Chapter 28 Gyroscope

  A farcical drama finally came to an end with Nie Xiuzhu being carried away, and dozens of young apprentices slunk away in disarray. After they left, Nie Kong also departed from the forest.

  The remaining hundred or so people did not disperse for a long time, still discussing the previous exchange.

  Among them, many were older and had already reached the stage of fusion or transformation. For them, neither Nie Kong's nor Nie XiuZhu's cultivation was worth paying attention to. However, Nie Kong's ability to withstand Nie XiuZhu's attacks two or three hundred times with his Seven-Petal Spirit Gathering Stage body without suffering any damage was truly astonishing. Moreover, Nie Kong had quietly raised his cultivation to the Eight-Petal Spirit Gathering Stage during the process of withstanding the attacks.

  Two strange things linked together, making their curiosity about Nie Kong infinitely inflated...

  ……

  About a minute later, Nie Kong arrived at the southeast corner of the training grounds.

  The Tianling Continent has many instruments to assist low-level spiritual masters in their cultivation. General-purpose instruments can be found in the Nie family. In the southeast area of the training grounds, hundreds of devices called "Top" are placed. It has the same name as a toy from Nie Kong's previous life, but its function is completely different.

  This "gyroscope" is made entirely of high-quality steel, with a relatively simple structure consisting of a hard iron rod and a circular iron frame. The iron bars that make up the circular frame can move freely in all directions, and each bar has a spiritual pattern etched onto its surface.

  The spiritual power is input from the top of the iron pillar in the center, and the gyroscope will rotate. Those iron bars also start to move irregularly. At the bottom of the iron pillar, there is a valve that can control the rotation speed of the gyroscope into three levels: high, medium, and low. The user can choose according to their own situation.

  Before coming to the training grounds, Nie Kong had originally planned to continue using the Red Buckwheat to cultivate "Blossoming Clouds". However, after successively exchanging blows with Nie Li and Nie Bei, Nie Kong came to understand that his greatest shortcoming at present was his speed. This speed included both physical reaction speed as well as attack speed. In these two aspects, Nie Kong had an enormous gap compared to those guys who had started cultivating spiritual techniques from a young age.

  And this "gyroscope" is specially used for spiritual masters to practice their attack speed.

  Hundreds of gyroscopes, nearly half of which were being used by people, whirred and hummed as Nie Kong approached. The scene before him was shocking - the speed at which the gyroscopes spun made it impossible for Nie Kong to see the gaps between the iron bars, but the three men in their thirties moved even faster, their hands flashing like lightning as they inserted them into the gyroscopes, leaving behind trails of afterimages.

  Having watched for a while, Nie Kong also found a top, pulled the valve to the low-speed gear, and then input a strand of spiritual power into the top of the iron pillar.

  "Humming..."

  In the midst of a dull, rumbling sound, streaks of spiritual patterns burst forth with bright light, and the spinning top began to rotate slowly before gradually accelerating, only stabilizing after several seconds.

  A faint green light flashed before his eyes, and Nie Kong blinked a few times in a daze. It was said to be low speed, but according to his estimate, the top's rotational speed per minute absolutely exceeded sixty. Looking at the gaps flashing by in the round iron frame of the top, Nie Kong couldn't help but feel his scalp go numb.

  "Ha!" A soft cry, Nie Kong aimed at a seam, his right hand reached in.

  "Crack!"

  His fingertips touched the iron pillar, a thread of spiritual power came out, his arm was about to retract, and four iron bars firmly clamped onto his forearm, the gyroscope stopped with a creak.

  A sharp pain came from the clamped part, Nie Kong took a cool breath, his left palm slapped a stream of spiritual power onto the top of the iron pillar, and the four iron bars scattered with a clang. Nie Kong quickly pulled out his right hand, and the spiral returned to its original speed, from slow to fast, and the dark green light condensed into a ball.

  Nie Kong rolled up his sleeve and took a look, only to find an eye-catching red mark had appeared on his forearm.

  The method of cultivating with a gyroscope is to insert the arm into the rotating gyroscope, then send a thread of spiritual energy into the iron pillar, and withdraw the arm before being clamped by the iron bar. Giving the iron pillar spiritual energy is to provide the gyroscope with rotational power, without having to stop every now and then to strike the top of the iron pillar.

  This process is very simple, but doing it well isn't that easy. The pain of being pinched by the iron bars on your arms is something almost every beginner has to go through.

  A moment later, Nie Kong's spirit stirred, his eyes fixed intently on the gap that kept flashing before him as he thrust his right arm into the spiral again.

  "Crack!"

  The iron bars holding Nie Kong had turned into three, and his right arm had an additional ring of red marks.

  Nie Kong's fingers swiftly tapped the "Heart Sea Point" and other nine major hidden points, while dissolving the remaining spiritual power in the six major meridians. At the same time, he observed the movement patterns of the iron bars. However, Nie Kong soon became disappointed as the irregular movements of those iron bars didn't follow any rules at all.

  "Come again!" Nie Kong gritted his teeth and swung his right arm out.

  "Crack!"

  Nie Kong felt stifled and frustrated to find that his usually effective methods were completely useless when being attacked by Nie Xingyun, so he added a third seal mark on his arm. After some thought, he understood the reason - these iron bars did not carry spiritual power, making it difficult for him to accurately predict which part would be clamped.

  Even if it were effective, Nie Kong would give up cheating. The pain just now was like a wake-up call, making Nie Kong suddenly realize that if he used such means to make advance predictions to reduce the pain, his subconscious mind would develop a dependence on it, completely destroying the original intention of practicing with the Top-grade Spiral Shell.

  "Hmm."

  Nie Kong spat out a mouthful of air and shouted loudly as he charged into the spiral shell, his right arm transforming into his left.

  "Crack!"

  "Crack!"

  “……”

  About ten minutes later, Nie Kong's two arms were covered with dense and red marks from his wrists to his elbows, the bones inside seemed to be cracked open, and the severe pain made Nie Kong grit his teeth and scrunched up his face.

  "I don't believe it won't work even once." Looking at the still spinning top, Nie Kong cursed viciously, his right arm swinging, preparing to strike again.

  "Hmph!"

  A silvery bell-like laughter suddenly rang out, Nie Kong was taken aback and turned his head to look back, only to discover that a young girl had appeared behind him at some unknown time.

  The girl was about eighteen years old, wearing a red long dress, with a tall and slender figure. She not only had a good figure, but also a beautiful face, with bright black eyes, a straight nose, red lips, and a white and tender round face. When she smiled, there were two cute dimples at the corners of her mouth.

  "Who are you?" Nie Kong asked in confusion.

  The girl smiled and said in a soft voice, "I've heard that the Nie family has produced a Wood Spirit Master with an unusually fast cultivation speed named Nie Kong. Shouldn't you be him? My name is Mu Hongyan."

  Nie Kong was somewhat surprised: "You're not a member of the Nie family?"

  "Who says that just because someone appears here, they must be a Nie family member? I am from Kyoto Rakujou, but my mother is from the Nie family. This time, I came to Juyang City to visit my aunt." Mu Hongyan said with a smile.

  Auntie? Nie Kong couldn't help but let out a snort of laughter, suddenly remembering the other meaning of these three words in his past life. Here, "big aunt" probably wouldn't be used to refer to a woman's certain physiological phenomenon.

  "What's so funny?" Mu Hongyan looked at Nie Kong in confusion.

  "Nothing, nothing." Nie Kong hastily shook his head and asked, "What were you doing standing behind me just now?"

  "Look at you cultivating."

  As she spoke, Mu Hongyan seemed to have thought of something funny again, covering her mouth and laughing so hard that her body was shaking. "Nie Kong, your cultivation is really too interesting, haha, haha, you're not cultivating at all, but rather hitting the beam, haha, it must be very uncomfortable to hit horizontally, haha, your arms are swollen like two big radishes, haha, I guess you didn't ask anyone before using the top...

  ……