Sparring

Having the Thunder Body, Qin Shaofeng had no problem learning the lightning escape ninjutsu, Lightning Armor.

At this moment, Qin Shaofeng also truly discovered that learning skills from the System indeed required certain innate conditions.

If he didn't possess the Thunder Body, he probably wouldn't have been able to learn this lightning escape either.

Furthermore, if Qin Shaofeng wanted to learn other ninjutsu, he would need to possess other physiques.

Of course, this didn't mean he needed special physiques like a Fire Body or Water Body. As long as it was a fire-elemental physique, it would suffice. He didn't need an overly powerful physique to learn other ninjutsu.

Lightning Escape: Lightning Armor: Level 1/00, Human-tier Three-star Skill. Summons lightning to attach to the body, forming Lightning Armor, increasing the player's defense and blocking enemy attacks. Current level is 1. It can summon low-level lightning to form low-level Lightning Armor. Maintaining Lightning Armor for one minute requires consuming 100 Inner Qi points.

After learning Lightning Armor, Qin Shaofeng didn't go out at all.

Even if he did, as someone with only the identity of an examinee, Qin Shaofeng couldn't leave the area where the examinees resided. Therefore, for the next two days, Qin Shaofeng hid in his room, frantically cultivating Lightning Armor.

With frantic cultivation to increase proficiency, in just two short days, Qin Shaofeng had upgraded Lightning Armor to Level 2.

This was also thanks to the Level 2 Yi Jin Jing, which not only gave Qin Shaofeng 2750 Inner Qi points but also allowed him to recover 5 Inner Qi points per minute. If not for this, no matter how frantically he cultivated, Qin Shaofeng wouldn't have been able to upgrade Lightning Armor to Level 2 in just two days.

Level 2 Lightning Armor was not much different from Level 1, except that the defense had increased significantly.

If Level 1 Lightning Armor could allow Qin Shaofeng to ignore attacks from those of the same realm, or even one realm higher, then the defensive power of Level 2 Lightning Armor was enough for Qin Shaofeng to ignore the attacks of most martial artists below the Xiantian Realm.

The Inner Qi consumption per minute remained unchanged, still 100 points.

Qin Shaofeng didn't really care about this. With Level 2 Lightning Armor, he became increasingly confident about winning first place in the assessment.

The moment Qin Shaofeng upgraded Lightning Armor to Level 2, Du Meng came to find him.

However, upon seeing Du Meng again, Qin Shaofeng was quite startled.

This was because Du Meng was no longer in the early stage of the Mid Houtian Tenth Layer, but had reached the Mid Houtian Tenth Layer realm.

Even his Inner Qi had increased slightly, reaching exactly 2000 points.

Qin Shaofeng knew that Du Meng had broken through to the Houtian Tenth Layer only half a month ago. Now, less than half a month later, he had advanced from the early stage to the middle stage. This was somewhat terrifying.

This Du Meng was not like him, Qin Shaofeng, who had the System to improve his level.

Advancing a minor realm in just half a month, and a minor realm within the Houtian Tenth Layer at that, would surely cause quite a stir if it got out.

Qin Shaofeng asked Du Meng about this, wondering if his future master had given him special training. Thinking about it, Qin Shaofeng felt a bit envious of Du Meng.

It really was better to have someone backing you up!

But Du Meng's answer made Qin Shaofeng want to laugh and cry. His master hadn't given him any special training; instead, he had beaten him soundly.

Only then did Qin Shaofeng learn that Du Meng was cultivating a special body-tempering technique, which allowed him to improve his strength while being beaten.

At this, Qin Shaofeng no longer envied Du Meng.

He would absolutely never cultivate such a self-abusive technique, no matter how fast it improved his strength.

Improving his realm by getting beaten, what kind of logic was that!

However, Du Meng himself didn't seem to mind. In fact, he was rather happy. According to his future master, with his current strength, entering the top twenty in the recruitment assessment was not a problem at all.

If he performed exceptionally well, even the top ten was possible!

Hearing Du Meng's words, Qin Shaofeng's heart stirred, and he proposed a spar with Du Meng.

When he heard Qin Shaofeng suggest a spar, Du Meng's first reaction was to shake his head vigorously and say in a muffled voice, "Brother Feng, let's forget it. I'm afraid I'll hurt you!"

If he hadn't known Du Meng's personality, Qin Shaofeng might have thought Du Meng was looking down on him.

But knowing Du Meng's personality, Qin Shaofeng understood that Du Meng was telling the truth and wasn't looking down on him at all.

"Mengzi, don't worry. Your Brother Feng isn't that frail!" Qin Shaofeng said with a slight smile.

But as soon as he said that, Du Meng seriously sized him up and then said hesitantly, "Brother Feng, your physique... it really looks a bit frail!"

Damn it!

My physique is already very good!

At sixteen years old, he was 1.7 meters tall and weighed over 120 pounds. It was quite standard!

But soon Qin Shaofeng realized that Mengzi was judging his physique based on his own, which made Qin Shaofeng want to laugh and cry.

Don't compare yourself to normal people. Your physique is no longer human!

Finally, at Qin Shaofeng's strong insistence, Du Meng reluctantly agreed to fight him.

However, Du Meng had decided from the start not to use his full strength.

But soon, he realized he was wrong!

What happened that night, and what the result of the spar between Qin Shaofeng and Du Meng was, no one else knew besides the two involved.

However, in the future, whenever he recalled the spar that night, Du Meng would say, "It was from that night onwards that Brother Feng became an incredible person in my eyes."

The next day, early in the morning, Qin Shaofeng and Du Meng walked out of their rooms.

In fact, neither of them had slept.

The contest last night was decided not long after it began.

Qin Shaofeng had to admit that Du Meng's physique was no joke; he was truly thick-skinned and tough!

Initially, Du Meng, thinking Qin Shaofeng was no match for him, didn't attack. Instead, he stood still and let Qin Shaofeng attack him.

But what left Qin Shaofeng speechless was that he really couldn't do anything to Du Meng.

Du Meng's defense was astonishing; he completely ignored Qin Shaofeng's attacks.

Qin Shaofeng's Wudang Long Fist and Huashan Basic Swordplay Moves were completely ineffective against Du Meng. After attacking for a while, Qin Shaofeng understood that any attack below the Houtian Tenth Layer couldn't harm Du Meng.

Finally, Qin Shaofeng activated Lightning Armor.

While cultivating Lightning Armor the previous two days, Qin Shaofeng discovered that whenever he activated Lightning Armor, his Thunder Body would trigger, and his attacks would be imbued with the Power of Thunder.

This changed everything.

The Wudang Long Fist, now empowered with the Power of Thunder, finally overwhelmed Du Meng's defenses.

Although he still didn't sustain much damage, the Power of Thunder made Du Meng feel as if he'd been electrocuted. Every punch Qin Shaofeng threw sent tremors through Du Meng's body.

This finally prompted Du Meng to counterattack.

But soon, Du Meng realized something was wrong.

What had happened to Qin Shaofeng earlier was now happening to him.

He attacked, but Qin Shaofeng blocked it.

Moreover, every time his fist landed on Qin Shaofeng, it was repelled by a flash of electricity, and he suffered an electric shock.

Qin Shaofeng's Lightning Armor was invisible to ordinary people; only faint sparks appeared when Qin Shaofeng was attacked.

At first, Du Meng attacked cautiously, afraid of injuring Qin Shaofeng. But as his strength increased, and finally when Du Meng attacked with full force, he finally understood one thing clearly.

That is, in terms of defense, he couldn't compare to Qin Shaofeng!

This realization completely stunned Du Meng.

However, Du Meng didn't know that Qin Shaofeng wasn't having an easy time either.

Although Lightning Armor could block Du Meng's attacks, preventing Qin Shaofeng from sustaining any real damage, his Inner Qi was being consumed at an exponential rate during Du Meng's attacks.

This taught Qin Shaofeng that while maintaining Lightning Armor cost 100 Inner Qi points per minute, the consumption surged dramatically when subjected to attacks.

This Lightning Armor was good, but the cost was too high!

His attacks were ineffective, and he was being electrocuted; this left Du Meng very confused and frustrated.

But Du Meng soon discovered with surprise that while being electrocuted, his body was undergoing subtle improvements.

It seemed that because of the lightning from Qin Shaofeng, Du Meng's special body-refining masochistic cultivation technique, under the self-inflicted torment of the electric shocks, was improving.

It was as if his body was being tempered by lightning!

This discovery truly confirmed for Qin Shaofeng that Du Meng's cultivation was a brainless masochistic technique!

However, since his Lightning Armor was helping Du Meng improve his strength, Qin Shaofeng had no intention of stopping. The contest ultimately turned into Du Meng's training session for improvement.

They only stopped when the sky began to lighten, and then they began taking pills to recover.

Although the duration was short, Du Meng's strength had improved significantly, giving him the confidence to enter the top ten.

Du Meng provided the pills, which were for restoring Inner Qi and were even Mortal Grade Three Stars in quality.

In just a short hour, Qin Shaofeng's depleted Inner Qi was fully restored, and even his mental state was completely recovered.

After leaving the room, Qin Shaofeng and Du Meng headed towards the designated location.

Today was the day of Lianyang Academy's enrollment examination.

Qin Shaofeng had stayed in his room for the past two days and had no idea how many people were participating in the assessment this time.

As for Du Meng, there was no need to even mention it; with his personality, he wouldn't pay attention to such things.

However, looking at the sea of people now, Qin Shaofeng finally understood that the number of participants in this enrollment assessment was likely far more than a hundred thousand.

Lianyang City, which housed Lianyang Academy, was divided into four gates: East, West, North, and South. The enrollment assessment began simultaneously at all four city gates. Qin Shaofeng and Du Meng were at the East Gate.

Qin Shaofeng was unsure how many people were at the other three gates, but just at the East Gate, there were over a hundred assessment locations.

Despite arriving early, Qin Shaofeng and Du Meng still found themselves at the end of a long queue.

There was no opening ceremony. As soon as the appointed time arrived, the front of the line began the testing.

The first stage, age and cultivation level detection, was relatively convenient.

From a small booklet, Qin Shaofeng learned that Lianyang Academy had special tools for detecting age and cultivation, so it wouldn't take much time.

The final stage, strength assessment, however, would take some time.

It was said that the final strength assessment involved fighting puppets in a separate room.

Qin Shaofeng was still unclear about the specifics of the combat, but he knew that the more puppets one defeated, the better their results would be.