The Avalon Of Five Elements

Zhou Xiaoxi barged in excitedly and exclaimed, “Old Li, come and watch this movie bean!”

Li Wei was lying on his bed, deep in thought. His brow furrowed as he answered flippantly, “Watch it on your own.”

“It’s useless to think about it since there’s nothing you can do if his teacher doesn’t agree. You’d better not offend the teachers of the Induction Ground,” Zhou Xiaoxi replied from outside. “Recruiting soldiers was never an easy task to begin with, so don’t make things difficult for yourself. It’ll be too late to regret if you end up getting backstabbed.”

“Don’t spout nonsense. Teacher Wang is not like that!” Li Wei quickly retorted. “I’ve attended his lessons before, and I am confident of his character.”

“In any case, don’t push too hard. You’ve been disadvantaged quite a few times because of such issues already.” Zhou Xiaoxi was still worried as he continued to warn Li Wei. “You should stop feeling so miserable; your luck is already good enough. Although your potential successor’s teacher refuses to let him go, you just need to gradually wear him down. I, for one, haven’t even seen anyone worthy.”

Li Wei asked lazily, “Isn’t it easy for the North Sea Auxiliary Division to recruit members? Do you really need to compete with us bitter folks”

“Bitter? More like sweet,” Zhou Xiaoxi teased. “Someone has been distracted ever since he returned that day. I sense some stirrings of love, oh, glorious spring![1]”

Li Wei immediately jumped out of bed in embarrassment and dashed out of his room, shouting, “Today seems like a good day for us to exchange blows! You can make fun of me, but it’s simply unbearable if you tarnish a fair lady’s reputation like that!”

Acting all innocent, Zhou Xiaoxi protested, “Did I say something wrong? Tarnished her reputation?”

“You......” Li Wei was at a loss for words. His embarrassment quickly turned to anger as he taunted, “Come over here right now. I’m gonna beat your North Sea dog face into the ground.”

Zhou Xiaoxi was not one bit angry. He joked loudly, “I am a North Sea dog, and you are a blooming sago tree[2]—I mean—a blossoming metal man. Alright, alright, I’m only teasing. Such things are part of human nature. Next time, I’ll introduce you to the ladies of the North Sea who are as stunning as the ocean. Do you know why the women of the North Sea are called the daughters of the sea?”

Li Wei was veered off course. “Because they’re as stunning as the ocean?”

Zhou Xiaoxi replied innocently, “Yes, they’re stunning, but what’s the main feature of the ocean? It’s extremely temperamental! When it’s happy, all is calm and well. If it’s unhappy, prepare to feel the wrath of its storms! Do you know why I’m still single? I am a man who has braved these storms and lived to tell the tale! I heard that the ladies in the Infantry are blessed with good figures?”

Li Wei nodded his head in response to Zhou Xiaoxi’s curiosity. “Definitely. Every one of them has amazingly well-proportioned figures. They are well-toned and have abs—not even a single one of them has the slightest bit of flab. To top it off, they are most certainly not temperamental.”

“That’s great!” Zhou Xiaoxi said, as his eyes lit up with joy. “I leave my future happiness in your hands!”

“As long as you can satisfy their three needs, your relationship will be very blissful,” Li Wei said while he casually lifted three fingers.

“Money? Not a problem! Looks? I have that as well! My figure is not too shabby either!” Zhou Xiaoxi announced, brimming with confidence.

Li Wei let out a chuckle. “The ladies in our Infantry Division do not look out for these things. Their three needs refer to the need for blood when killing, the need to violently vent their anger, and the need to rip things out of sorrow.”

Zhou Xiaoxi shivered momentarily in fear. He muttered, “I think I’ll just remain single, then.”

“Forget it, let’s move on from this sad topic. Come, let’s watch the movie bean,” Zhou Xiaoxi said, back to his usual self. “You have no idea how hard it was to buy this. I queued really long for this bestseller.”

“What movie bean is this?” Li Wei casually asked.

“Have you heard of Zu Yan? The one who was defeated by an earth elementalist a while back? He’s a pretty arrogant chap, openly distributing his written challenge for all to see. He’s really landed himself in an embarrassing situation this time.” Zhou Xiaoxi was clearly gloating at Zu Yan’s misfortune.

Between the aristocratic families and the commoners lay an uncrossable chasm. This disparity was apparent everywhere, even on the front line.

Aristocratic families often had long and illustrious histories, leading all the way back to the battle that had founded the Avalon of Five Elements.

After the Avalon of Five Elements had gradually stabilized, a protracted period of expansion had begun. Talented individuals from the Old Territory were brought into the Avalon of Five Elements as new residents to fill the space created by the continued expansion.

Most of the commoners of the Avalon of Five Elements could trace their roots back to the migrants from the Old Territory.

Despite the declining influence of these families and the rise of several outstanding commoners, the allocation of resources was still vastly skewed in favor of the aristocratic families. They controlled almost eighty percent of high-grade resources.

Conflicts between the commoners and aristocratic families were everywhere but were especially prevalent on the front line, where such clashes were almost an everyday occurrence.

“I’ve heard of this before,” Li Wei said, nodding. He suddenly felt curious. “How did he lose so badly if he could execute an absolute art?”

“Yeah, I’d like to see this ferocious earth elementalist for myself.”

Zhou Xiaoxi took out the movie bean, tossing it into the light-swallowing, shadow-spitting nepenthes[3] set on the table. This particular type of bonsai had a broad range of uses and was compatible with many media products made by wood elementalists.

In the dark brown-colored pot stood a twenty-centimeter tall nepenthes with a large pitcher. The pitcher was decorated with a wood elementalist’s signature, and a red ring encircled its opening.

After being tossed into the nepenthes, the movie bean was quickly dissolved by digestive fluids. Within moments, a beam of light sprang out of the pitcher’s opening.

The faint light converged into a rather blurry image.

“Why is it so unclear?” Zhou Xiaoxi said, visibly upset. “Unscrupulous businessmen! How dare they sell such low-quality beans at such exorbitant prices! This is crazy!”

“Don’t expect too much from this small region,” Li Wei said in an understanding manner. He was familiar with how things were like in the area. Watching the projection, he continued, “Observe carefully, or you’ll lose out even more.”

Upon hearing Li Wei’s advice, Zhou Xiaoxi ceased his complaints and watched every detail attentively.

It was evident that the mirage bean pod was focused on Zu Yan from the get-go; he was simply too eye-catching. His heavy legs were like hatchets, and his attacks were cleanly executed. His moves were not the least bit sloppy.

“He’s pretty powerful,” Zhou Xiaoxi muttered to himself. “That’s a rather well executed [Hellfire Spider Web].” His condescending manner from before had disappeared.

He had initially thought that Zu Yan’s defeat was the result of insufficient combat experience. Judging from the footage, however, Zu Yan appeared to be highly seasoned and had not made any mistakes. Besides having a higher base level, Zhou Xiaoxi himself probably couldn’t have done any better.

Li Wei did not utter a single word; he just stared at the footage.

There wasn’t a single opponent on the ground who could match Zu Yan. He took down a handful of contestants without breaking a sweat.

Everything changed when he attacked a participant that had a mask on.

That seemingly innocuous contestant suddenly made a move, punching Zu Yan’s heavy leg.

Zhou Xiaoxi subconsciously shook his head. Considering that legs were much more powerful than fists, the most viable options against the heavy leg were to either dodge and find an opening, or to fight fire with fire and return with a kick.

What happened next gave him a shock. Zu Yan was knocked back a good couple of steps while his opponent only needed two to stabilize himself.

“Impressive strength,” Li Wei commented objectively.

“Zu Yan seemed a little stirred up—he must have recognized the other party,” Zhou Xiaoxi observed. His vast experience with actual combat allowed him to deduce this fairly quickly.

However, the sight of the mysterious earth elementalist suddenly changing direction in mid-air as he rushed towards Zu Yan made them both stand up spontaneously in shock.