After the boy couldn’t find the two girls, he didn’t go looking for them anymore. Although he still didn’t understand much, he had a vague feeling in his heart and knew that something might have happened.

Even though the two girls had returned to their own world and the boy had resumed his original life, the impact of these events still lingered, especially for the boy. At the very least, he had learned how to cultivate qi, and he had also witnessed the great battle between the two girls.

What was the use of watching the great battle? This was what made the boy extraordinary—he could remember what others had performed and immediately learn it himself, including martial techniques. Originally, he didn’t have internal energy and couldn’t use them at all, but now he could.

However, this was limited to what he could use at the moment. Many moves required true qi to activate formations, which he simply couldn’t use, but there were still some ordinary moves in the girls’ battle—those were what he could currently learn and use.

And he didn’t even know about this ability of his. He thought that if he couldn’t use something, it meant he couldn’t learn it...

Chapter 7 Emily Thompson (Part 1)

After that day, the boy practiced qi cultivation every day, then trained in swordsmanship. He preferred using a sword. He even modified Grace Bennett’s saber techniques to suit his own sword style. If Grace Bennett knew about this, she would be utterly shocked and cry out, “Monster!”

Turning saber techniques into sword techniques wasn’t impossible, but only martial arts masters or exceptionally gifted prodigies could do it. Yet even the most monstrous prodigies couldn’t do what this boy did—accomplishing it as a beginner.

This boy possessed a terrifying talent beyond imagination, though he himself was unaware of it. The more he practiced, the more his swordsmanship suited him, but at the same time, it became less and less like Ashley Carter’s sword techniques, not to mention the saber techniques of Grace Bennett, which were never similar to begin with.

He seemed to have noticed this as well, and thought he was just too stupid to learn their moves. But this didn’t make him give up practicing swordsmanship, since he could feel the benefits—his strength, speed, and reflexes were all improving.

And to practice swordsmanship, he needed a sword. Previously, the boy used a wooden sword as a substitute, but later found it too light and unsuitable. So he thought of someone—one of his few friends.

Amidst the mountains, there was a small, irregular plain, all in earthy yellow: yellow earth walls, yellow thatched roofs, and occasionally a few houses built with blue bricks and tiles. This was the boy’s village.

The boy weaved through the village, politely greeting everyone he met, including the uncles and aunts who had seized his house and land. But the villagers didn’t treat him well, because he was now an orphan—an orphan without even a house, and who couldn’t even cultivate qi.

The boy had long since gotten used to this attitude and didn’t take it to heart. He went straight to the village’s small square, where the person he was looking for should be practicing martial arts at this time.

Most of the boys and children in the village would practice martial arts in this small square, receiving guidance from Mike Clark.

“Xiuying, Xiuying!”

The boy quickly found his friend. Even though she was so ordinary, he could spot her at a glance, because she was his friend.

“Brian Clark, you’re here too.”

The girl called Xiuying noticed the boy, immediately responded, and walked over.

She really was an ordinary girl—not just in looks, but even her temperament was ordinary, as was her height, her personality, everything...

In short, she was the very definition of ordinary. From head to toe, inside and out, there was nothing about her that wasn’t ordinary.

The boy was ordinary, but he also had something special about him—like his experiences, or his “poor” talent that made him unable to cultivate qi. There was always something that set him apart.

But the thing that set Xiuying apart was that there was nothing that set her apart!

Even her name was ordinary. She was called Emily Thompson. Just in the small country of Qixing, there were probably hundreds of thousands of people named Xiuying, and Li was a common surname—at least tens of thousands more. And that’s just in Qixing; if you counted all of Dongyue Divine Continent, there would be even more. As for other continents, that didn’t need to be considered for now.

There were even other girls named Xiuying in the same village...

Xiuying was the epitome of an ordinary girl—if you threw her into a crowd, you’d never find her. At the same time, she was a great standard for measuring others.

Anyone better than her was above average; anyone worse than her was below average. In every aspect, including martial prowess, the boy was weaker than her, because he didn’t even meet the standard for ordinary and could only be classified as below average.

“Brian Clark, do you want to practice together today?” Mike Clark asked when he saw the boy.

Brian Clark was the boy’s full name. Although Brian Clark was of the Yun generation, and his cousins were all named Yun-something, by rights he should have been called Bu Yunzheng. No one knew why, but in the end, he was called Brian Clark, without the Yun character.

Maybe it was intentional on his parents’ part, or maybe it was because of his uncles. In any case, no one had any objections, and everyone tacitly accepted it.