Chapter 58 Ketchup Number One
Born in a time of chaos,kings raise and fall like summer flies’ life. No safety in any place, believe only in one’s strength to protect your family and loved one. Yet, how could strength of one human confront the world and its cruelty? The world Rips one’s flesh harshly without any pity, kills kids and buries parents.
The only way to live a good life is to love G.o.d and love others. If you want to have a good life, you must not love yourself, because our own self has a black hole inside named desire. No matter how much we follow it and throw at it, desire will never be satisfied. The only way to prevent it, is by stop feeding desire.
Love G.o.d, so he will give you everything you need and free you from torture. Love other so you will plant a good karma’s seed along your life. Cease to be your own self, start loving G.o.d and others. So you will start leading a good life.
If you still can’t lead a good life, after you do both for long enough, then it only mean you will lead a good life after death, you will have your place in heaven.
Jaime looked at the hundreds of people queuing to get Taichi and Aikido’s martial arts. They were throwing their money at Jaime without caring anymore. They had seen an Elementary Realm disciple take down Patriarch Realm’s mechanical soldiers. They were sure that the art was a super awesome martial arts.
“Brother, didn’t you charge us a bit too much?” said one disciple sadly.
“You know, selling these arts to all of you has already made me suffer a great financial loss.” Jaime sighed heavily. “I still remember it like yesterday, when I paid a ton to a legion of army to get into a forgotten tomb of an ancestor realm’s martial artist.One thousand Patriarch Realms stormed the tomb, fought with five thousand mummies and only one survived to tell this story to all of you today!”
The entire disciples stared at him in open admiration.
“I got these two martial arts left by Ancestor Realm with loss about tens of millions of spiritual stones. Now, I only charge you with 20.000 spiritual stones for both of them. Tell me, didn’t I already treat you so nice? If not because I think of all of you as my academy mates and today is that lucky guy’s birthday, I would have charge you at least five hundred thousand spiritual stones.”
“Right, right it already so cheap, please give me one.” More and more people buying from Jaime.
“Don’t worry, I am selling you the best martial arts ever. Only you can help yourself when you are in danger on this chaos time, so have this martial arts and you are undefeatable!” Jaime high-spirited selling his number one ketchup*. ( It is saying for sellers who self-proclaim selling their stuff as number one, like a traditional medicine seller on traditional market, claim his medicine can cure-all kind of diseases even raise dead’s body from grave—as long as the dead body can digest his medicine).
Of course one thing that Jaime never told them was those martial arts can’t be used for an attack. It can only be used as self-protection and gaining better health by training it daily. As for Jaime’s secret, it’s still a secret.
Old Chan chased after the eagle but didn’t try to catch it. He followed the eagle within his attack range ,tailing it patiently. The eagle’s flying route was not into the City Lord’s castle. It flew to the mountain rage outside the city. That made him confused.
“That eagle where will it go?” Old Chan curiously followed the eagle. “That Jaime, how much he know about Heaven Contract Stone and Prime Minister’s plan to take down the king with the academy’s help?” He kept following the eagle in hope to kill whoever be the acceptor of the Heaven Contract Stone. After that he will personally kill Jaime. He wanted to clear everything. No one must know the academy’s most hidden secret. “Is Jaime one of the King’s elite spies? Is the City Lord part of the King’s faction?”
After following near one hour he suddenly realized something. He made a quick decision and threw a silver needle to attack the eagle and killed that poor animal. As the eagle’s body fell, Old Chan caught it and cursed. “It just a dirty pouch not a s.p.a.ce storage pouch! He dared to trick me! I will kill him!” Old Chan angrily returned to the second trial cave with everything he has.
He rushed to the cave and found Jaime sitting alone in the middle of the dome. Seems like Jaime just finished selling his number one martial arts, and hasn’t got enough time to run away.
Old Chan closed the iron door and walked slowly to Jaime. He shocked when he found a lot of mechanical soldiers broken into pieces on the ground. “You don’t know how much each of the soldier cost, You destroyed them! I am going to kill you. Now give me my Heaven Contract Stone back.”
Jaime stood and didn’t look at Old Chan, he pointed to the farthest way of the inside dome. “When I walked out and sent the eagle high into the sky, I put the Heaven Contract Stone there, it is about three hundred meters from where we stand ,that time. Of course you couldn’t detect it. So when you chased the wrong eagle, I have sent the stone far-far away from your hand.”
Old Chan’s body was trembling in rage, not many people could trick him and stay alive.
Jaime sneered. “Since you tricked me to drink poison and wanted to kill me, you had forced me to draw a line between friend and enemy. To be honest, I don’t care even a bit for the Heaven Contract Stone. But I heard from people, that stone was important to you, so I took it. If you want to blame a person, blame your own self, wanting to trick me. Let me tell you, when you are ready to hit people, you must be prepared to be hit back.”
“Alright, it was my mistake to try to kill you.” Old Chan slightly smile. “But if your father in law didn’t endanger this academy, I wouldn’t even give you any attention. Look what you have done, you made me run for hundred miles and tricked me. You even destroyed the mechanical soldiers, which are treasure of this academy. I will forgive you if you return the stone and I will let you go.”
Jaime silent for a while and said, “Tomorrow I will go the third trial, I want to make a bet with you, if I score perfect score, you have to pay me five thousand spiritual stones. If I can’t score perfect score, I will give you the Heaven Contract Stone. What do you think?”
“Do you think I am stupid?” Old Chan laughed loudly, “That Heaven Contract Stone is a rare item but not the only one in this world, and people could buy it for three hundred thousand spiritual stonesat the big auction houses.”
Jaime moved his hand in the air. “I know you will protest, even I don’t know if you have used the stone to make soul contract or not, I think what is inside the stone will be worth a few stones. Tomorrow, I will know if that stone will worth that much or not.”
Old Chan was quickly aiming his sword to Jaime’s foot. “Today I will force you to take out that stone, no need to wait for tomorrow!” The sword cut Jaime’s foot into two. Yet Jaime still stood. Old Chan launched a few attacks again but all of its attacks pa.s.sed through Jaime’s body.
Jaime still talking, “You know I am thinking to make it into six hundred thousand spiritual stones.”
“You, what are you!” Old Chan watched in horror. How his attack could not cut Jaime. “What kind of martial arts are you using. Who are you!” Old Chan started thinking Jaime was some elite soldier secretly sent by the king.
“About who I am, it is not important. Just prepare the money, tomorrow we will meet again.” Jaime suddenly disappeared like a smoke. Old Chan almost got heart attack.
“Trouble, it is a big trouble. I must tell headmaster!”
At the night in secret room, Headmaster’s crawl smashed to Old Chan’s face and caused his head collided with the stone table. “Which part of my command not to make trouble or touch him you didn’t understand?”
Old Chan’s nose was broken, lost some of his teeth and bleeding heavily.
“If not because you are the only one who has access to the formation of the soul contracts on Heaven Contract Stone, I would have killed you like I killed my little brother.”
Headmaster grabbed Old Chan’s neck and pulled him up, till his feet left the ground. “Inside the Heaven Contract Stone, there are some soul contracts of our spies we can’t lose at any cost. You must get the Heaven Contract Stone back.”
“Urghhhghh!” answered Old Chan in painful.
“You even let him destroyed our mechanical soldiers, they were part of our plan. Now we have lost them all! We will take his bet, but if he makes perfect score, just kill him!” Headmaster threw Old Chan’s bodies to the wall. “Next time, none of you will make your own judgment and think you are smarter than me. I will kill everyone who think they are smarter than me and cause trouble to my plan! I have sacrificed my own daughter to make this plan succeed. Don’t think I won’t sacrifice any of you. Try my patience more and see what I will do to all of you!”
The General exam has a total of five separated exams. Jaime pa.s.sed first and second exam without any problem. That morning, there was a ruckus in front of the academy, City Lord and his twenty elite soldiers marched their demonic beasts to the academy.
“What honor do we owe to the City Lord to be willing to come to this academy?” asked headmaster politely, he heard the news that City Lord was coming to academy and hurried to accompany him. He didn’t want any problem with City Lord anymore. His plan had to be executed at any cost.
City Lord laughed hardly, “I get message from my son in law, if he can get perfect score from third trial of general exam, he will get 600,000 spiritual stones, it is truly a lot of money, of course I want to see it myself. That much money can help him building his own soldiers for fourth trial.”
“600,000 spiritual stones?” asked Headmaster in puzzle.
“Oh I think it is his personal bet with Old Chan,” said City Lord lightly.
Headmaster’s face showed a little smile and sent sounds transmission to one of the academy teacher. “Call Old Chan to find me and tell others to prepare to kill Jaime in third trial, make sure to execute it like accident. City Lord will see it and can’t blame us.”
“City Lord, let moved to Third Trial’s location.” He politely invited City Lord and his elite soldiers to the third trial’s location.
“Please lead the way,” answered the City Lord. All of them moved together out from academy and advance to big mountain outside the city.
Old Chan with face full of injured, answered the headmaster’s call and rushed to join the headmaster. City lord saw Old Chan’s condition and spoke. “Look, what happen to you? You look terrible.”
Old Chan bowed politely, “Greeting City lord. Last night this old man fought with demonic beast and was recklessly injured.”
“Ah, that demonic beast must be an extraordinary and hateful one.”
Old Chan steal a glimpse to headmaster and nodded. “Yeah, an extraordinary one and hate…” Headmaster glanced at him and Old Chan chose to shut his mouth.
City Lord on the top of his demonic beast, lazily took out Heavenly Contract Stone in front of headmaster and Old Chan. “I got this unknown stone from my son-in-law, he said this stone is his ancestor treasure. I heard he had promised to give this stone to academy if he can’t get perfect score on this third trial. Is that right?”
“Yeah,” answered Old Chan immediately, he need to take that stone back.
“But, if he can get perfect score, you will give them 600,000 spiritual stones right?”
Old Chan looked at the headmaster, asking for help, he didn’t have that much money. The headmaster hardened his fist and put on smile face, “If that is what Jaime said, then it is. I promise will give him 600,000 spiritual stones if he can get perfect score. No one ever has perfect score since this academy started. It will be our luck having a great student in our academy.”
“Good, good, good,” City lord laughed happily. “He is my son-in-law, sure he will amaze all of us.”
They arrived at top of hill, where they could look down to the landscape of sixth small hills.
“This is the location.” The headmaster explained. “Third trail is testing of one’s ability to read their surroundings and located enemy’s places. It is one of the most important skills for a general, a must have skill, So, in future they can arrange thousands of their soldiers to get better positioning in war and use advantages of foreign landscape. This morning, twenty academy staffs have been a.s.signed to hide in specific places and caves on this area. If Jaime can locate all of them within half day, he will pa.s.s the trial.”
Headmaster has secretly a.s.signed all the academy staffs to killed Jaime on sight,To learn about the surrounding, all the disciples must go down the hill and check it one by one to locate the hidden staffs. At that time, there are a lot of possibility can happen. It is a perfect killing ground. Not mention twenty staffs of academy which headmaster arranged were professional a.s.sa.s.sins at Elder Realm.
Jaime walked to the third trial location followed by hundreds of disciples, he bowed to City Lord, “Father in Law, I am feeling great by having you here.”
“You have taken the exam very quickly and shocked me. How can I, your Father in Law, not come to see you. Go get a perfect score son.” City Lord’s eyes turned teary. “You really are a dragon among man. I am very proud of you.”
Jaime nodded. “I will never let down father in law’s hopes.”