"Well done, Risheng!"
Li Ang removed his armor and walked toward the crowd. Yang Yu, Li Wei, and others cheered for him, but most people were simply bewildered.
Among the new students close to Pei Jing, quite a few displayed their dissatisfaction.
"How can you throw dust in someone’s eyes during a fight?"
"Yeah, that’s a bit... unsportsmanlike, isn’t it?"
"Pei Silang’s loss was too unfair..."
Pei Jing walked away from the battlefield with heavy steps.
He waved to his approaching friends, signaling he was fine. Then, his face tense, he gave Li Ang a solemn nod. "This time, I lost."
His friends, unwilling to accept the defeat, tried to interject, but Pei Jing silenced them with a look. "A loss is a loss. There are no excuses. Everything Li Ang used was equipment from the Martial Arts Arena. I accept my defeat wholeheartedly."
An Academic Palace Doctor, who was recording the results on a list, looked up and said to the students, "Do you think combat is some noble and elegant affair? The ultimate goal of battle is to defeat and eliminate the opponent. ’Barbaric,’ ’despicable,’ ’vulgar,’ ’base’—these are words only survivors have the right to use. The dead have no right to condemn their foes."
Another Academic Palace Doctor instructed, "You’ll understand when you go on your travels in your third and fourth years. There are countless dangerous Aliens and demons in the world who don’t adhere to any martial ethics. Even a Cultivator of the Candle Cloud Realm, if ambushed and stabbed in the heart or beheaded, will die. Let alone all of you. Villains are cunning and crafty. Good people must be even more cunning and wily than them to survive. There was once an Academic Palace Patrol from a previous cohort who was too naïve. While helping refugees, he was careless for a moment and was nearly clubbed unconscious, stuffed into a sack, and thrown into the river by villains among them..."
The two Academic Palace Doctors exchanged words. They expressed their admiration for Li Ang’s initiative; he had attached talismans to flying arrows and used dust with Dust Cleaning Talismans to blind his opponent. They also earnestly instructed the other new students.
The status of an Academic Palace Disciple is only effective in the civilized world. In lawless, dangerous lands beyond the Yu Kingdom’s Court’s control, or when facing desperate villains, this status offers no protection. One can only rely on their own vigilance and caution.
According to Li Ang’s memories from the Otherworld, Cultivators who didn’t follow the Body Refining Path were ’high in attack but low in defense.’ Their physical constitution was still within human parameters, so they had to use Protective Talismans, deploy Protection Techniques, or shield their bodies with Telekinesis before they could participate in the chaotic environment of a battlefield.
An ordinary Cultivator, lacking prior protective measures, could easily be ambushed by an assassin and die an ignoble death.
Rumor had it that in West Jing, there was an assassin legion composed of ordinary people. They possessed extremely poor Spiritual Vein Talent and exhibited no Spiritual Energy fluctuations, making them undetectable by Spiritual Energy scans. From childhood, they ingested special pills that could conceal a living person’s aura and enhance their basic physical attributes. These individuals underwent rigorous training at the West Jing Imperial Palace, learning skills such as disguise, stealth, concealment, and assassination. Equipped with special Mutated Objects, they could even coordinate to assassinate Cultivators at the Cloud Patrol Realm or higher. They had always been a handy tool of the West Jing Royal Family to suppress internal rebellions and eliminate disobedient Cultivators.
The two Academic Palace Doctors cited many examples, further instructing the new students. They awarded fifty academic credits to those who won their practical combat matches or performed exceptionally well.
Li Ang, He Fanshuang, and a few others received an additional eighty academic credits, and the Doctors encouraged the rest of the students to learn from their example.
After the practical combat class ended, the students dispersed. Li Ang went to the Forging Workshop, intending to forge a suitable weapon for himself.
Mo Si could not be revealed before so many people. Ordinarily, Li Ang still needed a ’plausible’ means of self-defense.
The Forging Workshop was bustling as usual, with some senior students attending their classes. Li Ang skirted around that area and went to the back of the workshop, where he found Tantai Leshan, the usual manager.
"Oh, Risheng, you’re here."
At that moment, Tantai Leshan was discussing something with Su Feng and several other Doctors.
"Greetings, Master Tantai, Dr. Su..."
Li Ang greeted them respectfully, but his attention was suddenly drawn to an object on the table. "Hmm? What’s this?"
"It’s an improved version of your model aircraft."
Tantai Leshan picked up a rather complex metal contraption from the table, consisting of gears, connecting rods, pistons, a crankshaft, belts, and so on.
"We’ve been trying to figure out how to increase the model aircraft’s flight speed. The strength of the model’s materials and the power from the talismans are not the issue. The problem is with the propeller."
Tantai Leshan explained, "At first, we used your method: sticking talismans like the Gentle Breeze Talisman directly to the propeller to provide wind power. But the talismans themselves affect the propeller’s performance, and if the propeller spins too fast, it can damage them. So we tried embedding the talismans within the propeller or using Candle Cloud Realm methods to forge the propeller itself into a talismanic tool. However, the fundamental problem remains: using wind to directly drive the propeller, which then moves the model aircraft, is inefficient due to energy loss."
"So we thought of another approach," Dr. of Science Su Feng said. "Instead of talismans directly generating wind to drive the propeller, perhaps a device could convert the talisman’s energy into rotational motion for a metal shaft connected to the propeller. This shaft would then spin the propeller, generating thrust. Such a system would have less energy loss and higher efficiency. A talisman of the same power could also provide longer flight times."
Li Ang listened, dumbfounded, and closely examined the metal mechanism.
What Tantai Leshan and Su Feng had devised closely resembled a primitive reciprocating piston engine.
The reciprocating piston engine from his Otherworld memories could use thermal energy from fuel combustion—the expansion of liquids or gases pushing a piston—to convert pressure into rotational kinetic energy.
An engine meant the liberation of human labor; goods transportation would no longer rely on animal power.
Locomotives, railways, lathes, steamships, airplanes, factories...
Countless memory fragments flashed through Li Ang’s mind, and his heart pounded wildly.
Wait, Dr. Tantai and Dr. Su are this incredible? They actually built an engine?
His Otherworld memories clearly described the significance and impact of the engine’s invention. Li Ang calmed himself, observed the device again, and gradually regained his composure.
This engine did indeed have a reciprocating piston structure, though it wasn’t fully enclosed. Instead, there were two openings at the bottom of the engine’s cylinder—an intake port and an exhaust port. These allowed the fierce winds drawn by a Wind Talisman to be funneled into the engine, driving the piston back and forth and converting pressure into rotational kinetic energy.
While such an invention was indeed revolutionary, it had its drawbacks...
"Our current headache is that this structure, which imitates the Former Sui’s Puppetry Technique, is only marginally more efficient than directly applying talismans."
Dr. of Science Su Feng scratched his head. "The fierce winds drawn by the Wind Talisman do push the piston, but most of the wind power is dissipated within the Wind Chamber as internal loss. Moreover, we can’t make the Wind Talisman shut off automatically to conserve its talisman power."
"Perhaps..." Li Ang hesitated. "Is there another way?"