Chapter 165 – Wheel of Indulgence
Barran was clearly uncomfortable with the current situation and started to blush while gesturing with his hands. Ma Dong had already informed him about the current situation so he understood that Lily and the rest had no part in the matter.
“What are you trying to say?” Ma Dong walked over and clapped a hand on Colby’s shoulder. With a smile on his face, he continued speaking,“All of that was done by Reeves. It doesn’t concern you guys at all. Are you trying to say we can’t differentiate between the good guys and the bad?”
“Exactly! All of us will be in the same squadron anyway. From now on, we’ll be one big family.”
“Yes, one big family!” Wang Zhong laughed and added in, “Now, everyone is the squadron is finally here together and accounted for.”
As the squadron’s current captain, Scarlet extended her hand toward Barran and said, “Barran, welcome back to the squadron!”
“Thank you. Thank you, everyone!” Barran’s eyes turned slightly moist.
Wang Zhong walked over and patted his shoulder before extending his right hand out to everyone. “Let us not dwell on such useless thoughts. Come everyone! Let’s give a squadron roar”
Grinning, Scarlet put a hand out and everyone followed. Nine hands were stacked on top of one another.
“One, two, three!”
“Our Tianjing Squadron is the best!”
Squadrons which are strong always had strong spirits that never wavered. Teacher Grace had left in a hurry and could only leave behind the names of the nine that would form the squadron. She also had assigned Scarlet as the squadron’s temporary captain before making her hasty exit.
Not taking into account the spirit of the squadron, there had been no attempt to convene together the members of the squadron before. After all, Wang Zhong and Barran had been lying in the hospital while Lily and Colby were busy handling the consequences of Reeve’s actions. Before now, there hadn’t been any real attempt to have everyone assimilate into the newly-formed squadron.
But now that Barran had recovered, the mountain of pressure that had been weighing down Lily and the rest’s hearts had disappeared. What replaced it was an indescribable emotion that connected the nine of them together. They had finally become one!
After the initial bout of excitement, everyone finally calmed down. With all of the members of the squadron present, the squadron became full of atmosphere that was tinged with excitement.
Some time later, the group had completed their discussions pertaining to a couple of issues and had decided to use the Prodigy Society training grounds as the designated space for the newly-formed squadron of nine.
While Saint Judgement and Black Rose did in fact have larger training grounds, they had far too many members and couldn’t chase them all out every time they had squadron training. In the end, while the Prodigy Society was smaller in size, they still had the necessary equipment suited for the squadron’s needs. Ma Dong had spent quite a bit of funds on the training facilities and equipment, enough to satisfy the needs of the small group.
As for the members of the Prodigy Society… they were originally small in numbers anyway. Additionally, most of the members had mainly joined just to see Grai and Emily so no one was really up for the training. In the end, the members didn’t matter much.
CHF competition rules were different from the ones used when the Prodigy Society fought against Saint Judgement. Other than the five individual fights, there would also be a group battle which mattered more than each individual fight.
Each of the five individual battles would be worth one point each. The group battle, on the other hand, was worth two additional points, granting it a total of three points. Unless there was such a huge gap in strength between the two opposing squadron, with one squadron winning all the individual battles, the most critical part of the competition was the group battle. 1
Thus, the cohesiveness of the squadron became the first checkpoint that the nine had to cross. To rush this aspect, however, would just lead to abysmal results. What they first needed to do was allow everyone to gain sufficient understanding and familiarity with each other.
As such, none of them got overzealous and instead chose to train together during this period of time as a start. As they interacted and understood each other, stronger bonds will form between each other. From there on, the topic of squadron compatibility could be discussed. This was why they all had to train together during the squadron group trainings.
Wang Zhong possessed an aptitude towards weapons. Any weapon that fell into his hands would quickly be mastered by him.
‘This fellow is a naturally gifted weapons specialist.’ That statement had been said by Simba and was something Wang Zhong didn’t really agree with. Rather, he felt that he was good at weapons only because of his greater love for understanding the intrinsic traits of all weapons he touched. In fact, he could even interpret their origins through his analyses. To him, he could grasp the best method to use a weapon because he was so detailed with the weapon’s characteristics, instead of some insubstantial talent he had.
But to be unable to completely master a weapon after researching and practising with it for no less than a few months was something that Wang Zhong had rarely experienced. He couldn’t even completely understand the principles behind its motions. The Laforgue Infinite Slash Crosswheels were the first ever to challenge him, thus spurring greater interest within him towards the weapon.
As for the feel of this weapon, every time it was used, Wang Zhong seemed to come to different conclusions with regards to the weapon. This wasn’t because the weapon had been altered in any way. Rather, it was because Wang Zhong’s comprehension ability was improving at a rapid rate.
In all actuality, he felt that he had a good grasp on the skills and techniques of the crosswheel. This included the ability to fuse the might of spiraling soul power with the momentum of the weapon’s revolutions. Anything he could think of was already incorporated in its usage by him. But what he couldn’t fathom was the ‘Infinite Slash’ technique spoken of in legends. It frustrated him to no end. Was it because the crosswheel he had was just a copy of the one made in the dark era?
He quickly erased this thought as he was confident in the useability of the weapon. Spiraling force was undoubtedly the key toward mastering the secret of the crosswheel. But, all he could do now was to add in more strength into his techniques as he did not understand what this secret was. There was still something lacking in his knowledge of the weapon itself.
Everyone was already accustomed to Wang Zhong being engrossed with his crosswheels. He would often stare at them for the great half of the day.
These five indents may not be as simple as I thought. Using soul power, the crosswheel can be shot out in an instant. Unless it can store up power, I don’t think it can reach the level of ‘Infinite Slash’ that was mentioned in the history books. Maybe it isn’t what I thought…
Perhaps it had been all the stimulation brought upon by Barran’s ordeal, but Wang Zhong’s mind was unusually sharp this time. If only he possessed some recording of how Laforgue had used the crosswheel, maybe he could actually deconstruct how it was used and attempt to mimic Laforgue. But right now, he could only rely on himself to comprehend the crosswheels.
The five indents should be related to speed, but how could they be used in such a simple way? If there was no simple way ot use them, he felt that it would’ve been a bit of a waste to have made them.
The crosswheels rotated in his hand. He increased the revolutions and watched as it spun around, soft and quick… deep and heavy… faster… slower… every type of revolution left a different emotion within him. They then started to merge together and the result became visibly obvious.
Currently, his soul power had doubled from before and reached 70 grassos. What he did, however, was use tiny increments of soul power to exercise control over the crosswheels.
To everyone, every 10 grassos of soul power one had led to only minute changes in what they could feel. Hitting 100 grassos would result in a small bottleneck. When one reached 200 grassos, one would be at the limit of the Cast Soul stage.
For most people, an increase of 10 grassos wouldn’t be noticeable. This was entirely different for Wang ZHong, however. His soul power growth was incredibly slow, which enabled him to gain an even clearer understanding behind every unit used for the crosswheel’s revolutions.
Each indent represented a kind of strength. By kneading and manipulating that strength, it should result in a myriad of changes. The two crosswheels in Wang Zhong’s hands howled endlessly as they revolved. They each had their own cadence, their own rhythm. Wang Zhong felt emotional as he manipulated them; he’d finally understood the true way to use the crosswheels!
When he lifted his head, Wang Zhong found that everyone was staring blankly at him. Unable to bear it any longer, Ma Dong shouted, “Wang Zhong, you’ve become so gaudy with that toy. There’s so much flash behind it, but no use! Everyone here has been waiting for you to go out and eat. Sigh. I really shouldn’t have bought them for you.”
“Ah, food. I was just thinking of something a moment ago.”
“Big bro, it’s already been an hour since you started staring at those toys, mumbling to yourself as you turned them this way and that. Can’t you stop playing with them? Laforgue has already turned to dust. I even suspect whether or not those so-called legends were real or just a ploy by politicians to increase the attraction of what happened.” Ma Dong couldn’t help but feel slightly worried for Wang Zhong as he spoke.
Hearing his words, everyone started to smile as they could clearly sense the good intentions within his words. To overly pursue perfection while forsaking strength was a fault many people had. This was especially true for someone like Wang Zhong who focused on skills and technique.
Suddenly, Wang Zhond had an idea. “I just made a slight breakthrough in my thoughts. Is there anyone who could help me test it out? Ma Dong, how about you?”
1. If one team gets four or more points in the individual matches, the group battle then becomes meaningless. However, if none of the teams had attained four points in the individual battles, the group battle would be the deciding factor. Even if one team falls behind with two wins and three losses, they could still make up the points by winning the group battle.