Scholar Lv.3

In the blink of an eye, five days had passed.

Galactic Calendar 226 January 6.

Early morning. The sky was faintly pale, and the biting wind outside the old building's window remained as fierce as ever.

"Mm..." Just before the alarm's piercing buzz could explode, Li Wen abruptly opened his eyes and reflexively reached out to switch it off.

The bedroom fell silent again. Only the steady beat of his heart in his chest and the fine cracks of his stretching bones reminded him that a new day had begun.

With a thought, the familiar pale-blue screen clearly emerged in the depths of his consciousness:

[Name: Li Wen]

[Age: 18]

[Profession: Scholar Lv.2 (188/200)]

[Realm: Unranked (Level 6.1)]

[Technique: Advanced Blade Technique (Greater Accomplishment 99/100)]

[Method: Fracture Edge Gold Sha Method (Minor Accomplishment 30/100)]

Five days had slipped by under almost crazed exertion.

The numerical panel for his Flesh Rank still stubbornly displayed "6.1," but Li Wen could clearly sense the strength within him slowly and steadily approaching "6.2." Every circulation of blood and vitality brought a subtle feeling of fullness.

Thanks to the stability of the Minor Accomplishment realm and his understanding of the new realm, the Fracture Edge Gold Sha Method had climbed all the way to Minor Accomplishment 30 after breaking through Initiation. The cultivation feedback brought by the increase in efficiency was tangible.

But without question, the fastest progress was still the Scholar experience that represented his core potential—188/200, just one step away from the 200-point threshold for leveling up.

Perhaps today, double blessings would arrive together.

Scholar advancing to Lv.3, along with the Perfection bottleneck in his blade technique that had troubled him for five whole days—seemingly as thin as cicada wings, yet harder than refined steel—would be broken through in one stroke.

An indescribable heat rose from his chest, mixed with intense anticipation and determination. Li Wen swiftly got up, his movements as he dressed quick and precise.

Cold water splashed across his face, bringing a brief clarity. In the living room, the familiar purplish-brown empty medicine box lay quietly on the table. Beneath its edge was a graceful note from his mother: "A new day, keep it up! —Mom."

Warmth brushed through his heart. He carefully put away the note, wolfed down the breakfast Mother Li had kept warm, slung his worn but sturdy canvas bag over his shoulder, and plunged headfirst into the winter wind. His destination—Qingshi No.3 High School.

History class was underway in the cultural studies classroom of Class 21, Grade 12.

At the podium, the history teacher, nearing fifty, adjusted his reading glasses. His voice carried the resonance of years gone by, though its severity could not be concealed:

"...This lesson will focus on reviewing the origins of modern martial arts. This is a key point that appears on the exams every year! You must remember it down to your bones and blood!"

He pointed toward the light screen behind him, where a massive timeline marked the crucial events:

"...Before Year One of the Galactic Calendar lay the long Dark Era. Human civilization once struggled in the cosmic wasteland where spiritual energy was scarce.

"Until 226 years ago, when our Milky Way finally left the spiritually barren region while orbiting the supercluster and entered the surrounding Star Domain's 'low-concentration spiritual energy belt'—that was the landmark 'Spiritual Energy Tide'!"

The teacher's voice suddenly rose. "It was precisely this great yet perilous turning point that heralded the dawn of spiritual energy's resurgence! Humanity's martial potential, suppressed for millennia, could finally be unearthed..."

He paused, a trace of heaviness flashing through his eyes. "But this was also the beginning of disaster! Because the savage speed at which demonic beasts absorbed and converted spiritual energy far surpassed our frail flesh!

"They experienced the terrifying 'Awakening Tide' before humanity did, transforming even more swiftly! What we lost was not merely the peace of the old era, but also the land upon which countless compatriots depended for survival..."

The history teacher explained with the utmost detail, laying everything out in clear order as he slowly recounted the tragedy and opportunities of that era.

Yet the response below the podium was sparse. In a class of over forty, fewer than half were truly listening with complete attention.

The students pursuing martial arts had long since let their thoughts drift to the afternoon's martial arts class and the final martial arts assessment only three days away;

Even those pursuing academics, such as Wei Wu, mostly treated history as dry knowledge that had to be memorized rather than memories bearing the weight of civilization.

The teacher at the podium seemed long accustomed to this scene. He did not get angry; only a faint, imperceptible sigh passed through his eyes.

Under the weighting structure of the Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, history's share indeed made it difficult for most hot-blooded youths dreaming of shattering the heavens through martial arts to muster much interest.

[You studied seriously for ten minutes. Scholar experience +1]

[Profession: Scholar Lv.2 (199→200/200)]

[Leveling up...]

[Profession: Scholar Lv.3 (0/400)]

Just as Li Wen once again immersed himself in his books and silently organized the key points along with the teacher's voice, the panel notification abruptly appeared without warning.

An invisible ripple instantly swept through his Sea of Consciousness.

Bzz!

A cool sensation far stronger and more condensed than when he had risen from Lv.1 to Lv.2 surged through the canyon of his thoughts like a mountain stream thawing in early spring.

It was a strange sensation, as though his mind had been completely washed clean, broadened, and optimized. Like dusty glass being polished bright, the sluggishness in his thoughts dissolved, and the entire world became clearer and more lucid in an instant.

[Scholar Lv.3]—achieved!

"Phew..." Unable to restrain himself, Li Wen let out an extremely soft breath in his seat. The sharp gleam that burst from his eyes was swiftly withdrawn.

He quickly raised his head and glanced at the electronic clock at the front of the classroom—there were still thirty-seven minutes until class ended.

Without the slightest hesitation, and even with a solemnity akin to pilgrimage, Li Wen's thoughts raced. Activate—[Absolute Focus]!

The instant the thought fell, an invisible force, more condensed and more complete than before, wrapped around him. The activation of Lv.3 [Absolute Focus] was nearly flawless and traceless.

Li Wen felt as though the world before his eyes had suddenly shed every irrelevant color and sound.

The rustling of Wei Wu turning his history notes, the whimper of tree branches scraped by the cold wind outside, the suppressed yawns of the students in front... all the noise was instantly stripped away and shut out.

Within his field of vision remained only the incomparably intricate historical timeline points, analytical diagrams, and explanations of key terms in the textbook, along with—the copy of Advanced Math Problem Analysis he had deliberately spread open beneath his history textbook.

The history teacher was still recounting the great catastrophe caused by the first appearance of the "Demonic Beast King," the Sky-Rending Mystic Lion. Yet at the core of Li Wen's consciousness, these vital historical events were rapidly analyzed, categorized, and imprinted, forming solid memory modules.

At the same time, the mathematical problems that had made him furrow his brows yesterday, exhausting his wits without finding any route to a solution, now resembled gems stripped of their mist. Their internal chains of logic lay exposed with absolute clarity.

A thirty percent increase in comprehension—this was a qualitative leap!

The details of force application, the key points of power transmission, the subtle angles of transition between moves... all the things he had needed to ponder repeatedly when deducing blade techniques at Lv.2 were now swept into his mind like a torrent of information, refined as if enlightened by an invisible Grandmaster.

Countless sparks of inspiration crackled in his mind, colliding, combining, and verifying themselves wildly.

The twenty-six forms of the Tiger Guard Blade Art—the applicable situations for every form and every variation, hidden changes, limit angles, and the hidden secrets of resonating with the power of the metal-element foundational method, Fracture Edge Gold Sha Method... like a scattered puzzle, they were rapidly assembling toward the most perfect state of "seamless completeness" under this terrifying mental deduction.

The 99-point bottleneck that had plagued him for five days, that seemingly incomparably sturdy membrane, began to emit faint groans of strain under the continuous, precise scraping of the "mental carving knife" formed by Absolute Focus layered with the thirty percent comprehension boost.

Blade light crisscrossed within his mind, while his spiritual world underwent a silent yet earthshaking transformation.

More than thirty minutes might have seemed like half a dull review lesson to ordinary people. To Li Wen, it was a raging storm of thought burning fiercely in the depths of his soul.

Every high-speed collision of thought brought him infinitely closer to the Perfection realm of Advanced Blade Technique.

Time lost all measure in absolute concentration.

"Ring-ring-ring—" The shrill dismissal bell exploded like thunder.

Bzz! The transcendent field of focus enveloping Li Wen abruptly receded like the tide. The world's noise and colors violently flooded back into his senses.

"Hiss..." Intense dizziness and a vast spiritual emptiness struck him in an instant.

Li Wen let out a muffled groan. His hands reflexively pressed heavily against his temples, fingers interlocked as he kneaded hard, trying to ease the swelling pain that felt as though his head were about to split apart.

Lv.3 Absolute Focus consumed several times more Spiritual Power than Lv.2.

His body, especially his brain—the "hardware" supporting all those calculations—had finally begun sending him powerful warning signals.

"Hey, Li Wen, are you okay?" Wei Wu was packing up his bag. Seeing Li Wen pressing his temples in pain, then glancing at the copy of Advanced Math Problem Analysis on his desk, only a few pages open and covered in complicated martial arts formulas, he instantly misunderstood. His voice held a trace of teasing and genuine concern.

"Damn, bro, do you have to push yourself this hard? Even if you really want to do math problems, don't pick history class! Look at you, your face is pale... If the hard problems are really beyond you, start with the easy ones first. Don't make yourself dizzy."

"...Mm." Li Wen slowed the motion of rubbing his temples and glanced through his fingers at the problem book, revealing a slightly stiff smile born of exhaustion.

"It's fine, just a bit of a headache... Mm, I was just giving it a try. Didn't work out." He vaguely went along with him without explaining the truth.

Only after the students who had left class had all gone, and the piercing bell for the third-period Chinese class rang out, did Li Wen feel the swelling pain gradually ebb away like the tide, his mind regaining some clarity.

He shook his head, dispelling the lingering heaviness. His gaze became sharp once more.

The cost had been enormous, but the gains from that brief, frenzied deduction just now... were impossible to measure.

Almost purely through willpower, he took out the appropriate books again and arranged them on his desk. He suppressed the urge surging in his heart to rush straight to the martial arts classroom and continued to "seriously" study his books—after all, every ten minutes was precious Scholar experience.

Time passed amid the soft friction of pen tips against pages.

"Ring-ring-ring—" The bell signaling the end of morning classes rang right on time.

[Scholar experience +24]

[Profession: Scholar Lv.3 (0→24/400)]

Li Wen put down his pen and looked at the updated panel, exhaustion mixed with deep anticipation in his eyes.

"Four hundred points... At thirty-six experience every six hours, the next level-up will be eleven days from now." He frowned, then relaxed again.

"But... it probably won't actually take that long. Next week's final exams are a unified exam for the entire grade!" A thought leaped into his mind.

The core of gaining experience for the Scholar profession was learning and mastering knowledge.

And exams were the most authoritative test of learning results! The larger the examination, the more people it involved, and the greater its difficulty and ability to distinguish levels, the more generous the experience gained from achieving outstanding results would be.

This hidden mechanism was a crucial patch the game designers had put in place to balance the astronomical amount of experience required for Scholars to level up in the later stages.

After all, the higher a profession's level, the more its required experience exploded exponentially. The total from Lv.1 to Lv.10 might not even compare to the experience needed for the single level from Lv.10 to Lv.11.

If one relied solely on burying one's head in books, the speed of leveling in the later stages would become so slow it inspired despair.

Therefore, achieving a top ranking in open and fair assessments had become an unavoidable shortcut for high-level Scholars to advance.

"The final exams... will be the first wave of experience acceleration after Lv.3." Calculation gleamed in Li Wen's eyes.

He stretched long and hard, his bones releasing a string of soft cracks.

The classroom soon emptied. The noise faded away, leaving only the sound of cold wind scraping past outside the window and the slightly dated melody of an inspirational song playing over the campus broadcast.

Li Wen did not get up immediately. He sat quietly in his seat for roughly twenty minutes, until the broadcast had finished three songs and fallen completely silent, while noon's stillness enveloped the teaching building.

The sensation of strength in his body had largely recovered, and his spiritual exhaustion had also been suppressed.

It was time to verify it.

An intense urge surged within his chest—what kind of sharp edge would the thirty percent comprehension boost under Lv.3 Absolute Focus reveal in actual blade practice? Could that sheer cliff that had stood in his way for five days...

Li Wen stood and rolled his shoulders and neck. Without any further hesitation, he quickly left the classroom and headed for the cafeteria.

His goal was clear: this afternoon's training had to completely pierce through that final layer of window paper standing before the realm of Perfection!

After a simple, quick, yet energy-rich lunch, Li Wen was the first to arrive at Class 21's martial arts classroom.

It was not yet one o'clock.

The room was spacious and quiet, filled with the familiar scent of equipment mixed with a faint smell of sweat. He did not immediately pick up a blade; the food from lunch needed time to digest.

The churning energy in his stomach would interfere with the circulation of blood and vitality, as well as the precision of his movements.

He walked to a resting bench in the corner and lay flat on it.

Closing his eyes, he emptied his mind and relied solely on bodily sensation to guide his stomach's movements, accelerating the digestion and absorption of the high-energy food.

He did not enter deep meditation, merely the most basic form of rest.

Twenty minutes passed. The bloated discomfort in his stomach was finally replaced by a warm sense of strength flowing toward all four limbs and every bone in his body.

Li Wen opened his eyes. There was no longer any hesitation or confusion in them, only pure focus and intense confidence.

He got up and began warming up! Stretching, joint movements, and a brief foundational stance to stir his blood and vitality... every step was carried out with meticulous care.

After warming up, Li Wen walked to the familiar weapon rack. His gaze passed over the various weapons before landing precisely on the Steel Standard Quick Blade, its handle worn smooth by his grip.

Clang! The cold sound of metal scraping rang especially clear in the empty classroom. The hilt fell into his hand, heavy and icy, like the bones extending from his arm.

He stood in the center of the open space, his toes lightly gripping the floor tiles marked by wear. His body sank slightly, his center of gravity as firm as a boulder.

He drew in a deep breath, as if he intended to inhale every scrap of usable oxygen and stillness in this space into his lungs.

The next moment, his thought struck like lightning splitting the sky.

Activate—[Absolute Focus]!

Bzz!

There was no outward sign at all. Even the moment of extreme concentration in his eyes was almost perfectly hidden beneath his already deeply focused expression.

The world was instantly purified and reconstructed!

The howling of the cold wind outside, the commotion from the distant training field, the roaring rush of blood within his body, the final faint movements of his stomach... every irrelevant piece of information was ruthlessly stripped away and isolated.

Within his vision remained only the quick blade in his hand, swallowing and spitting cold gleams! Within his Sea of Consciousness, only the light and shadows of the Tiger Guard Blade Art's twenty-six forms spun, deduced, combined, and optimized madly.

A thirty percent increase in comprehension!

This "mental carving knife," suddenly sharpened by thirty percent, began conducting a microscopic analysis, deconstruction, and reassembly of the forms he had practiced tens of millions of times in his consciousness.

Whoosh—!

He violently cleaved out with a single slash!

The movement was no longer mere repetition, but carried the newly born "understanding" granted by Lv.3 [Absolute Focus].

The sound of blade light tearing through the air carried a sharper tremor than before. It was the direct manifestation of a more treacherous angle, more concentrated power transmission, and swifter strike speed.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The blade moved with his heart, and his body followed the blade!

The first form, "Tiger Roars Through the Forest," began with the force of wind and thunder!

The roar was no longer the howl of brute force. Instead, it resembled the low warning growl of a living beast before it pounced to kill, filled with oppressive power held back but ready to erupt.

The blade's edge trembled, as if yearning for more air resistance to unleash the torrent of force hidden within it.

Before the Blade Force had run its course, his steps had already moved forward!

The instant his center of gravity sank, the second form, "Fierce Tiger Descends the Mountain," flowed into motion!

This strike no longer relied on an inertial vertical drop. The spiraling force driven by Li Wen's twisting waist and hips, together with the precise inward rotation of his wrist, perfectly merged into his foundational strength, igniting the falling momentum in an instant and erupting into a diagonal slash.

The path of the blade cutting through the airflow became smoother and more ferocious, like the lethal claw of a tiger ripping open its prey's throat from the side as it pounced.

Not a shred of strength was wasted. Every tightening and relaxation of every muscle remained under his control.

The third form, "Spirit Snake Flicks Its Tongue"!

The slender upward hook, which had once easily stiffened for a moment during its return arc, now transformed into the afterimage of a venomous snake just before it struck.

The drilling force guided by the little-finger side of his wrist was perfectly unearthed. The blade tip flickered and trembled like a snake's tongue, the range of angles it could seal suddenly expanding as it struck directly toward an opponent's poorly defended armpit.

The change came as swiftly as a venomous snake drawing back its neck before suddenly thrusting out its head in a thunderous strike.

Every slash was accompanied by a fierce eruption of inspiration in his mind.

Every shift of his steps further polished the timing of his center-of-gravity transitions in deduction, making them more seamless.

The blade was no longer merely an extension of his arm. It became the convergence point and core of the force flowing through his entire body.

A bottleneck? That membrane which had blocked him for five days?

Under the continuous battering and compression of the terrifying "mental storm" formed by Lv.3 [Absolute Focus] layered with the thirty percent comprehension boost, it had long since become covered in countless cracks.

Like a dam weathered by wind and rain for far too long, waiting only for the push of one final thread of force...

Once! Blade light surged like a dragon, his movements astonishingly fluid, leaving behind only streaks of incomparably condensed afterimages that lingered without dispersing!

Twice! Sweat instantly covered his forehead, but Li Wen's eyes had never been brighter, as though flames burned within them! The memory of every inch of muscle was being overwritten and optimized by entirely new insights! In his mind, the flawless radiance of the Perfection realm was already within reach!