Fight!

Inside the office, Yan Menglu looked wistfully at the girl before her and said, "Cry if you want, but crying counts against the time too."

The girl cried even harder.

Yan Menglu's face turned cold. "I'm doing this for your own good. You really don't have much talent. Your family can't afford it, your preparatory physical test only barely passed, and your General Knowledge is only at an ordinary person's level. While there's still time, hurry and switch to the liberal arts. You can still get decent grades there."

This had been decided before summer break. It would not shift according to anyone's personal will.

After persuading the girl to leave, Yan Menglu sighed.

Though she had long known that some would be unwilling to accept it, this girl was far from the only student struggling today. Some had waited at the school gates at the crack of dawn to beg for mercy; some had dragged their entire families along to play the pity card, all so they could keep practicing martial arts a little longer.

This was the mainstream of the times. No one wanted to give up lightly.

But all those people thought about was continuing to practice martial arts. Yan Menglu had to consider much more.

No matter how unbearable it was, she had to harden her heart. Otherwise, she would only be harming them.

"Teacher Yan, we're here!"

She had only just adjusted her mood and prepared to face the next student reporting in when a booming voice rang out from the doorway.

Deng Hao strode in carelessly and, before she could speak, was the first to surge his Blood Qi.

Yan Menglu's eyes lit up, only to see Jia Dong following behind him also surge his Blood Qi.

Both were at the First Dragon Gate!

"Good!"

The word had barely left her mouth when the two automatically stepped aside, letting Li Ye enter last.

Yan Menglu's smile deepened. "You've given me quite the surprise. All three of you reached the Dragon Gate Realm?"

The corners of Li Ye's mouth lifted. The Blood Qi he surged left Yan Menglu stunned for a moment.

The pulse frequency jumped three times.

"Three Dragon Gate?!"

Yan Menglu's eyes went wide. "What did you do?!"

Deng Hao bared his teeth in a grin. "See? I told you Teacher Yan would be surprised."

They had been Preparatory Students before, yet after one summer, he had reached the Three Dragon Gate. Anyone would have been surprised.

"A relative became my master and taught me very well," Li Ye said with a smile.

Yan Menglu murmured, "Is this even a matter of being taught well or not?"

They might not understand, but how could she not?

They were all Preparatory Students. Martial arts had always been difficult to train in, and it definitely took tremendous effort.

For people like Deng Hao and Jia Dong, she was not surprised. Their families had the means and were willing to spend; if they made a sudden push, reaching the First Dragon Gate was entirely possible. If they progressed step by step, they might even have broken through during their senior-year preparatory period.

But for someone like Li Ye to break through all the way to the Three Dragon Gate in one breath, this was no longer a matter of whether one was willing to spend. Even eating people would not be this fast.

He had run into a truly great benefactor.

Still, Yan Menglu did not pry further. In her eyes, breaking through the Dragon Gate was a good thing.

"Three people broke through the Dragon Gate and transferred into the martial arts program. You've broken a record."

Yan Menglu took out the forms. "You've brought honor to the school too. Come handle the paperwork. Once school officially starts, you'll be Martial Arts Students."

They really had broken a record. As Li Ye had seen in the data back then, No. 14 Middle School's yearly ratio of Preparatory Students transferring upward was one hundred to one.

The two classes combined produced one each year. One extra was already a wonderful thing.

Now there were three at once. Adding Guo Chuming, who had broken through in the first half of the year, there were four in total. If nothing else, her year-end bonus would look better.

There was no need to verify whether it was real. Blood Qi Surging was the best proof, and it could not be faked.

After the three finished filling out the forms, Yan Menglu put them away and smiled. "Let me congratulate you again. Especially you, Li Ye. If you keep up this momentum and reach above the Fourth Dragon Gate during your senior year, you'll have the makings of a key Martial Arts University student. If you break through again—"

She did not even dare imagine it.

A Top Martial Arts University! How many years would it take for an ordinary school like No. 14 Middle School to produce someone like that?

The higher one went in the Dragon Gate Realm, the harder the pulses became to trigger. Since Yan Menglu had entered the school as a teacher, she had never seen anyone with the potential for a Top Martial Arts University.

There might be a little hope this time, but the circumstances were too unusual to judge by ordinary standards.

"Train hard!"

Yan Menglu waved them out, signaling for the students behind them to come in.

Surprises were occasional. Most students still had to transfer to the liberal arts or remain Preparatory Students.

But that no longer had anything to do with Li Ye and the others. After lunch, the three wandered through the streets.

Deng Hao and Jia Dong wore excited expressions, looking left and right, their eyes carrying a strange expectation whenever they looked at anyone.

After breaking through the Dragon Gate, they had gone to martial arts halls to learn martial arts. Deng Hao trained in Hammering City Breaker, a martial art that emphasized strength and weaponry, using twin hammers.

Jia Dong learned the Ape Strike Method, famed for being agile and ever-changing while also fierce and brutal. He used a long staff.

However, having only just begun learning martial arts, they had not yet reached the point of using weapons. Still, it was enough to make them swell with confidence.

When you held a hammer, everyone looked like a nail. For Deng Hao and Jia Dong, that saying could not have been more fitting.

They wanted to see whether there was some damsel-saving, blade-drawing act of chivalry somewhere, so they could step in and uphold justice.

Reality proved they had overthought it. Instead, the three of them gathering together, with two of them glaring fiercely at an old lady and a little girl, nearly got themselves reported to the police.

After their gathering ended, everyone went home. When school officially began on the first, Li Ye bid farewell to the teaching building where liberal arts and Preparatory Students were mixed together. Instead, he headed for a separate building in the rear.

That was where the martial arts program was located.

The martial arts program differed from normal schooling. There was not much distinction between stages. Students were divided individually by grade, but the program as a whole was not graded. Whether first-years or seniors, everyone who had broken through the Dragon Gate gathered together.

Li Ye entered the martial arts building with Deng Hao and Jia Dong. Before them was an open field, surrounded by training equipment from ancient times to the modern day. By the time they arrived, people were already there.

Some stepped on wooden stakes, doing their best to keep their bodies nimble, seemingly practicing Lightness Skill.

Some used iron-man posts, repeatedly slamming their entire bodies into the iron rods extending from the posts, shouting huff and ha as though practicing body-tempering techniques.

There were people wielding weapons, people punching and kicking, and people practicing dodges in front of high-speed tennis-ball machines.

It was a dazzling assortment of everything.

"It's you!"

The moment they entered, a voice rang out nearby.

The man wore a pair of iron boots and stalked over with a savage grin. "Good! I was just about to go find you, yet you delivered yourselves right to me!"

It was Guo Chuming.

He had lain in the hospital for three days. When he came out and wanted revenge, he discovered summer break had begun, so he could only swallow his anger. He had finally waited for school to start and had been about to trouble them after classes, but they had actually come first!

They had entered the martial arts program?

They had only just broken through. How could they compare to him, someone who had trained at the First Dragon Gate for so long? He had been careless last time. This time, he absolutely would not be!

As he spoke, Guo Chuming burst forward on both feet, faint wind whistles rising from his steps. As he reached them, he was about to leap up, one leg bending forward as he prepared to kick Li Ye, who stood at the front.

"Fight me one-on-one!"

Bang!

His feet had barely left the ground when Li Ye kicked him in the chest, sending him flying and skidding a distance across the ground.

"Get him!"

Li Ye clicked his tongue. "At worst, we'll pay a little medical fee!"

Deng Hao and Jia Dong grinned with bared teeth and rushed over, raining punches and kicks down on the fallen Guo Chuming.

"Can't you count?"

As Deng Hao pounded Guo Chuming, he laughed. "There are three of us and one of you. Who the hell is fighting you one-on-one? Before summer break, I hadn't broken through the Dragon Gate, so I let you strut around. After summer break, I've broken through the Dragon Gate, and I'm still supposed to let you strut around? Die!"