January 6, 2043.
Today, Li Yuan didn't practice the Starry Spear Technique or the Dragon Walking Secret in the virtual network. So, he left home around three in the morning as usual.
"It’s been a few days since I’ve seen Jiang City at three in the morning," Li Yuan looked up at the dark sky and thought, "I can't slack off in my daily practice."
He arrived at his personal martial arts room at school. First, he practiced the Basic Cultivation Method for two hours before starting with the spear.
"Swish!"
"Swish!" The spear moved in his hands, transforming in unpredictable ways.
As he moved, sometimes the spear struck like a fierce storm, other times it was dreamy and elusive, and at times it was ferocious and violent.
Occasionally, he would suddenly thrust forward, and the tip of the spear would shoot out with such speed that it created a thunderous sound in the air.
Li Yuan had already mastered the eighteen forms of the Rock Spear Technique to perfection.
"I’ve grasped all five major killing moves of the Rock Spear Technique."
"According to Teacher Xu Bo's guidance, what I need to do now is practice repeatedly until the power of these five moves is ingrained in my bones," Li Yuan thought to himself. "In the end, I won’t need to consciously use a specific killing move; any spear technique I perform will reach a flawless level of power."
"Unity of body and mind."
"Then, it’s about reaching the fourth level of spear technique." Li Yuan pondered, "Improving my skills depends solely on myself."
"And according to the intelligent teacher, the breakthrough from third level perfection to fourth level is quite mysterious; it's a breakthrough in the awareness of the mind sensing the body."
"Some martial artists might break through after a good night's sleep."
"Others might gain insight through life-and-death battles."
"But most martial artists get stuck at the third level perfection for their entire lives."
"There’s no guaranteed path from third to fourth level," Li Yuan reflected. "What I need to do now is practice over and over."
"A thousand times isn't enough."
"Then, ten thousand times!"
"First, I need to bring my spear technique to 99% at the third level." Li Yuan was filled with desire. "Then I'll engage in virtual battles and real fights."
Years of spear practice had taught Li Yuan that if he couldn’t break through, it was simply a matter of not having enough accumulation. So he needed to practice!
"Reading a book a thousand times reveals its meaning." Li Yuan swung his spear. "The same goes for the spear."
"I’ve only ever heard of masters who’ve trained their spear techniques."
More than an hour later.
[Your spear technique level has increased from 90% at the third level to 91% at the third level.]
...
Around seven o'clock, Li Yuan arrived at the classroom. Most of his classmates were already there.
However, compared to the usual scene where everyone was seriously studying, the classroom felt much heavier today, with most people distracted.
"Old Zhou, why the long face?" Li Yuan sat down and pulled out a test paper while asking.
"Brother Yuan, the results for the January test are coming out soon," Zhou Qi replied gloomily. "Aren't you nervous?"
"Not nervous." Li Yuan shook his head. "The difference is just a few points."
"Forget that you're a martial arts student; the cultural subjects only account for 100 points," Zhou Qi sighed. "But I’m a culture student. If I don’t do well, I’ll get in big trouble at home."
"Then you’ll have to be Zhou Skinning," Li Yuan joked.
Zhou Qi shot him a helpless glance, too tired to argue back.
"You didn’t tell your family about awakening your Martial Spirit?" Li Yuan asked.
"I did," Zhou Qi replied. "But what good does it do? My dad just asked if I could get into a martial arts university in a few months."
"People have self-awareness. I didn’t expect to get into a martial arts university," Zhou Qi said. "So I’ve decided not to join the elite class."
"I just need to learn the advanced cultivation method."
Li Yuan was speechless.
Indeed, Zhou Qi's physical constitution was only at level 4.3, and his martial arts scores were pretty poor. Not joining the elite class wasn’t a bad choice.
"That’s fine," Li Yuan smiled. "You’ve awakened your Martial Spirit, and you can practice the advanced cultivation method. Your martial arts scores will improve a lot."
"Even if you take the cultural route, martial arts scores still account for 30%."
"Mm-hmm." Zhou Qi nodded.
At that moment, their cultural class teacher, dressed in a stylish top and pencil pants, appeared at the classroom door.
Teacher Chen's face was as dark as water, holding a stack of papers and two ranking lists.
In an instant, the classroom fell silent. Everyone knew the rankings were about to be announced.
Especially those students taking the cultural route, who all became tense, many unable to resist lowering their heads.
They were all silently praying, "Please don't call my name."
Of course, a few students with excellent scores were daydreaming, thinking, "Maybe I did well this time and can move up a few ranks."
For martial arts students like Li Yuan, they were relatively calm, as they at least had an idea of their scores.
"Bang!" The test papers were thrown onto the podium.
The atmosphere grew even heavier.
"This January test really revealed your true levels. Each of you slacked off in cultural studies and didn’t practice your martial arts properly..." Teacher Chen's voice was cold. "Do you all think staying at Guango High will get you into a top university? Dream on!"
"Based on this city-wide ranking, for those few people, getting into a second-tier university will be difficult. I won’t name names; you all know who you are!" Teacher Chen scolded like a machine gun.
Many students lowered their heads even further.
The January test was the first major unified exam for the third year, and the cultural test was intentionally difficult to shake students' confidence, forcing them to calm down and study better.
At this stage, as the cultural class teacher, Teacher Chen would not allow her students to develop a sense of pride.
She scolded for over ten minutes without repeating herself.
Even Li Yuan, with strong mental resilience, began to doubt if he was one of the "few individuals, rat droppings, some people" that Teacher Chen mentioned.
Finally.
"But there are a few students who made significant progress and deserve encouragement," Teacher Chen said lightly. "Alright, I’ll announce the cultural test scores now. Everyone listen carefully."
In high school, they didn’t focus on protecting students' score privacy.
"Li Shutang, 889 points." Teacher Chen paused. "Cultural score, second in the grade."
This immediately caused a stir; scoring over 850 points in cultural subjects meant she was a top student.
"Li Wanxing, 868 points."
...
"Zhou Qi, 849 points."
Zhou Qi, who had been looking down, slightly lifted his head, beaming with pride. His cultural score was quite good.
As each student's score was announced, some were elated while others looked gloomy.
Since there were rankings, if some moved up, others would inevitably drop.
Half the students were bound to be unsatisfied.
"Li Yuan, 742 points." When Teacher Chen called out Li Yuan's name, she added, "Not bad, a significant improvement."
Suddenly, many classmates looked at Li Yuan, making him feel a bit awkward.
They didn’t praise those who scored over 800 points.
Why praise him for scoring over 700?
"Brother Yuan, you only scored over 600 points last time, right?" Zhou Qi stared at Li Yuan with wide eyes. "You improved by nearly a hundred points?"
"Yeah, I spent more time studying recently," Li Yuan smiled.
"You’re full of it." Zhou Qi immediately retorted, "When have you ever come to the cultural classroom during evening study?"
"I was studying in the martial arts classroom," Li Yuan replied calmly.
One by one, students' scores were announced.
Li Tianyou scored 586 points, already among the bottom of the class. His cultural ranking was likely worse than last time.
In fact, among the ten or so martial arts students, Li Yuan's cultural score was already far ahead.
...
After announcing the cultural scores, Teacher Chen didn’t pause and directly said, "Now I’ll announce the martial arts scores. Listen carefully."
Everyone perked up to listen.
They already knew the cultural scores, and knowing the martial arts scores would allow them to calculate their total scores.
Teacher Chen looked at the second score sheet and glanced at Li Yuan, seeming a bit hesitant.
"Li Yuan." Teacher Chen paused for a moment before slowly saying, "827 points."
Boom!
The entire classroom erupted in astonishment, many staring at Li Yuan with wide eyes.
They doubted they heard correctly.
This martial arts score didn’t include cultural score calculations; in simple terms, the total score was out of 900 points.
Li Yuan had actually surpassed 800 points?
And by quite a few points!
Even though Li Yuan had performed impressively during the martial arts assessment yesterday, he hadn’t outshone Lin Lanyue, and now this score was truly outrageous.
"827 points? Brother Yuan, your cultural score is 74 points, so adding that..." Zhou Qi quickly calculated for Li Yuan. "Wow! Brother Yuan, your total martial arts score exceeds 900 points!!"
"Raw score, 901 points." Zhou Qi couldn’t help but exclaim.
"901 points?"
"Raw score over 900? Li Yuan." All the classmates were shocked.
This was truly impressive.
Cultural scores might improve significantly in a short time, but martial arts scores typically rose slowly.
"Ahem, ahem, quiet!" Teacher Chen coughed a couple of times to restore silence in the class.
"Li Yuan did indeed perform well this time."
"Physical constitution score, 438 points, third in the grade," Teacher Chen said. "Martial arts skills... 389 points, first in the grade."
"The individual score for martial arts skills is also the highest in Guanshan District and second in Jiang City."
Boom!
All the students in the class were once again excited and shocked.
Whether it was the 389 martial arts skills score or the second individual ranking in Jiang City, it exceeded their expectations.
Normally, such martial arts scores shouldn’t appear in an ordinary class like theirs.
It was simply magical.
"389 points?" Li Yuan, however, remained calm in his heart and muttered to himself, "Not bad. It seems that to exceed 390 or even approach a perfect score in martial arts skills, I’ll need to reach the fourth level of spear technique."
With a total martial arts score of 901 points, this result was far better than Li Yuan had expected.
"Teacher, what is Li Yuan’s total martial arts score of 901? Is he in the top ten?" Suddenly, a student couldn’t help but ask.
Others looked at Teacher Chen with curious and expectant eyes.
A total score exceeding 900 points meant that even without spirit bonus points, the ranking would likely be impressive.
Li Yuan also looked at Teacher Chen, slightly clenching his fist.
Could he make it into the top five?
"With a raw score, Li Yuan is second," Teacher Chen said directly. "The first in raw score is Lin Lanyue from the elite class, with 929 points."
"As for the final total score, Li Yuan is sixth in the grade, 212th in the city." Teacher Chen's face rarely showed a hint of a smile. "Based on past rankings, this score has a chance to get into the Five Major Martial Arts Academies."
Clearly, Teacher Chen was extremely pleased with Li Yuan's performance.
"Five Major Martial Arts Academies?"
"Ranked over two hundred in the city?"
"Sixth in the grade?" The other classmates were even more shocked, unable to help but look at Li Yuan.
"Brother Yuan, awesome!!" Zhou Qi was even more excited than Li Yuan.
"Sixth in the grade?" Li Yuan only showed a slight smile, inwardly sighing, "Still one rank short?"
(End of Chapter)