My name is Wei Qing, and I want to fight the Xiongnu.

Even if you have the talent, if you want to become famous, you still have to wait and see without a stage.

The day of enrollment was Wei Qing's stage, but now, in the eyes of some freshmen and even seniors, Wei Qing is their stage.

On the day Wei Qing stormed the Hundred Battles Pavilion, other students must have joined him, hoping to use their achievements to completely crush Wei Qing.

Wei Qing laughed: "It doesn't matter, let them come. Do you think I'm afraid of them?"

"But you've only recently recovered, can your body handle it?"

"I've rested for seven or eight days and have almost recovered. I should be fine after another two or three days of rest. Here's what I'll do: spread the word that I'm going to challenge the Hundred Battles Pavilion in three days. Anyone who wants to snipe me is welcome. I'd really like to know how many freshmen in the Command Department can go toe-to-toe with me."

Cao Ying laughed and said, "Alright, I'll spread the news later. But thinking about how the Command Department's record for the Hundred Battles Pavilion freshmen was actually set by the Martial Arts Department, I guess the administrators of the Command Department must be spitting blood again."

Wei Qing disagreed, saying that those who lack strength should be insulted.

According to a source from the Marquis of Pingyang who wished to remain anonymous, Wei Qing will be challenging the Hundred Battles Pavilion in three days!

This news once again swept through the Imperial Academy.

If the Imperial Academy were to create a trending topics list, Wei Qing suspected that whatever he ate for dinner could become a trending topic.

Although the Imperial Academy does not have a trending topics list, it does have features such as a message board.

The Mohists have created quite a few strange and unusual things over the years. As we all know, when people are well-fed and clothed, they tend to indulge in lust. When there is no pressure to survive, people often become greedy and pleasure-seeking.

For the people on the frontier, war could break out at any moment, but for the nobles in Chang'an, they had almost forgotten what war was.

Therefore, during this period, a wide variety of entertainment tools naturally emerged.

Such convenient communication methods are naturally abundant.

When the students of the Imperial Academy learned that Wei Qing had challenged the Hundred Battles Pavilion, they issued bounties that very night, hoping to thwart Wei Qing's momentum.

The Command Department offers the heaviest reward, since the two largest departments in the Imperial Academy are the Martial Arts Department and the Command Department. These two departments have the largest number of students, and their members are often the most distinguished.

Even if each student contributes ten points, it's still a considerable sum.

In just three days, the amount increased from the initial 500 to over 9,000.

When Wei Qing heard about it, he was very envious. He thought about discussing with Cao Ying and finding a way to put on a show and keep the points to himself.

But then he thought about it again and gave up. He couldn't offer a reward that would put Wei Qing down; he had to win first place on the same day.

After all, people only remember the first one; who cares about the feelings of the second one?

Given Cao Ying's strength, it's unrealistic to expect him to overpower all the other heroes.

However, things soon took an unexpected turn.

Upon learning of this, the freshmen of the Martial Arts Department were all eager to try their skills and put in their best effort.

Whether he can become famous and rich overnight depends on what happens in three days.

As long as I can defeat Wei Qing and win the championship, I will be the most outstanding student in the Imperial Academy for the next few years.

Other departments also sent out strong freshmen. The Han Dynasty valued martial arts, and it wasn't just the students of the Martial Arts Department who could fight; rather, it was the students of the Martial Arts Academy who only knew how to fight.

In the Han Dynasty, whether you studied medicine, wrote poetry, practiced physiognomy, or even farmed, you were not necessarily inferior to those warriors when it came to fighting.

The Han Dynasty was founded on military strength. Even the prime minister was required to have both ability and power. If you were not powerful enough, no matter how capable you were, you could only serve as the prime minister's assistant.

He does the work of a prime minister but receives the salary of a subordinate.

If you're not strong enough, join the army and earn merit through military service.

In short, either you are a very good fighter, or you lead a team that is very good at fighting.

From its inception, the Han Dynasty did not need those scholars who were physically weak but always claimed that they could govern the world with half of the Analects.

Confucius would want to punch someone if he heard such words.

Three days had passed, and before dawn, the Hundred Battles Pavilion of the Martial Arts Department was already crowded with new students waiting for Wei Qing.

The message only said that Wei Qing would challenge the Hundred Battles Pavilion in three days, but it didn't specify whether it would be in the morning, afternoon, or evening. Therefore, those students who wanted to ambush Wei Qing must have made preparations in advance.

If Wei Qing cannot be directly humiliated, it will lack persuasiveness.

There were many students who came to target Wei Qing, but even more students wanted to see Wei Qing targeted.

Especially after dawn, students who don't have classes come early to reserve a spot.

Two weeks ago, Wei Qing overpowered the lecturers and two supervisors of the Command Department at the gate of the Imperial Academy, which was quite a sight to behold.

The students who couldn't attend in person were disappointed for a long time.

To be honest, Wei Qing's martial arts skills were far inferior to his martial arts command skills, but his consecutive use of the Xiongnu barbarian eagles flying in pairs and wolves howling attracted a lot of attention and high expectations.

The Xiongnu barbarians, in particular, went to great lengths to investigate Wei Qing's ancestors after that battle, finding that they had mixed-race Xiongnu blood.

The investigation eventually revealed that although Wei Qing's ancestors were not particularly distinguished, they were all of the human race, meaning that Wei Qing indeed had no Xiongnu blood.

Therefore, when the Xiongnu barbarians heard that Wei Qing had entered the Hundred Battles Pavilion, they became even more concerned.

They even deliberately released the strongest martial artists among the new recruits to target Wei Qing.

Just as everyone was gathered outside the Hundred Battles Pavilion of the Martial Arts Department, Wei Qing and Cao Ying were already heading towards the Command Department.

"Sigh, is the command department really this deserted?"

Wei Qing looked at the deserted roadside and felt somewhat bewildered. Had he become outdated so quickly?

Cao Ying, who was standing next to him, was also taken aback and said, "It can't be that bad. Your bounty is already twenty or thirty thousand. How could no one be paying attention? They should all be waiting at the Hundred Battles Pavilion, right?"

Chapter Nineteen: One Hundred Floors, Unparalleled Hero

On the way to the Hundred Battles Pavilion of the Command Department, Wei Qing felt that many students around him were looking at him strangely. He turned to Cao Ying and asked, "Don't you feel that the way those people are looking at us is a bit odd?"

"Something's not right. Did I not wash my face properly?"

Cao Ying reached out and touched his face. He knew that today was a day when everyone was out and about, so he had washed his face twice. Surely it couldn't be that it wasn't clean?

Wei Qing was also puzzled. Was he making a fuss over nothing?

Something feels off.

The Martial Arts Department is next to the Command Department, so it didn't take long to reach the Hundred Battles Pavilion of the Command Department.

Wei Qing stared in disbelief at the deserted plaza outside the Hundred Battles Pavilion: "This...the area outside the Hundred Battles Pavilion isn't usually this deserted, is it? Besides, isn't this the peak season for freshmen to attempt to enter the Hundred Battles Pavilion? It doesn't make sense. Cao Ying, what...what did you tell the outsiders?"

Cao Ying looked completely bewildered: "I said you, Wei Qing, are going to challenge the Hundred Battles Pavilion in three days."

Wei Qing pressed further, "Didn't you say I was going to storm that Hundred Battles Pavilion?"

Cao Ying was shocked: "Do I need to tell you? It must be the Command Department, how could it be the Hundred Battles Pavilion of the Martial Arts Department?"

Alright, Wei Qing finally knows where the problem lies.

No wonder those students were looking at me strangely. How could I not be surprised?

I wonder if what I did counts as "openly repairing the plank road while secretly advancing the Chencang pass"?

"How about... I leave a message on the message board to tell them we're at the command department?"

Wei Qing had already stopped thinking about it: "Whatever, you decide."

Cao Ying awkwardly pulled out a jade pendant, which served as a student ID and also allowed him to read messages on the Imperial Academy's message board.

After simply leaving the message "Wei Qing is in charge of the department," he said to Wei Qing, "Someone should be here soon, do you want to wait a bit?"

"Since you've already left a message, let's wait a bit. If no one comes, who are we going to slap in the face for?"

Wei Qing rode his horse to the outside of the Hundred Battles Pavilion. Contrary to his expectations, the Hundred Battles Pavilion was not very tall, only about ten feet high. It did not look imposing or grand.

However, the Hundred Battles Pavilion of the Imperial Academy was not established after the establishment of the Han Dynasty. On the contrary, its existence can be traced back to the ancient Spring and Autumn Period when it was founded by the Jixia Academy.

During its heyday, the Jixia Academy accommodated almost every school of thought among the "Hundred Schools of Thought" of the time, and gathered together wise men from all over the country.

It was originally created to select wise and virtuous people from all over the world.

Only by passing through a certain number of levels of the Hundred Battles Pavilion can one be called a sage and qualified to enter the Jixia Academy.

Later, with the decline of the State of Qi, the Jixia Academy also fell into obscurity.

Until the Qin Dynasty unified the six kingdoms, the Jixia Academy completely withdrew from the historical stage, and the Hundred Battles Pavilion was also moved from the territory of Qi to Xianyang.

Later, the tyrannical Qin Dynasty was so cruel that heroes from all over the land rose up in rebellion against it. They made a pact that whoever first broke through Qin and entered Xianyang would become king.

With the assistance of Zhang Liang and Xiao He, Liu Bang first captured Xianyang. As the city fell, many of Liu Bang's generals took advantage of the chaos to loot gold and silver. Only Xiao He urgently dispatched men to transport the dozen or so Hundred Battle Pavilions away as quickly as possible.

This prevented Xianyang from being destroyed along with Xiang Yu when Xiang Yu burned it.

Later, when the Han Dynasty was established, Xiao He was appointed as the prime minister and established the Imperial Academy. The Hundred Battles Pavilion was finally reborn.

After Cao Ying finished explaining the origins of the Hundred Battles Pavilion, the old man in charge of guarding the pavilion looked at Wei Qing and said, "Unfortunately, since the establishment of the Imperial Academy, no one has been able to pass through the hundredth floor of this Hundred Battles Pavilion in the command department."

The fact that the old man was in charge of guarding the Hundred Battles Pavilion meant that he was no ordinary person, both in terms of strength and status. Wei Qing knew that the other party was talking to him. He closed his eyes slightly and then suddenly opened them again, saying with great confidence, "So I'm here!"

Upon hearing Wei Qing's reply, the old man laughed and said, "Such a confident tone. It's a good thing to be confident. If you don't even have this much confidence, you won't be able to get past the hundredth floor, let alone the sixtieth floor."

"Sixty floors?"

Wei Qing looked up at the Hundred Battles Pavilion and asked, "May I ask, sir, what level is the sixtieth floor?"

The old man seemed to have a high opinion of Wei Qing. He was unusually patient today, despite his usually irritable temper: "The Hundred Battles Pavilion of the Martial Arts Academy is divided according to strength. Generally speaking, the limit for being able to defeat ten thousand people is the twentieth floor, the limit for being extraordinary is the fortieth floor, the limit for being able to suppress mountains and seas is the sixtieth floor, the limit for being able to embrace the sun and moon is the eightieth floor, and the limit for being able to possess the body of the sun, moon and stars is the ninety-ninth floor. Only the eternally invincible can break through the hundredth floor."

However, the Hundred Battles Pavilion of the Command Department is different. Martial Arts Command doesn't have a concept of realm; there are only titles, which can be understood as official ranks or achievements that can be bestowed upon someone who is a general.

"May I ask your name, sir?"

"If one can reach level twenty, one is called a Hundred-Man General, meaning one can command a hundred people;

Those who reach level forty are hailed as the Eight Colonels, meaning they are capable of holding the position of colonel. Since the Han Dynasty had eight types of colonels, they were called the Eight Colonels.

Reaching level sixty is considered akin to being a general who has conquered the east, west, south, and north, and is thus collectively known as the "Four Generals Who Conquered the East and Four Generals Who Guarded the West." Passing level sixty signifies possessing the skill level of a general who has conquered the east and west and guarded the south.

If one can reach the 80th level, it is often the case that only one person can appear in several generations. Such a general is hailed as famous throughout China.

Those who can pass through one hundred levels... His Majesty personally bestowed upon them the title of unparalleled national hero!

A peerless hero?

Wei Qing recalled that among the three military treatises left by Han Xin, the last one was titled "Peerless Strategist".

Could it be that Han Xin once passed through a hundred levels?