After draining the cultivation of the liquid core cultivator on Planet Flaming Rock, Bao Gang smiled again, an ethereal, holy smile which seemed to transcend mortality.
He had saved the planet from cruelty and greed! With no spiritual energy on it, no cultivators would ever want to stay on it, because it would be at the expense of their own cultivation. And the animals and humans on the planet no longer needed to worry about gathering resources for cultivating, which they would have done at the expense of their own safety and morality before.
Now, he would have to do the same for other planets, to save them from such vices.
He sent a drop of God’s blood into the air, all the way until it passed the atmosphere and reached outer space. Other than being slightly harder to control, the God’s blood was almost unaffected. In fact, it could even move faster due to the lack of air resistance. In fact, there was even spiritual energy in space, although thin to the point of being almost useless for cultivation.
Turning to look at Xiao Gou Shi, he asked,
“Would you be able to survive for a long time in outer space?”
The lizard raised its chin into the air, as both a nod and a show of arrogance. How could a superior being like him be unable to survive in outer space.
“Then lets find and save some more planets!”
Bao Gang began to fly upwards at his top speed, but within 10 seconds, he felt an impact from below, which pushed him much faster. It was Xiao Gou Shi. Apparently the lizard did not want to travel at the speed of Bao Gang, so he once again showed his superior speed and wings and actually carried Bao Gang!
Once they reached space, Xiao Gou Shi shot out even faster, as if living on a planet was like a shackle to his true ability.
In space, the thin spiritual energy was absorbed by Xiao Gou Shi, being used as fuel to make the pair even faster while they headed towards an unknown planet.
While traveling, Bao Gang marveled at the sight of a sun and moon orbiting around planet flaming rock. Yes, the sun and moon orbited around the planet, in contrast to the Earth, which orbited around a sun. The sun and moon were roughly equal in size, but were much bigger than the moon around Earth. In fact, planet Flaming Rock was much bigger than Earth as well.
Bao Gang could sense the rough location of planet Angel’s Justice because of the God’s blood on the planet, and noticed that XIao Gou Shi was heading straight towards it. He sent his spiritual sense towards the lizard, telling him to head in the opposite direction of planet Angel’s Justice. Not because he was scared of the cultivators there per se, but because he wanted to divide and conquer so to speak.
On Planet Angel’s Justice, Bao Gang, in the form of a child, had been running through the forest for over 2 hours when he saw a group of ragged, dirty children, who were wearing matching uniforms and carrying rocks above their heads. Most of the children looked to be around 5 years old. In front and behind the children were a pair of adults. One of which had a hook nose and was yelling instructions to the children. Similar to a drill sergeant, except much more forceful. He was so loud that he drowned out all other sound near Bao Gang, even though he was over 50 meters away.
“300 pushups drop to the ground NOW!”
The children all dropped to the ground and placed the rocks, which looked to be around 40 kilograms, on their back and began doing pushups at a rapid pace.
“1, 2, ,3 ,4…” Hook nose began counting off the pushups.
“You call THOSE pushups! If your nose doesn’t stick in the dirt on the way down, they don’t count!”
One child, much smaller than all the others couldn’t keep up with the count.
“STOOOOOOP!!!”
Hook nose, who was counting, screamed to stop doing pushups and began stalked over to the smaller child angrily. All the children were out of breath, but looked over at the smallest child in pity.
Shoving the child into the soft dirt of the forest floor, and holding him there with his arms, the adult brought his mouth to the child’s ear and whispered, “Mason, you have two options. You will stop being a drag on the rest of the team, or we can send you home.”
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
Well, it seemed like the man’s version of a whisper, but it was clear and audible from Bao Gang’s location 50 meters away.
Hook Nose towered over Mason waiting for a response.
Mason’s entire face was stained with moist dirt, but lifted his head, and amongst his sniffles said loudly, “Instructor Tai, I won’t hold back the group.” Mason was rapidly blinking his eyes to stop tears from flowing down his face due to having his face smashed into the ground.
Instructor Tai slowly walked back to the head of the group and started counting off slower to make it easier for Mason to do the pushups. Obviously, neither party wanted Mason to leave the group.
Because the other three adults were doing nothing but watching children do pushups, they looked around aimlessly, and one of them noticed Bao Gang staring at the group from a distance.
This adult lightly jogged over to Bao Gang, crossing the 50 meters in a few seconds.
“These are the candidates for the Justice state’s military. Did your parents send you to join us? Or are lost kid? If you tell us which village you live in, we can bring you there.”
“10, 11, 12…”
Bao Gang didn’t have a great way to avoid suspicion. He didn’t know the names of any villages on planet Angel’s Justice. But the best way to avoid this issue would be joining the Justice state’s military.
“My parents sent me to join the military.”
“Then what’s your name kid?”
“Bao Gang.”
“Alright, let me just check your cultivation and age to make sure it is acceptable.”
The adult stretched out his arm and grabbed Bao Gang’s wrist. He sent his spiritual sense inside Bao Gang’s arm.
“Not bad kid, already at the peak of body tempering and it looks like you barely reached 5 years old! But don’t get cocky, there are 2 other children who are at the same cultivation as you. You can ask Instructor Tai for a rock then join the group in exercises. Instructor Tai is the one leading the pushups.”
Bao Gang did as he was told, but inwardly, he was shocked. Although he never had problems completing body tempering, according to books from the Immortal Mountain sect library, the pain and monotony of cultivating should have kept young children from completing body tempering, but surprisingly, there were two out of about 20 kids who had the same cultivation realm as him!
Bao Gang received his rock, which looked to be over 30% larger than the average rock the other kids had. He noticed that there were two other kids with similar sized rocks to him. Presumably so that those of higher cultivation would not have an advantage in the exercises.
“32, 33, 34, 35--Bao GANG! Who do you think you are?? Just because you have already reached peak body tempering you think that you are special? Not referring to instructors as sir nor rushing to start exercises! I was going to let you off on the first 25, but now I think you will finish them after everyone else has reached 300!”
Then, Instructor Tai raised his chin slightly and gave a gloating glance as if to visibly say,”Know your place!” Surprisingly, Instructor Tai managed to tilt his nose up to look pretentious while still keeping the downward hook which seemed even a bit threatening.
The other kids didn’t look surprised, and the instructors were not even paying attention.
“Yes, sir.”
Although this irritated Bao Gang a little, he kept his poise and just did as he was told. From what he had seen, as long as he did not stand out from the rest of the group, Instructor Tai would not pick on him.
After finishing the pushups, the group once again began jogging, and Bao Gang could see there was a straight path which the group was following. Occasionally, there were places where another path would intersect the one they were following. At most of these intersections there would be a 3-5 kids who would join the group, and there were also some kids who joined the group similar to how Bao Gang had--they were just waiting along the side of this trail for the group.
Instructor Tai always knew when there was a child waiting nearby, and whenever there was, he didn’t give a break to allow the children to catch their breaths, he made sure they were always doing exercise. This could be pushups, situps, frog jumps, etc.
Bao Gang tried talking to some of the other kids while jogging, but Instructor Tai would immediately yell at him for “disturbing” the other kids. Within 10 minutes, Bao Gang learned the rules of this group: do as Instructor Tai says, and nothing but.
This continued all the way until the sun was about to set, when the group made it to camp with thousands of canvas tents set up.
Instructor Tai dismissed the group, which was taken over by a group of 10 soldiers in shiny metal armor. These soldiers were mainly dressed in silver armor, except for one who was wearing gold. The one wearing gold seemed to be in charge and the soldiers in silver armor did little more than following the orders on the one in gold.
The soldier in gold armor showed our group, which had become about 100 children, where we would be staying. We were given 30 tents and were therefore expected to sleep about 4 to a tent.
Before he left, the soldier in gold gave each of us a roll of fabric and a little bag which jingled when shook. He said that if we could master the game inside, then we would instantly gain immense status.
On the fabric was printed a grid of alternating black and white squares. There were 8 squares to a row, and 8 to a column, totaling to 64 squares. Inside the bag was 32 metal pieces and a book which explained the rules of the game.
When Bao Gang saw the fabric, he had a sneaking suspicion, and seeing the metal pieces in the bag confirmed it. It was chess--the game which new recruits would be tested on was chess.
Bao Gang was stunned. This planet, as well as planet flaming rock, was strikingly similar to Earth. Both Planet Angel’s Justice and Earth had chess. Organisms on both planets were very similar, and even the language as well!
How could a planet, which had no communication with another, have the same language, animals, and games?