I Can See Your Combat Power
Chapter 1671 - 110: Numerous Difficulties

Chapter 1671: Chapter 110: Numerous Difficulties

Culture is veiled, and so is martial arts.

The heart-wrenching strife and the pinnacle of wisdom of the predecessors, once overcome, become scriptures passed down to later generations.

And the descendants, standing on this foundation built of wisdom, courage, and fortune, often experience an inexplicable sense of arrogance, feeling superior to others.

They believe that merely perusing these teachings equates to understanding them, assuming they can handle similar challenges with ease.

Just like the scene in this classroom, where the disciples of the Xu Clan, though young, are all born from the Sword Sect and have a solid foundation.

Among them, the particularly outstanding ones could see that Wu Qingqiu’s turtle-like stillness is not just an imitation of demeanor, but also a meditation technique.

However, these exceptional disciples of the Xu Clan find such a meditation technique too crude, so crude that they are reluctant to even call it a meditation technique, hence their mockery.

Indeed...

From the perspective of a martial arts master, Wu Qingqiu’s current meditation technique is far from comparable to those specialized meditation methods from Buddha’s Country, not to mention the breathing techniques in the Innate Dao Map.

But sometimes the calculus is not so simple—the crudeness of the meditation technique reflects the true level of Wu Qingqiu’s enlightenment, while the pride of the noble disciples is merely the inflation of standing on the shoulders of giants.

Martial arts has long since moved past an era of pure talent competition. Many potential talents remain obscured, simply because with sufficient accumulation, even a disciple with mediocre aptitude could achieve higher accomplishments than a self-developing genius through systematic cultivation.

Any civilization, once it reaches a certain level, is no longer a pure contest of talent.

Even those with extraordinary talents, if not placed in the right environment, will end up being ordinary at best.

Like Wu Qingqiu before us—if he were forced to cultivate the Five Elements Spirit Foundation Building Method simply because of his talent for meditation, the outcome would indeed be regrettable.

"Rise, child."

With a voice as resonant as a bell, Tang Luo woke Wu Qingqiu and looked at the young boy who had just awakened, his admiration undisguised: "You are not suitable for cultivating the Five Elements Spirit Foundation Building Method."

"...Oh."

The awakened Wu Qingqiu’s eyes were not only clear but also exuded a rare tranquility. When suddenly confronted with this "bad news", he accepted it calmly.

In fact, Wu Qingqiu did feel some sorrow in his heart, but each time he imitated the awakening of the old turtle, he would possess a sense of detachment from worldly matters.

Like the old turtle by the riverbank, accustomed to the changes from sea to mulberry fields, whose seemingly murky eyes, in fact, held an indescribable grandeur.

Being able to stay and learn was fine, and returning to Spirit Beast Lake was also fine. Regardless of progress or retreat, all was the best arrangement for Wu Qingqiu, who remained composed and calm, even when he heard the mockery of his classmates behind him, his state of mind was not shaken in the slightest.

Brushing the dust off his knees, arms, and clothes, Wu Qingqiu bowed to Tang Luo.

"I shall take my leave, teacher."

"Don’t be in a hurry to leave just yet."

With a smile, Tang Luo called Wu Qingqiu back and tore off a piece of paper from the lectern, scribbled something on it, and then handed it to the bewildered boy.

"Take this paper to class one; you will be studying there for the next five years."

Clueless, Wu Qingqiu took the paper and looked up at the dean’s face, full of eager admiration and affection. After scratching his head and muttering "Oh" again.

The young boy left the classroom with his paper, eliciting sneers of "biting off more than he can chew" from many.

Tang Luo naturally wouldn’t bother to correct them much, because facts always speak louder than words.

Five years later, Wu Qingqiu would naturally make everyone take a fresh look at him.

The experiments on geniuses continued, perhaps the first one was too experienced, making the subsequent performances of several Xu Clan disciples appear lackluster.

This mediocrity didn’t mean they had poor comprehension; instead, it was because they had taken shortcuts.

The Xu Clan descendents were fundamentally different from the disciples sent from Longzhou noble families, in that they had really studied or been exposed to the Five Elements Spirit Foundation Building Method.

Today, Tang Luo intended to test the children’s imagination, which for Xu Clan disciples meant choosing their most proud Spirit manifestation to demonstrate.

From the perspective of breaking the question, the performance of the Xu Clan disciples was extraordinary; their dragon strides and tiger steps, the soaring phoenix and kneeling turtle, as well as the majestic demeanor of the Central Earth Qilin, all made the disciples from other families who were trying to imitate mythical beasts astonished.

But this also indirectly confirmed Tang Luo’s speculation that the Xu Clan’s collection was too vast.

Everything has its measure; sometimes, when a good thing is too excessive, it becomes a bad thing.

Take these young Xu Clan members, for instance—seven or eight years old should be the age of richest imagination, yet they were deprived of their right to think due to the vastness of the Xu Clan’s knowledge, practicing in an orderly fashion focusing on the speed of absorbing the predecessors’ experiences, without anyone stopping for naïve contemplation.

Seeing the performance of these outstanding disciples from Ying City, Tang Luo could understand why fewer and fewer Sword Saints emerged from Yuanzhou Xu Clan.

As the Xu Clan disciples put on a "remarkable" show, the disciples from later generations became increasingly afraid to take the stage, as the Xu Clan disciples’ practiced stances had far surpassed the limits of these disciples’ imaginations.

Once all three hundred Xu Clan disciples had finished their performances, the disciples from other families were still sitting in their seats, either looking down or glancing around, unwilling to take the stage, as the Xu Clan disciples often looked back in irritation.

They came to Red Cloud Mountain to study and had no intention of being dragged down by a group of "poor students."

If the teachings of their clan were not so stringent about manners, they would almost want to mock them openly.

Seeing that no one was coming forward and sensing the growing impatience, Tang Luo finally spoke up.

His gentle tone carried the power to soothe hearts, like a spring breeze sweeping every corner of the classroom.

"If no one wishes to demonstrate on stage, then today’s lecture ends here. Go back and think carefully about which divine beast you’d prefer to grow closer to, and starting tomorrow, we’ll split into different classes."

Without further encouragement for the young ones to take the stage, nor any superfluous words, Tang Luo declared the end of the first day’s lessons.

The teaching plan tucked under his arm was filled with dense remarks for each student, and for those who attempted to demonstrate their imagination by taking shortcuts, there would naturally be another set of criteria for selecting geniuses.

Additionally, he needed to choose a few instructors who had already grasped the Spirit manifestations to help him with teaching.

Five years is neither long nor short; to have all three hundred disciples complete Foundation Building, the existing Five Elements Spirit Foundation Building must be simplified further.

This simplification, of course, doesn’t mean cutting corners, as the most unique feature of the Five Elements Spirit Foundation Building Method is its ability to nurture a congenital essence through five types of breathing exercises. If that were lost, it wouldn’t be worth the Langhuan Sword Master investing so much effort.

Of course, simplification can’t mean making any modifications to the content. With so many martial arts grandmasters in the Xu Clan already working on this, how could he possibly take a shortcut to success by himself?

After all, he was just an ordinary martial arts researcher, and so, to fulfill the Sword Master’s commission within five years, he might have to think of some unconventional methods.