Was tonight really going to end just like this?
How could that do? I'm on a roll right now, practically aided by the gods. Wouldn't I be an idiot if I didn't seize every second to cultivate?
Then... should I go back to the dorm and study?
No, no, no. With that smell, no matter how free of distractions I am, I can't withstand it. That faint drunken haze is like having a health-draining debuff cast on you every moment. Studying there, I'd probably find it hard even to enter a focused state. Why else do those delinquents in the Trash Class like smoking? At least twenty percent of the reason has to be that hazy smell—they use cigarette smoke to cover up the stench.
Going back to the dorm to study is impossible. Absolutely impossible. I can only scrape by in the study room. Seeing the raging flames and wandering crackling lightning on the progress bar showing signs of cooling off, Shi Tiexin grew anxious. He had to find a place and keep the combo going!
He looked around. How about finding somewhere with light and sitting on the ground? I could borrow light by chiseling through a wall. It has to be better than the dorm.
But at that moment, another consciousness stirred within his spiritual domain, and Shi Tiexin suddenly understood—Fengming First High School truly was Fengming First High School. It carried the gap between ranks into every last detail. Besides the study rooms before him, there was actually a large study room used by the Elite Class, one that people like Zhao Qingmiao could not even access.
That large study room was not far away. Shi Tiexin decisively turned around and headed toward the Elite Class study room with the other two. Up the stairs, a few steps forward, then around a corner, and they arrived outside a large classroom. Its windows were bright and spotless, its conditions excellent. Looking through the huge glass windows, he saw that it was not only spacious enough, but even had cushioned seats inside. Just looking at them made his backside feel comfortable.
Shi Tiexin glanced at the entrance. Good—the security guard responsible for managing the classroom and verifying student identities was not there. Perhaps he had gone to the restroom. Shi Tiexin nodded at the two of them, hoisted his bundle, and pushed open the door to the Elite Class study room.
Shi Tiexin had heard the name "Elite Class" for so long, yet this was his first time truly coming into close contact with its students. And his first impression was—well deserved.
Shi Tiexin did not make much noise when he pushed open the door, but even the finest door would make some sound. Yet when he looked around at the densely packed Elite Class students, hardly anyone reacted. Most of them could not even be bothered to look up. At a rough glance, there were at least one hundred seventy or eighty people in the study room, but aside from the rustling of turning pages and the scratch of writing, there was almost no sound at all.
From front to back, all one hundred seventy or eighty students had their heads lowered, making their faces impossible to see. Shi Tiexin could not help sighing. These people had not entered the Elite Class by luck; it was absolutely through ability. If they had a view like his, perhaps every one of them would have a blazing progress bar hanging above their heads.
These clever and hardworking people were the targets he wanted to catch up to. Within half a semester, he had to crush all the swarming students in the study rooms downstairs and enter this small collective steeped in an intensely studious atmosphere. Only then would he have completed his second Destiny Mission.
Difficult.
Then I have even less reason to waste time. Starting from addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, I'll rise up and chase after them!
Shi Tiexin was not picky. He dropped into an empty seat, took out the two remaining elementary school Mathematics textbooks, and continued his journey of "Learn-Practice Integration." Before putting pen to paper, Shi Tiexin glanced at the icon on the right side of his view representing the usage progress of the Auxiliary Cultivation Manual. Sure enough, more than half of it had already been filled with light.
It seemed that once he completely used up this set of books, the durability of the Auxiliary Cultivation Manual would be entirely exhausted. An Auxiliary Cultivation Manual became invalid after being used once; using it again would have no effect. That was precisely why Auxiliary Cultivation Manuals were such gold-devouring monsters in heart-cultivation, investments as bottomless as a fathomless pit.
But what did Shi Tiexin have to fear now?
Limit Training and Little Genius are still waiting for me!
Swish, swish, swish. Shi Tiexin reentered that focused state and once again began inexplicably being carried to higher ranks by an expert. The interface faded away, no longer disturbing his attention, while Shi Tiexin fully immersed himself in his studies, blending in with all the focused students around him.
An environment where everyone was studying with full concentration truly made it easier for people to settle down. Looking at the students around him, one could not help feeling that if one did not study, one would be left behind—and that not studying was practically a crime.
However, not everyone in this study room was wholeheartedly wrestling with problems.
At the back of the study room, Gu Shaohuai was furtively examining several spots in the classroom.
As a Key Class student, he indeed had no right to study in this room. But rules were rules, and enforcement was another matter. Gu Shaohuai had taken out money to treat the security guard at the door to cigarettes and tea, then poured out his passionate devotion to learning. The guard had let him in.
Having to stand watch here until the middle of the night every day was hard work for the guard too.
Gu Shaohuai had slipped in, and he was feeling great.
On the one hand, he thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of being in the highest tier, even if it was fake. It was like how, when he went up the teaching building in the morning, he deliberately continued upward from the fourth-floor stairwell. He would crane his neck like a proud rooster and walk up to the fifth floor beneath the admiring gazes of people seeing an "Elite Class god"—then secretly sneak back down to the Key Class.
You thought doing that was meaningless?
Gu Shaohuai thought it meant something. He felt that showing off like this was simply exhilarating. It was as though even that single turn he made when he rounded the fourth floor and stepped onto the stairs leading to the fifth could prove that he was superior to others.
And tonight, successfully sneaking into the Elite Class study room made him feel even better about himself. Looking left and right, he felt that he had been born to stand on the same level as these elites. Sitting here, although there was no one to show off to, his self-satisfaction still thrilled him beyond measure.
On the other hand, he had indeed come here on "serious business."
"Conduct reconnaissance on Target Number Three. Discovered that Target Number Three has secretly hidden a beauty magazine in his desk cubby. Continue recording Target Number Three's behavioral patterns. Before the exams, I can guide the Academic Affairs Office teachers here and catch him red-handed. That should smoothly take out Number Three."
Gu Shaohuai rapidly recorded the information in his little notebook, while his thieving eyes scanned from side to side. "Continue reconnaissance on Target Number Four..."
As he was scouting, Gu Shaohuai suddenly froze. Wait a second, that big idiot beside Target Number Four... wasn't that Scholar Stone?
How had he come to the Elite Class study room?
Before you continue