battle frenzy
Chapter 14 – A Correlative Study of the Behaviour of Students when Studying and the Side Benefit of Attracting the Opposite Sex—Aka, Studying and Picking up Chicks
“The male dormitory doesn’t allow us to have guests. Hurry up and go back, else I’ll call Ma Dong Dong to come and get you,” Wang Zhong said fiendishly. He had to be serious, otherwise this girl would just keep pushing him.
“Hmph. You can toss me then. Outside is dark; I’m scared that someone might rob me. What would I do then? I’ve even drank a lot,” Emily said, shivering slightly on the spot.
Wang Zhong rubbed his nose. “Girl, it’ll be fine as long as you’re not the one robbing others. Anyway, you can just use your soul power to rid yourself of the drunkenness!”
“Big brother Wang Zhong, let me tell you a story. A girl’s chair in the girl’s dormitory broke, so she went to find a boy to help her fix it.”
“And then?”
“That boy really did help her fix it, but then the girl became angry!” Emily craftily said.
“Why?” Wang Zhong suspiciously asked.
“Fool, the girl had broken the chair herself!” Emily finished and stomped off in a rage, but her face still wore a smile.
☀
Classes had officially begun, and all of the students had become like baboons in heat. To them, it was a completely new beginning.
Wang Zhong followed his usual routine and quickly finished his morning classes. Solitude made one adept at self-reflection. Due to the countless discussions with Simba, Wang Zhong had his own understanding of runes and the current battle system.
These strange and wonderful ideas of his were really complete nonsense, but some of them actually showed promise.
Later in the afternoon, he went to the library. Many students were quietly looking over rune designs as they needed to know how to operate and design them. Wang Zhong was also doing the same thing earnestly. Rune designs, especially weapon rune designs, gave him much inspiration.
In regards to the weapon designs and his understanding of them, Wang Zhong learned of how weapon and soul power worked together to spark such tremendous power due to their designs. Through this, it allowed him to gain an even better understanding of this particular offensive style. In order for him to grow even stronger, he ran through all kinds of possibilities.
Students in the commander department didn’t prioritize theory; instead, actual experience was more valued. They would learn all sorts of battle techniques as they believed this was the optimal way to grow stronger. Wang Zhong, however, felt that although this method did lead to quick gains, they would end up with a shallow understanding of their techniques.
Wang Zhong was reading Dr. Madeleine’s article, The EQ of Hyperdimensional Beings, when he suddenly caught a fragrance. When Wang Zhong raised his head to look at who sat across from him, he was met with a refreshing smile. “Student Wang Zhong, do you mind if I bother you for a moment?”
Wang Zhong was stunned. It was actually Scarlet… “Hello, student Scarlet. Of course it’s no problem.”
“I wanted to discuss something with you.” Whenever Scarlet appeared, all eyes would be on her.
Wang Zhong nodded; there wasn’t much he could do to help this influential person anyway.
“Wang Zhong, I read the essays you wrote earlier and found them very insightful, especially your The Connection between the Macro-Ego and Micro-Ego.” Scarlet appraised Wang Zhong, finding it unbelievable that this person’s achievements in theory surpassed even her own. Although she had always found combat difficult for her, she had always considered herself the best in theory until she entered this Heroic Soul Academy and faced her first defeat.
After reading his published papers and feeling absolutely crushed, Scarlet had spent her whole vacation trying to understand Wang Zhong. She had been flabbergasted by how audacious his theories were. Perhaps others would consider his theories nonsense, but Scarlet gained much insight from them.
“I just ponder things as I please,” Wang Zhong said.
“You believe that the power of runes is a type of living, magnetic force; this came from your own understanding, right?” Scarlet enquired. The power of runes was normally regarded as a magnetic field force that originated from the dark moon’s influence.
Wang Zhong had never expected someone to find his thoughts interesting. After all, it was only due to Simba’s influence that his mind had been free of the constraints of conventional thinking so that he was able to come up with a myriad of strange and wonderful ideas. Furthermore, Simba had presented him with many baffling viewpoints. For example, the theory on demons from the hyperdimension; how humanity had only dug up the lowest levels of their inner power; how fate controlled everything, and so on. Yet, once he entered the academy, everyone had considered his ideas to be crazy. In fact, even Ma Dong Dong had advised him to stop thinking about such nonsense all day long, otherwise he would go crazy. This was the first time someone actually wanted to discuss his ideas with him!
This wasn’t a search for novelty either—it was genuine interest!
Today, Scarlet found Wang Zhong for nothing more than her own interests. When she came to borrow a book from the library, she’d chanced upon Wang Zhong and recalled the various papers he had written before. As such, she decided to go chat with him. Wang Zhong’s knowledge base had, however, exceeded her expectations by far! The two of them became like a couple of chatterboxes that couldn’t be stopped.
“Ah, you have such a deep understanding of the devil race as well. I also think that the Federation is being too conservative. A large reason why the Empire is so powerful is due to their relationships and intermarriage with the different races. This allowed them to give birth to even stronger bloodlines. WIth the powerful bodies and heroic souls of other tribes, their individual abilities are already par or near those of the Federation’s.” Scarlet said this with sorrow. She had learned many things on her own, so her viewpoint was much higher than other students. Insight wasn’t as easy to gain as strength, yet this was the first time she had encountered something like this. This unassuming guy in front of her actually had a viewpoint even broader than her’s!
Wang Zhong let out a humble chuckle. To him, the games between the Empire and the Federation were matters for adults to tend to. He had never published his ideas with regards to this topic. For example, he thought that the protracted negotiations between the Empire and Federation regarding the introduction of the OP System had involved too much inside interests and didn’t take into account the spirit of loyalty of the students.
“The devil race can be considered as the representatives of the strange races and have relations with the rich and powerful Kaiser Empire. The constitution of Shadow Devils produces powerful shadow warriors. After watching videos of their battles, I truly couldn’t help but gasp in amazement.”
“That’s right, it would be hard to win against them in a one-on-one duel, especially if a long-ranged soldier were to face them. It would simply turn into a massacre.”
“Actually, there’s still a way to win. As long as the long-ranged soldier can shoot a double-stacked array, then even a Shadow Devil wouldn’t be able to dodge it.”
Scarlet was shocked. She couldn’t help but grin. “There are very few people who could actually pull that off.”
Peng peng peng…
As the two of them were happily chatting away, they suddenly heard knocking at the door. Emily and Ma Dong stood in the doorway. Emily wore a face full of hostility while Ma Dong Dong gave him a sly wink.