Dilemma

"Huff.. Huff.."

Heavy breathing was the only sound remaining in the room. It looked like a hurricane had been there. Clothes were strewn about. Broken pieces of clay could be seen here and there. The bed which was supposed to be against the wall was now at the centre of the room at an odd angle. The luggage under it was thrown to a corner with its contents all over the room.

Zhang Wuji was covered with sweat. His outer robe lost somewhere in the mess. He took a final deep breath and threw himself on the bed. He did not even care about the mess on it. 'Why did I have to bid 6 gold? That is 1 year's pocket money. I did not even want to bid that amount. It just happened involuntarily. Haah fuck it, there's nothing I can do now. Might as well take the pill and sleep. I'll deal with the mess tomorrow.'

He took out one pill from the bottle. It was a nice green colour. The green of new leaves. He put the pill in his mouth and chewed. 'Feels like gum.'

'Fuck I broke the pots. I'll have to wait till next sunday to buy new ones. This sucks! I'll see if I can borrow Yingjie's. Then I'll have to change my timings. One mistake and it messes up my whole life. I hate my life.'

After taking the pill he tried to sleep but just couldn't take his mind off the day's events. 'I gotta do something. My whole body feels uncomfortable. My chest feels constricted.' Finally he got up and left his room. He went to the training grounds and started running.

After running for a while he felt much better. He even felt energetic and wanted to try some martial arts. Zhang Wuji knew two arts. One he learned back in the Zhang family and the other was taught to all outer disciples. It was to be used with the combat formation. He recalled the Zhang family Eagle claw art.

He had only learned this one art in four years of his cultivation journey. Still he had only reached initiation. It wasn't that he was not talented. It was just him being negligent.

Eagle claw had three moves. Grab, hold and claw. Grab was a two step move. First you grab with the hand, either five or three clawed, then you throw the enemy to the ground leveraging his own weight and attack. Mostly used as a counter. Hold is a three clawed move. The main goal is to hold the enemy in a way that incapacitates them. The angle of attack, pressure, the part attacked are all very important. Finally claw is a simple attack with the hand. One could punch, slap, poke, claw with any number of fingers and do any kind of attack imaginable with the hand. Depending on the situation the attack and damge dealt changes.

There's usually three ways to train any martial art. Solo, target and spar. In solo no move is done to completion. The beginning of the move is performed after which before completion it is retracted smoothly in a curvilinear motion. The reason is that without a target all the force if released is put on the body itself which leads to damage to the musculoskeletal system in the long run. But it still is an effective training method as generally the beginning of a move is the most important. The rest is just going through the motion.

Then there is the target training. One could do it with any target but a dummy is best as it would give a more accurate picture. Target training gives you the benifits of the solo training along with practical experience with the reaction force. It also strengthens the parts with which the target is hit. This kind of training must be performed in moderation as otherwise it would lead to injury to the striking part.

Finally sparring. It is the best. Not only does it give one all the benifits the other two provide, it also makes one adaptable to different situations and explore more variations of the move. If one wants to reach grand completion of a martial art sparring is indispensable.

If one is able to perform all the move sequences in an art perfectly then one is said to have reached initiation in the art. If one is able to go outside the sequence and still perform the whole art smoothly without a break in the flow, one is said to have achieved mastery in the art. This is the extent to which solo training can take you.

Reaction force at different surfaces and angles is different and thus introduces more variations. You master all these and you will have reached completion. For this obviously a target is necessary. It also has to be practiced on different kinds of targets.

There is a perfection level above all these but it could only be achieved in fights. No amount of training can get one to perfection.

Zhang Wuji got into solo training position and struck with the claw move. He trained for a while and got completely immersed in it. The frustrations accumulated since he got to this world slowly faded away. By the time he was done it was way past midnight. Although he felt exhausted, his mind was refreshed. He found his tovel and clothes in the mess, took a bath and slept soundly.

He woke up refreshed and energetic different from his usual sleepy and unwilling awakening. It felt good. He decided to practice martial arts everyday before sleeping. Since he broke the pot he had nothing to do in the morning. Hence he went to the library.

The library on the eastern side of the sect was shared by outer and inner sect disciples. It had three floors. First floor was free for all and had general knowledge of the country and surrounding countries, mainly their geography and resources, and introductory books to various auxiliary arts.

The second floor had mortal martial arts. There's two kinds of them. One is normal mortal arts the other is a simplified version of higher level arts. Some of them have continuation to their higher levels in the sect while some didn't. It also had foundational knowledge of the auxiliary arts. Outer sect disciples had to pay sect points to access this floor which is free to all inner sect disciples.

The third floor has profound level arts and knowledge and is forbidden to outer disciples. Inner disciples need to pay sect points to access these.

Zhang Wuji had no sect points and could only read books from the first floor. In the previous times he visited the library he perused through the auxiliary arts introductory knowledge and concluded that he wanted nothing to do with them. They were filled with information of various materials be it herbs, beasts, metal, earth, liquids and their reactions with other such materials. There was no way he would read them ever in his life. He comes to the library mainly to read the history of the factions close to the sect. It was interesting with various heaven defying feats of individual power, earth shaking battles, romance, assassinations, overpowered characters and more. Their history was xianxia novels for him. So after finding them he was hooked. They were not as good as novels. The whole thing was serious and there were multiple conspiracies and corruption's he had no interest in reading. But a wise man adjusts with the situations he told himself.

Frost Swallow country had four sects White Serenity, Sword Mountain, Divine Armaments and Crimson Moon. Other than the sects there are five great noble families Wang, Ouyang, Yu, Shan and Liu with one or more core formation realm cultivators at the helm. Above them all was the royal family.

To the west and northwest of the country was the Silver Bark forest. To the north was the Golden Sun empire. To the south and east were Fire Wasp and Iron Rhino countries respectively. Iron Rhino had hostile relations with Frost Swallow and was thus one of the main characters in history.

By the time he finished reading the Beast Valley war between the nation's it was already time for the classes. He put the book back and walked towards the class. He found his friends and sat with them.

"So? Have you decided on the auxiliary art?" Lin Yingjie asked.

"What art?"

"Seriously? I told you that you have to major in an auxiliary art if you wanna continue staying in the sect after twenty, remember?"

"Yeah yeah ofcourse I remember. I'm still thinking."

"If you don't have a preference, I suggest you go with alchemy. If you could become a successful alchemist cultivation would be much easier."

"Yes and you could give us a discount on pills. Alchemists also earn more than the other two." Pan Mu added.

"Snort. Alchemy is not that easy. You also will have to spend a lot before you could start earning. You should just increase your efforts in cultivation. Cultivate hard till sixth level then take a restructuring pill to break through. Then again at the eight take another pill. Cultivate to the peak of ninth and use multiple gate opening pills to break through to the qi condensation realm. This is the only way for you." Wan Lin said.

"Hmph nobody asked you. If you stay quiet nobody would think you are dumb." Zhang Wuji was angered. How could he cripple his own future?

Wan Lin shrugged and did not bother to reply which further angered him.

"Um.. brother Zhang, Wan Lin said it for your own good. Don't be angered. Alchemy is really tough. The chances of success that too in four years are very slim. I couldn't think of it previously but if you really want to cultivate staying in the sect is the best way and for that Wan Lin's method seems to be the best option right now. You wouldn't really lose much. You should know there are less than 200 foundation building and above realm cultivators in the sect. With the increase in life span and the new disciples taken in every year that is a really small number. If you think realistically the chances of you reaching that realm are close to none. Not just you but all four of us. Meaning nothing is lost really." Lin Yingjie said after hesitating a bit.

"Brother Lin how can you say that. You were the one that said the pill damaged one's vitality. How could you ask me to take it now?" Zhang Wuji was starting to get upset.

"I'm just saying this is a valid option. Think for a few days. Try a hand at alchemy. If you have no talent in that try others. If none works you could then take the pill. As for vitality if you are lucky you may come across pills or herbs that increase your vitality or heal the injury to the vitality caused by the pill. You should know Elder Wang took the pill and was still able to reach core formation. It's all about luck. If you reach qi condensation realm, you could go exploring and test your luck. Without that how confident are you that you could reach higher realms or even qi condensation without the sect. Think about it. That's all I'm saying." Lin Yingjie then stayed silent.

The class soon started. Then the next one and the next one to that. Zhang Wuji was still thinking. After so many days he was starting to believe that he may not get a cheat. If he were to get one he could then rectify any damage done by the pill so it may not be a problem. But if there were no cheat and he took the pill he would be stuck in the bottom level of cultivation world forever. He didn't have much hopes on his luck. He was unwilling.

He asked to borrow the pots to which Lin Yingjie readily agreed and went back to his room. He wasn't in the mood to do anything for the day and was lost in thought till he unknowingly fell asleep.