Early the next morning, he discovered that his physique and strength had each increased by another 0.1. His strength had reached 106, and his physique had reached 105. Seeing such astonishing progress, he felt more confident than ever.
Perhaps it wouldn't be long before he could pass the Martial Apprentice assessment.
That morning, he practiced swordsmanship for a while as usual.
After lunch, as soon as noon passed, he quickly hopped on his bicycle and headed for the Youth Martial Arts Training Center.
He had assumed he would be the first to arrive, but quite a few students were already waiting on the benches outside.
"Chen Shouyi, you signed up for this class too?" Guo Qianqian, whom he'd run into yesterday, stood up and waved before he'd even reached them. Her boyfriend Lin Feng was sitting beside her, apparently there to keep her company.
"What a coincidence. I found the information online. I heard this tutor was really good, so I came all the way here to learn from him." Chen Shouyi could now face Guo Qianqian with a level head. He smiled as he spoke.
Lin Feng looked up at him in some surprise. This was an advanced tutoring class, and it cost a pretty penny. Anyone who could afford to sign up stood a decent chance of passing the Martial Apprentice assessment. Lin Feng realized he'd misjudged Chen Shouyi, but didn't think much of it. After all, Chen Shouyi didn't look like much of a threat to him.
As one o'clock drew closer, the students arrived one after another.
Including Chen Shouyi, there were eleven students: four girls and seven boys. They all looked like high schoolers.
The tutor strode lightly into the classroom and clapped his hands.
"Unless you hear otherwise, class will be held every Sunday at one in the afternoon from now on. Try not to be late.
"I assume everyone here is preparing to pass the Martial Apprentice assessment.
"Whether swordsmanship is easy to pass, whether you can beat the assessment Robot in combat—those are both simple and difficult questions. The key is whether your swordsmanship is as natural as breathing, and whether you've mastered Basic Footwork.
"A lot of people have the wrong idea. They think the more basic sword moves they learn, the better. But that's not the case. Real fights are often settled in just a few moves. Unless you're sparring, you rarely end up in a prolonged standoff.
"Better to master one than know a hundred!
"Even if you've only learned the simplest Forward Lunge Stab, if you practice until it's flawless, you can still pass the assessment with ease.
"Generally speaking, Martial Apprentices shouldn't learn more than three moves unless they can perform them as instinctively as breathing. Otherwise, they'll spread themselves too thin and end up mediocre at everything."
Chen Shouyi listened as if waking from a dream, immediately coming down from the excitement of having learned a new sword technique the day before. His school's martial arts teacher had said something similar, but never with the same incisive clarity or such a direct hit on the heart of the matter.
"Any standard sword form can become a fearsome sword technique with just a few variations. In our first class, I'll still be teaching the Sting Sword. You've already learned the Forward Lunge Stab. Now I'll teach you the upward and downward stabs, as well as how to use Basic Footwork in combat."
Before he knew it, nearly a month had passed since the school year began, and the first monthly exam of senior year was just around the corner.
He'd heard that there would be a parent-teacher meeting after the exams. Sun Xin was finally feeling anxious from every direction, and had a vague premonition that things would end very badly for him.
"How's your preparation going?"
"How's what going?" Chen Shouyi came back to himself from his practice problems and turned to ask in confusion.
"Next Monday's exam!" Sun Xin was so frustrated by Chen Shouyi's calm that he could hardly stand it.
"I've prepared as much as I can. Now it just depends on how hard the test is," Chen Shouyi replied.
He hadn't slacked off on his studies this past month. He didn't know yet whether his grades would improve this time, but the knowledge stats in his attributes had generally gone up by one point, and some had even increased by two.
"Ah, if only I'd studied hard too." Sun Xin sighed. He'd spent the whole month playing around and had barely opened a book.
"You're already in the late stages of lazy-itis. You still think it can be cured?" Wang Dage leaned over from behind and said gleefully. "You'd be better off paying someone to pretend to be your 'parent.'"
Sun Xin's eyes lit up, but then he put on a miserable look. "I want to, but I can't. The homeroom teacher's already visited my house. If they expose me, someone could end up dead."
His dad had been in the military. When he beat someone, he really did beat them half to death.
"Then there's nothing you can do. Chen really has a great attitude. If you ask me, why bother studying so seriously? You should be able to pass the Martial Apprentice assessment, right?" Wang Dage was as big as his name suggested, tall and brawny with a naturally booming voice. Quite a few students turned to look, clearly interested in whether Chen Shouyi could pass the assessment.
Chen Shouyi looked up. By now, he could face everyone's attention without batting an eye. He thought for a moment before replying, "I'm still a long way off. My physical fitness is the main problem. Whether I can pass the Martial Arts Academy's spring admissions today will depend on luck."
Over the past ten-odd days, he'd kept practicing the optimized Thirty-Six Body Tempering Forms. All his main physical attributes except agility had now reached 11 points, and even his agility had climbed to 10.9.
In concrete terms, he could now bench-press 150 kilograms, still a good way short of the 200-kilogram standard for male Martial Apprentices.
Of course, if his progress continued at the astonishing pace of the past month, he'd reach the standard in a little over a month, two at most.
But the closer his body got to its limits, the slower the Thirty-Six Body Tempering Forms improved him. He could clearly feel that his progress had been gradually slowing lately.
"That's still impressive. You can always take the exam next year. If I were you, I'd have dropped out already," Wang Dage said enviously. He was in good shape, but he'd never been able to get the hang of swordsmanship. His muscles were stiff, and no matter how much he practiced, he made no progress.
The Martial Arts Academy didn't only accept high school graduates. Anyone under twenty-four who passed the Martial Apprentice assessment could enter a specialized martial arts academy for further study.
"Shao Dawei from the class next door took a year off just a few days after school started, so he could focus on the Martial Apprentice assessment. I remember his strength was only about 160 kilograms, and his swordsmanship was nowhere near as good as yours," Heipi, seated in front, turned around and said.
Chen Shouyi couldn't help feeling a little helpless. He hadn't expected to make such astonishing progress, either, or to see the possibility of becoming a Martial Apprentice in less than a month.
He still didn't know how to bring it up with his parents and convince them that their eldest son, who'd been so ordinary as a child, was actually a martial arts prodigy just like his younger sister—and that he'd be able to pass the Martial Apprentice assessment before long.
He still went to class and studied diligently every day, but it had become nothing more than a habit. He had to do something with his time, after all.
At last, the dismissal bell rang. Chen Shouyi took his backpack from his desk and headed out.
"Wait for me!" Sun Xin hurried after him, catching up in a few steps.
"Have you watched that show, War of the Gods?"
"No." Chen Shouyi had been dog-tired every day lately. How could he find time to watch TV?
"I heard it's based on the true history of the gods in the Otherworld. It's awesome," Sun Xin recommended. When he saw that Chen Shouyi wasn't interested, he clicked his tongue in disappointment.
Ever since senior year began, Chen Shouyi had been drifting further and further away from the group.
Their old trio had dwindled to just the two of them. For some reason, Zhao Yifeng had stopped hanging out with them and was growing more distant by the day. Once, Sun Xin had gone out of his way to find him, but Zhao Yifeng had ignored him and walked off alone.
Chen Shouyi could vaguely understand how Zhao Yifeng felt. He and Zhao Yifeng had once been the same kind of person: insecure and sensitive. Like snails, they'd crept through a damp, shadowy world, afraid of getting hurt and afraid of others' strange looks. Only people like themselves could communicate without a word.
But now Chen Shouyi had climbed out of that mire. To Zhao Yifeng, he was no longer one of his kind.
Just then, a fighter jet roared low overhead and disappeared into the distance in the blink of an eye.
Chen Shouyi looked up at it, his heart sinking. Something must have happened somewhere again. The news had reported more than six incursions by Otherworld creatures this month alone.
The worst had involved five barbarian infiltrators who had brutally slaughtered several villages in remote mountainous regions. More than a thousand people, men and women, young and old alike, had been beheaded. Their bodies had been fashioned into an altar, apparently for a blood sacrifice.
The news had shown an extremely bloody and bizarre scene, steeped in religious ritual. Even with the image pixelated, it had made his hair stand on end.
Before you continue