Wu Zhangkong had already entered his room and begun to meditate.
Although he had been stuck at a bottleneck for some time, that didn’t mean he couldn’t still gather soul power.
On the contrary, he could gather and compress it further, increasing the density of his current soul power.
With all that accumulated energy, his foundation would become even more solid.
Once he broke through the bottleneck between ranks, he would jump 4 or even 5 ranks, depending on how much soul power he had gathered before the breakthrough.
That was why it was rare for soul masters to stop meditating, even without acquiring a new soul ring.
On the other hand, Mo Jiwu sat smoking, holding legal documents in his hand that he had read.
He found that it was written there that he had lived in an orphanage before coming to the city to study after graduating from his previous elementary school.
What a coincidence—his first childhood had been in an orphanage, and now it was the same again.
Even though it was fake, it was still similar.
After finishing his pipe without bothering to infuse his soul power into it, he sat on the floor and began to meditate.
Thus, the night passed.
At dawn, as usual, Mo Jiwu opened his eyes without making a sound, sensing his energy center slowly filling.
His control over the meditation technique had reached 70% of its full level, and with it, the speed of gathering soul power was accelerating.
Leaving Wu Zhangkong, who was gazing at the sunrise as always, Mo Jiwu entered the bathroom to start his day.
After coming out and smoking his usual morning pipe, he tried to control it.
His soul power had reached a little over half before it began to fluctuate, so he pulled back before it could ignite his precious tobacco—something he had gotten into the habit of doing while training.
At seven o’clock, the two headed to the cafeteria for breakfast, then returned at seven-twenty.
Mo Jiwu left Wu Zhangkong at home while he went out himself to legalize his documents.
While exiting the school, the guards didn’t bother him, having gotten used to the child who had been staying at the school these days.
Walking through the city streets, he felt the cold, damp wind coming from the east—the direction of the East Sea, after which the city was named.
Its port was considered the second-largest port in the Sun Moon Federation.
The city held about three million permanent residents, not counting those who came and went every day, making it a second-tier city.
It had become famous for blacksmithing in the last quarter century after one of the sacred blacksmiths settled there and took charge of the local branch of the Blacksmiths’ Guild.
Recalling the information Wu Zhangkong had taught him about the city, he walked slowly, asking for directions until he reached the Civil Affairs Office.
After entering, he looked for the ID card issuance area, and once he found it, he went over.
Fortunately this time, the ID card office had dedicated desks instead of high counters like banks, or he would have had to jump again.
He approached a thirty-something clerk at his desk who had no one to serve at the moment, sat down, and a set of documents appeared in his hand—those Wu Zhangkong had given him yesterday.
“Good morning, young man,” Mo Jiwu said calmly and respectfully, as was his habit with everyone, bringing the employee’s focus back from his daydreaming.
The clerk’s focus returned to his eyes as he saw a child sitting on the chair opposite his desk.
“Good morning, little one.
How can I help you?” he asked with a professional smile.
Mo Jiwu placed his documents, except for the letter of recommendation, on the table and said, “I left the orphanage in my old city to study at Eastsea Academy Intermediate in Eastsea City, and since I’m a fully qualified soul master, I came to register myself as one and at the same time get an ID card.” As he finished speaking, a yellow soul ring floated behind him, immediately drawing attention—something Mo Jiwu ignored.
“Now I understand, young soul master.
Please wait a moment,” the clerk said, then began reviewing the documents quickly and professionally before scanning them and uploading them to the central hard drive dedicated to the city’s citizens.
Mo Jiwu heard a faint murmur from him: “What a strange name…” Naturally, he wasn’t bothered just because the man called his name strange.
After some time, the clerk finally said, “Everything is excellent, little one.
All that’s left is to take a photo for your ID card.
Please follow me.” Then he led Mo Jiwu to a room containing a camera and a white backdrop, with a small chair in front of it.
Mo Jiwu sat on the chair and faced the camera, waiting to be photographed.
“Smile,” the clerk said, as usual.
But Mo Jiwu didn’t smile normally, except for beautiful memories.
This time, when someone asked him to smile, he forgot how to do it.
Even when he usually smiled, he wasn’t conscious of it.
He tried to lift the corners of his lips slightly and form a faint smile.
It worked, but with his dead eyes, it came out like a corpse in a coffin smiling, which frightened the clerk taking the picture.
After returning to the desk and the photo file reaching the clerk’s computer, the ID card was printed using a dedicated device.
It was made of a type of hard, compressible, foldable rubber that was very durable and hard to tear.
Mo Jiwu left the Civil Affairs Office afterward with 1,000 federal coins in his wallet, which he received immediately after registering as a soul master from the office.
From now on, he could receive it on the first day of each new month.
On the way, he remembered the barbershop he had seen two days earlier while shopping, and headed to it.
After going in and getting a neat haircut, he left.
Looking at himself in a shop window for a while, he left.
He kept his hair long and might let it grow more, but he asked the barber to clean up the sides of his head and style it to suit long hair that wasn’t messy, letting it grow without limits.
Then he returned to the school around ten o’clock to find Wu Zhangkong waiting for him for a training spar in the garden.
Thus, the last five days passed quickly, and now we’re on the eve of the last day before students began to arrive, register, and open the dormitories.
Mo Jiwu was sitting in the backyard, meditating after expending all his soul and physical energy on the Eighteen Earth-Subduing Fists technique.
He had reached 17% momentum on the first fist, 13% on the second, and 10% on the third, making a total of 140% of his normal punch power after the third fist.
But he was still far from the 160% for the intermediate level of the six fists.
However, he was getting close and had already covered two-thirds of the way.
Sitting and meditating with the technique he had mastered that morning after exhausting physical training, he could finally circulate it at full power on his own.
Finally, after recovering all his soul power, he found his energy center was full.
With a slight push, he directed his soul power toward that barrier and broke through it easily.
The energy boiled slightly for a while before calming down—something he had already learned and wasn’t shocked by.
A breakthrough within the same ring wouldn’t cause major changes, at least not in the first five or six rings, according to Teacher Wu.
The big change only came after acquiring a ring.
Previously, his entire energy center had been transparent soul power containing ten strands of denser energy.
Now, as he observed it with his spirit, the size of his energy center had increased by 10%, and all the soul power was in a half-strand state like the ones he had compressed himself.
If those strands equaled 3 transparent ones, his energy center now equaled 2 transparent ones.
Compared to the previous ten strands, half of them had become a little more misty and now equaled 4 transparent ones, or 2 of the current ones.
He understood this was the natural compression Teacher Wu had talked about during a breakthrough.
He stood up from his lying position and opened his dead eyes, thinking, _’I broke through…
Looks like I’m talented?’_ He thought for a while but found no one to compare himself to and didn’t know the extent of his talent.
He activated the ability of his first soul ring and slowly felt his body to find that his strength had indeed increased.
If before he was comparable to the attack or defense power of rank 16, now he had risen to rank 17, just as he had risen from rank 11 to 12.
He understood that at rank 15, his body after activating the ability would reach the limit of the first ring, but he didn’t know if he would break through to the next ring in terms of physical strength at rank 16.
After hiding the soul ring and deactivating his eyes, Mo Jiwu entered the house, then the bathroom, without saying anything to Teacher Wu, who was sitting at the table writing something.
After removing the leather clothes and throwing them in the sink, he turned on the faucet and got under the shower, letting the cold, refreshing water fall on him.
After these days of physical training and fighting with Teacher Wu—though he hadn’t landed a single punch on him—this morning he succeeded in leaving a small crack on his wooden sword with 140% momentum, which he considered an achievement.
Mo Jiwu’s small body had witnessed a slight change: his muscles had become slightly more defined.
As a soul master, his body’s recovery rate was faster than ordinary humans, and even after a strenuous day of training, one night of meditation and circulating energy was enough to restore his body to new and help it grow.
After drying himself and coming out of the bathroom, Mo Jiwu sat on the sofa without bothering Wu Zhangkong and took out his notebook, beginning to practice writing.
Over these days, his handwriting had improved from chicken scratch to bird tracks, then to raindrops, and finally to the handwriting of a five-year-old, which he now had.
After an hour, he successfully raised it to the level of a six-year-old.
After putting the notebook away, he found that Teacher Wu was looking at him too.
“I broke through,” Mo Jiwu announced calmly.
“I see,” Wu Zhangkong replied, as if he had already expected it.
Then he asked, “What about the meditation technique?” “It was completed this morning already.” “Good,” Wu Zhangkong praised lightly, then continued, “Tomorrow registration starts and the children return to the academy with the first-year students.
I don’t know which class I’ll teach, but I expect the administration to put me in the worst one—the fifth class of first year.
As for you, even with a 100-year soul ring and eyes, your level is still very low.
You’ll probably be thrown into the third or even fourth class, but not the fifth because of your eyes and the possibility of advancing greatly in the future.
But don’t worry, I’ll request to have you transferred to my class.
You can also request the same, and the administration won’t be able to do anything but accept it then, so don’t worry.” Mo Jiwu listened attentively without interrupting.
After he finished, he asked, “What about the dormitory?
What’s it like?” “Four per room.” “Damn.” “Yes?” “Oh, I’m sorry, Teacher Wu.
I didn’t mean you,” Mo Jiwu explained calmly despite his unchanged expression.
He cursed because of the dormitory information.
_’Four per room?
Not counting me, that means I have to share a room with three children?
Haa, I just hope they’re not noisy.’_ Then Teacher Wu said the rest of the matters—like room number, school uniform, and class number—would all be clarified tomorrow after completing registration, so there was no need to mention them now.
He told Mo Jiwu to meditate to consolidate his breakthrough.
After dinner and returning, Teacher Wu entered his room for his usual meditation, while Mo Jiwu also sat smoking as was his habit.
After finishing two pipes to celebrate graduating from under Teacher Wu—or maybe he was just looking for an excuse to smoke more—he hid his pipe and began to meditate.
He didn’t bother himself thinking about it; rather, after all these years, nothing made him bother to think anymore except his wife.
At dawn, Mo Jiwu woke up.
Ignoring Wu Zhangkong watching the sunrise, he washed up in the restroom before coming out.
“Good morning, Teacher Wu.” “Good morning, Mo Jiwu,” Wu Zhangkong replied to his usual greeting before going into the bathroom himself.
Mo Jiwu sat smoking as usual, which he called “morning perfume” because of the pleasant smell of the healthy tobacco.
After Wu Zhangkong came out, he said to Mo Jiwu, “Let’s go.
Breakfast is early today because of the preparations we have to do later.” After grabbing a quick breakfast and leaving the cafeteria, Wu Zhangkong turned toward Mo Jiwu and handed him a bundle of banknotes, saying, “This is ten thousand federal coins.
You can keep it and use it when you need it.
Wait at home until eight o’clock, then you can go register.
By then the administration will have opened already.” Without waiting for Mo Jiwu’s reply, Wu Zhangkong turned and walked away on a path that wasn’t the usual one back home.
Mo Jiwu sighed before an old wallet containing his money appeared in his hand, and he added the new bundle to it.
It’s worth mentioning that his old identity and legal documents that used to be in the wallet had been used as firewood while he was traveling before.
He returned home and glanced at the clock to find it was half past six in the morning.
Since he had nothing to do, he decided to meditate more since he had the time.
An unknown period passed, and when Mo Jiwu raised his head toward the clock, he found it pointed to five minutes to ten, or nine fifty-five.
“Oh, I’m late,” Mo Jiwu said calmly without his expression changing.
It wasn’t like it was the end of the world if he was late; the whole day was for registration until evening.
He went out and headed toward the school gate where the administration was, while the staff housing was located inside.
After arriving, he stood for a few seconds watching what was going on in front of him with slight shock and understood why Wu Zhangkong had told him to go at eight sharp.
The courtyard in front of him was packed with parents and their children, and buses were dropping off kids and their families before departing, seemingly to pick up more.
Watching the liveliness, chaos, shouting, and noise around him, a filled pipe and a matchstick appeared in his hand.
After igniting the matchstick by rubbing soul power between his fingers, he lit his pipe, took a deep breath, and said with a sigh as he exhaled a cloud of smoke with his words, “Haa, this is going to be exhausting.” Then he walked toward the administration.
*End of Volume 1.*