All Right, All Right, You're Being Mysterious Again!

Su Tu had just woken up and stretched. Today was Sunday, the precious single day off for senior-year students.

His phone suddenly began vibrating repeatedly. When he opened it, he saw someone posting photos in the class group.

The moment Su Tu saw those photos clearly, the lingering fog in his mind vanished instantly.

The photos posted in the group were from a while ago, when the school had organized group pictures of each class's students and supplementary-subject teachers.

There was nothing wrong with the group photos with the other teachers. Only the one with the PE Teacher was wrong!

Lin Feiyang was clearly a sunny, internet-savvy new-era teacher in his twenties who loved memes, yet in this group photo, the PE Teacher was a potbellied middle-aged man with a greasy face and unshaven stubble. He looked like a completely different person from Lin Feiyang.

"Is this Teacher Lin??"

Su Tu looked at the group photo. The names of the students and teachers were listed in the lower left corner, but the PE Teacher's name was not Lin Feiyang at all. It had become Lin Fei.

After coming into contact with the Martial Dao and understanding the concept of Heart and Mind Height, Su Tu did not panic too much. Instead, he opened his photo album. During several previous PE activities, he had snapped a few embarrassing pictures of Lin Feiyang playing with the students.

When he opened the album again, just as expected, every photo that had originally shown Lin Feiyang had turned into that potbellied middle-aged man!

"HAHAHAHA, Teacher Lin's belly looks like he's pregnant!"

"Seriously, what do you guys know? This is called having an official's air!"

"Exactly. Teacher Lin seems to be the Minister of Education's brother-in-law. Didn't you see how fawning our principal was before?"

The students were teasing Teacher Lin's photos in the class group. It was as if, to everyone except Su Tu, Lin Feiyang had always been Lin Fei, always that potbellied middle-aged man.

Judging from his classmates' reactions, it seemed that only he had been seeing Lin Feiyang all along.

"Brother Feiyang, Brother Feiyang, I know you're a big shot, but pulling a living-person switcheroo on me is a little too ridiculous!"

Su Tu wore a baffled expression.

No wonder he could never find Lin Feiyang. It turned out that, in everyone else's eyes, Lin Feiyang simply did not exist.

The difference in Heart and Mind Height was like the difference between gods and mortals, as vast as heaven and earth.

Su Tu knew that Lin Feiyang's Heart and Mind Height must have reached an unimaginable level to create such a situation.

"But Brother Feiyang, why can I see what he looks like? Or rather, am I seeing his true face?"

Su Tu was puzzled. He did not understand what the other man's intentions were, but in the end, Lin Feiyang had done him no small favor.

First, there had been the Red Seal, allowing him to join Moon Stepping Martial Arts Hall. Then there had been that mysterious scroll, allowing him to unlock the skill Dao Gathering.

"Dao Gathering! Damn it, I remember what I forgot yesterday!" Thinking of that scroll, Su Tu suddenly jolted.

He had finally remembered what he had kept feeling he had forgotten before going to sleep last night.

It was Dao Gathering!!

There had been too much going on yesterday. By the time he had finished dealing with everything, it was already midnight. He had been overwhelmed by drowsiness and had actually forgotten to grind Dao Gathering Proficiency.

Su Tu could not help feeling some regret.

"Such a loss!! I really lost out this time!"

Dao Gathering was a very special skill, one tied to Martial Dao cultivation. Although Zhou Wuliang had not taught him yet, Su Tu, as a top student, deeply understood the importance of figuring out the question types beforehand.

Dao Gathering differed from other skills. The time he could spend grinding it each day was very limited. Once he exceeded that limit, he would get a headache, struggle to concentrate, and be unable to enter Dao Gathering. Therefore, Dao Gathering was a slow, grinding process. He needed to work at it every day, and missing even one day made Su Tu's heart ache.

Just then, Su Tu noticed that a newly settled notification had appeared on the System Panel.

"Hm? Which skill is this settlement for?" Su Tu was somewhat confused.

He had only just woken up. How could there be Proficiency that had just been settled?

He immediately opened the notification. Then his pupils suddenly shrank as delight surged through him.

"This works too? Isn't this basically exploiting a bug?"

The system settlement screen before him displayed a message.

You completed one Dream Dao Plucking session. Dao Gathering Proficiency +30

Dao Gathering (Beginner): 60/300

At the very last moment before falling asleep yesterday, Su Tu vaguely seemed to remember seeing that Secret Painting, though he could not recall it clearly. But the Proficiency before his eyes now proved that it had all been real.

He had actually gathered Dao in his dreams!

Moreover, a normal Dao Gathering session added 10 Proficiency, while one Dream Dao Plucking session added 30. This was practically him sleeping in bed while his dreams ground for him!

"I'll try it again tonight and see whether this Dream Dao Plucking thing was just a coincidence."

Su Tu was in a great mood. It felt like thinking he had lost twenty bucks and being annoyed about it, only to discover the money was in his pants—and it was not twenty, but a hundred.

With a flip, he sprang out of bed and landed on the floor. He settled his body and mind. Circulating qi once every morning was the fastest way for a martial artist to wake their mind, something Zhou Wuliang had taught Su Tu.

But the moment he circulated his qi, Su Tu felt the qi in his body had grown several times stronger. His original qi had been like a frail branch stream at the foot of mountains, but his current qi was like a broad river creek. Though still shallow, it faintly carried the bearing of mountains and rivers.

Su Tu looked inward and discovered that apart from the Initial Aperture beneath his heart, there were eleven more apertures connected to it like linked mountains and rivers. A single stream of qi flowed through them all, interconnecting them. Eleven apertures had already been refined by qi.

"When were these eleven apertures refined?"

Su Tu sensed the eleven newly opened apertures inside him. Every time his qi passed through one, it received an almost imperceptible boost.

"Could yesterday's fight have opened my apertures so quickly?"

Su Tu thought of last night's battle. He vaguely remembered seeing a post on the Forum before.

That post said that martial artists fought against heaven and earth, battling for supremacy. Between life and death lay great terror, but also great opportunity. Some martial artists could achieve massive breakthroughs and profound insights in the midst of battle!

Could he be one of those people?

In the novels he had read in his previous life, advancing too quickly could lead to an unstable foundation. That worried him somewhat, and he decided to ask his teacher when he went to the martial arts hall later.

Just as Su Tu was thinking, a sudden knock sounded outside the door.

Su Tu got up and walked into the living room. Zhang Meng's purchased breakfast sat on the table, but she was not home.

The knocking outside continued.

"Coming." Su Tu called out as he walked over to open the door.

The moment he opened it, he saw Li Hu carrying four large boxes.

"Brother Tiger, what are you doing here?" Su Tu welcomed Li Hu inside and had him sit down.

"Hehe, Xiao Tu, I brought you some good stuff." Li Hu grinned foolishly as he set the large boxes on the floor.

"These are all rewards for killing that Xie Race member yesterday. There's Star Quenching Elixir, which can boost your muscle activity after you drink it. And this is Heart and Mind Incense, which nourishes the heart and mind and can help raise your Heart and Mind Height."

Li Hu patted the boxes on the floor and opened them. One contained five bottles of purple elixir, while another held three sticks of incense wrapped in gold-threaded aluminum foil.

When Su Tu saw those two items, his expression remained unchanged, but a storm surged in his heart.

He had seen both items on the trading page before. A bottle of Star Quenching Elixir cost around 1.5 million, while Heart and Mind Incense was even more outrageous. A single stick that could burn for ten minutes cost 1.6 million!

He had not expected that Xie Race member from yesterday to be worth so much money!

And these were only the items in two boxes. The two boxes beside Li Hu had not even been opened.

Noticing Su Tu's gaze, Li Hu grinned. He was about to say something, but his eyes suddenly flashed as he looked at Su Tu.

"Xiao Tu, did you open new apertures?"

"Yes, Brother Tiger. I woke up from this nap and somehow opened eleven apertures. There won't be any issue with an unstable foundation, right?"

Su Tu happened to voice the question in his heart.

Li Hu's mouth twitched when he heard that. All right, all right, another "somehow."

Somehow entering the rank in a day, somehow mastering Prajna Seven Kills, and now somehow opening eleven apertures in a row.

What, were you going to somehow become some Celestial Grandmaster or Divine Dao Venerable in the future too?!

Why couldn't I somehow do that once too?

"Wait, with Xiao Tu's talent, he really might become a Celestial someday, or a Venerable. Wouldn't that mean I could just coast from then on?!"

Li Hu immediately thought of a novel that had recently become wildly popular beyond the galaxy, called "The Things I Did After Recognizing Talent and Teaching a Celestial Disciple."

That shitty title could become popular? Once his junior brother rose to prominence, he could just write one called "My Venerable Junior Brother." Wouldn't that crush it outright!

Thinking that, Li Hu's gaze toward Su Tu immediately became even more fervent.