Gu Ci's Surprise

Inside the training room, the joy of successfully creating his own cultivation technique froze solid beneath a bone-piercing chill the instant the man in gray appeared.

Every muscle in Chen Fan's body went taut, and every hair stood on end, as if he had sensed his natural predator.

No aura, no heartbeat, not even a sense of presence.

The man was like a part of space itself. Had Chen Fan not seen him with his own eyes, his spiritual sense would have been unable to detect him.

Gu Ci's deathly still eyes swept over the bloodstained front of Chen Fan's clothes before settling for a moment on the tiny hole in the alloy wall, where the Five Elements Stars Transformation had erased the material.

He spoke slowly, his voice as hoarse as two rusty iron plates scraping against each other in a graveyard for a thousand years.

"Are you willing to learn from me?"

Chen Fan did not answer immediately.

He forcibly suppressed the terror of feeling his heart gripped by an invisible hand and spoke softly.

"Can you make me stronger?"

The question made the corner of Gu Ci's eternally unchanging deadpan face twitch ever so slightly, as though he were imitating an expression called a smile, only to produce something uglier than a cry.

A fleeting recollection of a bloodstained past seemed to flash in the depths of those deathly still eyes.

In a tone utterly devoid of emotion, he uttered a single word.

"Yes."

The word seemed to hold a power from the abyss: simple, yet impossibly weighty.

Chen Fan hesitated no longer.

"All right."

One word, crisp and decisive.

Gu Ci did not even spare him another glance. He turned and walked away, his movements silent as a drifting ghost.

Chen Fan followed without a word, burying both the elation of creating his own technique and his plans for the future deep in his heart.

When the two emerged from the training room, the Old Principal, Wei Tianlong, and Feng Lie were already waiting quietly outside the heavy Alloy Gate.

The fervor had yet to fade from Feng Lie's face, while Wei Tianlong wore a complicated, worried expression.

Only the Old Principal looked as gentle as ever.

He looked at Chen Fan as he emerged behind Gu Ci and spoke slowly. His voice was not loud, yet it echoed clearly through the empty corridor. "Chen Fan, from today onward, you are no longer a member of the Prodigy Class. For your subsequent cultivation, Teacher Gu Ci will give you exclusive one-on-one guidance."

At those words, even Feng Lie, who had already suspected as much, could not help his pupils contracting.

Exclusive guidance!

This meant Chen Fan had completely left Jiangnan No. 1 High School's conventional training system and entered a special track opened specifically for him!

"Also," the Old Principal added, looking at Gu Ci, "your resource allocation will remain unchanged. Eighteen bottles of Primary Qi-Blood Potion per week. I'll have them delivered directly to Teacher Gu Ci."

He would retain the benefits of a joint first-place ranking even after leaving the class ranking system!

This represented the school's highest leadership's unreserved trust in Chen Fan and their willingness to devote resources to him!

Gu Ci seemed oblivious to it all. He took no part in the conversation and did not even stop walking.

He led Chen Fan straight down the corridor, through a series of increasingly secure checkpoints, and deeper underground.

At last, the two arrived at a vast area in the deepest part of the campus underground, where a grim, murderous air hung even in the atmosphere.

The A-Rank Gravity Training Zone!

This was one of Jiangnan No. 1 High School's most heavily guarded core facilities. Only instructors who had made enormous contributions to the school or top students nearing graduation and striving to break through to a higher realm were qualified to apply to use it.

The cold metal doors slowly opened after both iris and gene verification.

Gu Ci casually took a set of pitch-black weighted gear made from an unknown special alloy from a recess in the wall and tossed it at Chen Fan's feet with a dull metallic clang.

"Put it on. Fifty kilograms total."

His command was brief and direct.

At the same time, he raised a hand and swept it across the Light Screen control panel of a nearby Gravity Room, enabling access.

A number lit up clearly on the Light Screen: 1.5G.

Fifty kilograms!

That weight might have been nothing to an adult martial artist, but for a nine-year-old child whose bones had not fully developed and who weighed only thirty kilograms, it was like carrying a small mountain!

Chen Fan said nothing.

He bent down and put on the cold weighted gear piece by piece.

The instant he fastened the last leg guard, a terrifying weight crashed down on him!

His body sank sharply, his knees bent slightly, and all his bones gave a faint groan under the strain.

But he only clenched his teeth, refusing to make a sound. Silently, he straightened his back, which had bent slightly under the weight, and walked step by heavy step into the faintly glowing Gravity Room.

The door closed silently behind him.

A gravity field of 1.5 times normal bore down on him in an instant!

Combined with the fifty kilograms he was carrying, a terrifying pressure enough to crush an ordinary child in an instant swept over him from all directions!

Chen Fan's cheeks flushed bright red, and even breathing became incredibly difficult.

But he only staggered in place before steadying himself.

Then, beneath Gu Ci's deathly still gaze, he began to practice the Five Elements Fist, with immense difficulty but unwavering determination, executing each movement by the book.

Every punch and every form was ten times slower than usual and took more than a hundred times the effort!

Sweat soaked through his clothes in an instant.

Gu Ci stood outside the Gravity Room, his deadpan face showing no expression, as though he were watching a piece of stubborn iron being forged under a hammer.

He raised his wrist and spoke into the Personal Communicator on it, his hoarse, cold voice utterly without inflection.

"Principal, send his potions for today over."

"Also, put this A-Rank Gravity Room entirely under my control for the next month."

The communication ended.

His deathly still eyes pierced the thick reinforced glass, fixed on Chen Fan, who was drenched in sweat and trembling violently under the crushing pressure, yet still persisted in throwing punches.

Inside the Gravity Room, every second was now an ordeal.

The air seemed to have turned into viscous lead and mercury. Every breath came with a burning pain and pressed heavily on his lungs.

Under the 1.5-times gravity field, the fifty kilograms of weighted gear became a terrifying seventy-five kilograms of pressure, applied evenly to every inch of Chen Fan's bones and muscles.

This was far beyond ordinary weight-bearing.

Every punch Chen Fan threw was accompanied by faint sounds from his joints as they strained under the load. Every muscle fiber was forcibly torn and stretched, and waves of agonizing pain crashed against his nervous system one after another.

In just fifteen minutes.

Chen Fan's body lodged its strongest protest.

His vision darkened in waves, and everything he saw began to twist and blur.

Sweat had long since soaked his clothes. Mixed with traces of blood forced out through his pores, it stained his white Training Uniform a shocking dark red.

The Gravity Training Room really is difficult. My body right now... is still far too young!

A nine-year-old body was still developing. Even with the aid of 80 calories of Qi and Blood, it was still very frail.

The Star Qi and Blood in Chen Fan's body, which had once surged like a dragon, also began to grow chaotic and restless. Like a herd of wild horses that had lost control, it rampaged through his meridians, seemingly on the verge of complete collapse at any moment.

Outside the Gravity Room, Gu Ci's deathly still eyes showed no fluctuation.

Fifteen minutes.

For a nine-year-old child whose bones had yet to set, under such a load, this was the absolute limit of limits.

The result met his expectations.

It was what an exceptionally gifted youth should be capable of, and nothing more.

Chen Fan clenched his teeth so tightly that he could even taste blood spreading through his mouth.

Although his body had reached its limit, Chen Fan was no ordinary nine-year-old child. Possessing the memories of his soul from his previous life had already made his willpower far greater than that of many adults.

"Hah..."

A low growl escaped Chen Fan's throat.

He clenched his teeth and, with an almost unreasonable force, suppressed the churning Qi and Blood that had nearly burst out of his body!

Relying on his Peak Perfection understanding of the Five Elements Stance, he forcibly adjusted his long-disordered breathing rhythm and steadied his swaying body once more.

Then he continued to swing his fists, slow as a crawling turtle yet impossibly heavy.

Another ten minutes passed.

The corner of Gu Ci's eyebrow moved almost imperceptibly on his eternally unchanging deadpan face.

"Not bad!"

"To persist for another ten minutes through sheer will after reaching his physical limit—this resolve has already surpassed ninety-nine percent of those so-called geniuses."

Gu Ci spoke softly, though his expression remained largely unchanged.

Such perseverance...

It met the threshold he had set for teaching students back then.

But as time passed, what happened next truly surprised Gu Ci.

Not only did Chen Fan, inside the Gravity Room, not quickly collapse as his will burned, he gradually found a strange balance amid the extreme pain.

He was no longer simply using his body to resist the omnipresent pressure.

Instead, he began actively guiding that terrifying pressure, enough to crush everything, and using it to polish, compress, and temper every trace of Qi and Blood in his body!

With every circulation, his Qi and Blood became more condensed and purer than before!

Time passed, minute by minute, second by second.

In the blink of an eye, an hour had passed.

Inside the Gravity Room, Chen Fan's figure was still swaying, and his limbs had never stopped trembling. Yet he was like a reef nailed in place, standing firm no matter how the raging waves battered him.

Stubborn beyond reason.

At that moment, a genuine ripple finally stirred in the depths of Gu Ci's deathly still eyes.

"This little fellow..."

A rare look of shock appeared on Gu Ci's face.

He had taught many students, every one of them a top genius at Jiangnan No. 1 High School.

But Jiangnan No. 1 High School was a middle school, after all, and these geniuses were only children. Perseverance had to be honed, yet Chen Fan's had reached this level before he had even begun to hone it.

"This boy's perseverance... inspires even greater anticipation than his talent!"

Gu Ci spoke softly, and a hint of life suddenly appeared in his emotionless eyes.

Just then, a researcher in a work uniform hurried over. He did not even dare approach Gu Ci, instead setting a specially made metal case on the ground from a distance and saying respectfully, "T-Teacher Gu, the potions you wanted."

With that, he fled as if avoiding snakes and scorpions.

Gu Ci did not turn around.

His gaze remained fixed on the small figure, as though he meant to see through him completely, from the inside out.

He slowly raised a hand and lightly pressed the control Light Screen.

Hum!

The gravity field shut off.

The instant the pressure vanished, the nerve Chen Fan had held taut to its limit suddenly relaxed. Like a puppet with all its bones pulled out, he crashed to the ground before he could even grunt.

His vision was black, and the thunder of his wildly pounding heart filled his ears. Aside from the agony, he could feel nothing, and he could not move even a finger.

Gu Ci did not approach.

He simply opened the metal case, took out a Primary Qi-Blood Potion, and casually tossed it.

Smack.

The cold potion vial landed precisely beside Chen Fan's mouth.

Immediately afterward, that hoarse, cold voice, utterly devoid of emotion, rang clearly in his ear.

"Drink it."