Chapter 502: A Panda Cub

"A panda cub wants to learn the sword?"

Jiang Ding was taken aback.

Panda. Sword.

These two things, however you looked at them, had nothing to do with each other.

"To be precise, it's not learning the sword."

Wei Hu did not dare to conceal anything, and bracing himself, said: "I've also read the file on this panda cub. She's notorious at Shu Du No. 7 Middle School for being lazy and playful. I hear she's often bullied by the other pandas, her grades in cultural subjects are dead last year after year, and she constantly causes trouble. If it weren't for the huge donations her parents make every year, she would have been expelled by now."

"Then…"

Jiang Ding looked over in confusion.

"She probably wants to take a shortcut."

Wei Hu explained: "Cold weapons are worth forty points no matter how you look at it. If you personally teach her, and combined with the naturally powerful physique of the Iron-Eating Beast clan, she has a decent chance of getting a perfect score. After all, your level with cold weapons is almost generationally ahead within the Immortal Gate."

This was a fact—cold weapons were practically a wasteland within the Immortal Gate.

"A panda cub about to take the college entrance exam, and one who's given up at that?"

Jiang Ding's brow furrowed.

The Immortal Gate's citizenship was notoriously strict. Apart from those born with it, the rest had to rely on talent, military merit, creativity, ideological-moral scores, and luck—only then could one obtain a quota for ascension and immigration.

Not one in ten billion—and that wasn't an exaggeration, just the most conservative estimate.

And that was for humans, the same species as Immortal Gate citizens.

Switch to demon beasts or spiritual beasts, and it was simply impossible.

The panda clan was an exception.

Before the rise of the supernatural, this race already held a relatively high status, having lived alongside humans for many years.

When the supernatural emerged, the panda ancestor Hua Hua Lingling followed the Immortal Gate's sages to battle across the Nine Heavens. Together they endured the humiliation of being occupied, their citizens made slaves and cauldron furnaces, the pandas becoming pets and spiritual beasts—and then rose to glory once more.

Truly, shared in both honor and disgrace.

Before the age of one hundred, the panda clan were merely very precious spiritual beasts—high in status, but with no real power to speak of.

Only after passing one hundred did they awaken their spiritual intelligence.

At that point, they began to be regarded as Immortal Gate citizens.

Immortal Gate citizens—

rights and duties.

At that point, they had to start attending school: kindergarten, then elementary, middle, and high school (or vocational secondary), for at least fifteen years of compulsory education.

If they violated this, their father and mother would both be arrested.

It's said that panda cubs often fail to complete their compulsory schooling, leading to both parents being locked up together to serve their sentence.

This slacker panda must have been put under a certain amount of pressure by her parents—at the very least, she has to get into a university's Dao Cultivation Department.

"Senior, should I refuse then?"

Seeing that he had not spoken for a long time, Wei Hu asked cautiously.

"Agree to it."

Jiang Ding sighed: "Senior Hua has rendered great merit to the Immortal Gate. How could I refuse such a small favor?"

"Yes, I understand."

Wei Hu noted the matter down.

After quietly watching for several hours at the Summer Stone Sword Hall and finding nothing amiss, Jiang Ding arrived outside a sword hall named Flowing Wind.

Inside the sword hall, a pretty-faced woman was leading thirty or forty boys and girls in sword practice.

Between each stance and form, the girls' postures were graceful, nimble and vigorous, straight as the wind flowing through the heavens, like celestial spirits dancing; the boys were bursting with youthful vigor, sweat running down the lines of their muscles, masculine and arresting, impossible to look away from.

Jiang Ding watched them in silence.

"Senior, these aren't members of the sword hall's teaching class or their students."

"They have nothing to do with us."

Wei Hu's expression shifted slightly: "This is a privately run sword training class. The owner must have noticed the sword-training industry gradually picking up and jumped in, wanting to make quick money."

"They're ruining the students!"

These people's swordsmanship was very good-looking—far surpassing the students of the Jin Dan sword training class.

One could even say it looked better than the swordsmanship of Jin Dan cultivators. It had been specially designed, incorporating many dance techniques, with real expertise in that area.

The sword hall was lavishly decorated, elegant and grand, putting anyone who saw it instantly at ease.

The price, naturally, was three times that of the sword training class's instructors and students, and five times that of the sword hall.

The sword hall was semi-welfare in nature.

Add in professional marketing, capable sales staff, and students came in an endless stream.

"Ruining the students is a bit much."

"They're just a bit lacking in actual combat."

Jiang Ding shook his head slightly: "This is actually a good thing. More people joining the industry, a hundred flowers blooming, different kinds of swordsmanship—that's very good."

"If every sword hall copied and pasted swordsmanship in my style, that would actually be worse."

"This situation should be encouraged, given support. Of course, this one doesn't count—it's too flashy."

As the sword halls continued to spread,

he gradually came to understand why, when the ancient sages taught the Dao, they often liked to speak only the opening passage, then skip straight ahead to the end, describing how after becoming an immortal or a saint one gained eternal life, creation springing forth of its own accord, golden lotuses springing from the earth and heavenly flowers raining down, and so on.

It was because they wanted to see paths different from their own, for reference.

Wei Hu felt a measure of relief in his heart.

"Let's set up a Sword Dao Innovation Award."

Jiang Ding thought for a moment and said, "An annual prize of ten thousand low-grade spirit stones, aimed at everyone within the Immortal Gate's territory who creates a new sword technique or sword-flight art — reward them, and… give them the chance to study the sword with me for half a year."

"Yes!"

Wei Hu noted it down, mentally planning who could serve as judges — preferably Foundation Establishment cultivators with outstanding swordsmanship.

"How are the preparations for the Sword Dao Association and the first Mount Hua Sword Tournament coming along?"

Jiang Ding asked.

After six years of cultivation, the number of people practicing swordsmanship within the Immortal Gate's territory had reached several hundred million, and they basically possessed a certain foundation — the higher-level structures needed to be built up now.

"Everything is ready. At most a little over a month from now we can hang up the plaque."

Wei Hu said respectfully, "The Sword Dao Association's duty is sword technique exchange, and to rank sword cultivators — Amateur One-Dan Swordsman, Amateur Two-Dan Swordsman, all the way up to Amateur Nine-Dan Swordsman, the standards rising in turn. Right now the highest is Amateur Four-Dan Swordsman. Amateur Nine-Dan Swordsmen may appear in another ten or twenty years — that is already a peak in sword technique."

"As for Professional Swordsmen…"

His tone paused: "The standard you set is too high. Only a cultivator who has comprehended Sword Intent can be called a Professional One-Dan Swordsman. Given my lifespan, I may not live to see the appearance of Professional Swordsmen."

"Perhaps you will."

Jiang Ding neither affirmed nor denied.

Professional One-Dan Swordsman — comprehend Sword Intent. Professional Two-Dan Swordsman — Sword Light Differentiation. Professional Three-Dan Swordsman — Sword Qi Thunder Sound…

His current level could be called Professional Two-Dan Swordsman, considered a strong one among the Professional Two-Dan.

"Those who hold Amateur Swordsman titles need support."

Jiang Ding thought for a moment: "I'll put out a hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones each year. The top thousand rankers, who have also played enough ranking matches in the Illusion Realm that year, will split this sum of spirit stones among them. Amateur One-Dan Swordsman gets one share, Amateur Two-Dan Swordsman gets four shares… Amateur Nine-Dan Swordsman gets a hundred shares. As for Professional, we'll talk about that later."

"A hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones?"

Wei Hu's body trembled.

As far as he knew, there were currently only one hundred twenty-one ranked Amateur Swordsmen, mostly people from the Jin Dan Sword Dao training class.

If there were no major changes this year, each person could get at least eight hundred low-grade spirit stones!

Converted to spirit coins, that's over eight thousand spirit coins; converted to mortal currency, over a hundred thousand!

If they were Amateur Three- or Four-Dan Swordsmen, grabbing six or seven hundred thousand would be like a game.

An annual salary of a million — what does that count for?!

Originally, because he was busy with work, he had no time to go get ranked.

Now,

he had the time.

At a time when there weren't many Amateur Swordsmen, this was simply picking up money!

One could imagine that once the news spread, how many people would instantly go crazy — the number of people competing for rankings and playing ranked matches in the Illusion Realm would surge by hundreds or thousands of times at least!

(End of this chapter)