Chapter 15 (2/2)

After a while of watching, Xu Yi had an understanding of things. The stone weight made out of heavy iron was a full five hundred pounds. Five hundred pounds is a line in the Body Forging stage that, once crossed, means that you have properly entered the Body Forging stage.

With that realization, Xu Yi finally understood. Only one who had entered the Body Forging stage was worthy enough to have someone to guide them.

A few more minutes passed, and a few dozen more people tried. This time, the number of people who passed was much smaller — only three.

The man in black saw that the time was almost up and said, “Are there any more who wish to try? If not, please leave early. If you can’t this year, come again next year. As long as you do not give up, I believe that everyone will eventually be able to step into this Martial Lecture Hall!”

With those words, he picked up the stone weight easily with one hand, eliciting gasps from the audience.

“Let me try!”

Xu Yi spoke loudly as he stepped forward.

The moment he spoke, the crowd was filled with murmurs of suspicion. All of these martial arts practitioners had come from Furong Town. Furong Town was not large, and each member of the crowd knew everyone else there.

For a stranger Like Xu Yi to speak up, it naturally caught everyone’s attention.

“Who is this? How dare he come to our Furong Town Martial Lecture Hall!”

“Don’t be so cocky, outsider! A bag of bones like you trying to lift heavy iron? Forget it!”

“Captain Gu, this person isn’t from Furong Town. How can he enter our Furong Town’s Martial Lecture Hall? Please get rid of him, we’ll be ashamed to have this outsider join us.”

After the first person spoke out, the rest chimed in. this group of failed practitioners had insufficient cultivation, but they had plenty of experience ganging up on others.

Xu Yi held his fist in a salute and said, “I may be young and uneducated, but I am pursuing the Martial Way with all my heart, despite my foolishness and despite all the things that I do not yet know. Coincidentally, in my first visit to this treasured place, the Martial Lecture Hall is being opened. I was overjoyed and thought that my doubts could finally be cleared. Brothers, as fellow practitioners of the Martial Way, why deny the wonders of an individual’s growth? Furthermore, when his highness, Emperor Wuzong, built the Martial Lecture Hall, wasn’t his wish to make the Marital Way affordable for all practitioners under the heavens? Why would there be distinction between whose hometown this is? If you all were to stop me, I’m afraid it would be going against the goodwill of the Imperial Court.”

In his previous life, Xu Yi was no good in his studies, but he was great at seeing the bigger picture, or else he would not have been able to stand out amongst millions of players in such a large scale game to become one of the five great commanding officers.

In this life, as a young scholar who had read classics since he was young, he had excellent talent. After familiarizing himself with all the classics, his knowledge was now supreme.

With the melding of the two individuals, the Xu Yi of today had been born.

At that moment, he spoke words that were logical and well substantiated with evidence, especially at the end when he even brought out Emperor Wuzong of the Dayue Dynasty. It had even moved the man in black.

The man in black paused to think for a moment before coldly replying, “A glib tongue indeed. I must acknowledge that you make a good point. But, since you dare to stand out like this, you must have a few skills. How about this, you step back ten paces, and I shall throw this stone weight at you. If you can catch it, I shall allow you entry. What do you all think?”

The man in black had thought it through. Xu Yi spoke of Emperor Wuzong, and was wielding the authority of the Imperial Court’s laws against him. If he refused just like that, it would not be good for his influence if word got out.

But at the same time, facing the practitioners from his village, Gu naturally did not want to offend all of them.

Thus, imposing a challenge to test the newcomer would be the best of both worlds.

All of Furong Town knew the cultivation level of the man in black. He was one of the few who had reached the middle stages of the Body Forging stage, and the man was an impressive martial artist.

The stone weight was extremely heavy, and with the man in black throwing it, it would take more than the ability to lift five hundred pounds for Xu Yi to be able to catch it.

Seeing the outsider in a difficult spot, the crowd cheered in approval, holding their breaths to see how the man in black would teach Xu Yi a lesson.