated to pinpricks. He stared unblinkingly at Shen Shitou’s heavy, rhythmic footsteps.
Every time Shitou took a step, his heels struck the flat stone slabs at an exact forty-five-degree vector. There was zero sway in his shoulders, zero tilt in his pelvis. His balance point was perfectly anchored to the world-size mass beneath him. The surrounding earth-vein Qi of the mountain didn’t resist him—it flowed into his boots like water into a sponge!
‘That footwork...’ Patriarch Shen’s chest seized, cold sweat breaking out across his wrinkled forehead. ‘That is not a cripple’s limp! That is the lost Ancient Mountain-Root Stance recorded in our old family stele! Every step he takes roots his bone marrow into the earth’s molten core! How is this possible?! His spirit veins were declared totally dead by three Grandmaster Physicians!’
Beside him, Shen Lang—Shitou’s half-brother, who had usurped his position as the clan’s main heir—sneered in disgust. “Grandfather, why are you staring at that discarded trash? He’s wearing a yellow squash on his head and carrying an iron hammer like a common blacksmith! In the semi-finals, I’ll personally break his other arm and remove the Shen family name from his lips forever.”
Patriarch Shen didn’t answer. His throat felt dry as desert sand.
Down below, Frank tapped his pencil against the clipboard, activating his QA screen to scan the arena outer edge.
Frank looked across the arena.
The Chief Judge, a stern elder in silver robes, stepped into the center of the ring. He struck a massive iron chime with an ivory mallet.
GONGGGGGGGGGGG!
“The Grand Freshmen Tournament, Elimination Round One!” the judge bellowed, his voice echoing across the mountainside. “Class Three versus Class Four-Hundred-and-Four!”
“Representing Class Three: Zhou Tian! Gale-Blade Prodigy, Tier One Layer Nine!”
A sleek, handsome youth in teal silk robes leaped over the arena stone railing. He performed three mid-air somersaults, landing lightly on the arena stones with the grace of a falling leaf. At his waist hung twin curved scimitars forged from aerolite steel, their sword sheaths inlaid with bright turquoise wind-gathering stones.
The crowd cheered wildly for his athletic entrance.
The judge turned toward the western bench.
“Representing Class Four-Hundred-and-Four: Niu Mang!”
Frank closed his clipboard with a crisp click. He glanced at Niu Mang, who was adjusting the rawhide strap on his yellow gourd helmet.
“Niu Mang,” Frank said evenly.
“Here, Teacher!”
“The sub-base beneath those arena stones has a loose aggregate thickness,” Frank instructed. He pointed his pencil toward the center ring. “The contractors who laid those granite slabs twenty years ago didn’t tamper the crushed stone underneath properly. There are three major air voids under the north side.”
Niu Mang blinked, listening intently. “Understood, Teacher! Loose foundation!”
“Go out there,” Frank continued. “Drive your spade into the rock layer seam. Compact the sub-base for them. Don’t waste energy swinging at the kid’s curved swords. Steel on steel creates micro-chipping and ruins your edge. Just fix their stone floor.”
Niu Mang beamed, his broad face streaming pure confidence. He rested the square-nosed trench spade across his shoulder, adjusted his brown canvas apron. Then he stomped into the arena with heavy, earth-shaking strides.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
With every step Niu Mang took, the granite flat stone slabs groaned under his boots.
Standing thirty paces away, Zhou Tian drew his twin curved scimitars with a dramatic metal ring. Pale green wind blades swirled around his arms like dancing serpents, rustling his silk sleeves.
Zhou Tian looked at Niu Mang’s yellow gourd helmet, then at the rusty trench spade in the farm boy’s calloused hands. Then he sneered with poisonous contempt.
“Hey, manure-shoveler,” Zhou Tian taunted, swirling his twin scimitars in dazzling figure-eight patterns. “Did your teacher send you out here to plant cabbages, or did he simply want you to dig your own grave before I slice your tendons?”
Niu Mang planted his feet shoulder-width apart, resting both hands on the spade handle.
His eyes were fully calm.
“Teacher told me not to waste energy talking,” Niu Mang said simply, his voice rumbling like distant thunder. “And he told me to fix your sub-base.”
Zhou Tian’s eyes flashed with murderous intent.
“Die, country bumpkin!”
WHOOSH!
The judge dropped his hand. “BEGIN!”