Chapter 326: Chapter 325: Being Good at Cultivation Doesn’t Mean Being Good at Combat
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Translator: 549690339
Xia Chao was brutally beaten by the green caterpillar, entangled by the silken thread it spat out, losing balance and falling to the ground. His struggle to rise resembled that of a worm.
He had never imagined that the weak green caterpillar would become so formidable.
“Who exactly did you sign a pact with?” Xia Chao roared in helpless rage, glaring at the green caterpillar.
The caterpillar indicated that it was just a bug and couldn’t comprehend such complex matters.
It clung to Jiang Li’s leg, siding with whoever fed it.
Jiang Li plucked the caterpillar off his trousers, gently placed it on Xia Chao’s head, and shook his head lightly, “Physically too weak, no combat skills.”
“Beasts under contract are the ones needing to fight, I’m a Beast Tamer, I don’t need to fight.” Xia Chao didn’t see any issue with his lack of combat abilities.
“Do you consider the caterpillar a friend?”
“Of course.” Even though the caterpillar had limited abilities, Xia Chao would still treat it as a good friend.
“When your friend is fighting hard, are you only capable of cheering from the sidelines?”
Xia Chao was left speechless.
“You have to change your mindset. The reason Beast Tamers can’t fight is that you’re too weak and can only rely on your allied beasts for protection. But you’re different from other Beast Tamers; you’ve learned to cultivate, and you’ll become stronger over time. You can and should participate in battles.”
Xia Chao was filled with fighting spirit.
One day later, Xia Chao stepped into the first layer of Qi Cultivation. With his level now the same as the green caterpillar’s, he continued to be immobilised by it, wriggling on the ground.
“Brother Jiang…” Xia Chao looked at Jiang Li with puppy-dog eyes.
“Don’t lose heart, before reaching the Nascent Soul Stage, beasts always hold an advantage. Also, the caterpillar can spit silk and you don’t know any spells, so it’s natural for you to lose.”
Xia Chao’s fighting spirit remained unquenched, fuelling his valour with every battle.
“I won’t lose!”
After seven days of training, the caterpillar progressed rapidly, guaranteeing victory in every battle and completely dominating Xia Chao.
Xia Chao had made considerable improvements in defense and evasion, and could dodge several rounds of silk-spitting attacks.
Jiang Li:
He had to admit that having a single Spiritual Root could only speed up one’s cultivation and couldn’t make one learn to fight.
Xia Chao’s combat talent was extraordinarily lousy.
“Xia Chao, you haven’t attended classes for several days, is everything…” Qiu Shi, noticing Xia Chao’s absence from class, thought he had given up on himself and tried to comfort him, hoping to help him out of his despair.
Upon entering, he saw Xia Chao entangled in white silk threads, even his mouth was blocked.
…They seemed to be having a wild time.
The caterpillar’s silk could retain its tensile strength for a while, allowing Xia Chao to free himself and explain that he was in combat training.
“A low-level caterpillar can actually bind a person?”
“Little Green is now at one-star level.” Xia Chao happily showed Qiu Shi the caterpillar’s transformation and had it spit out some silk for her.
Qiu Shi tugged at it, the silk was quite sturdy, unlike what ordinary caterpillars would produce.
“Really broke through to one-star level? How did you do it? Mutation?” Qiu Shi was surprised and happy for Xia Chao.
Jiang Li at the side spoke, “It’s not a mutation. It transforms from an insect to a dragon. This is the caterpillar’s natural growth process, you guys just didn’t know it.”
“By the way, do you want to learn cultivation too?” Jiang Li suggested to Qiu Shi. He wanted to see what kind of reaction the contracted beast would have after the person who signed a master-servant contract started cultivation.
“Cultivate?” Qiu Shi was puzzled.
“It’s the method to make us humans stronger.” Xia Chao, as the first cultivator in the Lingxi World, wanted to recruit Qiu Shi and make him the second cultivator.
Seeing that Qiu Shi still didn’t understand, Xia Chao took him to the training field to have a match with the white tiger cub in his arms.
As expected, Xia Chao lost again.
“You were able to dodge the tiger’s attacks over ten times! Xia Chao, you are so quick!” Qiu Shi didn’t care about winning or losing as it was normal for humans not to be able to defeat their contract beasts – let alone the white tiger cub, which was top-tier among one-star contract beasts.
What caught Qiu Shi’s attention was Xia Chao’s reaction speed in the fight.
This was beyond the reach of ordinary individuals.
“This is cultivation!” Xia Chao, beaten black and blue by the white tiger cub, put his hands on his hips, beaming with an indescribable sense of pride as if managing to dodge the cub’s attacks over ten times was a victory.
Jiang Li held his forehead, starting to regret teaching Xia Chao how to cultivate.
Xia Chao’s interpretation was completely disgracing cultivation.
Xia Chao activated Perennial Power, quickly healing his facial injuries.
“So, do you want to learn?” Jiang Li asked.
“Learn!” Qiu Shi was tempted.
“Then let’s start from the ‘Map of Spiritual Energy.’” Jiang Li carefully tutored Qiu Shi on how to cultivate.
With a foundation set in his earlier practice of introducing Qi into his body, Qiu Shi quickly learned how to cultivate and stepped into the first layer of Qi Cultivation.
“Hmm?” Jiang Li discovered that once Qiu Shi became a cultivator, he surprisingly shared a part of his achievements with the white tiger cub due to the master-servant contract.
Only Jiang Li noticed this, neither Qiu Shi nor the white tiger cub did.
“Is it a requirement of the master-servant contract to keep servants’ powers from surpassing their master’s?” Jiang Li speculated.
As the only two cultivators, Xia Chao and Qiu Shi were filled with curiosity about this new power. The two began a battle.
“Heh heh, youth is great. Unlike me, my bones aren’t as nimble anymore.” The history teacher chuckled and ambled over from the stands, massaging his lower back.
“Nimble, nimble.” The parrot on the history teacher’s shoulder repeated.
The history teacher wasn’t really old, only in his fifties. However, he was injured on the battlefield and he was never the same again, his health had been poor.
“Hello, Professor Feng.”
“Why are you here?”
In Xia Chao and Qiu Shi’s impressions, Professor Feng almost always stayed in the library and seldom went out, let alone to a place like the training field.
“When you get old, you become nostalgic.” Professor Feng touched the smooth wall of the training field, reminiscing about the past.
“Nostalgic, nostalgic.” The parrot repeated.
“I was once a student at this school, I trained day and night in this field. Picked up all sorts of skills and then rushed to the battlefield, hoping to carve out a bright future for the human race. But sadly, I was alone and weak. The brutality of the battlefield scared me off. I could only come back and teach, never regaining a desire to fight.”
“That was many, many years ago.”
Professor Feng shook his head gently: “Lately, I’ve been having frequent periods of confusion. I keep dwelling on the past, don’t mind me.”
Upon hearing the words “confusion”, Xia Chao and Qiu Shi immediately tensed up, looking as if they were about to cry.
“You’re only in your fifties, how could you be…”
“Isn’t it said that such symptoms only appear after you reach the age of sixty or more?”
“What’s wrong?” Jiang Li couldn’t figure out why the two were so tense, they seemed to believe that Professor Feng would soon pass away.
“Nimble, nimble, nostalgic, nostalgic…” The parrot kept repeating the same words in a ceaselessly, becoming annoying.
Just as Professor Feng was about to say something, he suddenly became stupefied, saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth, repeating the same words over and over.
“Nimble, nimble, nostalgic, nostalgic…”
The man and the parrot, parroting the same words, in a robotic and stiff manner.