Naked Sword Art

Around the time they exited the Inscription Club room, they began to notice a few more disciples coming in.

"Where to next?" Bai Fan asked.

"Zhao Pan. Has any of the clubs listed on the brochure piqued your interest?" Xiao Fang asked.

The only reason why she came was because Xiao Fang said that they could join a guild together. She still wanted to get close to Xiao Fang, but she wasn't the type of girl to act cute around him like most girls did. This was the only way she knew how to do it.

Zhao Pan sighed, then began to look through the brochure one more time. She didn't want to do something useless like pottery or knitting, but she also didn't want to do any spirit cultivating like making cultivation pills and inscriptions. After eliminating all of those options, she was left with a few clubs to pick from.

"How about this one," she said.

Bai Fan walked over to see what she was pointing at.

"Sure, it's just down the hall."

Xiao Fang didn't know what club they were talking about, but he still followed along.

They walked down the hall, passing a few excited disciples along the way. The place was starting to get a little more crowded, but Zhao Pan didn't seem to care about that anymore.

When they arrived at the next club, Xiao Fang suddenly frowned when he heard what was happening inside.

"A Swordsmen Club?" Xiao Fang asked.

"It looks like they're giving away prizes. Let's go take a look," Bai Fan said.

Bai Fan walked in first, then Zhao Pan followed her in.

"Aren't you coming?" Zhao Pan asked Xiao Fang.

"... sure."

Xiao Fang realized that he was acting strange, so he stopped being so hesitant and followed them in.

It turned out that they really were giving away prizes, but only to those who passed their test.

Since it was a swordsmen club, one might expect it to be full of body cultivators. However, to Xiao Fang's and Zhao Pan's surprise, most of the girls here were all spirit cultivators.

"Hello, young miss. Would you like to take our strength test? If you score high enough, you might even win 1000 merit points."

"Yes, I'm ready!" the girl said.

She didn't seem to be very strong, but she was still very optimistic.

The host for the test took the girl up to the platform then handed her a sword. Suddenly 5 columns of bamboo sticks began to rise up from the ground until they were nearly 1.5 meters tall.

Xiao Fang recognized the bamboo sticks almost immediately because they were the same ones he used to play with as a child.

Despite how they looked, these bamboo sticks were much larger and thicker than the average bamboo stick. The thing that made it especially good for training was that it was harder to break than ordinary bamboo sticks because of the exorbitant amount of natural qi contained in them. Despite all this, these bamboo sticks were usually only used by first year Divine Sword sect disciples to train them how to use a sword. The last time Xiao Fang used one himself was when he was only 6 years old, so it brought back old memories.

'This can't be right. Why are there only 5 sticks?' He thought.

The reason Xiao Fang was confused by this was because anyone in the Body Refinement realm could've easily broken those sticks with their bare hands. Using a sword was just overkill.

...

Test Rewards:

Cut 1 Stick = Pass Test to Join Club

Cut 2 Sticks = 100 merit points

Cut 3 Sticks = 500 merit points

Cut 4 Sticks = 1000 merit points

Cut 5 Sticks = Phoenix Jade Hairpin

...

Xiao Fang couldn't figure it out. No matter how he saw it, the test was just too easy; anyone should've been able to do it. Xiao Fang decided to listen closely to the girl on the stage attempting the challenge.

Her stance was pathetic, her grip was horrendous, and she was winding back her sword as if it were a baseball bat.

'This is hard to watch...' he thought.

Still, he didn't think the outcome would change since the girl seemed to be in the Body Refinement realm. If Xiao Fang could do it as a child, how hard could it be?

Finally, the girl swung the sword and hit the sticks as hard as she could.

Dung!~

The moment she hit the 1st bamboo stick, the sword instantly ejected out of her hands.

Xiao Fang stood there in confusion as he tried to figure out what just happened. Once he finally did, he nearly blurted out laughing.

He had completely forgotten the main reason why these bamboo sticks were used as training tools for the new disciples of the Divine Sword sect. These sticks had a special property in them that punished those who didn't use a proper form. If the sword didn't cleanly cut through the sticks, it would inflict a backlash on the sword wielder's hands.

The girl that dropped the sword was experiencing the full effect of that backlash because her form was worse than anything he had ever seen.

He couldn't stop thinking about it so it was starting to make his eyes water from holding in his laughter. If any real swordsmen were to see what he just witnessed they might even start pissing themselves about now. Xiao Fang eventually used a high-level breathing techniques just to compose himself.

...

"There has to be a trick to it, don't you think?" Zhao Pan asked as she was looking at the 5 bamboo sticks on the platform.

"Hey, Long Wang, Zhao Pan, come here. If you don't line up now, you'll have to wait longer for your turn," Bai Fan said.

Zhao Pan went and lined up with Bai Fan, but Xiao Fang stayed behind.

"Long Wang, come try it with us. It'll be fun," Bai Fan said to him.

Xiao Fang thought it would be unwise for him to participate in a challenge like this, but he didn't think it would matter if he intentionally failed the test. After another thought, he eventually decided to join them in the line.