30: Chapter 30: A Crash Course for Keyboard Warriors and Mind-Bending Training
Heavenly River Sword Sect, the small forest behind the mountain.
This place was once the sacred ground where Inner Sect Disciples enjoyed romantic interludes and pledged eternal love, but now it is shrouded by an invisible Sword Qi and sealed off as a restricted area.
In the center of the restricted area, ten oddly shaped Disciples sat cross-legged, their expressions a mixture of bewilderment and creeping existential doubt.
These were the 'treasures' personally selected by Dugu Yun from tens of thousands of people across the entire Sect.
There was an administrator who habitually fought tooth and nail with vendors over half a copper coin in the Procurement Hall.
There was a hothead who was punished to face the cliff for three hundred years for talking back to an Elder, yet he managed to turn the meditation cliff's stone wall into a bulletin board covered in complaints.
There was even an old man responsible for dumping the night soil for the Outer Sect, simply because when he cursed people, he could cite classics, find angles that were sharp and tricky, and effortlessly deploy every kind of vulgarity from all walks of life, all while possessing formidable lung capacity.
In any proper Sect, this group would be considered the dregs that needed to be 'optimized' away.
But in Li Mo's eyes, they were peerless raw jade, unpolished but brilliant, trump cards capable of overturning the entire battle situation.
"Everyone."
Li Mo leaned lazily against an old tree, holding a freshly broken willow branch, gently tapping the blackboard temporarily fixed behind him with Spiritual Qi.
On the blackboard, a line of wildly written characters, brimming with Killing Intent, seared everyone's eyes.
【Core Mind-Cultivation Technique, Rule One: As long as I have no morals, you cannot hold me hostage.】
The ten Disciples' eyelids twitched violently.
"..."
What kind of monstrous words were these?
Isn't our Heavenly River Sword Sect a righteous and famous school? This Mind-Cultivation Technique looks more like a Demonic Path rapid mastery manual!
"Put away those expressions like you've never seen the world before."
Li Mo poked them with the willow branch, looking disappointed that they hadn't lived up to his expectations.
"What do you think this debate at Jixia Academy is for?"
"To treat them to a meal? To compose poetry?"
"No!"
His voice suddenly turned cold.
"It is war!"
"Your tongue is your sword! Your saliva is your poisoned hidden weapon!"
"What are those hypocrites from Jixia Academy best at? Standing on the high ground of morality to crush you with grand principles! They will say: 'You Sword Cultivators have too much slaughter on your hands, which harms the harmony of Heaven. This is not the way of a gentleman.'"
Li Mo swept his gaze across the room, pointing the willow branch at the old man who dumped night soil, "You, come here. How would you respond?"
The old man froze for a moment, struggling for a long time before timidly replying, "Respond... respond, Senior, can this old man say that we kill demons and protect the common people? Heaven and Earth will judge our merits and faults?"
"Wrong!"
"Greatly wrong! Zero points, scram!"
Li Mo struck the blackboard with the willow branch, making a crisp 'snap' sound, his heart aching to the point of breathlessness.
"If you answer like that, you are essentially admitting the premise that 'killing is a sin'! You've fallen into their logical trap! Trying to explain proves you are guilty! In terms of Aura, you've already lost everything, down to your underpants!"
"Then... then what should I do?" The old man was completely bewildered.
"You should look at him with an expression that treats him like an idiot, containing three parts pity and seven parts shock."
Li Mo instantly switched into a dramatic mode, his expression exaggerated to the point of distortion. He pinched his throat and spoke in a melodramatic, drawn-out tone:
"'Ah? Sir, are you saying that killing harms the harmony of Heaven? Then may I ask if you eat meat regularly? Are the grains on your plate not also life? When you drink water, there are eighty-four thousand tiny creatures in a single bowl—have you never killed them? When you walk on the road, have you never accidentally stepped on an ant?'"
"'If you have done any of these things, your sin is probably ten thousand times heavier than mine, a Sword Cultivator who slays demons and eradicates evil! How do you still have the face to live? Why don't you quickly commit suicide to apologize to the world and fulfill your damn Heavenly Dao!'"
Li Mo paused, surveying the stunned faces, a malicious smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
"This is called the 'reductio ad absurdum' method!"
"Magnify his viewpoint infinitely, push it to an absurd extreme, and make him eat his own excrement!"
The Disciples' bodies trembled violently, as if their very skulls had been lifted off. A rush of enlightenment, like Chaos Qi, shot straight to their minds.
So... this is how you can talk about things?
"One more topic."
Li Mo grew interested.
"If they despise you and say: 'Heavenly River Sword Sect does not respect the teachings of the Saints, they are barbaric and crude, merely northern barbarians.' Trying to suppress you based on status and region."
"You should immediately retort: 'The teachings of the Saints are meant to enlighten the people, not to cultivate a flock of parrots that only repeat words. Sir, you mention the Saints and their teachings with every breath. Where exactly did the Saint teach you to look down on people through your nostrils?'"
"'Ask one more question: If there were no Saints, would you not even know how to speak? Would you not even know how to walk? If a Saint were to fart today, would you rush over to smell it and then praise it as the pure Qi of Heaven and Earth?'"
"This is called 'questioning authority,' supplemented with an appropriate amount of 'personal attack'!"
For the next half a month.
This small forest, once belonging to lovers, completely transformed into a hatchery for 'Trolls'.
Li Mo imparted everything he had learned in his previous life—the keyboard warrior's 'setting aside facts', the contrarian's 'if you're so good, you do it', the debate genius's 'straw man fallacy', and the fan club's 'slippery slope fallacy'—without reservation, systematically teaching these simple Sword Cultivators.
Day one: Their worldview collapsed.
Day three: Their worldview shattered.
Day seven: They began to reconstruct a worldview named 'Li Mo'.
Day fifteen.
Their eyes had changed.
From the initial clarity, foolishness, and confusion.
They became... profound, cunning, and flickering with a brilliant light called 'wisdom,' which was actually 'rogueishness'.
The old man who used to dump night soil was now sitting with his legs crossed, leisurely spitting out a sentence to an imaginary opponent:
"Your so-called 'Dao' is merely a projection of your inner prejudice onto reality. Friend, you haven't even conquered your own prejudice, yet you dare to come here and talk to me about the Heavenly Dao? Don't you find that laughable?"
Dugu Yun, standing on the canopy of an ancient tree a thousand meters away, felt his skin crawl and instinctively grabbed his beard.
One strand, two strands, three strands... he was nearly bald.
"What have I done..."
The old man sighed toward the sky, his expression incredibly twisted—half horror, half... uncontrollable secret delight.
He could already foresee that after the Dao Debate Assembly, the reputation of Heavenly River Sword Sect would likely plummet from the 'Number One Sword Sect of the Northern Lands' directly to the 'Number One Grousing Sect of the Three Realms'.
In the future, perhaps no one would dare speak to a Disciple of the Heavenly River Sword Sect.
Who would dare? Who wouldn't fear being angered to the point of exploding on the spot?
But looking at the Disciples below, all of them flexing their muscles, eyes shining, desperate to rush to the entrance of Jixia Academy right now to start an argument, Dugu Yun had to admit—
Damn it.
This move was truly satisfying!
"Alright, the special training is over."
On the last day, Li Mo tossed aside the willow branch, which was now polished smooth from use, and looked at the ten transformed 'Debate War Gods' before him.
"Remember, once you're on stage, don't argue logic with them; argue 'logic'—*our* logic!"
"Don't be afraid of losing face, because your opponents, those sanctimonious hypocrites, are more afraid of losing face than you are!"
"Our slogan is—"
The ten Disciples suddenly stood up, chests out, Qi sinking into their Dantians, unleashing a roar that shook the forest:
"Speaking someone to death requires no life repayment! Angering someone to death incurs no liability!"
"Tianhe Trolls, unmatched in the world!"