With the whole class watching him eagerly, Su Yun leisurely strolled up to the lectern.
With that aura and that posture, anyone who didn't know better would have thought he was a leader here to inspect the place, not a student here to take a test.
"Phew—"
He sat down on the mat and crossed his legs like the teacher had. His posture wasn't exactly perfect, but he made up for it with sheer style.
This was his first time trying out this world's cultivation system.
Honestly, he was curious what kind of person he was in this fantasy world, now that he'd transmigrated here.
Was he the chosen one?
Or a god of the planes?
"Let's begin."
Su Yun closed his eyes and silently recited the simple mantra in his heart.
Empty the mind... sense the specks of light... draw them in...
At that very moment, at Earth's United Command Center.
"All units, attention!"
Captain Lei's voice was low, but tense. "The target has entered a meditative state. Everyone remain silent and record all data!"
Dozens of top experts with graying hair looked like old men waiting for the lottery results. They pressed their faces to the screens, not daring to breathe too loudly.
One minute passed.
Two minutes passed.
Three minutes passed.
At the lectern, Su Yun remained in that same cool pose.
But in Teacher Li's field of perception, the situation had become a little...
Awkward.
The area around Su Yun was practically dead still.
It wasn't that he couldn't absorb energy. The Heavenly Energy really was seeping into his body, bit by bit.
But it was all proceeding by the book, without the slightest spark.
It entered, it was converted, and that was all.
Behind his sunglasses, Su Yun's brow furrowed slightly.
He wasn't panicking because of his mediocre results. Instead, he'd fallen into thought.
Something was wrong.
He could absorb it, but this feeling...
It was far too awkward.
He couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing a key.
A core key that would let him truly make use of all this energy in the world.
Su Yun fell into deep thought.
The anticipation on Teacher Li's face slowly melted away, until all that remained was a puddle of helplessness.
He reached out and repeatedly sensed the area around Su Yun, unwilling to give up.
In the end, he had no choice but to face the cruel reality.
Teacher Li opened his mouth, his voice dry.
"O... one times."
Seeing Su Yun's silence, Teacher Li worried that he might damage the genius's self-esteem, so he quickly added a few words to save face:
"That is... the standard rate. It's nothing like the astonishing results of the first two, but at least... uh, at least it's steady! Yes, steady! Not rushing or getting impatient is a virtue, too!"
Apparently finding that reassurance too feeble, Teacher Li gritted his teeth and forced out a promise:
"And! Although your cultivation is a little slow, with your foundation of Innate Full Soul Power, as long as you're willing to work hard, you could still reach... Level 40 someday, after a few decades!"
"In Notting City, a Level 40 cultivator is a towering figure! You'd be set for life!"
But after the shocking fifteen- and twentyfold results from earlier, that feeble explanation didn't seem like much.
The whole room fell silent.
The silence lasted about five seconds, and then...
Boom!
The doubts and mockery that had been suppressed erupted all at once.
"Pfft... Did I hear that right? One times?"
A few noble students in the back, who had never liked Su Yun, acted as if they'd finally seized some huge advantage and laughed until they doubled over.
"So after all that, he's just a pretty face?"
"I'm dying! I thought he was incredible, but he's just a silver-plated wax spear! His walk was so cocky, and now his results are all the more humiliating!"
"Boss Su? More like Bottom-of-the-Barrel Su! With talent like that, he's destined to be an ordinary person!"
They might not even manage a rate of 0.8 themselves, but that didn't stop them from taking the high ground and mercilessly mocking a genius who'd fallen from grace.
It was as if dragging a genius into the mud made them seem a little more noble.
But their grating laughter had barely lasted two seconds when a sharp shout cut it off.
"Shut up, all of you!!"
Bang!
The heavy wooden desk nearly cracked under the blow.
Xiao Wu sprang to her feet, both long-eared hair clips sticking straight up. Her eyes blazed as she glared at the people in the back who were laughing the loudest.
"I dare any of you to say another word!"
"You bunch of useless losers have the nerve to laugh at Boss Su? Just you try it, and I'll come over there and knock every last one of your teeth out!"
Xiao Wu was genuinely angry.
In her simple view of the world, Su Yun gave her carrots and helped her comb her hair, so he was one of her own.
Anyone who bullied one of her own deserved a beating until they learned their lesson!
At the same time, a bone-chilling coldness swept through the classroom.
Tang San slowly turned around.
His usual gentle expression was gone, replaced by a chillingly cold look.
In a calm voice that sent a shiver down everyone's spine, he said:
"How can sparrows understand the ambitions of swans?"
"Even when a lion naps, he's still a lion. A fly can buzz as loudly as it likes, but it's still just a fly that'll die with one slap."
Tang San swept his gaze around the room. Wherever his eyes passed, the noble students felt a chill crawl down their necks and instinctively lowered their heads.
"Even at the standard rate of one times, with Brother Su's foundation of Innate Full Soul Power, you'd be lucky to reach the starting point he's already surpassed."
"If I hear one more disrespectful word about Brother Su..."
Tang San lightly tapped his fingers on the desk, making a crisp tok.
"You'll regret it."
The room fell silent again.
The noble students who'd been acting so cocky moments ago had just been intimidated by the two monsters who'd rewritten the academy records. Their faces flushed red, but not one of them dared utter a sound.
Just then, an especially grating laugh came from the back corner, like someone who'd been constipated for three days finally managing to go.
"Pfft—hahaha! Hahahaha!"
Luo Bu abruptly stood up. He moved so suddenly that the fat on his face wobbled.
"I knew it! I knew the heavens were fair!"
"So much for Innate Full Soul Power. He's just a good-for-nothing with no affinity!"
Ignoring Tang San's clenched fist and Xiao Wu's furious glare, Luo Bu acted like a nouveau riche who'd just won the lottery. He shoved past the students in his way and strode toward the lectern.
At that moment, he had eyes only for Su Yun, who sat on the mat, making a fool of himself.
As he passed Su Yun, he deliberately straightened his back and looked down his nose at him, wearing a smug grin.
"Student Su, step aside. A high-level match like this isn't suitable for an ordinary person like you."
"Teacher, I want to demonstrate, too! As a third-year senior, it's my duty to show the younger students what real talent looks like!"
Teacher Li frowned. "Luo Bu, you..."
"Just watch!"
Luo Bu ignored the teacher's attempt to stop him, sat down on the mat beside him, and let a vicious glint flash through his eyes.
He'd prepared a trump card for this very moment, to win back the face he'd lost yesterday!
"Martial Soul, appear!"
At his low shout, a flash of white light appeared.
To the whole class's bafflement, a...
fresh, tender, white radish, complete with a few little roots...
appeared out of nowhere in Luo Bu's hand.
"Hahahaha!"
The students erupted into even louder laughter than before.
"Boss Luo, are you hungry? Gonna cook something?"
"That's your foundation? I'm dying!"
"Shut up! You ignorant bumpkins!"
Luo Bu shouted in a fit of rage, his face turning beet red. "Open your damn eyes and look!"
A white Soul Ring rose from beneath his feet.
"First Soul Skill: Radish Seal!"
At Luo Bu's shout, something strange happened.
Red markings actually appeared on the bottom of the big white radish in his hand!
This was Luo Bu's special ability, Engraving and Copying, the very thing countless people had mocked as a Trash Martial Soul.
His first Soul Skill had no offensive power. It couldn't even be eaten.
It did only one thing: stamp the Radish Seal on a target to copy one of the target's current states and store it inside the seal.
Then he could stamp himself with it and force himself into that same state!
"To beat you, I've gone to a lot of trouble..."
Luo Bu chuckled darkly, raising the radish in his hand. His eyes held a hint of madness.
Yesterday, he'd gone out of his way to find his family's chef, who had a Hair Martial Soul.
He'd secretly stamped the chef's back, copying the state that allowed Rat to control him!
Smack!
As everyone stared in shock and confusion, Luo Bu raised the big radish and slammed it down hard on his own forehead!
"Change, damn you!"
A flash of red light instantly sank into the space between his brows.
At the same time, he reached into his roomy school uniform pocket, pulled out Rat, and tossed him onto his head.
"Rat! Get in position!"
Rat flipped through the air and landed expertly on Luo Bu's shiny bald head.
His two front paws shot out and gripped the two tufts of hair on Luo Bu's crown.
The whole class stared in disbelief.
What the hell was he doing?
A radish stamp on his forehead, and a rat riding on his head...
Was this what a third-year senior called a display of strength?
"Rat! Cultivate as hard as you can!"
At Luo Bu's anguished roar, Rat's eyes flashed with an eerie red light, as if he'd just been pumped full of stimulants.
"Squeak, squeak, squeak! (Faster! Faster!)"
"Ughhhh—!!"
Luo Bu let out an inhuman scream.
His mind was forced open, and Rat took complete control of his body.
Even though his body protested and his meridians wailed, he couldn't stop.
To forcibly squeeze Soul Power out of the air, Rat even sank his teeth into Luo Bu's Baihui Acupoint to stimulate his nerves and heighten their activity.
Crack!
Crack!
Those were the veins bulging across Luo Bu's forehead.
The muscles in his face began to spasm violently. His features twisted out of shape with pain.
His left eyelid twitched madly, and the corner of his mouth stretched toward his ear. Under Rat's control, he looked like a broken puppet, stiffly and mechanically contorting himself into a cultivation posture.
"Breathe... in... out..."
Every time Luo Bu breathed, two clouds of blood sprayed from his nostrils.
Then the corners of his eyes, his ears, and his mouth...
Blood began to seep out uncontrollably.
Blood poured from all seven orifices!
How was this meditation?
It was outright self-mutilation!
"Th-this..."
Teacher Li turned deathly pale with fright. The Iron Ruler fell from his hand and hit the floor.
"Luo Bu! Stop right now! It's just meditation! There's no need to risk your life!"
But by then, Luo Bu's consciousness had already been locked down by that Soul Skill. His body was Rat's plaything, and he couldn't hear a thing around him.
There was only one thought in his mind—
Hiss!
Suck it in!
Even if his lungs burst, he had to draw in the Soul Power!
Amid the terrified screams of all the girls in the class, the originally sparse specks of Soul Power around Luo Bu finally began to grow a little denser under this near-self-destructive exertion.
As if being held hostage, they were dragged into Luo Bu's body in fits and starts, utterly unwillingly.
Teacher Li's trembling hand reached out, sensing the results Luo Bu had bought with his life.
"One point one... one point two..."
Rat dug its claws into Luo Bu's scalp again, yanking out a clump of hair along with a smear of blood.
Luo Bu's whole body shuddered violently. He abruptly spat out a mist of blood, and the flow of Soul Power instantly reached its peak!
Teacher Li's eyelids twitched wildly as he called out the number:
"One point two six times!!!"
Pfft—!
As soon as the words left his mouth, Luo Bu seemed to have had his spine pulled out. The strength he'd been forcing himself to muster vanished in an instant.
He collapsed to the ground like a heap of mud, opened his mouth, and spewed out a huge mouthful of blood, staining the meditation mat before him a ghastly red.
But he didn't pass out.
Supporting himself with trembling arms, the guy tried several times to get up, but couldn't manage it.
In the end, he simply lay sprawled in the pool of blood he'd coughed up, like a dog with a broken back. With great difficulty, he lifted his mangled face, no longer recognizable as human, blood oozing from every orifice.
From his blood-clogged throat, he forced out a broken, maniacal laugh. Each time he laughed, a gush of bloody froth welled up in his mouth.
"Cough, cough... urgh! S-see that?! Open your damn eyes and take a good look!!"
"One point two six times!! That's a difference of zero point two six! An impassable chasm!!"
Luo Bu laughed wildly as he vomited up mouthfuls of blood. His pupils were already beginning to dilate from blood loss, and his vision kept darkening. He could barely make out Su Yun's face, but that did nothing to diminish the grotesque ecstasy he felt in that moment.
"Su Yun... you pathetic trash who only knows how to put on an act... you lost!! You lost completely!!"
He pointed a trembling, bloodied finger at Su Yun from across the room, his voice hoarse beyond measure.
"Hahahaha! What a load of crap, this so-called Innate Full Soul Power! Against my talent, it's not worth a damn! Even without breaking a sweat, I'm a hundred times better than a loser like you who's been standing still!"
"This is the foundation of a third-year senior! This is a peak you'll never surpass! What can you possibly fight me with? That face of yours, the only thing you know how to use to look cool? Huh?! Speak up, loser! Hahaha... cough, cough, urgh!!"
Before you continue