Grind Emperor's Dawn 2

His gaze occasionally swept over the hurried pedestrians on the street, and he sighed inwardly. The people in this world seemed to possess more vitality and spirit than the Earthlings he remembered. In the park's morning exercise area by the roadside, a few elderly men were practicing Tai Chi, their movements fluid and natural, each pose exuding a steady power, unlike the superficial routines in the parks of his previous life. Occasionally, he saw people in sportswear jogging, their steps steady, their breathing long and even. They ran for a long time without changing color, clearly not ordinary exercisers. Among the parents taking their children to school, there were a few with upright postures, broad shoulders, narrow waists, and sharp, spirited eyes, most likely practitioners with some martial arts foundation. Even the old man sweeping the street by the roadside swung his broom with a subtle, coordinated rhythm, each swing perfectly timed, both effortless and efficient, revealing an indescribable method.

"Martial Arts Civilization, it's truly permeated into every pore," Chen Mo sighed inwardly. This further strengthened his resolve to seize this opportunity. In this world of flying and escaping, where strength is supreme, without power, one could only cower at the bottom of society, looking up at those high above, without even the right to choose their own lives. He never wanted to live a life of subservience again.

The bell for the morning reading class rang, and the classroom immediately filled with the sound of loud reading. The rising and falling chants of "North Ming Has Fish, its name is Kun" and "abandon, abandon" merged into the unique clamor of the third year of senior high.

Chen Mo, however, did not follow the crowd. He took out his mathematics textbook from his bag and spread it on his desk. This was the "Primary Target" on his plan. Compared to Chinese and English, which he was doing passably well in, mathematics was his weakest point, and he had to prioritize improving it to achieve a qualitative leap in his overall score.

He started from the most basic function chapters, first reading the definitions, then the examples, and finally deriving the formulas himself. Thanks to the "Knowledge Solidification" effect brought by the system, and more importantly, the superposition of his souls from two lifetimes, he possessed comprehension and logical thinking abilities far exceeding those of ordinary high school students. Those quadratic functions, exponential functions, and logarithmic functions that once gave him splitting headaches, and those convoluted domains, ranges, and monotonicity, now seemed much more approachable. As he studied, he wrote and drew on scratch paper, the tip of his pen scratching across the paper with a rustling sound. Where he got stuck, he made a conspicuous red mark, planning to ask the teacher or a top student for help after class to resolve them.

After studying intently for about twenty-five minutes, Chen Mo stopped writing, closed his eyes, and silently recited the system in his heart.

The next second, the familiar panel appeared in his mind:

[Basic Mathematics Lv.1 (13/100)]

It increased by 1 point! Effective!

Chen Mo's spirits lifted, and the smile on his lips could not be hidden. This immediate feedback of joy was like a booster shot, even diluting the inherent boredom of mathematics. He buried his head and continued to delve into the next knowledge point, the tip of his pen moving even faster across the paper.

His deskmate, Zhang Shun, was dozing off while memorizing. A glance from the corner of his eye at Chen Mo's actions startled him, and he almost spat out the crumbs of his Jianbing Guozi. He leaned over, lowered his voice, and exclaimed in surprise, "Damn! Brother Mo, what got into you? Studying math so early in the morning? And looking so enthusiastic? Did the sun rise in the west?"

Chen Mo didn't look up, his pen still flying across the scratch paper. He said slowly in a profound tone, "Shunzi, you don't understand. Last Night's Stars, Last Night's Wind, I suddenly had an epiphany."

"Epiphany about what?" Zhang Shun looked at him suspiciously, sizing him up. "An epiphany on how to accurately avoid all the correct answers in a math test?"

Chen Mo's hand paused, and he couldn't help but roll his eyes. Then, he curved his lips and added with mock seriousness, "I realized... knowledge is power."

After saying that, even he felt the pretense was a bit stiff. He quickly lowered his head and mumbled, "Just kidding. I just feel like the Gaokao is almost here, and if I don't study something, I'll be letting down the two eggs in my Jianbing Guozi."

Zhang Shun looked at him with a mixture of belief and doubt, scratched his head, and muttered, "That's weird." He didn't press further, turned around, took out his English book, and began the daily routine of reciting "abandon" from the first page.

During the morning classes, Chen Mo adjusted his learning strategy. For content that he had already preliminarily mastered through self-study – such as Classical Chinese translation techniques in Chinese or grammar tenses in English – he used it to consolidate and deepen his understanding. He listened to the teacher's supplementary points while reviewing the system's recorded content in his mind, observing if there were any subtle increases in proficiency. For areas he hadn't learned yet or where he was weak – such as derivative applications in mathematics or Newton's Laws of Motion in physics – he listened intently, his eyes fixed on the blackboard, his pen rapidly recording key points. If he encountered something he didn't understand, he would mark it immediately and, using the system's "Effective Understanding" mechanism, strive to "digest" the new knowledge instantly and transform it into his own.

This efficient, goal-oriented learning method made time fly by. Each forty-five-minute class felt like it passed in the blink of an eye. The previous torment of enduring time and waiting for the bell to ring vanished without a trace, replaced by an unprecedented sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

Zhang Shun brought his tray over and his eyes widened at the food in front of Chen Mo. "Did you order the entire cafeteria's lunch?"

Chen Mo chuckled and picked up his chopsticks, taking a large bite of rice. "Martial arts consume a lot of energy. I can't keep up if I don't eat enough."

Zhang Shun watched him wolf down his food, then saw him pause occasionally while eating, frowning and concentrating in thought. He finally couldn't help himself. He put down his chopsticks, leaned forward, lowered his voice, and asked mysteriously, "Brother Mo, be honest, did something happen to you? Or..."

He winked, his tone carrying a hint of gossip. "Did you take a liking to some academic prodigy, and you're vowing to get into the same university as her, which is why you're working so hard?"

Chen Mo, who was shoveling rice into his mouth, almost choked on a mouthful when he heard this. After coughing for a while, he finally caught his breath and looked at Zhang Shun with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. "What are you thinking? It's just that the last six months are almost here, and I want to give it my all, at least so I have no regrets."

"Give it my all?" Zhang Shun scratched his head, a hint of dejection on his face. "With our foundation, will it even help? I heard from Old Yang in the next class that the First Mock Exam is hellishly difficult, designed specifically to crush 'crammers' like us. When the results come out, I'm afraid our minds will collapse."

The First Mock Exam?

Chen Mo paused his movement of picking up food, his mind racing. He hadn't been in this world for long and hadn't had time to understand the Gaokao process here. The First Mock Exam... judging by the name, it was the third year of senior high's first mock exam, equivalent to a test of the First Round of Review. Wasn't this an excellent opportunity for a stage-based assessment? It could not only test his Cultural Class level during this period but also the actual progress of his Martial Arts Skills under the system's enhancement.

He looked up, a glint flashing in his eyes, and a confident smile curved his lips. "Whether it's useful or not, we'll only know by trying."

After speaking, he finished his last bite of rice, pushed his tray forward, and looked at Zhang Shun, his tone carrying a hint of anticipation. "By the way, during Martial Arts Class this afternoon, can we spar?"

"Spar?" Zhang Shun's face instantly soured, and he waved his hands repeatedly. "No way, Brother Mo. Your Black Tiger Stance is almost at Minor Accomplishment, and your fists are as hard as stones. I've only just reached Novice, and I can't even stand steadily in a horse stance. Aren't you just bullying me?"

"Who's bullying you?" Chen Mo patted his shoulder, smiling like a fox. "We'll urge each other on and progress together."

He was hatching a plan in his heart. Practicing the Black Tiger Stance and Body Tempering Fist alone, the proficiency growth rate was too slow. He wanted to see if he could speed up the proficiency growth through actual combat – even low-level sparring. Zhang Shun's foundation wasn't as good as his, making him a perfect "sparring dummy" for Chen Mo to familiarize himself with the application of the fist techniques and correct flaws in his movements during actual combat.