Chapter 127 Leave
"You're here?" Huang Lin lifted his head and took a look at Fang Xingjian, fatigue brimming in his eyes.
Fang Xingjian asked, "Teacher, are we going to war?"
"Mmm." Huang Lin nodded. "Western Garrison requested for us to work hand in hand with them to wipe out those Black Devils from Garcia.
"We'll be taking action at the end of the month. You should go prepare yourself too."
"End of the month?" Fang Xingjian did some calculations. If that was the case, there would only be another eight days before they made their move.
Thinking of that, he said, "Teacher, I'd like to take a few days leave and make a trip to Kirst."
Huang Lin asked, surprised, "To go into the city? What do you want to do?"
Fang Xingjian had already thought up an excuse for himself. "I've reached a bottleneck with my mental cultivation method. I would like to have a change of environment to change my mood and see if I can have any new comprehensions."
"Oh, it's your mental cultivation method." Huang Lin nodded. "Everyone needs to work on their mental cultivation method themselves. Even I'm not able to help you with this. Go ahead and have a walk around in Kirst." He believed that with Fang Xingjian's current status, not one person would dare to offend him. Even if he were to go to Kirst, there should not be any problems.
Therefore, Fang Xingjian went through the academy's formalities that afternoon and left with a sword in hand, heading straight for Kirst.
He had three objectives this time around. To gather sword techniques, to brush up his mental cultivation method, and to find a suitable casting material which would be a good match with his Effulgence Weapon.
The mental cultivation method Fang Xingjian was cultivating, Ice Age Meditation Art, required a calm and peaceful mind with no inhibitions. However, for Fang Xingjian, he did not adjust his mental state and calm himself like any ordinary people. He relied on exterminating external demons, eradicating all the things that could perturb his mind and emotions in order to remain calm.
And while he was stripped of the feelings of love, kinship and friendship, he still maintained vengeance, fury, and a concept of what was right or wrong.
Thus, when he came across different things, he would still frown upon them, and still feel fury.
And so, he took off his Knight attire that night, changed into his tattered clothes, attached the Silver Dragon at his waist, held onto a steel sword in his hand, and headed for the commoner district.
In this world, the poorer the place, the messier it would be, and the higher the number unfair occurrences; unlike how it was in the academy with no one daring to offend Fang Xingjian.
And this time around, Fang Xingjian wanted to test something out. He wanted to see if his mental cultivation method would progress if he were to take the initiative to offend other people and then exterminate the external evils with a calm mind.
However, even after he had made a few rounds in the commoner district, no one came to provoke him. Most people would be on their guards upon seeing the longsword he was holding, so who would freely provoke him? This was a world where every single citizen cultivated and countless people made their way to the level of Knights. Who would know if the person holding a sword would be Wei Xiaobao or Ximen Chuixue? Therefore, most of the time, no one would deliberate provoke people carrying weapons.
However, the commoner district was the commoner district. Fang Xingjian took a few rounds around, and while there were not one person who provoked him, he could hear the sound waves from the air with a slight twitch of his hears. It was the sound of crying and begging which came from a lady.
"No!
"I beg of you, please don't do this!"
With a shift, Fang Xingjian disappeared.
In a small little house in the commoner district, a girl who was about the age of fourteen or fifteen years old had her hands tied up, and another lady was holding onto her legs. A man around forty plus years old touched her face, revealing an extremely excited expression.
At the next moment, he started tearing off the girl's clothes, feeling all over her body.
The little girl continued to cry and struggle, but stopped and fell into a daze after the man gave her five to six consecutive slaps.
The man grinned and tore off the girl's clothes. As he stared at her bare chest, he was just planning to have his way when two streams of sword Qis swirled in, knocking off the man and woman who had been holding down the girl's legs.
The man's physical attributes were quite good. After all, he was from the Miracle World. If it was in the modern Earth, with his physique, he would be able to become an olympic champion.
The man jumped to his feet, drawing out a small knife and pointing at Fang Xingjian who was at the door. He asked, appearing threatening but was actually cowardly at heart, "Chap, what are you doing? How dare you spoil the fun for your grandfather, Teru. Do you want to have a few more holes on your body?" He had yet to understand how he had fell down earlier.
Fang Xingjian swept a glance towards him, then at the lady behind him. He noticed that the lady was pregnant and had not been able to get to her feet after he she had been swept to the ground by his sword Qi.
Hearing the man's voice, sword light flashed in the air. The man let out a terrifying cry and one of his ears dropped onto the floor.
"I'll kill whoever dares to make another sound."
In that instant, the whole room quieten down. The man looked at Fang Xingjian with a horrified expression, and even the victimized girl stopped crying as she looked at Fang Xingjian, terrified.
Fang Xingjian pointed to the young girl and asked, "You, speak up. What's going on here?"
The young girl took in a few inhales and under Fang Xingjian's Knightly pressure, she was no longer nervous. She broke into tears, saying, "I came across that pregnant lady on the streets and she suddenly squatted down, saying that her stomach was in so much pain that she couldn't walk. I sent her home... but... but..."
Saying this, she once again broke down into tears.
Cold gleams of light flashed in Fang Xingjian's eyes as he stared towards the man and woman at the side. The woman looked frightened, and the man anxious and wanted to lie and argue, but his teeth clattered under Fang Xingjian's gaze and not a single word came out from his mouth.
Fang Xingjian let out a cold snort, and with a few consecutive flashes of sword light, the man's arms was chopped off.
It caused the man, who had been in tears, to let out agonizing cries. Fang Xingjian then cast his glance on the pregnant lady, saying coldly, "On the account that you're pregnant, I'll not punish you today. But you'll need to redeem yourself. In the future, if I find you that you commit more evil deeds, I'll definitely get rid of you and your whole family."
That woman immediately knelt down, kowtowing unceasingly. Fang Xingjian let out a cold snort and dashed out as if he was riding on clouds.
As for the girl, she would naturally leave by herself. Fang Xingjian reckoned that the couple would not dare to try anything funny anymore.
Moreover, Fang Xingjian had only hatred; hatred towards evil. He did not have the feelings of love towards acts of kindness. The reason he had killed people and eradicate evils was just so that he could wipe out external demons, cleaning his heart of all unfairness. It had absolutely nothing to do with benevolence or kindness at all.
If one had to compare, his condition was closer towards complete annihilation; an uncompromising castigator, Rorschach [2], not a Superman or Batman [3] who would save both the good and the evil.
The night sky in the Miracle World was different from the Earth's. Other than a bright moon, there were no stars at all. The sky was completely pitch black, as if an endless darkness had covered the world.
Fang Xingjian thought about the event from earlier and took a look at his Stats Window. He noticed that his mental cultivation method had progressed by 0.01%. He then killed a few more thieves, bandits, and hoodlums. While he cleared the gloom in his heart, he further gained about 0.02% of experience.
But it was also then that he gradually began to notice how uncivilized the Miracle World was and how much it had fallen behind in times. The lower middle class in society were filled with too much darkness and viciousness, causing him to feel extremely unsatisfied. Even if there was a progression for his mental cultivation method, he still did not like the feeling.
As long as a person had an normal understanding of the concept of right and wrong, they would not feel happy even after seeing those cases of rapes, robberies, blackmails and extortions.
Anyone from the modern society would not have felt happy if they were to come to this world akin to dark middles ages, seeing the hideous side of the human nature.
While Fang Xingjian had lost his emotions of love, kinship, and friendship, his concept towards right and wrong had not gone through a tremendous change yet.
'Most of the Knights and Conferred Knights in the Miracle World are gathered in the academy and army. The reason most of them try to raise their abilities is so that they could fight for more privileges, more resources, and more wealth. How many of them would turn their gazes towards the darkness in the world?
'If I'm the same as them, cultivating only for the sake of becoming stronger and taking revenge, then wouldn't I also become a person who swarms shameless around the rich and influential, a person who chase only after name?
'If the world is not peaceful, how would I be able to feel at ease? How would I be able to calm my heart?'
Fang Xingjian frowned, the mental cultivation method in his mind circulating extremely quickly. Ideas unceasingly popped up in his mind, yet constantly disappeared as well.
'Then what good would my sword arts be?
'I had been suppressed for sixteen years in the Fang Clan and had not been able to gain freedom of my heart and soul at all. If I continue to be like this in the future, how different would I be from Fang Clan?'
Thinking of Fang Clan, thinking of his grandmother, thinking of that black woman who had wanted to harm him, the flames of fury flared up even more in Fang Xingjian's heart.
'If I cannot use this sword in my hand to clear away all the feelings of unfairness in my heart, ridding the world of unjust, what good would it be if my sword arts standard is very strong? What good would it be even if I were to grow stronger?
'If a person is useless to the world, to society, then no matter how long he survives, no matter how strong he is, he would just be a great b*stard.'
As he thought about this, Fang Xingjian's empty mind seemed to explode, as if streams of silvery thunderbolts had struck it. As he focused on the mental cultivation method in his mind, countless thoughts drowned him, giving him the strong urge to raise the longsword in his hand and eradicate all the evil-doers in the world.
[1] Wei Xiaobao: Protagonist in the novel ‘The Deer and the Cauldron’, who was not an adept martial artist, but rather, an anti hero who relies on wit and cunning to get out of trouble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deer_and_the_Cauldron
Ximen Chuixue: Close friend of Lu Xiaofeng, who is the protagonist in the series Lu Xiaofeng Series. Nicknamed "God of Sword", he is the best swordsman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Xiaofeng#Ximen_Chuixue_.28.E8.A5.BF.E9.96.80.E5.90.B9.E9.9B.AA.29
[2] A fictional character and an anti hero of the acclaimed 1986 graphic novel miniseries Watchmen, published by DC Comics. A ruthless crime-fighter, his beliefs in moral absolutism—good and evil with no shades of grey—have driven him to seek to punish evil at all costs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_(comics)
[3] Well-known superheroes published in comics by DC Comics.