Dawn of a New Era

Chapter 25: Archery Dojo

Translator: Lordbluefire Editor: Lordbluefire
In the late-night, everything was quiet!

Chen Shouyi was in his bedroom, and the shell girl that had been lying unmoving on his study desk slowly began to sit up.

She lowered her head and stared at the princess skirt covering her body. It was filled with beautiful colors, causing her expression to finally have some fluctuations. She stood up and walked a few steps. Shortly after, she spun gracefully in a circle, like flower petals floating up.

Her tiny face involuntarily revealed happiness.

But when she thought of her current situation, she instantly retracted her smile.

She swiftly walked toward the spoon and sniffed at the overwhelming fragrance, a look of disdain on her face. However, because of hunger as well as to prepare for an escape attempt later, she still pinched her nose and drank a few mouthfuls. It was so sweet that she frowned.

She burped and rested for a while, feeling her strength gradually recovering.

After that, she instantly started her plan.

Walking by the edge of the study desk, she would occasionally glance downward. She discovered that every single object was extremely strange.

Luckily, in this strange world, although her innate ability had completely vanished, her body felt even lighter.

She silently drummed up the courage in her heart. She gritted her teeth, aiming for the place where the giant had sat earlier, and took a sudden leap.

Her body arced through the air and landed on the chair. After rolling a few rounds, she stood up.

This was much easier than she had imagined. It involuntarily emboldened her.

At this moment, a loud creaking sound suddenly rang out in her ears. She hurriedly flashed and hid behind one of the chair’s legs and held her breath. Her small face was so frightened that it turned pale.

Luckily, the ‘giant’ only turned his body. Very soon, a heavy breathing sound continued to ring out.

Only after a long time had passed did she dare to continue moving. Her steps were light, and cautiousness was painted on her face. Very soon, she came to the door.

There was a gap of about four to five millimeters between the door and the floor.

Her eyes brightened and she swiftly walked over there. Such a gap was sufficient for a tiny body like hers to pass through.

She felt so much excitement in her heart that she almost jumped with happiness. She instantly lay flat on the ground and began to crawl forward.

Her head passed!

Very soon later, her chest also passed.

She felt increasingly excited. Just when she was preparing to do her best to escape this devil nest, she suddenly discovered that she couldn’t advance anymore, like something was pulling her back. She struggled with her utmost but she couldn’t move at all.

…

On the second day, even before dawn arrived, Chen Shouyi had already woken up.

The first thing he did was to glance at the study desk. He instantly discovered that the shell girl had gone missing.

Alarm filled his heart, and he hurriedly searched the surroundings only to find her at his door’s gap. Her fluffy princess dress was caught by a wooden prick of the door. If it wasn’t so, she might truly have escaped.

He tied the shell girl up once more and used adhesive tape to secure her. After the lingering fear, he couldn’t help but consider a question seriously. Should he buy her a cage?

…

Today, he woke up earlier than usual, and he hurriedly washed his face and brushed his teeth before returning to his bedroom.

After packing his luggage, he waited until it was about 7 a.m. and leaped down from the window once more.

“Mother, I will leave first. Help me inform father.”

“Alright. Study well, you don’t have to worry about our home affairs,” Mother Chen, who was currently busy in the restaurant, replied in a loud voice.

“Where’s Shouyi?” Chen Dawei wore an apron as he rushed out upon hearing the voice.

“He left already.”

“This child. I still wanted to speak to him! Why is he appearing and disappearing unpredictably these few days? It’s like he doesn’t want to meet anyone at all.”

….

After Chen Shouyi left. He went to the supermarket first and purchased a pile of food and vast quantities of drinking water. After that, he booked a room in a remote and small motel, placing his luggage there.

He calculated the time. It was only until eleven did he secretly enter the Otherworld.

Yesterday night when he was browsing the web, he already roughly understood that every day in the Otherworld was about forty earth hours.

As expected, when he entered, dawn just arrived.

Regardless of the mist on the mountain or the strange singing, everything had already disappeared as if they had never appeared before.

He untied the shell girl and used nylon to tie her leg. He then continued threatening her to get her to collect more golden sand.

Upon returning to the familiar environment, the shell girl felt her innate ability returning. She attempted and flew about a little. Joy appeared on her face; she loved to dance through the air, flying all around. Then, she began to search for the golden sand. It was like she had already forgotten about the fact that she was imprisoned.

Or maybe, she had already submitted to her fate.

Chen Shouyi continued to practice.

In this place, he had an immense advantage. His innate ability was natural recovery and he could rapidly recover from his muscle strains. The fatigue he felt in his muscles would also fade away after a while, enabling him to endure an even higher-intensity training.

This was a phenomenon he had discovered yesterday. Every time he trained to the point of having muscle ache, he only needed over ten seconds and it would be gone.

If it was in the past, he would at least need four to five hours.

The movement of every sword technique would involve a series of muscles working together. Although the might produced was great, it was also pretty strenuous and it was easier for his muscles to feel fatigued. There were very few martial apprentices who could train for more than five minutes at every given time.

Usually, they would train about three to four minutes and before the fatigue in their muscles reached the limit, they would rest for ten minutes. In an hour of training time, about more than half was used in resting.

And as for him, he didn’t need to follow this rule. This indicated that he had more training time compared to others.

…

Time flew by swiftly, and in the blink of an eye, two days had passed.

At noon, he grabbed his briefcase and quickly left the motel.

After that, he went to a gold shop in the surroundings and sold the grains of gold that the shell girl got for him during these few days.

Earlier, he had already melted the grains of golden sand into gold bars. This was also to avoid unnecessary trouble. After all, golden sand was simply too conspicuous; others might suspect if he had discovered a gold mine.

During this period, he also changed his exploitation method. From the original high-pressure threatening, he now changed it to using gifts to make her happy, for example, dresses of various patterns, beautiful glass marbles, as well as some brightly-colored little ornaments.

Hence, the efficiency of the golden sand plundering became increasingly higher. Her enthusiasm rose as well.

In a short few days, the amount of golden sand she collected had already reached one jin.

Seeing the amount of $110,000 reflected in his ATM’s screen, Chen Shouyi’s heart pounded rapidly.

$110,000 might not be considered a lot. But in a fifth to sixth-tier city like Dongning where the housing prices were already close to $10,000, $110,000 could buy many things.

Since he was young until now, the amount in his bank had never exceeded $3,000. To Chen Shouyi, this was a huge sum of money.

…

He came out this time not only to sell the gold.

Although he lied to Mother Chen, saying that he needed to enter closed-door training for his test, he had to ensure he could manage to achieve his end of the lie and pass the Martial Apprentice Test.

Right now, his physical capabilities weren’t a problem. His sword techniques had completely integrated into his muscle memory because of his training in the three-times gravity environment, so he should be able to pass this test as well. Now, he was only lacking in archery.

However, he didn’t wish to register for another tuition class.

Firstly, there wasn’t enough time.

Secondly, such low-efficiency teaching methods didn’t suit him.

…

Half an hour later, he arrived at the archery dojo’s door.

Chen Shouyi got down from the taxi, looking at the largest archery dojo in Dongning City.

Many martial apprentices would train here. In fact, one might even be able to see martial practitioners here sometimes.

“May I know how the fees are calculated here?”

The girl at the front desk smiled. “You can choose whether you want a yearly card, a half-year card, a season card, or a monthly card. For monthly cards, the fee is $4,500 every month. For half-year cards, we can give you 20% off, and for yearly cards, we can give you 50% off…”

“Is there any card that calculates the fee by the day or by the hour?” He hurriedly interjected her promotion speech.

“Naturally there is. We have rechargeable cards sold at $300 per card. This card is effective from 9 am to 9 pm. In addition, if you need a private coach to guide you or massage services, these will be charged separately.”

“Help me apply for a rechargeable card.”

“Please provide me with your proof of identity.”

Chen Shouyi took out the relevant documents and paid the fee. After that, he soon obtained a temporary member card.

Even before he walked to the door, he could already hear the thudding sounds of fired arrows blasted into their targets.

The entire archery dojo was very large. There were two side passages and with a single glance, one could see that the passages were over a hundred meters long, with areas over ten thousand square meters.

Today was still counted as a holiday, and it was the peak period for the archery dojo. The entire venue was full to the max.

Not only were there white-collar males and females in sports attire, but there were also muscular blokes and even the elderly and children.

From this, one could see that the vast majority of these people were doing this in their spare time.

Compared to sword techniques where it was extremely hard to enter the elementary grade, archery was easy to learn but hard to master. Even for many people walking on the martial paths who had no aspiration, they would usually treat archery as a type of leisure activity.

However, there were also several experts here.