Zhang Yu stared at the electronic agreement on his phone. The terms were simple: the Celestial Rhythm Group would grant the top ten finishers of this Mana Competition the right to use the Boundless Cloud Hand, on condition it be neither redistributed nor turned to profit, and so on.
Bai Zhenzhen tilted her head at the screen. "What cheapskates. A giant company like Celestial Rhythm, sponsoring this stingily? Only top ten get usage rights? Why not hand one to everyone?" Zhang Yu shook his head. "If everyone got one, wouldn't that be unfair to the students who scored well? Honestly, I'd say even ten is too many. Anyone below fourth place didn't really grasp the questions."
Bai Zhenzhen squinted at him. Listen to this man. Unfair to high scorers? Can't grasp the questions below fourth? Have you forgotten how you tore into the modern xianxia education system a month ago? Where's that backbone now? *My Yu is dead — a walking corpse puppeted by grades!*
"Haha, Ah Zhen, the prize money came in!" The transfer notification stretched his grin wider than a cocked AK. This round's fourth-place prize was twenty thousand in cash, vaulting his savings past sixty-three thousand. He clapped her shoulder. "Back at school, I'm treating you to a meal." "Good kid!" Bai Zhenzhen beamed. "I knew you had roots."
Before long, the schools filed out, and Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen followed Songyang High through the venue gates. Just then a black silhouette dropped from the stadium roof. "That's... a person?" Someone had jumped?
By the time he realized it, others had already moved. On an ordinary day the jumper would have gone splat. But the field was packed with high-schoolers, teachers, coaches, judges — many from Red Tower. And so it is said: loving one's campus is everyone's duty. The instant the figure descended, several streams of protective Qi slammed over like a clutch of mattresses and caught him.
Liang Qin, who had clenched his eyes shut expecting death, felt himself settle onto an impossibly warm bed. Opening them, he found himself borne gently down to the ground. "Why did you save me!" There was no joy in him. During the competition he'd kept betting and lost every last coin — and his father had even called about the debt collectors. The teacher who saved him showed no joy either. "This campus is a no-jumping zone. I've filed a report; someone will handle the compensation." Despair flashed in Liang Qin's eyes. "I wasn't jumping! I slipped!" "Slipped? A negligent jump. That costs money too." Liang Qin seethed, but recalling that Qi, swallowed his fury. *I'll find another place to jump. Schools, hospitals, malls, apartments... they all make you pay.* "What a world. Hard to find anywhere to jump for free."
On the other side, Songyang High was nearly out. By now even Zhang Yu found a jumper unremarkable — he just thought the person cocooned in Qi looked vaguely familiar.
...
Songyang High. The cafeteria.
Bai Zhenzhen shoved a chicken leg into her mouth and, with a few crisp crunches, swallowed it bone and all. Before her sat a whole table of chicken, duck, fish, meat — costing Zhang Yu over four hundred. Even their current bodies could feast. "Our pre-cooked meals have the right note," she said. "Fresh out of the freezer. Red Tower's boxed lunch was off — who knows how much synthetic food they pack in."
Even eating with gusto, Zhang Yu carried richer food memories from a past life. "When I'm rich, Ah Zhen, I'll treat you to something better." "The food-cultivation meals on the second floor?" Zhang Yu understood: to most of Songyang's high-schoolers, better food meant food that grew cultivation and raised scores. Taste itself was secondary — a luxury most couldn't afford. "You'll see when I'm rich."
Recalling the competition, he asked, "Ah Zhen, that set of punches in the last round — how did you figure it out?" "Doesn't the energy-circulation diagram plainly have six moves?" Zhang Yu was stunned. "Does it?" "It does. Obvious at a glance." She must have popped a focus pill. Zhang Yu stared at her, unable to see it at all — though students ranked 100-something and below clearly had their merits too.
Bai Zhenzhen looked aggrieved. "I was forced into it. I tried using external martial forms to back that mana-circulation technique." "Still didn't work." Grinding through today's competition had set her resolve: start properly shoring up her mana control. At the sight of Zhang Yu, who'd stolen the show, she felt worse. "Tutoring from tomorrow! I never yield to another!" "Teacher Yan's class — are you going?" Before parting, Teacher Yan had told them she'd use this result to apply for funding to open a Mana Competition tutoring class. Zhang Yu nodded. "Definitely. Today netted me fourth, but it also showed my limits. If I hadn't grasped the Boundless Cloud Hand from you in the last stretch, I'd never have cracked the top ten. I want stronger mana control — I don't want to win on luck next time." And with school funding, the tutoring might even come with flying-sword lessons, techniques, and other perks. Bai Zhenzhen grinned. "Then we'll go to Old Yan's class together."
...
Back home, Zhang Yu didn't cultivate the Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art as usual. His Feather Book Focus had switched to the Boundless Cloud Hand, and wouldn't leave its twenty-four-hour cooldown until tomorrow afternoon. So he seized the chance to push the technique's level. With only six moves, maybe it leveled even faster than Free Fighting — possibly hitting ten in one night.
He returned to the unfinished building, which felt like home after all the nights he'd drilled there. Quiet, undisturbed, he could train with abandon. Were it not for his paid rent and the spot's lack of internet, power, and water, he'd have hauled a bed over.
In a bare, grey hall, Zhang Yu moved his mind, and streams of mana rose from his dantian through seven oscillations to pour from his palms as mist. Having trained Boundless Cloud Hand to Level 1, he now turned mana into martial Qi faster and cleaner than any contestant on today's field. Feeling the mist on his hands, he mused, "Formless Cloud Qi, was it?" Signing the agreement had granted him the use of the Boundless Cloud Hand and its electronic manual — which carried the true name of this martial Qi.
Formless Cloud Qi. Shaped like white clouds, rigid or yielding, it excelled at leading an opponent's force and borrowing it back — a martial Qi useful in battle, for attack and defense alike.
He drilled the six external forms. A punch shot forward, dragging surging power behind it like a siege rammer — the ferocious striking move, built to break enemies head-on. Then Zhang Yu shifted his hands, and the white Formless Cloud Qi wrapped around him in layered clouds, freighted with soft, springy give. This defensive move not only deflected an incoming force but could bounce part of it back.
In the blink of an eye he'd run all six forms, then drilled them again and again. Ten sets in just over ten minutes. Boundless Cloud Hand Level 1 (0/10) → Level 2 (0/20).
As it climbed to Level 2, it felt as though in a single flash he'd practiced over and over — refining mana into Formless Cloud Qi, manipulating it, even applying those six forms all surged forward by leaps and bounds. He looked at his hands. Before, the cloud-gauze Qi wrapping them had leaked wisps of white smoke, flaring up like beacon columns to the sky — the look he'd shown on the field. Now, at Level 2, those leaking wisps had thinned, a direct sign of his finer control over this Qi.