chapter 3: the challenge begins

As the morning sun began to rise tian yan went to the his clans novel pavilion and took the great art of inner chi and left to make preparations for his journey to West wind city where the qualifying competition was being held before he could leave he went to meet his mother to tell her his reason for departure as she did not know that he was leaving "mother I am going on a journey to see the world and it may take some time maybe around a year to return to the clan so please don't be upset, because i will be back soon , after all it's just a year and it will pass in no time and I will bring back a lot of souvenir for all the clans men so please get well and take your medicine on time" even after talking so much tian yans mother did not reply and sat with her head looking downwards as if she was ashamed of something, tian yan saw this and quickly got up and went towards the door and said " I will beat up the old man before I go on my journey since he dares to make you upset" tian yan had also began to train in the arts of inner chi, 'in the land of fallen stars there exists three types of arts that are used to nurture the body namely body building, body shaping and innerchi arts',the body building art helps in building a body that has super natural raw strength and stamina and upon reaching perfection it allows the practicinar to unlock a unique trait within his body, similarly the body shaping arts allows a person to specifically sharpen any part of the body and is divided into two namely outer body refining and inner body refining and the art tian yan practices is inner chi a kind of art that allows the practionar to wield super natural chi namely being able to sense dead ghosts and malice towards them and it not only comes as a one time of practice within a day but must be practicied through out day and night non stop hence barely anyone likes to practice this art and also it is the hardest to get proficient in it,among all the three arts and naturally these three arts also have differences and the levels are in the order of "first rank human, second rank semi human, third rank semi beast, forth rank monster incarnation and fifth rank monsterfication" where monsterfication art ranks at the top and human art ranks at the bottom, as tian yan's arts belonged to the rank of semi beast third rank he was able to learn the basics of inner chi much faster and utilize it as well but unable to make progress in it,hence after three days of sleepless training he gave up ,after a few more miles of travelling he arrived at West wind city where the qualifying test was about to be conducted in a week. "wow this is my first time going out of iron well and I just arrived at West wind city, it's hard to find my way to the competition registration in a new city that I don't even know about, oh well it seems I need to catch a thief to work as my guide" as yan tian said this and was about to enter an inn he purposefully got a few wallets and filled them with 1/10 ratio of silver and rocks and started flaunting his heavy purse. "waiter come here and bring me some tea and tell me your inns speciality of foods" as he said that the waiter began to walk slowly towards yan tian and said in a very rude way the special dishes of the inn" our inn specialises in roast crabs with pickled vegetables and roasted duck with salads and the wine we serve is quick frost, these are all our specialities so please feel free to order" "if you can" as the waiter was done telling the orders he mockingly said the last words in a low voice. yan tian not paying any attention to the specialities said "get me five each including the wine" the waiter who saw this was quiet for a minute before replying" damn brat are playing us for idiots or what-- " before the waiter could finish his words yan tian throw a few silvers to the ground and smashed the table he was sitting at, and started to walk away from the inn, as he was about to leave the manager of the inn came and stopped yan tian from leaving and asked him what was the problem. yan tian without a care in the world pointed towards the waiter and said " I don't like how he questions whether I can pay for my own meals or am I supposed to pay everything in advance to get what I want in this shabby little inn of yours and get your permission to enter and leave this establishment of yours" as yan tian pointed out all these accusations people in the inn started to look towards the manager and the waiter and soon the manager could not find himself answering yan tian's words so he decided to punish and blame everything on the waiter "damn servant you are only responsible for serving the food and taking the orders who asked you to butt into someone else's matters" the waiter who saw the change in the managers attitude also answered " but sir he is at most a brat of 14-17 years old how can he order and pay for five servings of roast crab, duck and five bottles of wine" the manager after hearing this decided to push the matter on yan tian by asking to show whether he can pay, yan tian suddenly felt reluctant and throw away a pouch filled with silver and gold. the manager seeing this felt like he hit himself in the face and looked at the waiter and said " your fired, someone come and throw him away on the streets" and then the manager eagerly looked at yan tian and said " my apologies dear young sir , I just fired that bold waiter so please find it in your heart to forget this scuffle and enjoy your order" yan tian not reacting in the the least to his words directly said" I am not going to pay even if was going to drink a glass of water at your inn from now on, because if I accidentally ordered a glass of water, who knows maybe you will ask me whether I can pay or not" the manager scoffing at these words decided to let yan tian eat for free without paying a cent " dear customer please don't leave , as an apology you can eat and order what ever you want without paying for it so please don't hesitate to order anything you like" as the manager told the staff to serve yan tian with any thing he ordered, he himself left the inn , yan tian unable to show or say anything only sat down and started to drink the wine while his order was being made to serve. the manager after a few minutes arrived at a shady building where he quickly walked inside, there he met a few gangsters and told the head of the gang about the incident at his inn and informed him that yan tian has caused a ruckus at his inn and is quiet wealthy, the head of the gang decided to rob yan tian because of the money and without him noticing that he was robbed because he was afraid that he was from a powerful family so he decided to make do by robbing him instead of kidnapping him for ransome and hence informed the manager to keep an eye on this kid "when he leaves the inn inform my men and they will quickly steal the brats money from him". the manager agreed to the deal and they will split 60/40 where the manager gets 40percent of the stolen money. the gang leader unable to refuse angrily agreed to the managers proposal. feeling content with that much money the manager left , the gang leader ignored the matter of robbing yan tian and focused on his business, the manager on returning, found yan tian eating like a pig without rest and drinking wine like water, and heard yan tian ordering for another serving, upon hearing this he quickly fixed his shocked face and said "dear customer we are all out of ingredients for your next serving so please be content with this cup of tea" yan tian not talking much said " the food here was alright I guess" and started to leave, the manager decided to stop yan tian to pay the bill and said " dear sir please wait you haven't pa--" being cut short of his words by yan tians sentence" 'you don't have to pay so please feel free to order' these were your words manager or do you want me to pay despite all that" the manager suddenly feeling a headache said" not at all sir please feel free to come again" yan tian hearing this turned and left the inn to look for a place to stay at, the manager angry at the situation, started to inform the gang members of yan tian leaving the inn and soon the gang members walked by yan tian, one walking by while the other falling on him , yan tian seeing this turned to the right to avoid the falling person, the person fell and asked yan tian to help him up , yan tian not paying much heed to the other person helped the man up on to his feet , while the other quickly grabbed the bulky pouches and left as if he knew nothing, the duo succeding in robbing yan tian went back to there base and opened the pouches, but to there surprise there were more stones and even less silver than the manager informed them off, thug1"damn you glutinous pig for a shop keeper how dare you make fun of us by telling us that this kid is a rich boy from a big family" thug 2 "how dare he, just because he has the backing of an family he dares to make a fool of us and our gang" thug 1 "we must inform the gang leader about this and ask him to knock that pigs teeth out of mouth" , soon the thieves arrived and told the gang leader hu boa about this incident " how dare does he think that all the gangs and gang members of this city are slaves to the an family " "since he dares to play cat and mouse with us we will all so play it next time if he comes here tell him that we are in the mountains and each time he asks about money give him these rocks and find that brat so that we can properly deal with that shopkeeper once and for all" and decided that the manager had made a fool out of their gang so they decided to give the manager of the inn his percentage of rocks and a few silvers while keeping the majority of it, the manager upon receiving his cut was even more angry at the situation where he was given rocks and a few bits of silver for this information where they could have lived for an entire year without any work was very unhappy and decided to fight the gangsters for his share of meat and soup , because if he did not maybe his inn may be destroyed by that gang of thieves. yan tian finding one of the pouches filled with rocks and silvers missing quickly snickers and decides that the thief he wants to hire is working some where around or near the inn and goes to sleep waiting for the sun to rise. the next morning yan tian decided to visit the same inn and also entered while acting he looking a little sad and ordered a glass of water and a few regular dishes unlike yesterday, the manager looked at yan tians sorry state and asked " dear customer what's the matter, why are you eating these common dishes did some one misplace these these orders here , let me find out and punish them" as the manager saw yesterday, yan tian was ripe pig to be slaughtered and hence started to ask around the inn who playing this joke, yan tian stopped him while looking a little pityful and said " please don't bother your self manager these are indeed the dishes I ordered, as I am running short on money" the manager a little bit anxious because yan tian looked a little uneasy asked" what's the matter sir " yan tian acting as if he was about to cry a river told the manager" yesterday when I was leaving the inn I ran into a man and he fell, thinking that it would be rude to not help, I decided to help him and between the interval of me helping him someone stole my pouch full of money"

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***