"Three years is too long; seize the day?"
Li Fei's words left Hao Yi stunned. Then the Special Grade Instructor burst into rare, uproarious laughter:
"Hahahahahaha!"
After laughing, he looked at Li Fei with an appreciative gaze:
"What a spirit—to seize the day! It's rare for you to have such ambition. Then go and give it a try. Your teacher will support you with all his might!"
Li Fei bowed to Hao Yi. "Thank you, Teacher!"
Then he bid Hao Yi farewell and headed straight for the Materials Building.
"Sister Zhao, may I ask if you have any Withering Fire Pills?"
Li Fei asked the materials administrator politely.
Not just anyone could come here to buy things. One had to be a Rank A Student to qualify, and some items could only be purchased with a Special Grade Instructor's signature.
Li Fei had been coming here often lately, so the administrators at the Materials Building had grown familiar with him. They knew he was Special Grade Instructor Hao Yi's student.
Li Fei had a neat, honest-looking face—he looked like a good kid at first glance. He was polite and spoke sweetly, so the administrators here all had a favorable impression of him.
"Wait a moment. I'll help you look."
Sister Zhao smiled at Li Fei.
Soon, she found it in a catalogue. "The Withering Fire Pill? We have it. Fifty-eight yuan a bottle, with ten pills per bottle."
"Please get me one bottle. Thank you."
Li Fei counted out a stack of banknotes and handed it over.
Soon, he received a bottle of Withering Fire Pills.
After putting the pills away, Li Fei jogged home.
After dinner, he returned to his room and took a Withering Fire Pill.
A dozen seconds later, the skin all over his body began to grow hot, and he also felt a powerful hunger.
Li Fei knew this was the signal of hunger and thirst from the Implant inside him, so he immediately took an Embryo Nurturing Pill and began practicing the Heavenly Constellation Stance.
Half an hour later, Li Fei stopped.
Under normal circumstances, the Implant in his body should have stabilized by now, allowing him to apply Golden Kui Balm. Yet he still felt hungry, and he had not broken a sweat.
For the Steel Armor Implant, sweating was a form of "excretion." Not sweating meant the Steel Armor had not "eaten its fill."
"As expected, it works."
Li Fei took another Embryo Nurturing Pill and continued practicing the Heavenly Constellation Stance.
This time, he continued for more than forty minutes before his entire body was drenched in sweat and the hunger vanished completely.
After wiping away the sweat, he took out the Golden Kui Balm and began applying it. Once he finished, he sat quietly and practiced his breathing method, accelerating his skin's absorption of the balm.
This time, it took less than five minutes for all the balm on his body to be absorbed.
Li Fei took out the Golden Kui Balm again and applied another layer. After finishing his round of experiments, Li Fei discovered that after taking the Withering Fire Pill, the Implant absorbed more than twice as much Embryo Nurturing Stage medicine as it did under normal conditions.
If he could take medicine and cultivate like this every day, his time in the Embryo Nurturing Stage would be cut by more than half! Li Fei looked at the Myriad Blood Bead inside his body:
Level: 3, 79% Blood Soul: 10 + 17%
The day he absorbed the Steel Armor Implant, he had used up more than three Blood Souls. He had then spent the next two days cultivating at high intensity, so his Blood Soul had never recovered to sixteen.
Practicing the Heavenly Star Overlord Body twice a day consumed around one Blood Soul. The Embryo Nurturing Stage medicine he took each day, combined with the damage caused by the Implant, amounted to roughly 0.3 Blood Souls.
Now that he had taken the Withering Fire Pill, the damage caused by the Implant and the medicine had doubled. The Withering Fire Pill itself also caused some damage, bringing the total to about one Blood Soul.
Therefore, if Li Fei wanted to maintain his current cultivation intensity, he would lose two Blood Souls a day—already more than he could recover each day.
"The energy has increased by sixteen percent. Two more days and I'll be able to level up. No problem."
Li Fei pondered silently.
Although this method of cultivation caused him to lose many Blood Souls every day, he also absorbed more energy. As long as the Myriad Blood Bead advanced another level, its daily Blood Soul recovery rate should surpass its consumption rate.
"But the problem now is that I don't have enough money."
Li Fei sighed.
Li Lei had given him two hundred yuan at first, and he had later earned six hundred yuan from the Graduation Grand Exam. But from the time he entered the Military Academy until now, Li Fei had already spent more than seven hundred.
He needed to accelerate his cultivation, but he consumed several times more pills than other people. The money he had left would not last long, and might not even be enough to buy his next batch of Embryo Nurturing Stage medicine.
Asking Li Lei for money was unrealistic. If Li Lei had that kind of financial power, he could simply have Li Fei take the university entrance exam.
"I have to find a way to make money."
Li Fei muttered to himself.
According to the plots of the transmigration novels he had read in his previous life, as a transmigrator, he could become rolling in wealth by coming up with a few inventions.
But as he gained a deeper understanding of this world, Li Fei had essentially abandoned the idea.
In the Great Blue Dynasty, even setting up a street stall would get you charged protection money. Even if he truly found a brand-new path to wealth, others would soon strip him clean. If he were lucky, he would end up as a wage laborer, making money for someone else.
If he were unlucky, he could lose his life! In this era, anyone who wanted to make a name for themselves needed either connections or strength. Otherwise, they would always remain a nobody.
So if Li Fei wanted to make serious money, he first had to become a powerful martial artist.
Yet to become a powerful martial artist, he first needed money. "I wonder if I could fight in underground boxing matches?"
For the moment, this was the only method Li Fei could think of.
Fighting more would allow him to absorb energy, speed up the Myriad Blood Bead's advancement, and earn money. It would be killing two birds with one stone.
But he had no connections in that area yet and knew nothing about how it worked. He could only take things one step at a time.
July 22.
On this day, Li Fei did not go to the Military Academy to cultivate. Instead, he accompanied Li Tianyu to Xingcheng Secondary Vocational School.
Today was the university admissions examination! Since Xingcheng belonged to Datong Prefecture, the university conducting admissions at Xingcheng Secondary Vocational School was Wu'an University.
The two arrived outside the school gates early and waited for Chen Lixin.
Chen Lixin and Li Tianyu were both taking the admissions examination today, but one was taking the written examination while the other was taking the martial examination.
A few minutes later, Chen Lixin arrived on his bicycle.
"How can you even be late for the admissions examination?"
Li Tianyu looked at Chen Lixin speechlessly.
Chen Lixin pushed up the frame of his glasses. "It proves that I'm confident of victory."
His written examination scores had always ranked first, so getting into Wu'an University's Business Department was practically guaranteed.
Before the Mingxin Reform, the Great Blue Dynasty selected its officials through the imperial examinations. After the Mingxin Reform, it changed to selecting them from the Twelve Universities.
For people like Chen Lixin, who studied the "civil" path, as long as they graduated from university successfully, they could basically become court officials.
As for those who entered the Conflict Mitigation Department at university, after graduation they would either take important posts in various regions or enter the military and begin directly as officers.
It could be said that as long as one entered one of the Twelve Universities, one's life had stepped into an entirely new world!
"How about you? Are you confident?"
Chen Lixin asked Li Tianyu.
Li Tianyu raised her chin. "Of course I've got this, big sister here has no problem!"
"You two do your best. I'll wait outside for your good news."
Li Fei said to the two of them.
He was not taking the examination today and had no credentials, so he could not enter the school gates.
"All right. Wait for our good news."
Li Tianyu patted Li Fei, then entered the school gates together with Chen Lixin.
Watching the two of them walk away, Li Fei felt calm.
He had already found his own path. There was no need to envy others.
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