Giving Up!

New Continent Central, Ziying Academy.

The entire academy was laid out in a circular formation, its buildings scattered in an orderly pattern across a hundred-kilometer radius.

Just inside the academy gates stood two hundred-meter-tall stone steles, one to the left and one to the right.

Their surfaces were not made of stone, but inlaid with two enormous screens.

A hundred names were arranged vertically on each screen.

The bases of the steles bore the characters "Initiation" and "Journey," respectively.

At the center of the academy,

a fifty-meter-tall World Gate stood silently, its nebula slowly revolving.

Gun emplacements and fortresses filled the surrounding area, sealing the World Gate in tight.

On the academy's southeastern side lay the Martial Dao Third Academy.

Thanks to Dean Ye Yukong personally overseeing admissions, nearly four hundred new students had joined the Third Academy this year.

The spacious classroom was packed to the brim.

Tap, tap...

Lu Qing walked into the classroom in a small suit, having deliberately perched a pair of black-rimmed glasses on her nose.

The students who had previously gone to the moon all widened their eyes in confusion.

"Senior Sister?!"

"What Senior Sister? I'm your homeroom instructor now!"

Lu Qing adjusted her glasses, her gaze searching through the students before swiftly locking onto her target.

"Mou Yu, you'll be the class monitor. Cooperate with the teachers properly."

Mou Yu stood up and calmly said,

"Yes, Teacher!"

Lu Qing smiled and nodded in satisfaction.

"Today, I'll be teaching you your first lesson. No need to take attendance—I trust no one would dare skip class."

"Teacher, Li Qingshan hasn't arrived yet!"

A student suddenly spoke up, and the others looked toward Lu Qing with hopeful eyes as well.

Most of them had never seen Li Qingshan, but over the past two days, the legends about him on the forums had already taken root in their hearts.

They only knew that Li Qingshan was still on the moon, yet did not understand why he had remained behind.

Naturally, they hoped to pry a little information from Lu Qing now.

"Li Qingshan has another assignment. You don't need to concern yourselves with him!"

Lu Qing waved them off, with no intention of revealing anything.

"Ah?"

The students' eyes immediately filled with disappointment.

"We wanted to see how high Li Qingshan could climb on the 'Initiation' Stele!"

Actually, the teacher wanted to see it too...

Lu Qing agreed inwardly, but her expression turned stern.

"The 'Initiation' Stele records the hundred strongest freshmen in Ziying Academy's nearly five-thousand-year history. How could it possibly be that easy to break into?"

Seeing the students' dimmed gazes, Lu Qing changed her tone.

"Of course, it isn't impossible."

"Hm?"

Lu Qing swept her gaze over the pairs of brightening eyes, pausing on several students who had reached the Second Turn of Limit Break, including Mou Yu.

"As long as you are willing to give up the Path to Breaking Limits and break through to the Blood Solidification Realm, your names may still have a chance of making it onto the Initiation Stele."

"Give up?"

The students looked at one another, their expressions hesitant.

In truth, their high school teachers had told them the very same thing.

"I know it's hard for you to accept. I didn't want to give up back then either."

A nostalgic look appeared in Lu Qing's eyes as she shook her head.

"But the Path to Breaking Limits is as hard as climbing to heaven!

"If your talent is insufficient, rather than wasting away your years, it would be better to break through early and raise your realm.

"One of my classmates back then missed the opportunity to go to the Martial Dao Great Star because of this!"

Lu Qing's expression turned serious as she looked at every student.

"The Path to Breaking Limits was passed down from the Martial Dao Great Star. It was meant for peerless geniuses to walk."

"Our many planets only borrowed this path because we wanted talented students like you to achieve the First Turn of Limit Break and take a shortcut toward rapid Blood Coagulation."

"But the scenery along this road is too beautiful, causing many to linger there and squander their years, even dying with their paths extinguished."

The students all fell silent. Lu Qing also stopped speaking, quietly waiting for them to think.

Giving up was the first lesson she intended to teach.

By the window, Mou Yu's brows furrowed slightly as she turned to look at the sky outside.

"Is the Path to Breaking Limits truly only for peerless geniuses?"

On the moon, inside the factory building.

Li Qingshan sheathed his saber once more and looked at the now-quiet World Gate, shaking his head in disappointment.

"Big monkey, put some effort into it! I'm the enemy who wiped out your family!"

Only seven or eight ferocious beasts had passed through the World Gate today. The gains were far too meager.

Robots silently rolled over to clean up the mess covering the ground.

Li Qingshan sat cross-legged and closed his eyes again, entering the Martial Dao Space to begin cultivating.

Time flowed on as the moon circled Ziying Star, lap after lap.

Every day, aside from killing ferocious beasts, Li Qingshan spent nearly all his remaining time sitting cross-legged and cultivating Blazing Sun Nine Revolutions in the Martial Dao Space.

At a hundredfold time flow, every blink of his eyes represented two or three months of cultivation.

The proficiency of Blazing Sun Nine Revolutions likewise soared rapidly through his ceaseless day-and-night cultivation.

In the blink of an eye, seven days passed.

August 8th.

Before the World Gate, Li Qingshan's eyes suddenly opened.

Cultivation method: Blazing Sun Nine Revolutions 1/(Fifth Revolution)

His will hung high, and his qi and blood returned to his control.

Without hesitation, Li Qingshan immediately opened a bottle of Amethyst Origin Elixir and tipped it back.

He sat down in calm meditation as his qi and blood began circulating rapidly according to the Qi Guiding Art.

On one side of the factory building, Guan Xiao, who had been meditating with her eyes closed, opened them and curiously looked toward Li Qingshan.

In eight days, this was the first time Li Qingshan had taken Amethyst Origin Elixir.

She also understood the Path to Breaking Limits.

Li Qingshan had clearly spent the previous eight days sitting cross-legged to cultivate Blazing Sun Nine Revolutions and sense his qi and blood.

But shouldn't one first fill up one's qi and blood during limit-breaking cultivation, then slowly attempt to gain control of it?

Moreover, as far as she knew, every turn of limit-breaking cultivation was paired with the Qi Guiding Art from a Limit Realm Secret Method.

No family's Qi Guiding Art was cultivated while sitting down!

Two hours later, Li Qingshan opened his eyes again, opened another bottle of Amethyst Origin Elixir, drank it, and continued cultivating.

Guan Xiao was dumbfounded.

She had seen other limit-breaking martial artists cultivate. They simply had no need for premium medicine like Amethyst Origin Elixir, and every cultivation session left them utterly exhausted.

Who cultivated continuously like Li Qingshan?

When had cultivating the Qi Guiding Art become so easy?

And this was only the beginning.

Over the following stretch of time,

Li Qingshan drank a bottle of Amethyst Origin Elixir every two hours beneath Guan Xiao's ever-widening gaze.

Though exhaustion gradually appeared between his brows, his cultivation never stopped, and empty bottles were tossed one after another onto the ground.

A full ten hours later,

Hoo!

The tension between Li Qingshan's brows eased as he let out a long breath, his gaze flicking over the panel.

Realm: Third Turn of Limit Break 1/100 → Realm: Third Turn of Limit Break 3/100

"Two points of progress a day? That means fifty days in total!"

After doing a quick calculation, Li Qingshan lowered his head and looked at the empty bottles on the ground.

Five bottles of Amethyst Origin Elixir were consumed in a day of cultivation. The two hundred bottles he had bought earlier were too few.

He opened the points store and ordered another fifty bottles.

-5000 points

Just then,

"Are you really sure there's nothing wrong with cultivating like this?"

Guan Xiao could not help stepping forward and asking softly.

She did not want to disturb Li Qingshan either, but this method was too frightening. In one day, he had nearly caught up to another person's cultivation progress for an entire month.

"No need to be surprised."

Li Qingshan glanced at the girl from the side and calmly said,

"I have gained some insight into qi and blood, so I cultivate a little faster."