Jiang Zichun's Confession and Plan

In the battle against An Youyi, Jiang Zichun used the Mind-Fixing Divine Ability because her actual combat strength was inferior to her opponent's.

However, for some reason, An Youyi only lost focus for a very short time before snapping back to reality, which meant Jiang Zichun failed to gain any significant advantage.

In the ensuing fight, Jiang Zichun used the Mind-Fixing Divine Ability several more times, but An Youyi recovered quickly each time. Furthermore, Jiang Zichun had the distinct impression that the duration of the opponent's distraction was growing shorter and shorter.

As she realized this, her heart sank; she knew she likely had little hope left.

Although Jiang Zichun had known beforehand that her opponent was already a Three-Star Cultivator, leading her by an entire realm, she still felt unwilling to give up. After all, this was her only chance to potentially take first place, and she might never have such an opportunity again.

Yet, for some reason, her Mind-Fixing Divine Ability had little effect on the other girl.

It wasn't that Jiang Zichun doubted the effectiveness of the ability—after all, the previous few opponents had already verified that it was indeed powerful—but this An Youyi was very strange. She did lose focus, but only for a fleeting, negligible moment.

As for An Youyi, she was becoming increasingly frustrated and stifled.

Anyone would feel the same if, while they were in the middle of an enjoyable fight, they were suddenly interrupted to answer a math problem.

Although An Youyi had tried every possible way to minimize the impact of that ability on the real world, her combat rhythm was still being disrupted.

It was like, you know, being in the middle of something good when a phone call suddenly comes in. And then, just as you try to continue, another one rings.

At that point, most people would have the urge to kill, let alone anything else.

So, An Youyi grew more frustrated and angry with every exchange; she wanted nothing more than to smash the girl across from her.

She hated that this little bitch wouldn't let her have a good time.

Hoo! Hoo!

Without realizing it, An Youyi's strength grew, and she swung her Copper Hammer with increasing speed.

Clang! Clang!

From time to time, the sword and hammer collided, emitting a series of dull, heavy thuds.

Suddenly, An Youyi slammed her hammer toward Jiang Zichun's face. Jiang Zichun had no time to dodge and nowhere to dissipate the force, so she could only brace her sword with both hands, intending to block the blow.

The moment the Copper Hammer struck the blade, the sword—formed through the Sword Formation—bent violently into a severely distorted bow shape. Jiang Zichun took the opportunity to retreat, avoiding being crushed by the massive hammer.

"I concede! Referee, I concede!"

The moment she stepped back, Jiang Zichun hurriedly called out.

In truth, Jiang Zichun didn't want to give up so quickly.

But she had no choice. She had already used her sword to block a dozen heavy hammer strikes, and her hands were now so numb she could barely hold her weapon. How could she continue to attack?

Moreover, her Mind-Fixing Divine Ability was having less and less effect on her opponent.

Therefore, Jiang Zichun felt her chances of winning were dwindling, becoming almost non-existent. She decided it was better to concede than to risk being smashed and suffering a serious injury.

The moment Jiang Zichun conceded, An Youyi stopped her attack in time.

However, there was still a hint of lingering dissatisfaction in An Youyi's expression.

Although Jiang Zichun had been dodging around like a monkey during their fight and rarely met her head-on, she was the only person in the last few months who had been able to withstand so many of her moves.

An Youyi still felt unfulfilled, but since her opponent had conceded, there was nothing she could do; she couldn't force someone to keep fighting.

Also, that ability the girl had, which could pull people into an illusion during combat, was quite good. She would have to ask about it later to see what it was all about.

An Youyi felt that if she could master this ability, she would truly be invincible among her peers.

Once the opponent lost focus, she could just finish them off with a single hammer strike. How wonderful that would be!

And if she used this ability to annoy people, that would be quite fun, too.

Just like what she had experienced.

Even though An Youyi considered herself to have excellent self-control, she had been pushed to the brink of losing her composure by this ability.

Therefore, she was determined to obtain it.

As for whether Jiang Zichun was willing, An Youyi felt that her persona as a "pay-to-win" player was very effective.

Furthermore, based on An Youyi's judgment, this should be a newly emerged ability, and with the hint of "Chicken and Rabbit in a Cage," she could find it herself if she put in the effort.

Of course, if she could easily get what she wanted from Jiang Zichun, An Youyi would be very happy.

After all, why do things the hard way if you can make them easy?

Around 3:45 PM, the tournament finally came to an end.

The final ranking: first place was, as expected, An Youyi.

Second place, naturally, went to the newcomer Jiang Zichun.

As for Zhang Yurou, she was ranked fifth.

Regarding these unexpected rankings for the End-of-Month Grand Competition, it wasn't just the challengers who were surprised; even the onlookers and the teachers hadn't anticipated such a significant shift in the standings.

Zhang Yurou was one thing, as rumors of her greatly improved strength had been circulating for a while.

But Jiang Zichun? She had managed to surge all the way to second place in one go.

Everyone was, of course, quite surprised by this result.

Moreover, their curiosity had been piqued; they were dying to know what kind of method Jiang Zichun used to make her opponent lose focus.

Was it a Divine Ability? A cultivation technique? Or something else entirely?

Could they learn it?

In truth, this last question was the one they cared about most.

After Jiang Zichun and the others left, a few people in the crowd still lingered, their eyes flickering as they pondered something.

After the challenge matches ended, An Youyi returned to her dormitory, tidied up, and took a shower. She then decided to go find Jiang Zichun to get to the bottom of things and see what kind of conditions the other girl would demand in exchange for teaching her that Divine Ability.

As for Jiang Zichun's residence, An Youyi knew it was Heavenly Grade Dormitory No. 9, which had been assigned by the academy based on the tournament rankings.

Heavenly Grade Dormitory No. 9.

The moment An Youyi pushed the door open and stepped inside, she was stunned by the scene before her.

Every single one of the top ten finishers from the tournament, besides herself, was actually here.

This included the third-place finisher Cheng Mei, fourth-place Yang Huan, fifth-place Zhang Yurou, sixth-place Jian Meng...

And even the tenth-place finisher, Kong Huiying.

From second place to tenth, not a single one was missing.

Seeing this, An Youyi thought to herself: So you're all forming a little clique, but you didn't invite me?

Is my social standing really that poor?

For some reason, a strange sense of bitterness welled up in An Youyi's heart.

She rarely interacted with these people on a daily basis, but surely they didn't have to isolate her like this.

Although she thought this way, An Youyi didn't show it on her face. Instead, she smiled naturally and found a spot to sit down.

Since Jiang Zichun, the owner of the room, had let her in, it meant she wasn't being intentionally excluded.

Therefore, she sat down with a clear conscience.

In truth, Jiang Zichun was quite surprised by An Youyi's arrival. However, since she was already here, she couldn't exactly turn her away. Besides, having the first-place finisher present would only make her own plan proceed more smoothly.

Once everyone was seated, Jiang Zichun got straight to the point:

"You must all be very curious about what that method of mine was, the one that made people fall into an illusion, right?"

As soon as Jiang Zichun finished speaking, Zhang Yurou asked anxiously, "Are you really going to tell us?"

Zhang Yurou found it hard to believe. Anyone who possessed such a method would usually keep it hidden and guarded; why would she be so generous as to reveal it?

To be honest, if Jiang Zichun hadn't sent her a voice transmission after their match on the arena floor saying she would explain it, Zhang Yurou never would have come.

"Zichun, are you really going to tell us?"

"You aren't going to keep it a secret?"

The others in the small room also looked at Jiang Zichun with skeptical eyes, finding it hard to believe what she was saying.

It didn't align with human nature. Why wouldn't she continue to hide it?

Frankly, the reason they had all come to Jiang Zichun's room was precisely because she had sent them voice transmissions earlier, promising to explain the reason.

Seeing their incredulous expressions, Jiang Zichun said calmly, "This is actually a Divine Ability. And it's a new one that appeared just yesterday, called 'Mathematics: Chicken and Rabbit in a Cage'. If you don't believe me, you can check the Divine Ability Treasury."

In truth, Jiang Zichun wasn't actually that generous. She didn't want to tell these people, especially since they were all her competitors.

However, the fact that it was a Divine Ability was easy to verify, and the others would only need to look up the most recent additions to know which one it was.

Furthermore, the illusion within this Divine Ability was the 'Chicken and Rabbit in a Cage' problem; it was too obvious to keep hidden for more than a few days.

Therefore, Jiang Zichun had no choice but to be honest.

She might as well earn some favors while she was at it.

After Jiang Zichun revealed the name of the Divine Ability, the others quickly found it in the Divine Ability Treasury.

After experiencing it, they confirmed it was exactly the same as the one Jiang Zichun had used, and they quickly purchased it, as if afraid the seller might take it off the market.

"It only costs 100 points?"

"It really is exactly the same."

"And you can even adjust the difficulty of the problems; it's truly useful!"

"An illusion-type combat Divine Ability. The dream of many."

"Thank you, Zichun!"

"Zichun, I love you so much. Mwah."

Another round of praise and gratitude followed.

Beside her, An Youyi was also smiling happily. She had experienced the Mathematics Divine Ability herself, and it was truly remarkable. For her, having this was like adding wings to a tiger, or a fish returning to water.

Consequently, her favorability toward Jiang Zichun skyrocketed, falling just short of becoming a bosom friend.

"Zichun, do you have some other plan in mind?"

An Youyi felt that since Jiang Zichun had so readily revealed her methods—and for free, no less—there must be some ulterior plan.

Otherwise, the rest of them would surely have had to pay some kind of price.

She absolutely did not believe there was any such thing as a free lunch in this world.

Hearing An Youyi's words, the others in the room also put away their joyful expressions and looked toward Jiang Zichun.

Knowing that they wouldn't be at ease unless she spoke, Jiang Zichun did not hide anything and stated her plan directly:

"Everyone knows that this divine ability is actually very easy to find and very easy to use. Therefore, I estimate that within a few days at most, it will spread throughout the world and become a national craze."

"Yeah! It's even named 'Chicken and Rabbit in a Cage' directly; I don't know why she didn't make it more obscure."

"Right, right! She didn't even try to hide it. It's too direct."

"I suspect that there might already be people who know about this divine ability, it just hasn't spread on a large scale yet."

"If only it had a less conspicuous name, we could have kept it hidden for longer."

"Hey, she's selling a divine ability, so of course she has to pick an attractive name, and it has to be fitting. She can't just name it randomly."

"That's true! Actually, this name is quite good now. It fits the reality, and it's simple and direct! It's much better than those other messy names."

Regarding the issue of this divine ability spreading across the world quickly, none of them raised any objections.

After all, this divine ability was sitting clearly in the Divine Ability Treasury; someone was bound to find it eventually. They couldn't expect everyone else to be blind.

Besides, gold will always shine.

It was only a matter of time before others discovered this divine ability.

Seeing that the group agreed with her point of view, Jiang Zichun continued: "Therefore, we only have a few days of lead time, perhaps even just today."

"Since time is short, I was thinking, could we challenge the surrounding academies? We could challenge their top ten students to gambling matches to earn Earth Luck points. How do you all feel about that?"

As soon as Jiang Zichun finished speaking, Zhang Yurou said: "I agree with this. I worked so hard to get fifth place, and I only got sixty Earth Luck points. That's too little; I can't even buy the cheapest divine ability. If we find a few more academies, we might be able to earn a few hundred points."

"Right, right. I had twenty points last time, and this time I dropped a rank, so I only have ten. Who knows how long it would take to save up for a divine ability at this rate." At this point, Kong Huiying joined in the complaining.

"Exactly, the academy rewards are too stingy. We have to earn back the capital we just spent on the divine ability, otherwise, we'll be at a loss."

"We have to hurry. Maybe by tomorrow, this divine ability will be widespread, and we'll lose our advantage."

"Yeah! That's right!"

When it came to earning Earth Luck points, the eyes of all ten people began to glow with a strange light.

As for Earth Luck points, among the ten of them, everyone except An Youyi was quite short on them.

It wasn't that their families were particularly poor.

To be honest, since they could attend this high-level academy, their families were not doing badly. While they couldn't be considered extremely wealthy, they were at least in the middle tier of society, and they could afford a few Earth Luck points.

However, they had other brothers and sisters at home, so their families didn't provide them with much support, especially in a society that still favored men over women.

Therefore, for some things, they had to strive for themselves.

As for An Youyi, she certainly wasn't short on Earth Luck points, but the moment she thought about being able to fight together, her blood boiled with excitement, and she immediately agreed to the matter.

Subsequently, the group discussed the process of the challenges, deciding which academy to hit first and which to follow up with.

They planned to sweep through all the academies in Liyao City of the Great Chu Kingdom today to avoid any accidents.

At this moment, Jiang Zichun suddenly asked An Youyi: "An Youyi, can I ask you something?"

"How did you manage to break out of the illusion so quickly back then?"

At this, the others stopped talking and looked over.

In fact, they had noticed that An Youyi's time to break free from the illusion was much shorter than theirs, and not just by a little bit.

Now that they had also learned this illusion divine ability, they were very eager to understand the method for breaking out of it quickly.

If they could figure this out, they could devise ways to counter this loophole and try to patch it.

Moreover, when they encountered this illusion divine ability in the future, they would be able to react quickly and not be killed in one strike like they were in this competition.

An Youyi looked at their burning gazes and knew she had to explain this clearly today, otherwise, she would surely be ostracized again.

Actually, if the benefit were truly massive, being ostracized might be worth it.

But this method was actually quite simple; if they studied it carefully, they might discover it anyway, so there was no need for her to hide it.

An Youyi said directly: "I burned Human Luck points to accelerate my thinking speed, and I used the Heavenly Origin Technique, which is why I was so fast."

Hearing this, Cheng Mei patted her forehead. "Burning Human Luck points? Why didn't I think of that?"

"Burning one Human Luck point can double your thinking speed for an hour. If we increase it to the ten-fold limit, we only need one Human Luck point to increase our thinking speed tenfold, and it can last for over six minutes. That is enough to sustain a short-duration battle."

"It really works!"

"This way, problems that originally took twenty seconds to solve might only take us two seconds now."

"If we add the Heavenly Origin Technique on top of that, it might even take less than a second."

"The minimum time ratio between the illusion and the real world is ten to one, so one second inside the illusion is equivalent to at most one-tenth of a second in the outside world. No wonder you were able to get out so quickly."

"And I feel that if we master the Heavenly Origin Technique, we could be even faster. By then, it might be almost as if we hadn't lost focus at all."

"True. It would be great if we could increase our thinking speed even further; then the impact of this divine ability would be even smaller."

"Don't even think about it. For those of us below four stars, the maximum we can accelerate our thinking speed is ten times. Anything higher will have to wait until we promote to four stars."

"That's true!"

"Hey, do you guys think there's a faster way to solve these problems? I still feel this time is a bit long."

"Faster? There is!"

"There is?"

"Of course. I checked, and there are only two hundred or so problems in this divine ability's question bank. As long as we memorize all the answers, we can answer them in seconds. Wouldn't that get us out very quickly?"

"That method~ it really works."

"And it's so cheeky!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! It's definitely cheeky!"

"But what if our opponents also memorize the questions?"

"Well... we'll just have to ask that author, Anonymous, to increase the question bank. Otherwise, if everyone memorizes the answers, this divine ability will be practically useless."

At this moment, Jiang Zichun said, "As for that, I'll leave a message tonight and see if I can get the author to add more questions."

"Maybe we should leave the message tomorrow instead."

"Indeed, we should wait until tomorrow."

"Then let's memorize the answers now, just in case someone else uses this trick against us."

"Right, right, right!"

The group felt this was the best course of action.

Besides, having only these few hundred questions was most advantageous for them right now.

Furthermore, if they really couldn't memorize them, they could write them down in their Soul Space and cheat. They could just look them up when needed.

After the group had prepared everything, they got ready to go out and challenge others.

They were in high spirits and full of vigor, ready to make a big move.

As for their first target, it was naturally the nearby Changyu Academy.

Changyu Academy often used the excuse of sparring to come find them, and now it was time for them to take their revenge.

Just then, An Youyi suddenly spoke up: "Zichun, wait a moment. I have a suggestion. You should report the divine ability you discovered to our academy now. I feel this divine ability might have even greater uses."

Jiang Zichun asked in confusion, "Greater uses?"

An Youyi nodded and said, "Yes! Actually, I don't know for sure if it's what I think it is. But you should report it to the academy first. If it really has great utility, the academy will definitely reward you."

Since An Youyi didn't specify what the use might be, Jiang Zichun didn't press for details.

She knew that a young lady from a prominent family like An Youyi surely knew things that ordinary people didn't, and there was no need for her to pry. What if it involved classified information?

Moreover, this matter only had benefits for her and no drawbacks, so she readily agreed: "Alright! I'll go right now. You guys wait for me."

With that, Jiang Zichun hurriedly ran out of the dormitory.

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