BUFF: Ruthless Continuous Study

News of the mysterious student potentially earning a spot in the USTC Young Scholars Program spread among the students on-site, and it would likely ripple through the entire grade before long.

Beside the small blackboard, Liu Bin said to Chen Liang, "Director Chen, here's the plan—I'll come up with another problem tomorrow. We'll swing by during the senior year dinner break and see if that student shows up again."

"And while we're at it, we'll see if he can solve tomorrow's problem too."

Chen Liang asked, puzzled, "Didn't you say you had class tomorrow?"

Liu Bin waved a hand. "I'll rush over as soon as my class ends."

Chen Liang couldn't help but let out a wry laugh.

Alright, he could see it now—this Professor Liu had gotten it into his head to compete with the mysterious student, and he wouldn't rest until he found him.

Of course, that was convenient, because he wanted to find the student himself and see who it was.

So he nodded and said, "Fine!"

Another day slipped quietly by.

Friday, 6:30 PM, Affiliated High School cafeteria.

"Old Xiao, tomorrow's Saturday—wanna hit the internet café?"

A few second-year students sat at a table, eating and chatting.

"Nah." Xiao Yi replied.

"Damn, what's been up with you these past two weeks since school started? You haven't come with us in ages—weren't you calling yourself the top Yasuo of the Affiliated High School?" said his roommate Chen Wei, sitting beside him.

"Gotta study!" Xiao Yi shrugged. "In less than a year and a half, it'll be our turn for the college entrance exam."

Another roommate, Zou Yu'an, laughed and teased, "Old Xiao's living the senior year life early."

"Can't stand it." Chen Wei shook his head.

Xiao Yi shook his head too, not bothering to argue with his roommates.

Because they had no idea what had happened to him.

Over ten days ago, right on the first day of school, a voice suddenly appeared in his mind, telling him he'd obtained a buff called [Ruthless Continuous Study].

Seeing the name, he immediately thought of Jax's passive skill from League of Legends—[Grandmaster's Might].

And as for the effect...

It wasn't just similar—it was even more ridiculous.

[Ruthless Continuous Study]: For every hour spent studying, learning efficiency doubles, up to a maximum of 10 times efficiency.

For a student, this buff was practically god-tier. Ten times learning efficiency meant, simply put, that something that used to take ten hours to understand now only took one.

Of course, that was the surface-level interpretation. From Xiao Yi's experience, this tenfold efficiency didn't just speed up his comprehension—it also boosted his ability to grasp knowledge.

Hmm, how to describe that "ability to grasp knowledge"? It was pretty much like IQ.

There's a familiar joke: "Beat me and I'll do anything!" "Alright, try solving this math problem."

So, some math concepts, even if you gave Xiao Yi a whole year, he probably wouldn't master them. Even with ten times the speed, he'd still struggle to get them in a short time.

But now, as long as he stacked [Ruthless Continuous Study] to ten layers, knowledge like that would become as easy as 1+1 for him.

Of course, the buff was incredibly powerful, but there was one catch—it could expire.

[When [Ruthless Continuous Study] is not stacked to 10 layers, if no studying occurs within 1 hour, all layers are lost. When stacked to 10 layers, if no studying occurs within 7.5 hours, all layers are lost. After losing all layers, [Ruthless Continuous Study] enters a 7-day cooldown.]

That meant if he went 7.5 hours without studying, all the layers he'd spent 10 hours building up would vanish, and he'd have to wait a full seven days to reactivate the effect.

A whole seven days!

Having experienced the effects of [Ruthless Continuous Study] for so long, Xiao Yi absolutely couldn't stand the thought of returning to that "can't do it even if you beat me" state for seven days.

So, what else could he do?

He had to grind it out!

His sleep time absolutely couldn't exceed 7.4 hours—0.1 hours had to be spent studying to keep the buff alive.

The good news was that as long as he started thinking about problems in his head or reviewing what he'd learned, it counted as studying. So keeping the buff going wasn't exactly easy, but it wasn't hard either.

Still, if that were all, he wouldn't need to grind so hard. Once he hit ten layers, he'd just study a bit in his head every 7.4 hours and be done.

But there was another part of the buff's description: [If the utilization rate of [Ruthless Continuous Study] falls below 60% within 24 hours, the buff disappears.]

That meant in a 24-hour day, he had to study 14.4 hours to maintain the buff.

Basically, aside from the 7.4 hours allowed for sleep, he only had 2.2 hours a day to relax.

At first, Xiao Yi wasn't used to this schedule. Before, he'd been the type of student who believed in balancing work and rest—on weekends when he could leave campus, he'd often go to the internet café with his classmates.

But once he'd tasted the joy of studying at full ten layers, there was no going back.

The main reason people don't like studying is that they stare at a book for hours and learn nothing, getting no positive feedback.

But now, Xiao Yi could read for half a day and not only absorb all the knowledge but also connect it seamlessly, solving all kinds of tough problems with ease. Was he happy or what?

So, 14.4 hours of study a day? For him, it was a piece of cake!

In a few quick bites, Xiao Yi finished the rice left on his plate and asked, "Are you guys going to play ball before evening self-study?"

"Yeah." Chen Wei nodded. "You're not going again, are you?"

"Nope, heading back to the classroom to study." Xiao Yi waved a hand, then stood up. "I'll take off first."

"Bro, you've really changed!"

Several roommates flipped him off in unison.

After placing his tray at the return station, Xiao Yi left the cafeteria and headed back to the teaching building.

Returning from the cafeteria to the second-year section required passing through the third-year section, and so he walked along until he reached a corridor in the third-year area.

Suddenly, his gaze swept over. "Oh? There's an extra little blackboard here now?"

His eyes landed on a corner of the corridor, where three small blackboards were neatly arranged, each bearing a math problem.

The only difference was that on the first two blackboards, the answers had already been written out.

As for the third blackboard, there was no answer.

As for the reason, Xiao Yi understood it very well, because—

The problems on those first two blackboards were written by him!