The next day opened with combat arts, which was taught in a fighting arena instead of a traditional training hall. Their instructor was an ex-war cultivator named Elder Kong. It only took one look at him for Wei Zian to realize this was not going to be your average session.
The man standing in front of them was of average height, but he looked as if he was chiseled out of stone, bald, grim-faced, and very, very muscular. He had a rather prominent nose and he was completely shirtless, proudly displaying his rather developed chest muscles. He carried a combat staff in one hand and the ever-present green instructor's jade slip in the other. Had someone described the man to Wei Zian, he would have thought it funny, but there was nothing funny about facing this person in the flesh.
"Combat arts aren't really a category of techniques as such," Elder Kong said in a loud, commanding voice, more like a general talking to recruits than an instructor talking to disciples. It was probably the quietest session Wei Zian had ever been in, even chatterboxes like Ning and Jade were silent. "More like a way of channeling qi. To use techniques in combat, you need to perform them fast, and you need to overcome your opponent's defenses. This means they inevitably require a lot of power and that you shape the spiritual construct in an instant... which means that classical cultivation methods like you learn in other sessions are useless!" He slammed his staff into the floor for emphasis, and his words reverberated throughout the arena. Wei Zian could swear the man was empowering his voice with qi somehow. "Incanting a technique takes several seconds, if not longer, and most of your opponents will kill you before you finish. Especially today, in the aftermath of the Spirit Wars, when every commoner is armed with a qi-channeling weapon and educated in ways to effectively combat cultivators."
Elder Kong waved his hand in the air and the air behind him shimmered, revealing a transparent apparition of a minotaur over him. The creature looked quite angry, but it was clearly an illusion.
"Many combat techniques used by cultivators of old relied on people being awed by cultivation, or unfamiliar with its limitations. Today, every child that went through elementary instruction knows better than to be scared away by an obvious illusion like this one, much less a professional soldier or a bandit. Most of the techniques and tactics you will find in the Scripture Hall are hopelessly obsolete."
Elder Kong stopped and rubbed his chin in thought. "Also, it is somewhat hard to focus on qi channeling when someone is actively trying to kill you," he remarked off-handedly. He shook his head. "As a consequence of all this, nobody performs combat techniques as classical arts anymore. Instead, people use talismans and formation arrays, like the ones imprinted on my staff, to perform specific techniques quicker and easier. I won't even be teaching you how to perform combat techniques without these items, since teaching you how to use classical cultivation methods effectively in battle would take years. If you're really curious, you can always browse the Scripture Hall for the right incantations and hand seals and practice on your own."
Then he handed them each a talisman of spirit missile and had them practice firing the technique at the clay golems on the other end of the arena, until their qi ran out. While he was waiting for the girl in front of him to run out of qi, Wei Zian studied the talisman in his hand. It was a perfectly straight strip of red paper with archaic symbols written in cinnabar ink, and it could be activated from either end without any change in effect, that effect being a bolt of force emerging from the tip of the talisman pointing away from the caster.
When it was finally his turn, he realized that performing a technique with the aid of a talisman was almost insultingly easy. He didn't even have to think about it much, just point the talisman in the desired direction and channel qi through it, the formation array in the talisman did almost everything by itself. The real problem was that 'spirit missile' took a lot more qi than any other technique that Wei Zian had encountered, and he had burned through his qi reserves in only eight shots.
Drained of qi and a little disappointed in how quickly he ran out, Wei Zian observed Zhao Hong as he fired spirit missile after spirit missile with lazy confidence. Wei Zian couldn't help but feel a bit envious of the boy, the amount of qi Zhao Hong must have used by now was easily three or four times larger than his maximum. And Zhao Hong didn't appear to be slowing down at all, either.
"Well, I'm going to let you all go, even though the session isn't officially over yet," Elder Kong said. "You're all out of qi, with the exception of Young Master Zhao here, and combat arts are all about practice. As parting words, I must caution you to use your newly acquired combat arts with restraint and responsibility. Otherwise, I will personally hunt you down."
If it were any other instructor saying this, Wei Zian would have laughed, but Elder Kong might just be crazy enough to do it.
Then it was time for formation arrays class, which was the very branch of cultivation that was used to build the talismans they used in their combat arts session. Their instructor, a young woman with gravity-defying orange hair that stood up like the flame of a candle, reminded Wei Zian of Elder Zhu with her enthusiasm for the subject. Wei Zian actually liked formation arrays, but not quite as much as Ning Bo thought was appropriate. Her 'recommended reading' included 12 different jade slips and she immediately announced that she would be organizing bonus lectures each week for those interested in learning more. Then she gave them 'a short test' (it had 60 questions) to check how much they remembered from their last two years. She then wrapped up the session by telling them to study the first three chapters from one of the jade slips on her recommended reading list for the next session (which was tomorrow).
After that, the rest of the day was like a relaxation period in comparison.