Chapter 526

The competition between the groups is still ongoing.

After two more groups, it was Shaodong's turn to go on stage.

Jiang Cheng immediately perked up.

Shao Dong and Yao Jun, like Lin Ziwei, are both hot picks to win this championship; he has already watched the matches between the latter two, and now it's his turn.

Seeing the two go up on stage, murmurs arose in the lounge.

"I never expected that this drawing of lots would actually pit them against each other."

"Yeah, Teacher Shao is a Seven-level Force Master, Teacher Luo isn't weak either, a Six-level Force Master; although he doesn't master any element like Teacher Shao does, his gunmanship is truly not simple."

"Gunmanship?"

Hearing those two words, Jiang Cheng's face showed a hint of surprise.

This gunmanship naturally isn't modern firearms; after all, at the Grandmaster level, even a laser gun can't cause harm, let alone there being no secret martial arts for training gunmanship.

So, naturally it refers to the long spear.

"Indeed, if it weren't for encountering Teacher Yao last time, making it into the top three should have been no problem."

Someone said, glancing toward Yao Jun not far away.

"That match, I was also lucky." Yao Jun's face showed a solemn expression, "If it weren't for the final match, his spear tip being slightly askew, the victor would have been him."

Upon hearing this, everyone nodded.

They had also watched that match in its entirety; it was indeed thrilling.

So, for this upcoming match, who will win or lose is really hard to say.

"This Teacher Luo is actually that formidable?"

Jiang Cheng's heart jumped.

At that moment, cheers rose from the venue.

The voices cheering for the two were actually neck-and-neck.

The two exchanged a smile, opened the Virtual Storage, and lay down inside.

Soon, their figures appeared on the screen.

Shaodong's hands were empty.

In contrast, Luo Jun gripped a huge spear seven or eight meters long in both hands!

Originally the distance between them was about ten meters; this instantly closed it by more than half.

Jiang Cheng widened his eyes.

Good grief, such a long spear!

If it were an ordinary person, even if they could lift it, they probably couldn't wield it.

Moreover, this spear is certainly not ordinary; its weight could be three to five hundred jin or more.

Compared to Jiang Cheng's surprise, the people in the venue were already used to it, after all they'd seen many matches before, yet each still exclaimed in astonishment.

"Wow! Teacher Luo is really handsome!"

"Yeah, yeah, among our institute's many teachers, only Teacher Luo uses a long spear as a weapon, right?"

"Exactly, Teacher Luo is the only Grandmaster who uses a spear as a weapon!"

"Really handsome, I also want to learn the spear."

Hearing this, the surrounding teachers looked at each other, all wearing bitter smiles.

The long spear is easy to start learning, but mastering it is truly difficult.

Since ancient times, there has been a saying: "monthly staff, yearly blade, a lifetime of spear."

Among many weapons, the sword, spear, staff, and sword are called the four proper arms; they are weapons that, if conditions allow, one should ideally practice all of them.

In the old saying, the staff is the ancestor of all weapons; on one hand, it says the staff can be considered the earliest weapon, even in the era of ancient apes, when humans had not yet appeared, those ancient apes knew to pick up a wooden stick as a weapon.

On the other hand, staff technique can be said to share principles with many weapons' techniques; mastering staff technique basically enables one to wield various polearms, and it can be considered the source of techniques for all polearms.

Therefore, one should first learn barehanded techniques, learn to generate power, practice bodily coordination, and have basic grappling concepts before moving on to weapons; if you can't fight well empty-handed, adding something in your hand will only make learning harder.

If barehanded training is solid, then starting to practice the staff, generally speaking, a month or so is basically enough.

After all, staff technique isn't overly complex; learn to generate power, learn variations in attack distance, know how to dodge and block, know how to seize the attack opportunity—that's about it.

For ordinary people, when faced with a sudden situation, swinging a long staff can keep three or five people at bay.

But if one practices the sword, it's not something you can go out and spar with after just a month; as an ordinary person, after a month of sword practice, sparring would just be wild swinging by instinct, and if the opponent is a veteran, they could truly beat you up.

After practicing for a year, when sparring you can at least say you're not just wildly swinging the sword by instinct; in the exchange you can bring techniques to bear and execute proper offense and defense.

But speaking of practicing the long spear in the past, even if you practiced a lifetime, there would always be more techniques to learn; no one dares say they've practiced enough to be proficient.

This sounds like the three weapons have different technique complexities; it seems the spear offers many techniques to learn, sword techniques are moderate, while staff techniques appear to have few, making the training difficulty of the three seem unequal.

But this is merely superficial; the root cause is that in ancient times, the degrees of "involution" (intense competition) differed among the sword, spear, and staff.

In the past, the staff was mainly used as a polearm to practice basic techniques; when actually employed, it was generally used by civilians for self-defense, because as a blunt weapon its damage is controllable, and using it for self-defense is less likely to cause a fatality lawsuit.

On the battlefield it was used for cannon fodder; it's easy to train, as long as a conscript has strength, they can casually practice swinging a big stick and be sent to the front; there's no need to train the staff deeply, because if one wanted to train deeply, there are better polearms available.

However, in ancient times, the sword was the standard weapon widely worn by soldiers; its equipment rate was obviously far higher than that of the staff, and those who could bear a sword were at least not cannon fodder units.

But because the sword is short, generally speaking, on the battlefield it is more often used as a sidearm, while the main weapon remains a polearm.

For example, those Grandmasters titled Sword Saints, when they go to the battlefield, also carry a long spear, the sword merely serving as a sidearm.

So in ancient times, one really needed to practice the sword well, so that in close combat one could preserve one's life; having a sword meant you had to know how to use it, but since the sword is a sidearm, it actually wasn't necessary to devote too much effort to practicing it; the main focus should still be on the primary weapon.

Meanwhile, the long spear is actually still relatively easy to pick up; study for a week, diligently practice blocking, grappling, and thrusting, then go up against sword-wielders, and you'd likely have a higher win rate than after a year of sword practice; the spear's win rate against other weapons is also higher, and you can achieve this without putting in extraordinary effort.

But if you want to continue training further, it becomes difficult.

As a universally acknowledged ancient cold weapon that is the hardest to learn, where exactly does the difficulty of the long spear lie?

First of all, it's simply too heavy; for an ordinary person, if they want to use a long spear as a weapon on the battlefield, they must possess extraordinarily strong physical fitness. (End of chapter)