By the time class ended at noon, the students left the classroom. The drowsiness that had gathered and swirled around them slowly scattered in the breeze.
When it was time for lunch, Chen Nan and the other three headed straight for the cafeteria.
Since the academy was under full lockdown and outsiders could not enter, students could order whatever food they wanted for their three daily meals. Naturally, that only referred to ordinary meals.
Since they had yet to find out what the special meals were like, nearly all the new students ate in the first-floor dining hall. The students who ate specially supplied food went up to the second floor through another passage.
The four of them ordered their food. There was plenty of meat, vegetables, and fruit, and Chen Nan was fairly satisfied with it.
They gathered around a table and began eating.
One really should not talk while eating, because then the mouth's attention strayed from the stomach, and the stomach could not help throwing a little tantrum. If it kept throwing tantrums for too long, they would become hidden ailments and eventually cause trouble.
But the mouth was an outsider. Upholding the crooked, heretical notion that brothers were like one's limbs while wives were like clothes, it was hard for the stomach to win it over. That was why people loved to talk while eating.
Shen Congyun began by complaining about how sleep-inducing Li Guodong's lectures were, and everyone chimed in. The topic was like a fart: once it started, no one knew where it would drift off to afterward.
Chen Nan ate silently, listening to them talk like children, feeling somewhat helpless.
At last, something useful came out of Shen Congyun's mouth.
Lowering his voice, he said with great solemnity, "Do you all know? Our academy has a certain custom. It seems academies like this all over the world do the same, and it's extremely disadvantageous to us."
Shi Lei's eyes opened unusually wide. "What custom?"
Shen Congyun whispered, "The custom is that during the first month after new students enroll, old students can bully them however they want. As long as they don't cause any serious injuries, it's allowed."
Lu Butong glared. "Who's afraid of whom?"
After casting him a disdainful glance, Shi Lei said, "Isn't that far too unfair? We just got here and don't know anything. Aren't we just waiting to be beaten up? What—what's the point of this?"
It actually did have some meaning, and positive meaning at that. Unfortunately, it was like opium: originally a rare and precious medicine, but after people kept developing it, it became something that harmed others.
Because of that unwritten rule, newly enrolled children learned how to spend money and pull strings, how to form cliques, how to fawn and flatter, how to act cute and curry favor...
Shi Lei was one of them. After speaking, he sat there tugging at his soft stubble, while slick glints of light showed only through the slits of his eyelids.
Chen Nan was also stunned. In an instant, the food in his mouth no longer tasted so good. This rule seemed even more unsuitable for him.
Shen Congyun asked everyone how they should guard against it, and Shi Lei said, "From now on, we should try to avoid upperclassmen. Come to class early, go eat late, and prepare some money. If we really can't avoid them, then we..."
Lu Butong slapped the table. "Isn't that utter bullshit? How can a dignified man do something like that? If someone comes looking for trouble, instead of facing them directly, you use such despicable methods."
Shi Lei smiled, shook his head at Lu Butong, and said, "You'll be a hero someday."
After that, no one said anything.
After lunch, they went back to rest. In the afternoon, they received their future class schedules and lists of instructors.
Chen Nan took his and immediately looked for Li Guodong's name. When he saw that Li Guodong taught Transcendent History, he let out a long sigh of relief and finally understood.
No wonder Li Guodong's lectures made time seem to crawl by so endlessly. They carried the echo of history, so naturally they needed the heavy texture of history.
The morning classes were the relatively novel Meditation Class and Body Cultivation Class. Each class had already been assigned its students.
In other words, all nineteen of them would not attend those two classes together. Some would take Meditation Class, some would take Body Cultivation Class, and some would take both.
Chen Nan looked over the class assignments. He and Shi Lei had been assigned to Meditation Class, while Shen Congyun and Lu Butong were in Body Cultivation Class.
They were starting with practical classes right away. It would not be until the afternoon that they had academic classes.
The academic classes included Transcendent History, Basic Runes, incantations, and the like.
Among them, the Overview of Nature Masters course would be taught by Lu Fangliang. Chen Nan naturally remembered that man very clearly.
Since there were no classes that afternoon, the day passed quietly.
The next day, the first-year students all went to class in extreme excitement. After all, it was Meditation Class and Body Cultivation Class!
Meditation Class was the foundation for spellcasting-type Transcendents, while Body Cultivation Class was the foundation for martial-arts-type Transcendents. Only upon entering this stage could one be considered to have stepped through the Transcendent's door.
Whether one was merely glimpsing the doorway or taking the first step through it, it was immensely exciting. Once one became familiar with it, however, the interest would fade away.
Chen Nan's Meditation Class was held in a large hall. The setting was extremely simple: aside from a sound system at the front, there were only meditation cushions spread across the clean floor. Each cushion bore a student's name, and everyone could sit according to their assigned place.
Once everyone was seated, a teacher arrived as the class bell rang.
Chen Nan knew her name from the list they had been given. It was Xu Xiaojing. She looked pleasant enough, and her voice felt like cotton candy—soft and sweet. Fortunately, the children below had healthy kidneys. If there had been a group of middle-aged men in their forties or fifties instead, their urine sugar would surely have tested "+++" after class.
"Hello, students," Xu Xiaojing said with a smile. "I assume you all know my name already. As for you all, I need to get to know you too. Come, state your names and introduce yourselves."
The introductions began. When Chen Nan gave his name, she said, "Oh, so you're Chen Nan. Very good."
This drew the other children's attention.
Afterward, Xu Xiaojing handed everyone a small booklet containing an introduction to the basic methods of meditation.
"Meditation is the basic and effective method by which we Transcendents increase our strength and restore our power." As she walked, she dragged out her words. "It is the foundation of our growth, so everyone must take it extremely seriously.
As the saying goes, a ten-thousand-foot tower rises from flat ground. Without a solid foundation, the tower cannot be built high, and furthermore..."
Ten thousand words omitted here.
Chen Nan and all the students were deeply depressed. Couldn't they meet a teacher who actually got things done? What was the point of talking so much grand theory?
At any rate, at nine in the morning, they began meditating. This meditation completely exceeded Chen Nan's expectations.
Generally speaking, meditation required an extremely quiet environment, preferably somewhere in nature. But the meditation here was nothing of the sort.
Xu Xiaojing turned on the sound system, and an extraordinarily harsh sound began playing from it. Thankfully, it was not loud, but if someone with heart disease had been here, it could probably have forced them into an attack.
She instructed the students to sit in a specific posture, calm their minds, and let their consciousness follow the sound.
But the problem was that the sound was like countless claws scraping furiously across frosted glass. Every now and then came one or two howls like those of wild beasts, and even screams resembling a woman's shrieks.
With all those sounds mixed together, how could anyone possibly calm down?
Before fifteen minutes had passed, one student turned pale, broke out in a cold sweat, and vomited onto the floor with a loud retch.
There were nine students in total, yet fewer than five could continue enduring it.
Xu Xiaojing smiled and raised both hands. The little boxes on the podium floated through the air, each flying to the side of one of the vomiting children.
"There are earplugs inside. Put them in yourselves and recover for a while," Xu Xiaojing said.
Those children still had enough strength to move. Once they put in the earplugs, the world immediately became quiet. The sensation in their minds, as if ten thousand venomous insects were biting them apart, slowly began to fade as well.
Half an hour later, even more children could no longer hold on. In the end, only three remained.
Shi Lei and Chen Nan were among those three.
Chen Nan had broken out in a cold sweat too. He truly could not understand how such noise could possibly help meditation. The irritation in his heart felt as though glowing coals had been placed beneath him to roast him.
But gradually, the AI within his nervous system began to function. In truth, the AI had been running all along, searching for the sound's patterns—its frequency, timbre, pitch, and so on—then calculating the laws governing those conditions.
Slowly, the AI found the pattern and made Chen Nan's brainwaves match it.
This also required time, but with the AI fused into his nervous system handling it, it was much more convenient.
Chen Nan's brainwaves began changing along with the sound's pattern. This caused the sound to gradually lose its nature as noise and transform into something exceedingly pleasant to hear.
His thoughts began to be influenced by it, spreading into the surrounding environment like gently flowing water...
"Blergh!"
"Blergh!"
The final two, including Shi Lei, finally collapsed as well. They put in their earplugs, while Shi Lei looked at Chen Nan's serene appearance with envy.
About forty-five minutes had passed. Xu Xiaojing checked her watch, revealing a surprised expression as she thought, What perseverance, what talent! To last this long on his first try—I haven't seen that in a long time.
She remembered that the academy's record was only one hour and two minutes. Even the most outstanding genius in the entire country, that great figure who now stood at the pinnacle of Qingyang Kingdom's Transcendents, seemed to have lasted only one hour and forty-five minutes.
Looking at Chen Nan like this, could he break the academy's record? Of course, it was absolutely impossible for him to break that great figure's record.
Before you continue