Chapter 325: Being Good at Cultivation Doesn’t Mean You’re Good at Fighting
Xia Chao got beaten up badly by Qingchong. He was entangled in the silk threads Qingchong spat out, lost his balance, and fell to the ground. His struggle to get up made him look more like a bug.
He never imagined that the once-weak Qingchong would become so strong.
“Whose contract beast are you, anyway?!” Xia Chao was furious and helpless, glaring at Qingchong.
Qingchong expressed that it was just a bug and couldn’t comprehend such complex questions.
It hugged Jiang Li’s thigh—whoever fed it, it listened to.
Jiang Li picked Qingchong off his pants and gently placed it on top of Xia Chao’s head, shaking his head slightly. “Your physical fitness is terrible. You don’t have a single bit of combat skill.”
“Contract beasts are the ones who need to fight. I’m the Beastmaster—I don’t need to fight,” Xia Chao said, seeing no issue with his lack of fighting ability.
“Do you think of Qingchong as a friend?”
“Of course.” Even if Qingchong was zero-star, Xia Chao still considered it a close friend.
“Your friend is fighting with all its might, and all you can do is cheer it on from the sidelines?”
“…” Xia Chao had no response.
“You need to break free from fixed thinking. The reason Beastmasters don’t fight is because you’re too weak and have no choice but to rely on contract beasts to protect yourselves. But you’re different from other Beastmasters. You’ve learned cultivation and will only grow stronger. You can—and should—join the fight.”
Xia Chao’s fighting spirit ignited.
One day later, Xia Chao stepped into the first level of Qi Refining, reaching the same realm as Qingchong—only to get tied up again and left squirming on the ground.
“Brother Jiang…” Xia Chao looked pitifully at Jiang Li.
“Don’t get discouraged. Before Nascent Soul, demonic beasts always have the advantage. Plus, Qingchong can spit silk, and you don’t even know a single spell yet. Losing is normal.”
Xia Chao reignited his fighting spirit—getting more fired up with every loss.
“I won’t lose!”
After seven days of training, Qingchong made rapid progress. It had achieved total victory in every match, completely dominating Xia Chao.
Xia Chao, meanwhile, had improved a lot in dodging and defense. He could now avoid several rounds of silk-spitting attacks.
Jiang Li: “…”
He had to admit, having a single spiritual root only improved cultivation speed—it didn’t make someone good at fighting.
Xia Chao’s combat talent was abysmal.
“Xia Chao, you’ve missed several days of class. Are you alright…” Qiu Shi, seeing that Xia Chao hadn’t shown up to class for a while, assumed he’d given up. He came to offer some encouragement, hoping to help him get back on track.
Qiu Shi opened the door and saw Xia Chao wrapped head to toe in white silk threads, even his mouth gagged.
…Looks like someone’s into kinky stuff.
Qingchong’s silk only retained its toughness for a while. Xia Chao untangled himself and explained he was doing combat training.
“Zero-star Qingchong can tie someone up like that?”
“Little Qing is a one-star now,” Xia Chao said proudly, showing off Qingchong’s transformation. He had it spit some silk for Qiu Shi.
Qiu Shi tugged at the threads and found the silk surprisingly tough—nothing like what an ordinary Qingchong would produce.
“It really broke through to one-star? How did you do it? Mutation?” Qiu Shi was shocked and happy for him.
Jiang Li, standing nearby, said, “It didn’t mutate. It’s evolving from bug to dragon. That’s Qingchong’s original growth path—you all just never knew.”
“By the way, do you want to learn cultivation too?” Jiang Li suggested. He wanted to see how cultivation would affect someone already bound by a master-servant contract.
“Cultivation?” Qiu Shi didn’t quite get it.
“It’s a way for us humans to grow stronger,” Xia Chao explained, wanting Qiu Shi to become the second cultivator in Lingxi World.
Seeing that Qiu Shi still didn’t get it, Xia Chao dragged him to the training field and challenged the white tiger cub in his arms.
As expected, Xia Chao lost again.
“You dodged over ten of Tiger Cub’s attacks—that’s fast reflexes!” Qiu Shi didn’t care about winning or losing. It was normal for a human to lose to a contract beast—especially a Bonewing White Tiger cub, one of the strongest among one-stars.
What caught his attention was Xia Chao’s reaction speed during the fight.
That was not something a normal person could do.
“This is cultivation!” Xia Chao, face bruised and nose swollen, stood with his hands on his hips and an odd sense of pride, as if dodging ten attacks from the tiger cub counted as a win.
Jiang Li facepalmed, starting to regret teaching Xia Chao how to cultivate.
What a disgrace to cultivation.
Xia Chao activated the Evergreen Technique, and his facial injuries healed quickly.
“So, want to learn?” Jiang Li asked.
“I’m in!” Qiu Shi was tempted.
“Then we’ll start with the Spiritual Energy Diagram.” Jiang Li taught Qiu Shi step by step.
With a foundation in drawing in spiritual energy, Qiu Shi quickly grasped the basics of cultivation and entered the first level of Qi Refining.
“Huh?” Jiang Li noticed that after Qiu Shi became a cultivator, the master-servant contract somehow transferred part of his cultivation to the white tiger cub.
Only Jiang Li noticed—Qiu Shi and the cub were unaware.
“Is this a built-in feature of the master-servant contract? Making sure the servant’s cultivation never surpasses the master’s?” Jiang Li speculated.
Now the two cultivators, Xia Chao and Qiu Shi, were both curious about this new power and started sparring.
“Heh, youth really is a blessing. Unlike me—my old bones aren’t what they used to be,” the history teacher chuckled as he came down from the viewing platform, knocking his lower back lightly.
“Flexible, flexible,” echoed the parrot on his shoulder.
The history teacher wasn’t actually that old—only in his fifties. But he’d been injured on the battlefield and had lasting health issues since.
“Professor Feng.”
“What brings you here?”
In Xia Chao and Qiu Shi’s eyes, Professor Feng had always lived in the library and rarely left, let alone come to the training field.
“Old age makes you nostalgic,” Professor Feng said, touching the smooth wall of the training arena, recalling old memories.
“Nostalgic, nostalgic,” repeated the parrot.
“I was once a student here too. I trained day and night in this very arena, honed my skills, then went to the front lines to fight for humanity’s future. But I was weak and got scared by the brutality of war. I came back to teach and never had the will to fight again.”
“That was so long ago.”
Professor Feng shook his head gently. “Lately my mind’s been foggy. I find myself reminiscing about the past a lot. Don’t mind me.”
Hearing the words “mind’s been foggy,” Xia Chao and Qiu Shi immediately looked anxious, like they were about to cry.
“You’re only in your fifties! How can your mind already be slipping?”
“Yeah! Isn’t that supposed to happen after your sixties?”
“What’s wrong?” Jiang Li didn’t understand why they were so nervous, acting like Professor Feng was about to die.
“Flexible, flexible, nostalgic, nostalgic…” the parrot chattered endlessly, getting a bit annoying.
Just as Professor Feng was about to say something, his expression went blank. Drool trickled from the corner of his mouth as he repeated the same two words nonstop.
“Flexible, flexible, nostalgic, nostalgic…”
Man and bird, speaking the same words—robotic and stiff.