His gaze kept sweeping over the hurried pedestrians on the street, and he couldn't help marveling to himself. The people in this world seemed to have more energy and vitality than the people of Earth he remembered. In the park's morning exercise area, several old men practiced Tai Chi, their movements fluid and graceful, every move imbued with steady force—not like the showy routines people did in parks in his previous life. Now and then, he spotted people in athletic clothes jogging, their strides steady and their breathing long and even. They had been running for ages, yet their expressions hadn't changed; clearly, they weren't ordinary exercisers. Among the parents taking their children to school, a few stood tall, with broad shoulders, narrow waists, and sharp, alert eyes. They were probably martial artists with some foundation in Martial Arts. Even the old man sweeping the roadside seemed to move his broom with a subtle, coordinated rhythm, each sweep just right—both effortless and efficient, following a pattern he couldn't quite put into words.
"Martial Arts Civilization really has seeped into every corner of life." Chen Mo sighed to himself. It only strengthened his resolve to seize this opportunity. In a world where people could fly through the air and burrow underground, and where strength was supreme, those without power could only huddle at the bottom of society, looking up at those high above them. They didn't even have the right to choose how they lived. He never wanted to live at someone else's mercy again.
The bell for morning reading rang, and the classroom immediately filled with the melodious sound of students reciting their lessons. The overlapping calls of "North Ming Has Fish, whose name is Kun" and "abandon, abandon" blended into the clamor unique to senior year.
But Chen Mo didn't follow the crowd. He pulled his math textbook from his bag and spread it out on his desk. This was the first target in his study plan. His Chinese and English were passable, but math was the weakest of his weak subjects. He had to address it first if he wanted to make a qualitative leap in his overall score.
He started with the most basic chapter on functions: first reading the definitions, then the examples, and finally deriving the formulas himself. Thanks to the system's Knowledge Solidification effect—and, more importantly, the combined souls of two lifetimes—he had far greater comprehension and logical thinking skills than an ordinary high school student. The quadratic, Exponential, and logarithmic functions that had once given him splitting headaches, along with those convoluted concepts of domain, range, and Monotonicity, now seemed much more approachable. As he read, he scribbled on his scratch paper. His pen scratched across the page, and whenever he got stuck, he marked the spot in bright red, planning to ask a teacher or a top student about it after class and work through the problems together.
After studying intently for about twenty-five minutes, Chen Mo set down his pen, closed his eyes, and silently called up the system.
The next second, the familiar panel appeared in his mind:
[Basic Mathematics Lv.1 (13/100)]
It had gone up by 1 point! It worked!
Chen Mo's spirits lifted, and he couldn't hide his smile. The joy of getting instant feedback was like a shot in the arm, even dulling the tedium of math itself. He bent his head and continued working through the next topic, his pen moving even faster across the page.
His deskmate, Zhang Shun, had been reciting his lessons until he was half asleep. When he caught sight of Chen Mo out of the corner of his eye, he jolted in shock, nearly spraying the bits of pancake in his mouth. Leaning over, he exclaimed in a hushed voice, "Holy crap! Brother Mo, what got into you? You're studying math first thing in the morning? And you're so into it? Did the sun rise in the west?"
Chen Mo didn't even look up. His pen kept flying over his scratch paper as he drawled in a mysterious tone, "Shunzi, you wouldn't understand. Last Night's Stars, Last Night's Wind—I suddenly had an epiphany."
"An epiphany about what?" Zhang Shun asked suspiciously, looking him up and down. "That you should avoid every correct answer on the math exam?"
Chen Mo's pen paused. He couldn't help rolling his eyes, then curled his lips into a smile and added with mock seriousness, "I realized... knowledge is power."
Even he thought the act was a little forced, so he quickly lowered his head and muttered, "Just kidding. I just figured, with Gaokao coming up, I can't keep slacking off. I'd be letting down those two eggs in my jianbing guozi."
Zhang Shun gave him a few skeptical looks, scratched his head, and muttered that he was acting weird. In the end, he didn't press him any further. He turned around, took out his English book, and began his daily cycle of memorizing the word "abandon" on the first page.
During the morning classes, Chen Mo adopted an entirely new study strategy. When the teacher covered material he'd already gained a preliminary grasp of through self-study—such as Classical Chinese translation techniques or Grammar Tenses—he used the lesson to reinforce and deepen his understanding. He listened to the extra points the teacher added while reviewing the system's records in his mind and checking whether his proficiency had increased even slightly. When the lesson covered material he hadn't studied yet or subjects where he was weak—such as applications of derivatives in math or Newton's Laws of Motion in physics—he focused completely on the lecture, staring at the blackboard and rapidly jotting down key points. He immediately marked anything he didn't understand and, relying on the system's Effective Understanding mechanism, did his best to digest the new knowledge on the spot and make it his own.
This efficient, purposeful way of studying made time fly. Each forty-five-minute lesson seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. The old misery of killing time and waiting for class to end had vanished without a trace, replaced by a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction unlike anything he'd felt before.
Zhang Shun came over with his lunch tray. Seeing the food in front of Chen Mo, his eyes went wide. "Did you buy out the whole cafeteria?"
Chen Mo grinned and shoveled a big mouthful of rice into his mouth. "Martial Arts burns a lot of energy. I won't be able to keep going if I don't eat more."
Watching him wolf down his food—and seeing him pause every so often to frown and think even as he ate—Zhang Shun finally couldn't hold back. He set down his chopsticks, leaned closer, and asked in a hushed, mysterious voice, "Brother Mo, tell me the truth. Did something happen to you? Or..."
He winked, his tone full of gossip. "Have you fallen for some top student and sworn to get into the same university as her? Is that why you're working so hard?"
Chen Mo was in the middle of shoveling rice into his mouth. At that, he nearly choked on a mouthful. He coughed for a long time before recovering, then looked at Zhang Shun with an exasperated smile. "What are you talking about? It's the last six months. I figured I should give it my all, so I won't have any regrets."
"Give it your all?" Zhang Shun scratched his head, looking somewhat dejected. "With our foundation, would trying even help? I heard Old Yang from the class next door say the First Mock Exam is going to be hellishly difficult, designed to crush people like us who cram at the last minute. When the results come out, we're probably going to have a breakdown."
The First Mock Exam?
Chen Mo paused with his chopsticks in midair, his thoughts racing. He hadn't been here long and hadn't yet had a chance to learn about this world's Gaokao process. The First Mock Exam... The name said it all: the first mock exam of senior year, a test of how well students had done in their First Round of Review. Wouldn't that be a perfect opportunity to assess his progress? It could test not only his cultural subjects but also the practical progress he'd made in Martial Arts Skills with the system's help.
He raised his head, a glint flashing in his eyes and a confident smile curling his lips. "There's only one way to find out."
After finishing his last bite, he pushed his tray aside, looked at Zhang Shun, and asked eagerly, "By the way, how about we spar during Martial Arts Class this afternoon?"
"Spar?" Zhang Shun's face fell at once, and he waved his hands repeatedly. "Come on, Brother Mo. Your Black Tiger Stance is almost at Minor Accomplishment, and your fists are as hard as rocks. I just started out—I can't even hold a horse stance steady. How is that fair?"
"Who's picking on you?" Chen Mo patted him on the shoulder, grinning like a fox. "We'll keep each other motivated and improve together."
He had a little plan in mind. His proficiency in Black Tiger Stance and Body Tempering Fist was increasing too slowly when he practiced alone. He wanted to see whether sparring—even at a low level—could speed up his progress. Zhang Shun was less experienced than he was, making him a perfect practice dummy. Chen Mo could get used to applying his fist techniques in a real fight and correct the flaws in his movements.
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