Confucianism Supernatural Power: Exhortation to Learning

Special note: This is an unconventional farming novel. What is being farmed is science and divine abilities. The pacing is very slow, please do not be surprised.

Great Gan Dynasty.

In the east of Changfeng City, there is an academy named Qingshan Academy.

At this moment, inside a classroom at Qingshan Academy, an old teacher with graying hair and dressed in a neat Confucian robe is standing on the podium, speaking eloquently.

From the way this old teacher speaks with such a silver tongue and calm composure, one can tell that he is certainly a confident teacher with ideals.

This old man is the Confucian studies teacher at Qingshan Academy, named Cui Xiuwen, also known as Elder Cui.

Perhaps sensing that someone was slacking off, Elder Cui's voice stopped abruptly, and he then slammed the ruler in his hand heavily onto the yellow rosewood desk beside him.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Hearing that crisp and familiar sound, the students below immediately straightened their backs, eyes fixed forward, expressions serious and earnest to show that they were listening attentively.

"We will now begin a pop quiz. Prepare yourselves."

As soon as Elder Cui's voice fell, a wave of clamor erupted from below.

"Ah~ another quiz..."

"We have to take several every week, sigh..."

"When will these days ever end~"

"I hate exams the most!"

At this moment, a handsome-looking youth sitting in the corner of the second-to-last row also blurted out: "Sigh, another exam!"

This youth is our protagonist--Lu Mingyuan.

After Lu Mingyuan finished complaining, he shook his head, then skillfully crossed his arms and placed them on the desk before lowering his head to rest on them.

He did not continue to grumble about the teacher's "vicious" behavior with his classmates.

On the other side, Elder Cui only smiled upon hearing the students' complaints, not minding them in the slightest.

A moment later, the noisy sounds gradually quieted down until they vanished.

Seeing that the students below were all lying neatly on their respective desks, ready, Elder Cui moved his consciousness, channeled the talent energy within his body, and used it to draw down spiritual energy from an unknown space to activate the Confucian divine ability--Encouraging Learning.

Who would have thought that after the Encouraging Learning divine ability was activated, it was as if nothing had happened at all; including Elder Cui, the students, the desks, and even the books on the desks, not a single iota of change had occurred.

Could it be that the activation of the divine ability failed?

After releasing the divine ability, Elder Cui closed his eyes slightly, a smile on his face, as if he were sensing something.

Back to Lu Mingyuan's side.

The moment the Encouraging Learning divine ability was activated, Lu Mingyuan arrived in a space that looked somewhat bizarre.

The reason it is called bizarre is that this space contains only a limited number of things.

A bookshelf over ten meters long, filled with all kinds of books.

Neat and dense.

It looked like there were several thousand of them.

A desk, with brush, ink, paper, and inkstone placed upon it.

And a stool.

However, apart from these, there was nothing else.

No house, no walls, no ground, not even a sky or clouds...

There were no other animals, plants, or even humans, except for Lu Mingyuan himself in this place.

At this moment, a stream of information was suddenly transmitted over.

"Welcome to the Encouraging Learning Space. This space is specifically used for assessing students' academic progress and..."

The information roughly introduced the functions and rules of the Encouraging Learning Space, what books were inside, the assessment questions for later, and so on, before asking:

"Information transmission complete. Proceed with the assessment?"

"Yes!"

After agreeing, Lu Mingyuan did not hesitate in the slightest and sat straight down at the desk in the center of the space.

It appeared that he was not afraid or curious about any of this, and was actually quite familiar with it.

In that case, Lu Mingyuan must come here often, and his arrival here~ should be the result of Elder Cui activating the divine ability.

After Lu Mingyuan sat down, he silently whispered "Start."

Immediately following, a slip of paper appeared abruptly before him, with the following written on it:

The Master said: "Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application? ___, ___? (blank, blank) Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him?" -- The Analects: Xue Er

The moment he saw these characters, the meaning of them was also transmitted into Lu Mingyuan's heart, as if it were worried he wouldn't recognize the words.

However, this question looked very familiar; it seemed~ this was a fill-in-the-blank question?

"This is simple. 'Is it not a joy to have friends come from afar?'"

Seeing the question, Lu Mingyuan picked up his brush and answered immediately.

In an instant, the blank space on the slip of paper was filled with the answer.

The entire process, from seeing the question to finishing the answer, took less than five seconds.

After answering, a message was transmitted to him, and Lu Mingyuan knew that he was now free to leave.

However, this test was not over yet. He still had to continue answering questions.

After one question, the text on the slip changed again, becoming:

In the military strategy classic Thirty-Six Stratagems, the six victory stratagems are: _, _, _, _, _, _ (six blanks).

"Deceive the heavens to cross the sea, besiege Wei to rescue Zhao, borrow a knife to kill, rest while the enemy tires, loot a burning house, and make a feint to the east while attacking in the west."

"Same old routine. Can't they come up with something fresh?"

Though he said this, Lu Mingyuan knew that expecting something fresh was impossible.

Sure enough, no sooner had this question finished than the next one appeared:

___, I wish to stay drunk forever and never wake up. -- Bring in the Wine, Li Bai

Just like that, Lu Mingyuan answered question after question at the desk in the eerie space.

The scope of these questions was vast and all-encompassing.

Classics, history, philosophy, literature, poetry, prose, and songs—all were covered.

If categorized by schools of thought, there were texts and materials from the Confucian School, Military School, Legalist School, Agricultural School, Medical School, Miscellaneous School, Daoist School, Buddhist School, and more.

Fortunately, Lu Mingyuan had put in the hard work, so he could handle them with ease.

About an hour later, Lu Mingyuan finally put down his brush, having answered exactly eight hundred questions. With so many questions, if the answers hadn't appeared on the paper the moment he thought of them, the time spent just writing would not have been enough.

After finishing the test, Lu Mingyuan stood up, stretched, and whispered to himself: I want to go out.

Following this, in the classroom, the delicate-looking youth who had been slumped over his desk finally woke up, slowly straightened his body, and lifted his head.

Just then, three people in the classroom seemed to hear the movement and looked over at Lu Mingyuan.

They exchanged smiles. They were all acquaintances!

Seeing this, Lu Mingyuan thought to himself: As expected, I am the fourth one to wake up again.

Lu Mingyuan was neither surprised nor shocked by the fact that he was fourth; after all, he wasn't particularly skilled at literature, nor did he have much interest in it.

Therefore, achieving this result was only natural.

To be honest, if it weren't for the fact that these teachers frequently held pop quizzes and he didn't want to be last every time and become a laughingstock, he wouldn't have bothered memorizing those seemingly boring things.

With that time, he would rather spend it thinking about how to construct a perfect divine ability.

As for the Quanxue Divine Ability that Elder Cui had just used, Lu Mingyuan was well-versed in the information regarding that ability.

The Quanxue Divine Ability was created by the ancestors of the Confucian School and was a type of learning-based and examination-based divine ability.

It was also a type of illusion-based divine ability.

Through this ability, one could pull others into an illusion to answer questions.

As for the location of the test, it was the place that looked somewhat eerie where Lu Mingyuan had just been.

In fact, that space was indeed virtual and non-existent, or rather, it existed within the mind of everyone who had been struck by the Quanxue Divine Ability.

Therefore, for those struck by this ability, their external manifestation was a loss of consciousness and falling into a coma.

That was why the old teacher had told them to get ready and slump over their desks, so they wouldn't fall over after losing consciousness from the ability.

And the reason this ability was called "Quanxue" (Encouraging Learning) and nothing else was simple.

It was because there was only one way to break this ability.

That is: once struck by this ability and entered into the illusion, one must complete a randomly generated question to get out; otherwise, one would have to stay inside for a sufficiently long time.

This seemed like a good thing. After all, although there was no food or drink in that virtual space, one would not feel hunger or thirst while inside.

In other words, there was no need to eat, drink, or relieve oneself.

From this perspective, it was indeed a good thing, as this was a life many people in his previous life had dreamed of.

Such an environment was actually very suitable for lying flat.

However, there were also downsides. One had to know that, apart from a limited number of items, there was nothing else in that illusion space. Staying inside made it very easy to feel bored or even frustrated.

To stay inside for a long time required a great deal of patience.

Of course, there were ways to pass the time. The bookshelf in the illusion space was filled with many good books.

There were The Analects, Laozi, Records of the Grand Historian, Thirty-Six Stratagems, The Art of War, Classic of Mountains and Seas, and various other classics.

There were also all kinds of ancient poems and lyrics...

In short, for every question that appeared, one could find the corresponding reference book within the space.

This looked very much like an open-book exam.

However, because the proctor—the person who released this divine ability—could clearly see everyone's performance inside the illusion, no one actually bothered to flip through books or copy answers during a typical exam.

As for why there were so many books inside?

That, of course, was for studying!

In their spare time, people could study within this illusionary space. Without the interference of miscellaneous chores and distractions, the efficiency of learning was far higher than it was outside.

The reason this divine ability earned its name was precisely because one could study and even take exams within it.

Of course, this divine ability had a second effect, which was a common trait of illusion-type divine abilities: time manipulation.

The time inside the illusion and the time in the outside reality could be different.

The ratio generally ranged from one-to-one to one-to-ten-thousand.

In other words, time inside the illusion could be up to ten thousand times faster than it was outside.

That would be the kind of scenario where one day outside equaled ten thousand days inside.

It was even more impressive than the legendary "one day in heaven is a year on earth."

Of course, this ratio was actually adjustable, depending entirely on the settings chosen by the master of the divine ability.

Take Elder Cui's, for example; his time ratio was set to about one-to-ten.

Therefore, despite the fact that Lu Mingyuan and the others had been working on practice problems for a long time inside, in reality, no more than five or six minutes had passed in the outside world.

Because of this, the Confucian School often used the phrase, "The passage of time is like this, never ceasing day or night," to describe this Quanxue Divine Ability.

It is said that in the past, the Confucian School relied on this divine ability to firmly maintain its grip on education across various academies.

It wasn't until later, when other schools of the Hundred Schools of Thought developed similar divine abilities, that this monopoly was broken.

Although this "Quanxue Divine Ability" was very useful, it did have its drawbacks.

That is: any time spent in any illusionary space would be truthfully reflected in one's lifespan. In other words, one would consume their lifespan while inside the illusion, though it was not physical lifespan, but soul lifespan.

To give an example, suppose there was a person who maintained a one-to-ten time ratio at every moment; then his real-world lifespan would be ten times shorter than normal. Yes, his lifespan would only be one-tenth of what it should be.

Many years later, he might still possess a very healthy and young body in reality, but by that moment, his soul would have already decayed to the point of ruin.

He would have reached the end of his life.

Therefore, most people rarely stayed inside for long periods to enjoy the thrill of acceleration. If they did accelerate time, it was only done occasionally.

After another seven or eight minutes had passed, the students in the classroom finally regained their senses.

Seeing this, Elder Cui called out calmly, "Class dismissed!"

The students replied in unison, "Goodbye, Teacher!"

At this moment, Lu Mingyuan hurried to catch up with Elder Cui, who was about to walk away.

"Teacher, I am going to awaken tonight, so I would like to ask for two days off."

Elder Cui looked steadily at the young man before him.

He recognized this student, and he had a rather deep impression of him. The boy rarely spoke in class, yet his grades were unexpectedly stable.

Elder Cui narrowed his eyes slightly. "Mingyuan, are you turning eighteen today?"

After receiving confirmation from Lu Mingyuan, Elder Cui then said, "That's fine! You should take these two days to get some good rest."

"After you awaken, don't be in a rush to create a divine ability. That must be done slowly; you cannot rush it."

"Also, don't spend your luck points recklessly; they are very precious."

Lu Mingyuan nodded repeatedly as he listened.

At this point, Elder Cui suddenly asked, "By the way, Mingyuan, which school do you plan to choose in the future?"

Lu Mingyuan replied, "The Agricultural School!"

There was not the slightest hesitation.

"The Agricultural School?"

Elder Cui muttered to himself.

Just then, Elder Cui suddenly recalled the situation at the young man's home and knew that the boy didn't have many choices to begin with. Thinking of this, he abandoned the idea of trying to pull him into his own Confucian School.

He could only sigh, his tone sounding somewhat desolate as he said, "The Agricultural School is fine, too!"

Lu Mingyuan actually guessed some of Elder Cui's thoughts, but he had already made up his mind and planned out his future.

If nothing went wrong, it should turn out quite well.

Moreover, he really wasn't that interested in the things the Confucian School taught.

Those were actually more suitable for intellectuals.

As for him, Lu Mingyuan, he was just a rough man. He really couldn't play the complicated games of the intellectuals. Especially things like "the central theme" and "what exactly does this sentence express."