Sleeping Is Cultivating

It was clearly taught in high school history class.

Five hundred years ago, secret realms of all sizes suddenly appeared across the world.

Countless ferocious beasts poured out from them, and in just one year, humanity lost a quarter of its territory while completely caught off guard.

Countries like Dongying and Gaoli were nearly wiped off the map by the tides of beasts.

If not for the intervention and aid of the Lighthouse Nation, those two countries would have vanished from the map long ago.

After a century of bloody warfare, humanity finally managed to suppress the beasts and established military garrisons at the major secret realms.

The Beast Realm is a true meat grinder, a defensive line built by humanity with their own lives.

Every year, a vast number of martial artists sacrifice their lives in the Beast Realm.

Sending a group of high school students to such a place for an examination?

Shen Tingxue waved her hand.

"Rest assured, these are cleared-out Beast Realms; the strongest beasts inside are only Tier 1."

"It's not even as dangerous as the areas outside Sea City."

"The higher-ups simply intend to test the candidates' mental fortitude and practical combat abilities."

Gu Yuan breathed a sigh of relief.

Tier 1 beasts posed no significant threat to him now.

"I see."

Shen Tingxue looked at Gu Yuan.

"I suspect the specific format of the college entrance exam will be to kill beasts to earn points."

"Study this martial technique carefully and strive to earn as many points as possible when the time comes."

She paused for a moment.

"With your current strength, getting into a top-tier Martial University is a certainty."

"But you could aim for a national ranking."

Shen Tingxue tapped her finger on the table.

"The benefits of being at the top of the rankings are beyond your imagination."

After Gu Yuan stayed at the Destiny Bureau for a while longer, Shen Tingxue sent him home.

As soon as Gu Yuan arrived home, he rushed toward his room.

He sat cross-legged on his bed and opened the copy of Overlapping Wave Fist that Shen Tingxue had given him, studying it intently.

The first page introduced the pros and cons of this martial technique.

First, the rhythm control is extremely difficult.

All six punches must be thrown consecutively within a very short time, with intervals no longer than half a breath.

Too fast, and the residual force of the previous punch hasn't arrived before the next one connects, causing the forces to collide and cancel out; too slow, and the force dissipates within the meridians, wasting all effort.

Second, it has extremely high requirements for meridian durability.

The core of this technique is the accumulation of force, which is temporarily stored in the arm's meridians before the punch is thrown.

If the meridians aren't tough enough, let alone the sixth punch, one's own arm would be shattered by the backlash by the fourth punch.

Third, its practical combat adaptability is poor.

The fixed rhythm of the six-punch combo requires extremely high-level footwork and prediction to be executed fully.

However, when Gu Yuan saw the section on combat performance, his eyes went wide.

A martial artist who masters this technique can achieve an explosive force on the sixth punch that is over five times their base striking power!

A Tier 2 martial artist once used this technique to shatter the armor of a Tier 3 beast in a single punch, crossing tiers to do so!

To call this power comparable to a high-level martial technique would not be an exaggeration.

It was no wonder it was rated as a mid-level technique; it was purely held back by those fatal flaws.

"Good grief." Gu Yuan rubbed his chin, clicking his tongue in amazement.

The explosive power was indeed outrageous, but the drawbacks were truly lethal.

However, this perfectly compensated for his current fatal weakness: a lack of offensive means.

He was currently only proficient in a basic movement technique; if he really encountered a thick-skinned beast, he couldn't just rely on footwork to exhaust the opponent to death.

If you can't kill the enemy, no matter how fast you run, you're just a high-level deserter.

He had to master this martial technique over the next few months.

Going to the Beast Realm for the college entrance exam—even if the strongest beasts were only Tier 1, who could guarantee that no accidents would happen?

In the web novels he read, the protagonist would go on a trial, and nine times out of ten, something would go wrong—sudden secret realm fusions, mass beast riots, or surprise attacks by cultists were practically daily occurrences.

What if he had that same unlucky constitution?

One more trump card means one more life.

Gu Yuan continued flipping through the pages.

Starting from the second page were detailed illustrations of the techniques, followed by diagrams of the blood-qi circulation routes through the meridians, the dense annotations enough to make one dizzy.

After quickly flipping to the last page, Gu Yuan gestured in the air a couple of times before tossing the book onto the desk.

A good memory is not as reliable as a bad pen; talking on paper is not as good as a real battle.

He glanced at the wall clock: nine-thirty in the evening.

Time to sleep!

He would go to the martial arts gym tomorrow morning to rent a training room.

Wasting time sleeping was equivalent to wasting precious time for blood-qi cultivation.

Over the past few days, he had thoroughly figured out the hidden attribute of the Saint Hand Pulse Clearing entry.

Although his blood-qi circulated and cultivated automatically at all times, the cultivation speed would skyrocket like a rocket only when he entered deep sleep.

In other words, as long as he slept soundly enough, his blood-qi would grow fast enough.

While others stayed up late to train hard, his insistence on sleeping early and rising early was equivalent to diligent practice.

Gu Yuan lay down on the bed and covered himself with the quilt.

This cheat was truly physically and mentally satisfying.

Early the next morning.

Just as the sky was beginning to brighten, Gu Yuan headed out.

He walked to the front desk and, heart aching, swiped his card to spend 2,000 Great Xia Currency to open a single training room.

Although there were free training rooms at school, he absolutely would not go there now.

Inside the training room.

Gu Yuan stood before an alloy dummy and loosened his wrists.

"Blood-qi flows out from the Dao Foundation, travels through the whole body, and concentrates at the fist..."

Reciting the incantation from the book, he took a sudden step forward and threw his right fist out fiercely.

Bang!

The punch slammed into the chest of the alloy dummy, emitting a crisp sound.

Immediately following, he exerted force from his waist, driving his shoulder, with blood-qi circulating wildly through his meridians as the second punch followed closely behind.

Bang!

The third punch!

Bang!

Just as the fourth punch was about to be thrown, Gu Yuan suddenly felt a wave of soreness in his right arm meridians, and the circulation of blood-qi stalled abruptly.

The fist hit the dummy limply, without even a sound.

"Not right, not right."

Gu Yuan shook his sore right arm and frowned.

The rhythm was completely off.

He rubbed his chin, staring at the alloy dummy, his mind replaying the details of the punch he had just thrown.

This martial skill put too much pressure on the meridians; relying solely on blood-qi to force it would easily lead to a backlash.

He had to find a way to release the pressure in the meridians the moment he threw the punch, or use something to protect the meridians.

A flash of inspiration crossed Gu Yuan's mind.

What if he added mental energy into the mix?

He had truly harvested quite a bit of mental energy nourishment over the past few days.

If mental energy circulated along with the blood-qi, would something change?

Gu Yuan's eyes lit up.

He acted as soon as he thought of it.

Closing his eyes, he mobilized that faint trace of mental energy in his sea of consciousness.

The mental energy followed the trajectory of the blood-qi, slowly flowing into the meridians of his right arm.

Gradually, the mental energy intertwined with the blood-qi, forming a thin film that wrapped around the volatile blood-qi, gathering at the tip of his fist.

Gu Yuan snapped his eyes open and threw a punch.

Bang!

A low, muffled thud echoed.

The alloy dummy in front of him actually trembled slightly.