Chapter 42: Old Antique’s Education Policy
w.a.n.g Ling hadn"t imagined that Old Antique would actually announce the news so quickly. Nowadays, there were plenty of lightning marriages 1 , but who knew that there were also so many lightning love affairs.
He felt it was probably because Old Antique had gone too long without love, so once he fell into the honey river of love, he couldn"t pull himself out.
It was very obvious that spring had arrived for Old Antique.
On the other hand, Hero Guo had entered a chilly winter...
Dopey wasn"t an ordinary parrot. This wasn"t reflected just in its special ability, born from mixing various bloodlines together, but also in the fact that Dopey had the ability to transform. While there was a very short time limit to how long it could maintain a human form, it was already more than enough time to teach Hero Guo a lesson.
Especially when Dopey saw a small bald patch amidst the spotless white feathers which it was so proud of, the result of that f**king fortune-telling...
From afar, w.a.n.g Ling could already feel the low pressure emanating from Hero Guo"s shoulder. Moreover, he heard Dopey"s thoughts again: whip, handcuffs, small candle...
Sss ! — It was just three simple nouns, but it was more than enough for his imagination.
He had never thought that even a bird could play such exciting games these days...
An Old Antique in love was even more approachable than usual, and it should have been a stress-free spirit sword training session. However, firmly oppressed by Dopey"s icy cold spiritual pressure, Hero Guo couldn"t be cheerful.
The morale of this story was, if you are a pretentious p.r.i.c.k, you will pay the price. If you want to show off in front of people, your bird will use candle wax on you behind the scenes... w.a.n.g Ling felt that this incident made a very good case for the "lead a low-key life" philosophy which Father and Mother w.a.n.g had instilled in him from a young age.
For w.a.n.g Ling, this spirit sword training was predictably boring. What Old Antique was teaching was a very basic spirit sword beginner"s course.
In theory, at the Foundation Establishment stage, one was completely capable of flying a sword. However, Huaxiu nation"s Education Department had made "flying a sword" a university-level course in the current education system.
What most Foundation Establishment students could learn in high school was basic maintenance of their spirit swords and basic skills in flying a sword.
Of course, as students of the elite cla.s.s, they may also delve a little deeper into the content and learn things such as advanced sword skills and mental sword cultivation methods. However, these lessons still weren"t any challenge for w.a.n.g Ling.
A so-called true master, with a sword not in his hand, but in his heart, could use a blade of gra.s.s to cut down even the stars — this highest realm of swordsmans.h.i.+p had long faded into history and most people thought it was just a legend. However, w.a.n.g Ling felt that without the restraining effects of the Dao talisman seal, it wouldn"t be difficult for him at all to cut the stars down with a blade of gra.s.s.
The basic training for flying a sword mainly consisted of controlling their spirit swords to paint the figure "8" in the air. With his strength pulled back, w.a.n.g Ling carefully controlled his small wooden sword and tried his best to flunk the session, so that he didn"t tear the roof off the gymnasium by mistake.
In the end, based on Old Antique"s strict grading system, w.a.n.g Ling was ranked fourth of the students present in proficiency at flying a sword.
While fourth out of five people placed him in the bottom half, he was very satisfied with this ranking.
The person in last place was Feather Lin. To begin with, parent and child swords weren"t very easy to control and required a level of swordsmans.h.i.+p that was more than two times as difficult as wielding one sword. What was worse, she had gotten the genders of her two spirit swords wrong all these years... hence, though they had been together for a very long time, they had yet to establish real rapport between them.
"If you go on like this, you"ll get nowhere." Old Antique put his hands on his waist and sighed, feeling a slight headache.
An Old Antique in love was somewhat more unusual than normal, but that didn"t mean he had been idle in collecting data on the previous spirit sword exchange meet between No. 59 High School and No. 58 High School.
On the surface, the students" levels in handling spirit swords appeared roughly the same among the three schools.
In fact, No. 60 High School had an advantage, because Lotus Sun"s Mysterious Sea had already sp.a.w.ned a sword spirit. To quote a chuuni 2 saying, in all of the one hundred schools, a high school student who bred a sword spirit was a very rare and extremely fearful existence...
However, the spirit sword exchange meet was a team event and employed a team grading system. If No. 60 High School wanted to emerge victorious in this exchange meet, apart from Lotus Sun and Super Chen, the two best performers currently, the other three people had to ensure that at the very least, they obtained a final average score or higher — it would only take one person holding them back to produce poor results.
What was worth mentioning was that although w.a.n.g Ling was ranked fourth, his score was just above average, which Old Antique felt was really miraculous. For some reason, he felt that the person who had scored sixty points was somehow more skilled than the one who had scored full marks.
Currently, it looked like it was just Feather Lin who was holding them back. Furthermore, her score was very discouraging. The city-wide average score in proficiency at flying a sword was sixty-five, but Feather Lin hadn"t even reached the pa.s.sing score.
However, Old Antique was, after all, Old Antique. Headmaster Chen had sent him to lead this team, and even if this fatty who only knew how to eat snacks had now been blessed with luck in love, his teaching prowess was beyond question.
After that, the other students left the gym except for Feather Lin. There were still two more hours before dinner, which was supposed to be free time, but Feather Lin had to do extra training.
"Teacher, am I hopeless?" This fujos.h.i.+ was obviously very upset, her head hanging low. Feather Lin felt that flying a sword had become the second most painful thing in her life, after her father burning her gay fanfiction.
Girls had thin skin 3 , so Old Antique would always give them face. If it had been Teacher Pan, she would have long broken out into cursing, resentful that a student didn"t live up to her expectations, and she would have used various radical ways to stimulate the students" adrenal gland hormones.
However, every teacher had their own teaching style.
This method of berating students in order to spur them into action did not suit Old Antique"s gentle image at all. Furthermore, this was an Old Antique who was in love; it was even less likely for him to criticize a schoolgirl who was suffering disappointment in her studies.
Compared with Teacher Pan"s method of goading, Old Antique was better at giving encouragement.
Additionally, he was very good at applying the right fix to any situation.
Flying a pair of parent and child swords was indeed more difficult than flying a single sword, but the principle was the same. One just needed to memorize a few more of the original basic formulas. For students in the elite cla.s.s, memorizing something had never been a problem, especially for Feather Lin, who was a top student.
Therefore, Old Antique felt that it wasn"t that Feather Lin couldn"t learn, but that she wasn"t absorbing the lesson. Additionally, he could tell that she was feeling rather depressed.
In fact, the pile of treasured gay fanfiction burned several days ago was the main reason for Feather Lin"s bad mood. But Old Antique had no idea about this situation at all, so he could only judge based on his years of experience and his own observations.
After all, secretly investigating a student"s private affairs would be too much like the actions of a pervert...
In situations like this, Old Antique had a lot of relevant methods for solving this type of difficult problem.
In any case, he just needed to give the right type of encouragement for the student in question.
A spirit light glowed in Old Antique"s hand as he conjured up a book which he had prepared beforehand, and he gave it to Feather Lin. "I hope Student Lin will enjoy this book. The names of the protagonists are very similar to those of your parent and child swords."
Curiously, Feather Lin took the book and saw on the cover four very elegant-looking words: Founder of Evil Sorcery...
Actually, before the spirit sword training and in line with his encouragement approach, Old Antique had very considerately prepared a gift for each student early on as an emergency incentive.
For Lotus Sun, he had written a list of w.a.n.g Ling"s favorite snacks.
For Super Chen, he had prepared a dumbbell with a gravity system so that he could control its weight at will.
For Hero Guo, he had prepared a little book in which he had recorded all the student gossip which only he knew.
For w.a.n.g Ling, he had prepared a packet of the just released stir-fried swamp eel-flavored crispy noodle snack...
A "lightning marriage" is to get married on the spur of the moment. "Chuuni" is short for the j.a.panese term "chuunibyou," which translates to "second year of middle school sickness," and describes teenagers going through a phase where they try to act cool or edgy. To have "thin skin" is naturally the opposite of having "thick skin," and means to be sensitive or easily upset.