Era of Mist

Four underlings stood up in unison, surrounding Zhou Nan.

Fear gripped Zhou Nan’s heart. According to the information he had, Teng Chaoguo had been involved in a major incident during a fight in middle school. Rumor had it that he had swung a pickaxe from a construction site and slammed it right into someone’s lower back, rupturing one of their kidneys. If it weren’t for Teng Chaoguo’s family background, he might have ended up doing time in prison.

Zhou Nan had met all of the Four Celestial Kings, except for the one in the third year. Liu Shufeng was a good fighter, and Brother Da Long was even better. But even though they could fight, neither of them exuded the same malevolent aura as Teng Chaoguo—an aura that showed a complete disregard for human life and dignity.

But since things had come to this, Zhou Nan decided to kill two birds with one stone: deal with the new kid and pin the blame for the lost cigarettes on someone else. So, he mustered his courage and continued his act. "I know I messed this up, Brother Guo, but it’s not entirely my fault. Someone else was scheming behind the scenes!"

"Scheming?"

"That’s right, Brother Guo! Some kid deliberately led Zheng Fangtou over, deliberately set me up to be searched by him! Zheng Fangtou has never come to our dorm at that time before. This was definitely premeditated, aimed directly at me. Brother Guo, everyone at Fengming First Middle School knows you get your cigarettes from me. He wasn’t really coming after me; ten to one, he was coming after you, Brother Guo."

"Coming after me?" Teng Chaoguo froze for a second, then gave a dark, disdainful smirk. "Who? Which reckless bastard dares to come after me?"

"The new kid in our class. I did some asking around. He was transferred from one of the honors classes."

"Heh. Zhou Nan, do you take me for a fucking idiot?" Teng Chaoguo patted Zhou Nan’s face, not too hard but not too lightly either, making a slapping sound. "A bookworm banished from an honors class, coming after me? Let me tell you, if it weren’t for your brother, you..."

SLAP, SLAP, SLAP. Three more slaps landed, harder than before.

"Brother Guo, I’m definitely not lying to you!" Zhou Nan swore vehemently. "I swear to God, that guy did it on purpose, no doubt about it!"

Teng Chaoguo was unfazed. "Then tell me, who is this guy, and why would he want to come after me?"

"I don’t know why the kid would want to come after you, Brother Guo. But I spent all morning asking around and finally figured out who he is." Zhou Nan glanced around, then leaned in and whispered to Teng Chaoguo, "He was originally in Honors Class 7. His name is... Shi Tiexin."

"Who?" At the name, Teng Chaoguo’s eyes widened in what looked like genuine surprise. The other four underlings also froze for a moment, then burst into laughter.

"Shi Tiexin? HAHAHAHA! Good, good, so it’s him!" A dangerous, vicious light ignited in Teng Chaoguo’s eyes. "That kid is... courting... death!"

Seeing Teng Chaoguo’s reaction, Zhou Nan smiled secretly to himself.

’Just as I expected,’ he thought. ’It worked.’

’From here on out, I don’t have to do a thing. Someone else will be charging into the fray for me.’

’Now it’s up to Teng Chaoguo to see what Shi Tiexin is really made of. If he’s tough, he and Teng Chaoguo can just wear each other down, and I’ll swoop in when they’re both weak. If he’s just some phony with no real substance, heh heh... then I’ll let the kid get a good beating!’

Zhou Nan was smugly satisfied as his plan came together.

Shi Tiexin’s own calculations, however, left him frowning in distress.

He had the secret manuals, the supplementary training logs, the time and environment to focus on his cultivation, and even instructors—and the instructors’ skill level far exceeded his expectations.

Class 28 lived up to its name as the "trash class." The head teacher couldn’t care less about the place, barely glancing at the new student before moving on, without exchanging a single word with Shi Tiexin. But the teachers themselves weren’t bad. Their main focus wasn’t here, and they didn’t seem to care whether the students in the trash class were paying attention, so they just taught for themselves with no real enthusiasm. But you couldn’t call them lazy, either. They covered all the required material. They were perfectly adequate, if uninspired.

Shi Tiexin couldn’t understand a thing, but he knew these people were skilled, which filled a gap in his study of the mental arts.

But he still frowned in distress.

The reason was simple: he had discovered a massive, urgent problem with his mental arts cultivation. If he didn’t solve this problem, he feared he wouldn’t be able to make any progress at all. That problem was—

His own skill level was too... damn... low!

’The secret manuals are comprehensive?’

’I don’t even meet the basic requirements to practice them!’

’The instructors teach well?’

’It doesn’t matter how well they teach if it has zero effect on me!’

The mental arts here were generally at the third-tier level, but he only had three skills at or above a passing grade even in the first tier. In other words, he would stumble and struggle just to keep up with second-tier content. The third-tier material was complete gibberish to him.

His curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he’d taken out a supplementary training log, but no matter how he tried, he got no reaction. He couldn’t even understand the problems presented in the log, so how could he possibly attempt to solve them and break through?

A huge stack of supplementary training logs sat right in front of him, completely useless to him. Shi Tiexin was so anxious he was practically tearing his hair out. It felt like inheriting a hundred-billion-dollar fortune from overseas but having no way to actually get his hands on it.

Throughout the entire first period of math and the second period of literature, Shi Tiexin didn’t pay the slightest bit of attention to the lectures. Of course, he knew he wouldn’t understand them anyway, so he gave up completely and focused on racking his brain for a solution to his current predicament.

After thinking for a long time, the only solution Shi Tiexin could come up with was to start over from scratch, filling in the gaps in the basic manuals and practicing from the very beginning.

Based on the memories he had dissolved, Shi Tiexin deduced that what he should be studying right now wasn’t Fengming First Middle School’s first-year high school textbooks, but elementary school material.

The first tier of Basic Mathematics was called "Numbers and Operations," and the first tier of Basic Rhetoric was called "Reading and Writing." In other words, elementary school math and language arts! So, the most important thing for him to do now was to get his hands on some elementary school textbooks and find a way to buy supplementary training logs for elementary—or even early elementary—levels.

Only material at that level would be right for his condition.

But...

’So my abilities here are only equivalent to a seven- or eight-year-old child? No, no, the other consciousness in my memories was getting perfect scores at that age, which is at least an excellent level in both subjects. But me? One pass, one fail. In a class of seven- or eight-year-olds, I’d be at the absolute bottom. An upper elementary student would absolutely crush me.’

’This is so embarrassing!’

’Good thing this Old Tie’s face isn’t very sensitive, or it’d be as red as a purple eggplant right now.’

Just as Shi Tiexin was racking his brains, trying to figure out how to get some elementary-level supplementary training logs, the bell rang, signaling the end of the second period, literature. The teacher didn’t drag the lesson out for a single minute and left promptly. The students immediately charged for the classroom door like a herd of wild horses.

But then came a terrified shriek. A boy scrambled back into the room, his face pale with panic, yelling, "The Black-Handed Hungry Tiger is here!"