"Hey, look at Li Ziyu. He was crying and laughing just now. Couldn't he have taken the breakup too hard and gone stupid?"
"Being dumped isn't even the worst of it. I reckon what Li Ziyu really couldn't take was having no martial artist talent."
"Tsk, I've always heard people say that the Martial Arts Exam tests both talent and class. Turns out it's true!
Li Ziyu measured low qi-blood on one foot, and Xu Mengyao came over to break up with him on the other. Tsk! How realistic!"
"What could he do? Xu Mengyao has martial artist talent."
"I heard Chen Mengyao got together with Bai Haoran, which was why she couldn't wait to break up with Li Ziyu."
"Which Bai Haoran? You mean that genius from our school's Rocket Class? The top student in our grade?"
"Who else could it be!"
The classmates in the classroom looked at Li Ziyu's back with pity and discussed him animatedly.
Li Ziyu couldn't hear any of this. He had already arrived at the small woods behind the school.
Of course, even if he had heard them, he wouldn't have cared.
It was midsummer. Warm winds brushed his face beneath the setting sun and evening glow.
It happened to be dismissal time as well.
Quite a few boys and girls had come to the small woods, pulling each other along to sit there and whisper sweet nothings.
Smack, smack, smack, smack, smack.
Deep in the woods.
A series of smacking sounds rang out.
Killed a mosquito. Qi-blood +0.00001. Killed a mosquito. Qi-blood +0.00001.
Where there was grass and trees, there were plenty of mosquitoes.
Li Ziyu kept watch in all directions and moved with long, quick strides. Whenever he spotted a mosquito, he slapped it.
The system's chime-like notifications about his increasing qi-blood kept ringing in his ears.
At the same time, he felt warm currents continuously surge through his limbs.
They were faint, but this was the sign that his qi-blood was increasing.
However, the system panel did not display his exact qi-blood value. If he wanted to test it, he had to find somewhere with a Qi-Blood Tester.
"I remember Hongsu Martial Arts Hall near the school has a Qi-Blood Tester. I'll go there and take a reading later."
After just three hours, he had nearly finished slapping all the mosquitoes in the woods.
By then, the gloves on Li Ziyu's hands were covered with mosquito corpses.
In just the past two hours, he had slapped several hundred mosquitoes to death.
He estimated that his qi-blood had increased by at least a few hundredths.
"How come that guy's been swatting mosquitoes nonstop? It's been three hours. Is he mentally unwell?"
"I heard it's because his qi-blood didn't meet the standard, so he couldn't become a martial artist and went crazy."
"Oh, no wonder. Every year, a few people go crazy because they can't take the shock. It's perfectly normal.
Enough about that. A girl asked me out to dinner tonight."
"Huh? Don't tell me it's the goddess you've been fawning over for ages. How did she agree to go on a date with you?"
"Tch, what goddess? She's just an ordinary person with no martial artist talent who happens to be pretty.
My qi-blood measured 1.19. As long as I give it one final push, getting into a martial arts university shouldn't be a problem. I'm definitely going to become a martial artist in the future. Women like that are a dime a dozen."
"True enough... I need to give it my all this week too!
Sigh, but increasing qi-blood is really difficult. I trained for more than half a year and only raised mine by a few hundredths."
The boys and girls in the small woods pointed at Li Ziyu's back and whispered among themselves as they watched him ecstatically swat mosquitoes.
When one girl passed by Li Ziyu, she couldn't help muttering a few words.
"If you really like swatting mosquitoes, why not just spray them with insecticide?"
Li Ziyu happened to hear that and froze.
Right!
He really had been too close to the situation to see clearly!
The system had only said that killing mosquitoes could increase his qi-blood.
It hadn't said how he had to kill them. If he sprayed them with insecticide, wouldn't he still be the one killing them?
Li Ziyu's eyes lit up. He thanked the girl, startling her so badly that her face flushed and she fled as though escaping.
After walking some distance away, she couldn't help glancing back at Li Ziyu.
Come to think of it, that guy is actually pretty handsome.
Having been enlightened by the girl, Li Ziyu jogged all the way through the sports field and ran to the cleaning room on the first floor of the teaching building.
After thanking the cleaning lady, he took a can of insecticide, sprayed some insects, and headed straight for the small woods behind the sports field.
This time, he specifically chose places with dense vegetation.
That was because places with dense vegetation had more mosquitoes.
Pfft, pfft.
Mosquitoes buzzed wildly over the knee-high grass.
Li Ziyu lifted the spray can, aimed its nozzle at the buzzing mosquitoes, and sprayed.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
The mosquitoes scattered across the ground.
The system's pleasant notifications rang without end.
At the same time, waves of warmth surged from deep within his body.
Li Ziyu stretched his muscles and bones, feeling heat spread through his entire body.
Crack, crack, smack, smack.
He quickly threw several punches at the air before him.
Then he twisted his waist, clenched his fist, and drove it with all his strength into the poplar tree as thick as a man's waist in front of him.
With a muffled thud, the arm-thick trunk shook and leaves flew everywhere.
Ignoring the pain coming from his fist, Li Ziyu reached up to brush the leaves off his head, his face filled with excitement.
"My qi-blood really has increased quite a bit. In the past, my punch would have left the tree completely unmoved. Now, I can knock leaves flying!"
"I just don't know exactly how much it's increased. I'll go to Hongsu Martial Arts Hall and test it!"
Following the memories in his mind, Li Ziyu arrived at Hongsu Martial Arts Hall not far from the school and stopped at the entrance.
It was a three-story, low-rise building in a traditional Chinese style.
A plaque hung above the entrance, the four characters "Hongsu Martial Arts Hall" shining brilliantly beneath the sunlight.
Beside the entrance was an introduction to the martial arts hall, along with information about the registration fees.
"Good grief, a month's tuition costs twenty thousand yuan, and that isn't even with the hall master teaching personally..."
Li Ziyu sighed. Back when he delivered takeout, he had watched this martial arts hall from afar and envied it immensely.
Now that he was seeing it up close, he was still deeply shaken.
Even on the Earth of his previous life, few families could afford a twenty-thousand-yuan registration fee.
Not to mention Great Xia, where making money was even harder.
It was basically equivalent to three or four months of wages for an adult man who neither ate nor drank.
"Cultivating martial arts really burns money!"
Li Ziyu sighed. Then his gaze shifted downward, and he saw the personal information of Hongsu Martial Arts Hall's hall master. His feelings about the fees eased somewhat.
"Hong Tianlang, Level 3 Advanced Martial Artist, skilled in saber techniques and fist techniques."
"He's actually a Level 3 Martial Artist—and an Advanced Martial Artist at that. No wonder he dares to charge so much."
According to the information about martial artist levels released by the National Martial Arts Association,
martial artists were divided from low to high into nine major levels: Level 1 Martial Artist, Level 2 Martial Artist, Level 3 Martial Artist, Level 4 Martial Artist, Level 5 Martial Artist, Level 6 Martial Artist, Grandmaster, Great Grandmaster, and Martial Saint.
Each major level was further divided into four minor stages: Lower, Middle, Upper, and Peak.
A Level 3 Martial Artist could serve as the mayor of a city.
A Level 4 Martial Artist could serve as the president of a city's Martial Arts Association.
As far as Li Ziyu knew, the current mayor of Xujiang City was a Level 3 Advanced Martial Artist.
In other words, the hall master of Hongsu Martial Arts Hall, Hong Tianlang, was a major figure on the same level as the mayor of Xujiang City.
Even so, Li Ziyu still felt it was expensive.
There was nothing he could do. He was simply too poor.
He pushed open the door and entered.
The first thing he saw was a front desk. Behind the counter, a beautiful clerk in a white shirt and office attire was looking him up and down.
Seeing the school uniform Li Ziyu wore, the beautiful clerk smiled and spoke.
"Handsome, are you here to test your qi-blood and Combat Power?"
"Hmm? How did you know?"
"The Martial Arts Exam is coming up soon, so lots of people are coming to our hall to test their Combat Power—especially students from your school, since it's close by."
"But all the testing rooms are occupied right now. If you want to test, you'll have to wait a while."
"There's a lounge over here. I'll take you there. You can rest for a bit."
The beautiful clerk smiled as she came out from behind the counter and was about to lead Li Ziyu to the lounge.
"No need. I'll just wait here."
Li Ziyu waved his hand. Testing his qi-blood and Combat Power wouldn't take long, and a room would probably be free soon.
"All right, then. I'll pour you a cup of water."
Li Ziyu accepted the disposable cup of water the beautiful clerk handed him, thanked her, and sat down on a chair nearby to wait.
Just then, the martial arts hall's main door creaked open.
A stylishly dressed girl in bright clothes entered hand in hand with a crew-cut young man whose features were sharp and whose expression was brimming with confidence.
Before you continue