English Novel
Chapter 169: Feeding
Chapter 169: Feeding
To a knight, the repeated practice of inspecting and maintaining their protective gear was essential. Every chivalric group had no lack of paranoid folks who believed that a soul existed in their blade and would be angered if anyone else touched them.
While Ji Bai had a somewhat serious and obstinate personality, he didn’t believe that he had reached this level of paranoia about his equipment. However, if one looked at it from a different perspective, such paranoia was understandable; To perform a flawless maintenance of their protective gear and weapons was a fundamental task for every veteran knight.
It was indispensable for maintenance and cleaning to be performed every day, so that one would be able to put them to use after a brief scrub and inspection during an emergency.
Ji Bai didn’t dare underestimate the New Student’s Martial Tournament; He had scrubbed and inspected his protective gears and weapon ahead of time.
His crossed molybdenum helmet and brigandine armor were no longer the one from before. If he began counting from the day he entered the sewers, this was already his third set of protective equipment. As for his weapon, it was still the profound metal fang-shaped longsword of vampire craftsmanship. Despite going through battles of various multitudes at his side, its sharpness continued to vastly exceed that of a normal molybdenum or catalpa metal longsword. That said, its appearance had been degraded beyond recognition. Being ‘baptized’ with all sorts of high-leveled [magic spells] had caused its abilities to deteriorate considerably.
Ji Bai didn’t rid himself of it— Instead, he carefully polished, wiped and spruced it up, trying his best to make it look a bit more presentable.
With a molybdenum helmet that was more than enough to deal with human–made weapons, a brigandine armor reinforced by chainmail whose toughness was not to be underestimated and a pair of hard-leather boots which would guarantee unimpeded travel even in rough, mountainous terrain, Ji Bai was now ready.
After exchanging greetings with Ke’er who was still showing a red hue on her small face, Ji Bai grabbed his sword and left the apartment.
…………
“Student, your identity card, please. Thank you.” The person in charge at the tournament counter maintained a professional smile as he received Ji Bai’s identity card and placed it on a small-scale formation.
“Student Ji Bai, am I right?”
“Mhm.” The metal helmet slightly nodded.
“Alright. Remember, Friendship First, Competition Second1.” The person in charge returned the ID card, together with a small white card to him.
Ji Bai received the card. Glanced upon it, he could see a large ‘2’ painted on it.
“Do you have a way to restore it?”
“No and I can’t guarantee that I will restore it to its normal state too.”
“By the way, why are you here?”
For some reason, the unwavering gaze that Ji Bai gave her made her feel somewhat embarrassed.
“Since today is a rest day, Huo Lei had told me that he was going to come and cheer you up.”
“So it’s actually the first match…”
…………
30 minutes later, on the Martial Tournament Stage.
With his hands placed on both sides of his longsword’s crossguard and his helmet slightly lowered, Ji Bai resembled a solemnly standing statue.
“Oh, so you’re my opponent, huh.”
Like a gust of wind, a voice floated over.
Ji Bai vigorously raised his helmet upon hearing those words, but couldn’t catch sight of the speaker.
“Fee, fee, fee~…” The wind carried a series of clear and sonorous harmonica sounds as it gently blew at Ji Bai.
Wearing a set of silver pauldrons over a worn out topcoat draped on his body, a young man of dark-yellowish skin was sitting cross-legged on one of the pillars surrounding the stage in an elegant manner as he closed his eyes and played the harmonica.
“…” Ji Bai tilted his metallic helmet to the side.
“Nice to meet you. I’m the [Wind Whisperer], Capeau.” The young man slowly opened his deep and turbid eyes.
Suddenly, he jumped down in a fluid motion and unsheathed a curved scimitar from his scabbard, causing a chilly glimmer to radiate outwards in the process.
The whole arena instantly turned silent to the extent that one could even hear a nail falling to the ground.
“May I know your name, your Excellency? My sword won’t reap the lives of those without names.” Like a sharp sword piercing through Ji Bai’s armor, the deep gaze of the man turned incisive.
“Ji Bai.”
“Mhm?? Ji Bai…” The man suddenly narrowed his eyes.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, no. Pardon this humble self for these words, but your name is too ordinary… As my sword does not reap nameless lives, I ask your excellency to give me your designation or title! Only when you have achieved a purple-grade2 achievement could you be allowed to fight a bout with me.”
Ji Bai’s metallic helmet tilted to the side, somewhat clueless as to why the person before him had adopted such a serious mentality when it was all just a spar. If one couldn’t beat their opponent, all they needed to do was lie on the ground. Was it really necessary to complicate things this far?
“I have none.”
“What?? Your excellency actually has none?! How do you qualify to be my opponent then??”
“…” The metallic helmet shook in an expression of doubt.
“…Ah. It will also work if you think of one now!” Upon seeing the actions of the emotionless man in armor before him, Capeau became somewhat unhinged.
“Three minutes have already passed since the match started. Could the two of you begin your performance please.” A cold voice arrived from the top of the stage.
Lin leaned back on the bench with a straight posture. Next to her were referees whose faces were filled with impatience.
“Think of one now…?” Ji Bai slightly lowered his metallic helmet.
“Alright! I will call you The Thinker3!” The man shouted as he pointed at Ji Bai.
“Mhm?…”
“Heh… Even though facing me in your first round is very unfair to you… This world has never been about fairness! If you want to blame someone, blame your luck, Thinker!” Capeau coldly harrumphed as his scimitar glimmered.
“Thinker?” Ji Bai still hadn’t realized that he had been inadvertently given a nickname by his opponent.
“Cut the crap, check out my wind-whispering blade technique [Reincarnation]4!” Capeau’s swift and fast scimitar cut through the air.
“Swoosh…!”
In an instant, a sinister opening was carved onto the surface of a stone pillar.
“Crack, crack, crack!” Fractures began to appear on the stone pillar.
Carpeau took a deep breath as he returned his scimitar into its scabbard and narrowed his eyes at Ji Bai.
His metallic helmet was slightly raised upwards in a somewhat astonished manner.
“Uhm… If you want to surrender now, you can still…”
“Boom..!” The upper half of the damaged stone pillar fell onto Carpeau with a loud bang, causing the martial tournament stage to instantly fall silent.
Ji Bai: “…”
- This is referencing one of the policies that China had taken in the 70s. In the Mao years, sports and politics were closely connected with the country boycotting every international event that her enemies attended. In the few events that they staged, participants from third world countries had been invited and Chinese table tennis players had been ordered to let some of the inexperienced invitees win a title or two. This has come to be known as “Friendship First, Competition Second”. There’s an excellent article written about that matter which you can see here
- This is considered a difficult tier of missions in Glory of Kings, a Chinese battle arena game. Such a mission required the player to get 25 consecutive victories, etc.
- In the original sentence, the raw translation was ‘Bow Strummer man’. Since thinking at the spot, and “bow strumming” shares the same pronunciation. I have decided to use ‘The Thinker’ to kind of incorporate the idea that the man has improvised his name based on the word “to think” :)
- Original text is 7, 7, 49. This set of numbers, or the 49 number in general, is kind of a sacred number in Buddhism and in China. Buddhist believe that after one’s death ,it takes around 49 days for them to be reincarnated. This is also where I have used the term “Reincarnation”. In the popular tale Journey to the West, the Great Sage Sun Wukong is also imprisoned in a furnace for 49 days too.
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