Casually tossing the empty bottle into the trash bin, Li Wen slumped into the hardwood chair in his room as the refined glass bottle struck the side of the bin with a crisp clink. His entire body felt as though its bones had fallen apart.
Just one short hour of cultivating the Fracture Edge Gold Sha Method had produced astonishing results, yet it had nearly drained every last scrap of strength and energy from his body.
He remained sprawled in the chair for a full four or five minutes before his ragged breathing gradually calmed, and the weak, aching sensation eased somewhat.
Only then did he have the mind to concentrate. His consciousness sank into his Sea of Consciousness, opening the information panel that no one else could see.
Four brand-new messages appeared before his eyes with startling clarity:
[You focused on cultivating the Fracture Edge Gold Sha Method for one hour. Fracture Edge Gold Sha Method experience +10] [Method: Rending Gold-Sha Method: Basic (Minor Mastery 30→40/100)] [Your Flesh Rank +0.1] [Realm: Unranked (6.1→6.2)]
Li Wen's gaze lingered on the [Flesh Rank] entry for a long time.
The last time his Flesh Rank had risen was on the second morning after cultivation. This time, it had increased the instant he finished cultivating.
It confirmed his earlier guess—his body had already been at the critical threshold of breaking through to Level 6.2. That hour of extreme focus and high-intensity cultivation had been precisely like the final straw that broke the camel's back, successfully smashing through that invisible barrier.
"So, after deep rest tonight and after my body adjusts and digests everything, my Flesh Rank should rise quite a bit more tomorrow morning..."
Li Wen silently calculated. Jumping straight to Level 6.3 probably isn't realistic, but I'll definitely be very close.
The principles behind strengthening the body were identical to muscle growth. Only after pushing oneself to the limit, coupled with sufficient replenishment of qi, blood, and energy, could rapid growth be achieved.
The effects of this cultivation session absolutely matched the total of five days of his usual bitter training without potions.
Considering how badly his body needed recovery right now, forcing himself to continue would only be counterproductive and might even damage his foundation.
The martial path emphasized "one pull, one release," and Li Wen understood that principle deeply.
Supporting himself against the back of the chair, he slowly rose to his feet and made his way unsteadily toward the washroom.
After a whole day of cultivation, sweat had soaked through his clothes more times than he could count—wet, then dry, then wet again—leaving conspicuous sweat stains on the fabric.
After stripping off his sticky clothes, Li Wen adjusted the water to a comfortably warm temperature and let the dense spray from the showerhead pour over his face and body.
The fine curtain of water quickly enveloped him, gathering into clear streams that wound down his increasingly defined body, carrying away exhaustion and grime.
Early the next morning.
The chill of the winter dawn had yet to fully disperse when Li Wen opened his eyes right on time, before his alarm could ring.
Going to bed early on purpose the night before had left him exceptionally refreshed and energetic.
With a bend of his legs and a nimble roll, he landed steadily beside the bed, swift and silent.
[Realm: Unranked (Level 6.2)]
His eyes swept over the number on the panel. Sure enough, just as he had expected, he had not immediately advanced to Level 6.3 overnight.
However, that feeling that he was only one step from the door grew even stronger.
"Tonight, I'll take another Qi-Blood Potion and cultivate. Tomorrow morning... I'll definitely reach Level 6.3." He silently felt the strength in his body, which seemed a little more solid than before, and clenched his fists until his knuckles turned faintly white.
Only after a moment did he head for the washroom.
"Dad?" The moment he pulled open his bedroom door, Li Wen was surprised to see his father, Li Hong, sitting upright on the old sofa in the living room, holding a steaming enamel mug.
"You're up, Ah Wen." Hearing him, Li Hong turned around with a gentle smile. "Go wash up. I made your favorite corn potstickers."
"Oh, okay!" Li Wen suppressed his doubts—his father should normally have left for work long ago by now. But the familiar, tempting scent of fried corn instantly pulled away his attention.
He crossed the narrow hallway in a few quick strides and rapidly finished washing up.
"Dad, are you off work today?" Li Wen pulled out a chair beside the dining table and sat down. Looking at the golden, appetizing potstickers in his bowl, he could not help asking.
"Yeah. There hasn't been much heavy work at the factory these past few days, so the boss told us old fellows to rest at home for a few days."
Li Hong smiled and nodded. His chopsticks never stopped moving as he placed another two browned potstickers into Li Wen's bowl. "Eat more. Martial arts training burns a lot."
"That's good. You really should get some rest." Li Wen did not suspect a thing. He picked up a potsticker and bit into it, finding it crisp and fragrant. "Delicious! It still tastes just like before!"
"Haha, then eat more if you like it!" The smile on Li Hong's face deepened as he added potstickers to his son's bowl almost half at a time.
"Dad, don't just keep giving me food. You should eat too." Li Wen's heart felt warm, and he hurriedly pushed his father's portion toward him.
The warm breakfast between father and son passed in the blink of an eye. Of the large plate of corn potstickers, eight or nine out of ten ended up in Li Wen's stomach.
"Dad, I'm heading to school first." Li Wen used a tissue to wipe the grease from the corner of his mouth and grabbed his backpack from the sofa.
"Mm. Watch out for cars on the road." Li Hong rose and walked him to the door, his eyes following his son's back until it disappeared around the stairwell corner.
Click~
The front door closed again.
After the soft sound of the door shutting, the room fell silent for a moment.
"Cough... cough cough cough... cough cough..." A burst of dull, violent coughing that could no longer be suppressed suddenly erupted, as if he meant to cough everything out of his chest.
Li Hong hunched over, covering his mouth tightly with his right hand. He coughed so hard that veins stood out on his forehead.
What boss giving him time off... It was his body, wrung dry by years of crushing labor, finally sounding its last alarm and protest.
Qingshi No.3 High School, Class 21, Grade 12 cultural studies classroom.
The morning chill was dispelled by the heat radiating from dozens of young bodies.
The math teacher walked onto the podium wearing thick glasses and carrying a large stack of white test papers. Chalk dust clung to the cuff of his dark coat.
"The official final exams are the day after tomorrow." He set the papers on the podium. His voice was not loud, yet it drowned out the quiet chatter below.
"So for these two consecutive math classes this morning, we'll do a mock exam using last year's final exam questions in advance. Treat it as a warm-up, and make sure you take it seriously."
"Pay attention," he emphasized, his gaze sweeping across the classroom. "Do your own work. Don't whisper to each other. I'll grade and score these papers! You're all seniors already. You should know the rules."
The rustling of papers being passed around rose like tidewater sweeping over a beach.
Soon, every student had a test paper covered in formulas and questions spread out before them—Galactic Year 224, Qingshi No.3 High School, Grade 12 First Semester Final Mathematics Examination.
"The class test is finally here..." Li Wen accepted the paper, his palm faintly warm. I wonder how much Scholar experience I'll get this time.
A week had passed since his last Scholar level-up, and he had never stopped grinding experience.
At the same time, he was curious about how much the knowledge he had reorganized and relearned through the ability of [Once Proven, Forever Proven] would improve his academic scores.
How far was he from his goal of breaking into the top ten in class and earning a scholarship? The thought flashed through his mind like lightning. Li Wen cast aside all distractions, gripped his pen, lowered his head, and began writing rapidly.
The first half of the multiple-choice questions went exceptionally smoothly. With the solid foundation brought by [Once Proven, Forever Proven], he could determine the correct answers with barely any thought.
However, beginning with the second-to-last multiple-choice question, the difficulty suddenly soared.
Li Wen furrowed his brow slightly. After trying several approaches without success, he decisively marked it and temporarily skipped it.
Then came the fill-in-the-blank questions. The beginning was just as smooth, but the final few difficult problems combining geometry and algebra stumped him again.
So... he turned his attention to the calculation problems.
The first major question was a classic problem involving function graphs and extrema. It was practically free points, and he solved it easily.
The second tested the combination of sequences and inequalities. Its difficulty was moderate. Li Wen spent some time on it and wrote out the steps clearly and methodically.
For the third major question, a comprehensive analytic geometry problem, Li Wen managed to work out the first sub-question.
But when he reached the fourth and fifth major questions concerning solid geometry and applications of derivatives, the complex diagrams and symbols on the paper seemed to be mocking him—he had no idea where to begin and found even the first sub-questions as hazy as flowers seen through fog.
"Ring ring ring~~" The crisp class bell rang like a savior.
The first period had ended.
"Anyone who needs the restroom, go quickly. Everyone else may continue answering." The math teacher took a sip of water and reminded them.
The classroom remained silent. No one stood. More than forty heads remained buried over their exam papers, the scratch of pen tips across paper forming the only main melody.
Li Wen raised his head and discreetly swept his gaze around the room.
Those classmates who also followed the martial path were in roughly the same situation as him. Their easy questions were filled to the brim, but when they encountered difficult ones, they were helpless, leaving large blank spaces on their papers.
Even what they had written was mostly a haphazard pile of formulas, hoping to strike a scoring point by chance.
In contrast, the students who specialized in academic exams were generally progressing in an orderly fashion.
Especially his deskmate, Wei Wu—although this guy always mocked himself by calling academics his "side hustle," he was the undisputed number one in Class 21 when it came to cultural studies.
His paper was neat and fluent. At this moment, he had somehow already reached only the second sub-question of the final, most difficult problem.
"I also want to get along with you all as an ordinary person, but alas... my strength won't allow it." Li Wen's lips curved slightly.
"Activate—[Absolute Focus]!" The instant his will issued the command, an indescribable sense of clarity swept through his mind.
It was as though the noisy world had been muted. The math teacher, his classmates, the sunlight outside the window... all external information abruptly receded, as if separated by a thick pane of frosted glass, becoming blurry and meaningless.
Within his field of vision, only the white test paper filled with numbers and symbols remained, occupying the very core of his consciousness with unparalleled clarity.
He seemed able to clearly "see" the chains of logic and nodes of knowledge contained within the questions. His brain began operating and analyzing at an unprecedented level of efficiency and precision.
His pen tip returned to the difficult solid geometry problem from before, his thoughts seeping into the heart of the question like ice water permeating through.
"Ring ring ring—"
As the bell signaling the end of the second class period that morning rang again, Li Wen, immersed in the sea of test questions, seemed to be pulled back by an invisible thread and suddenly came to his senses.
"Whew~~"
He let out a long, slow breath, expelling the stale air that had gathered in his chest. His taut nerves abruptly relaxed.
His gaze focused on the exam paper on his desk. The mathematics paper that had once been more than half blank was now completely covered in neat yet somewhat hurried handwriting.
Under the unreasonable crushing speed of thought provided by [Absolute Focus], every difficult question had been forcibly conquered.
"Alright, the exam is over. The last student in each group, please collect the papers." The math teacher set down his thermos and habitually looked toward the students in the last row of each group.
"That was close, I finished just in time!"
"Ah, wait! I forgot to write my name!"
The classroom instantly shifted from tense silence into a noisy sea, sounds of relief and frustration intertwining.
"Holy shit! The study king filled the whole thing out?!" In Li Wen's group, the student responsible for collecting the papers reached Li Wen's desk. His eyes swept over the paper densely covered in solutions, and he could not help letting out a low cry.
That voice was like a stone dropped into a calm lake amid the noisy surroundings, instantly stirring ripples.
"God!" Another classmate beside him followed his gaze, sucked in a breath, and blurted it out.
As though some strange signal had been triggered, a swarm of parrots emerged:
"God!"
"God!"
"God!"
A string of subdued yet awestruck one-syllable words spread, echoed, and gathered through the classroom at a visible speed, forming a neat wave of murmurs.
Several nearby students who had originally been preparing to stand were drawn in by the commotion. They crowded around Li Wen's desk, craning their necks and competing to see the mathematics paper that had been dubbed the "divine paper."
"Bring them up quickly. Don't waste time! You can look when they're handed back!" From the podium, the math teacher knocked on the desk and raised his voice, carrying a hint of helplessness and an almost imperceptible smile.
That urging was like a switch, instantly interrupting the brief scene of worship. The gathered students scattered like birds and beasts.
The papers were quickly collected and delivered to the podium.
Perhaps the small disturbance just now had drawn extra attention from the math teacher. He deliberately picked out the papers from Li Wen's group and placed them on top.
Then he skillfully pulled out Li Wen's paper and lowered his head to inspect it carefully during the short walk back to his office.
His tightly furrowed brows gradually relaxed, and traces of surprise and appreciation occasionally flashed through his eyes.
Thump!
About five minutes after the math teacher left the classroom, a familiar panel notification suddenly popped up before Li Wen without warning:
[You completed a mathematics test. Your problem-solving approach was clear, and your answer accuracy was high. Overall evaluation: Outstanding!] [Profession: Scholar lv3 (24→74/400) Experience +50]
"So fast?" Surprise flickered through Li Wen's heart as he looked at the notification.
He had originally assumed the experience would not be settled until the papers were returned, when the scores and rankings were finalized.
Now it seemed that the criteria for gaining experience were quite intelligent. As long as the paper had been graded and an overall evaluation was made, the experience could be credited immediately.
That was undoubtedly a tremendous boost in efficiency.
A full fifty points of Scholar experience entered his account at once, instantly washing away the lingering sting from the intense operation of [Absolute Focus]. Li Wen's spirits lifted.
"Fifty experience points just from the paper score alone. Once the rankings are finalized, I'll probably receive a considerable extra payout."
Li Wen rapidly calculated in his mind. Based on his experience with numerous previous tests, Scholar profession experience was usually settled twice after every major exam:
Once based on the score of the test paper itself, and once based on the exam result's relative ranking within the entire group.
At the math teacher's grading speed, the exam rankings would definitely be announced by tomorrow morning's self-study period at the latest, or before math class.
A single ordinary class test could bring nearly one hundred experience points in total, almost equal to the amount he accumulated by burying his head in books for three or four days. The increased efficiency made Li Wen's heart burn even hotter.
"This is only an ordinary test..." His eyes gleamed.
"When it comes to truly major examinations like midterms and finals, especially the countywide and citywide joint exams in senior year, with that range and intensity of competition, the experience points may really undergo explosive growth!"
Just imagining that scene made Li Wen's heartbeat quicken uncontrollably.
Great strength came from the accumulation of countless little drops, and "experience points" were the most direct fuel propelling him forward by leaps and bounds.
Exams... never before had he looked forward to their arrival with such eagerness.
Carrying beautiful expectations for the future, a morning that seemed short yet was truly fulfilling flashed by.
When the bell for the final class of the morning rang, another notification appeared on Li Wen's Scholar panel:
[Scholar Experience +27] [Profession: Scholar lv3 (74→101/400)]
Because the math test had taken up an hour and a half of study time, he had only spent four and a half hours in focused study that morning.
Even so, his experience bar continued to grow steadily.
By careful calculation, in less than two days, he had already advanced one quarter of the four hundred experience points needed for lv3.
He briskly stuffed all the books and textbooks on his desk into his drawer at once. Without the slightest hesitation, Li Wen strode straight toward the cafeteria.
Time was tight, and every minute was precious.
After quickly wolfing down lunch, Li Wen did not return to the classroom or go to the martial arts hall for his usual midday basic training.
His schedule needed a temporary adjustment—he went directly to the technique cultivation room on the top floor of the library.
The electronic calendar on the wall clearly displayed: January 8.
The date of the martial arts final examination, January 10, was prominently marked.
He had only two and a half days left.
His core objective was to master the Peak Blade Art—Rainbow Light Blade Art—to the beginner realm before the exam.
Before you continue