Scholar

Seeing the panel, familiar memories surfaced in Li Wen's mind.

Wasn't this the same panel from a game he used to play?

In the game, every player could choose a Profession.

Different Professions came with different core skills.

With a thought, Li Wen focused his attention on the [Profession] field.

Soon, rows of information about various Professions appeared before his eyes.

[Scholar: Active Skill (Absolute Focus), Passive Skill (Once Proven, Forever Proven)]

[Martial Artist: Active Skill (...), Passive Skill (...)]

Without the slightest hesitation, Li Wen selected [Scholar].

[Choose "Scholar" as your Profession?]

[Confirm!]

As a devoted fan who had played the game until its servers shut down, no one knew better than he did how invincible this Profession became in the late game.

Just its passive skill, Once Proven, Forever Proven, was beyond the reach of any other Profession.

The only drawback was that this Profession was considerably weaker than others in the early game.

But that was in the game.

In this high-martial world, Scholar was just as overpowered in the early stages.

[Name: Li Wen]

[Age: Eighteen]

[Profession: Scholar lv1 (0/100)]

[Loading...]

After glancing over the panel once more, Li Wen closed it with a thought, took a deep breath, and blew out the burning candle in front of him.

Thin wisps of white smoke drifted upward, and the living-room lights soon came on.

The family of three gathered around and began enjoying the cake.

"Mom, Dad, I'm going back to my room to cultivate." Eighteen years of living together had not been erased by the memories he'd absorbed. Li Wen still regarded them as his parents.

If anything, he now understood even more deeply how great their love for him was.

"Mm, go ahead. Your dad and I will clean up." Mother Li, Wang Juan, smiled and nodded.

Watching Li Wen's thin figure disappear, Wang Juan's eyes filled with heartache.

She had witnessed just how hard he worked. His martial talent wasn't very good, but if he'd had the resources that other ordinary families could provide, getting into a Martial Arts University wouldn't have been difficult.

But she and Li Hong, Li Wen's father, were ordinary people at the bottom of society. The only way they could earn money was by trading their sweat and blood for it.

After covering their living expenses, they barely had anything left each month, let alone enough to buy Li Wen supplements for cultivation.

As a result, ever since he started cultivating, Li Wen had never been robust. He had always been thin.

Cultivation was a leap between levels of life and consumed tremendous amounts of Qi and blood. Ordinary food simply couldn't provide enough.

Most people replenished their Qi and blood in one of two ways.

One was to take Qi-Blood supplements; the other was to eat the meat of demonic beasts, which was rich in Qi and blood.

The most widely available Qi-Blood supplements on the market were the various grades of Qi-Blood Potions developed by the Galactic Alliance.

The Galactic Alliance was formed by five planets and served as humanity's supreme command.

The price of Qi-Blood Potions rose exponentially with each increase in grade.

The cheapest, a Level 1 Blood Qi Potion, cost one hundred Galactic Coins per vial.

One Galactic Coin was worth about five Huaxia Coins.

That meant a single Level 1 Blood Qi Potion cost five hundred Huaxia Coins.

Most people in Li Wen's class took five to ten vials a month.

He took only three.

Any more, and his family couldn't afford it.

After all, getting him into Qingshi No.3 High School had nearly wiped out all their savings.

Back in his room, Li Wen closed the door, took off his slippers, and stood barefoot on a mat.

He bent his knees slightly and slowly lowered himself.

His hands formed different shapes, his body settling into an extremely strange pose.

Closing his eyes, he focused his mind and began breathing in and out according to a specific rhythm.

Cultivation methods were the foundation for everyone who pursued the martial path.

It was through cultivation methods that humanity continually improved its Flesh Rank.

Li Wen practiced the Fracture Edge Gold Sha Method, a metal-element method among the five basic cultivation methods.

Though called a cultivation method, it was more like an unusual form of stance training.

It specialized in slaughter and pursued the ultimate sharpness, cutting through anything. Among the five basic methods, it was renowned for its combat power.

It was also the most widely practiced basic cultivation method, capable of gradually shaping the human body into a killing machine.

"Whoosh... inhale..." Li Wen's chest rose and fell with each breath.

He could clearly feel the Qi and blood throughout his body racing through him under the method's guidance, stimulating each of his muscles.

But most of it went to waste. His understanding of the method was too shallow, so it had little effect, dissipating and draining away for nothing.

Even so, this was still the moment of the day Li Wen enjoyed most.

Feeling his body grow stronger bit by bit was an intoxicating sensation.

Unfortunately, the good times didn't last. Less than ten minutes later, Li Wen was drenched in sweat, his face flushed red.

Haa...

With a long breath of white vapor, Li Wen could no longer hold the proper posture. He braced his hands on his knees, bent forward over the mat, and gasped for breath.

His comprehension had never been very good, so even now his understanding of the Fracture Edge Gold Sha Method was still shallow. That was why he couldn't maintain the pose for long.

But that would soon be a thing of the past.

Not only had he now awakened the [Scholar] Profession and gained its two core skills, Absolute Focus and Once Proven, Forever Proven—

even after fusing the souls of two lifetimes, Li Wen could already sense that his mind had become much sharper.

The old sluggishness in his thoughts was gone.

Thinking back, his poor comprehension before was probably because the souls from his two lifetimes hadn't fully fused, and had been in conflict.

"Let's try Absolute Focus first. I wonder what it'll feel like to use it in real life." After resting, Li Wen returned to the pose he'd just held.

This time, though, he didn't rely on himself. He activated the Scholar's active skill.

"Activate—[Absolute Focus]!" With a thought, Li Wen triggered the skill.

In an instant, all the noise around him vanished.

Li Wen's eyes changed at once. The weariness in them was swiftly replaced by intense concentration.

His movements also adjusted in subtle ways. The changes were slight, yet somehow gave him an entirely different air.

This was the improvement in bodily control brought by Absolute Focus!

If Li Wen had paid attention to what was happening inside him at that moment, he would have been stunned.

The flow of Qi and blood through his body had become more than twice as smooth, and its stimulation of his muscles had increased by just as much.

More remarkably, he was using far less Qi and blood than when he circulated the method himself.

Overall, he was several times more efficient.

About half an hour passed in a flash.

Li Wen suddenly dropped out of the Absolute Focus state.

"The improvement really is much faster, but it also multiplies how quickly I use up the Qi and blood in my body." As he came back to himself, Li Wen soon felt hollow inside.

His face was deathly pale, utterly drained of color—a classic case of depleted Qi and blood.

"Good thing I still have one vial of Level 1 Blood Qi Potion left. Otherwise, I'd have to crawl to school tomorrow." With unsteady steps, Li Wen struggled over to the desk beside his bed.

He laboriously pulled open the top drawer, revealing a vial of purplish-brown Qi-Blood Potion inside.

Without hesitation, he grabbed the potion, bit off the stopper, and poured it into his mouth.

Gulp, gulp...

The slightly sweet, metallic-tasting liquid slid down his throat.

A wave of heat soon spread through Li Wen's dantian, then flowed into every part of his body.

Usually, the potion's active ingredients would remain in his body for days. Now, every cell in Li Wen's body greedily devoured them at once.

The potion ran out quickly, but the improvement came even faster.

Li Wen could clearly feel his body growing stronger.