After harvesting the pseudo-spiritual plants planted in the spiritual fields, Zhang Wan turned the fields over again, and the first half of his eighth year was nearly over.
What satisfied Zhang Wan was that, with his devilish training, ample supplies of pseudo-spiritual items, and the assistance of Fire Blood Grass, his younger sister had already tempered her qi and blood to the limit, reaching the Mortal Limit and acquiring the conditions needed to break through to Postnatal.
With his younger sister's aptitude, she would be able to break through in seven or eight months at most.
At this point, Zhang Lingshu was still only a Level-Five student. If she could break through within seven or eight months, she would not be much inferior to Zhang Wan.
After all, Zhang Wan had also broken through to Postnatal while he was a Level-Six student.
Of course, this was only the Houtian bottleneck.
Without a cheat, there was basically no chance that Zhang Lingshu could maintain the same pace as Zhang Wan after breaking through to Postnatal.
But with Zhang Wan supporting her from behind, Zhang Lingshu's martial path was still far smoother than that of most people.
Zhang Lingshu did not disappoint Zhang Wan, either.
After accumulating strength for another six months or so, she successfully broke through to the First Level Postnatal!
At that moment, Zhang Lingshu had just been promoted to a Level-Six student and was in the first half of her sixth year.
As for Zhang Wan, he had been promoted to a Level-Nine student.
After becoming a Level-Nine student, he also broke through to the Second Level Postnatal on his own.
Zhang Wan had originally planned to accumulate strength for three or four months, then use experience points to advance if he still could not break through.
But after bitterly cultivating for three or four months without managing to break through, he discovered that among their cohort, only Zhao Qixin and Yu Shui had still broken through to the Second Level Postnatal. Even those with decent talent had only just cultivated to the peak of the First Level Postnatal.
After thinking it over briefly, Zhang Wan gave up on using experience points and resolved to break through on his own.
He still did not want to stand out too much.
That was why he only successfully broke through to the Second Level Postnatal after being promoted to a Level-Nine student.
By then, Zhao Qixin and Yu Shui had long since cultivated to the mid-stage of the Second Level Postnatal and were charging toward the late stage.
Among their fellow students, Xu Hui and another disciple named Lin Fangyan had also broken through to the Second Level Postnatal.
While Zhang Wan and Xu Hui diligently trained, the other students of their cohort gradually matured with age, emerging from their former naivety and recognizing the importance of strength. One by one, they became hardworking, chasing after Zhao Qixin, Yu Shui, Zhang Wan, and Xu Hui from behind.
Lin Fangyan was the first to catch up.
After that, a large group of students cultivated to the peak of the First Level Postnatal and began racking their brains for ways to break through to the Second Level Postnatal.
Zhang Wan did not find it strange that these people could catch up with him.
Their talents were not poor, and some had martial artist elders in their families. They simply could not compare with Zhao Qixin's background.
With talent, cultivation resources provided by people behind them, and their gradual maturation from naivety as they came to understand the importance of strength, it was only natural that they would become diligent and hardworking and catch up.
But not everyone could catch up.
Those with someone backing them were ultimately a minority, and those with decent talent were also a minority. Most people could only gaze from afar at the few standing at the very front.
Even among those with talent and backgrounds, only a few could catch up.
They had ultimately begun working hard a little too late.
Zhao Qixin and Yu Shui both had decent talent, and their backgrounds were even more powerful. More importantly, the two of them had awakened early, understood the importance of strength, and cultivated diligently all along.
As for Zhang Wan and Xu Hui, one had a cheat, while the other had outstanding talent and had awakened long ago, cultivating with an astonishing degree of diligence.
They were not so easily overtaken.
There could not be many people who could catch up as quickly as Lin Fangyan had.
Just as Zhang Wan stayed in the academy, quietly developing and accumulating experience points, news arrived.
The Jade Bone Sect and the Blazing Fire Sect had erupted into a small-scale conflict at Thousand Group Volcano, and the two sides' outer disciples had fought fiercely there.
By the time the news arrived, the outer disciples of the two sects had already been fighting at Thousand Group Volcano for over a month.
In the end, neither side could determine a victor. After the situation fell into a stalemate, the two sects chose to negotiate.
When the news reached the Beginner Martial Arts Academy, the two sects had already ceased fighting and called a truce.
Originally, this was merely an ordinary piece of news. The Jade Bone Sect had always clashed with the other five True Core powers of Wu Kingdom, so it was not worth paying too much attention to.
But when part of the list of those who had died in battle circulated, Zhang Wan was deeply moved.
Wang Nian and Shen Miao, who had once led the students of their cohort to participate in the academy's arena gambling match, appeared on the death list.
After Wang Nian, Shen Miao, and Liu Yufei had graduated one after another, he had rarely heard anything about them.
He had never expected that the next time he saw their names would be on a list of those who had died in battle.
Although Zhang Wan had not been very close to them, seeing people with whom he had once crossed paths suddenly pass away still left him sighing. In particular, Wang Nian and Shen Miao were only four or five years older than him.
"Life is like duckweed on the water, and fate is as cheap as grass."
"Living in this world, without strength, you never know when you'll die." In his small courtyard, Zhang Wan used water in place of wine and raised a cup to the two people he had once known.
That evening, after Zhang Lingshu and Zhang Yan returned, Zhang Wan rarely made them continue training. Instead, he told them what had happened.
The two were young and had never been acquainted with Wang Nian or Shen Miao, so they did not feel much.
They only sensed a trace of loneliness from their elder brother. It inexplicably made them feel that something was there, yet they could not puzzle out what that feeling was.
Zhang Wan had not told them about this for no reason.
He was warning them, telling them to find positions in their sect's logistics department in the future and lie low there. They should not become combat personnel and run off to guard various branch divisions before they had sufficient strength—especially not to the borders between their sect and other True Core great sects.
If they went there, it would not be strange for them to die at any time.
Although many times it was not a matter of whether they were willing, but of sect orders, joining the sect's logistics department ahead of time would always greatly reduce the possibility of being transferred to dangerous regions.
Even if they were transferred there, going as logistics personnel would be safer than going as combat personnel.
Zhang Wan did not know whether his younger sister and younger brother would follow his advice and find positions in the logistics department in the future. But warning them in advance, making the pros and cons clear to them, and occasionally mentioning it to influence them subtly would surely have some effect in the future.
After all, his younger sister and younger brother were not outsiders. Zhang Wan did not want to suddenly see their names on a list of those who had died in battle one day.
If they had to die, he still hoped that the two of them would die peacefully in old age.
Amid the turmoil, another year passed.
That year, Zhang Wan had already been promoted to a Level-Ten student, with only seven or eight months remaining before he graduated from the academy.
His cultivation had also advanced to the late stage of the Second Level Postnatal.
Lin Fangyan's cultivation was the same as his, while Xu Hui had cultivated to the peak of the Second Level Postnatal.
Zhao Qixin and Yu Shui still stood head and shoulders above the rest, having already broken through to the Third Level Postnatal!
Another dozen or so people had also broken through to the Second Level Postnatal.
The remaining Postnatal students in their cohort were all at the First Level Postnatal.
By now, the number of students in their cohort who had broken through to Postnatal had reached one hundred and ninety.
Before graduation, there should still be people who broke through.
It was estimated that two hundred people would be able to join the Jade Bone Sect as Postnatal martial artists.
That was about the same as in previous years.
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