Experience Piñata

At home, in the bedroom.

Jiang Ran sat cross-legged on the floor.

Pale white wisps of blood and qi rose around him.

When he slowly opened his eyes, the panel in the upper-right corner of his vision had updated:

[Profession Basic Skill: Dragon-Tiger Fist Lv.1→ Lv.3(78/300)]

[Profession Core Skill: Buddha's Wrathful Vajra Lv.1→ Lv.2(9/200)]

"It worked."

Jiang Ran let out a breath of stale air, but then frowned.

This time, leveling up felt completely different from before.

The moment he invested three Profession Points in Dragon-Tiger Fist, the surging blood and qi within him seemed to slam into an invisible barrier, then burst through it with a roar.

Some kind of shackle had been shattered.

Jiang Ran rose to his feet and walked to the open space in the middle of the bedroom.

He lowered his waist, settled into a horse stance, and assumed Dragon-Tiger Fist's opening posture.

With a slight shift of his thoughts, blood and qi surged from his dantian and poured into his fists.

A low hum echoed through the room.

Jiang Ran's pupils contracted.

The layer of crimson blood-and-qi smoke around his fists began to slowly gather.

Above his right fist, the smoke faintly outlined the head of a tiger, its fangs just visible and its eyes wide with fury.

Around his left fist, a slender dragon coiled, its scales and claws flickering into view as its whiskers and mane drifted.

Though still blurry and far from solid, its imposing aura was already far greater than before.

"Dragon Form... Tiger Form..."

Jiang Ran murmured, a glimmer of understanding in his eyes.

It seemed that the Profession Panel's level system for extraordinary skills had a critical threshold at level three.

Once a skill crossed it, it underwent a qualitative change, manifesting a form closer to its essence.

He reined in his blood and qi, and the Dragon-Tiger Phantoms slowly faded away.

"Without a target to test it on, I can't accurately gauge how much stronger it's become," Jiang Ran mused. "But I can say for sure that Dragon-Tiger Fist is at least several times more lethal than before."

That gave him much more confidence about challenging the Zhi the next time he entered the Abyssal Void.

He glanced at his phone. It was just past 9:50 p.m.

Still early.

Jiang Ran picked up his phone and unlocked it.

His thumb scrolled through his WeChat contacts before stopping at the chat labeled "Little Sister."

Their last conversation had been more than ten days ago: he'd sent her a brief message saying he'd transferred her living expenses, and she'd replied with a single "Mm."

Jiang Ran hesitated, his finger hovering over the screen.

At school, he could only teach Chinese, so his sources of skill experience were too limited.

If he could tutor students in other subjects, he'd gain experience much more efficiently.

And the most convenient student to tutor was naturally his own little sister.

Although... they weren't close.

The year their parents died in a car accident, Jiang Ran was a junior in college, and Jiang Xiaoyu was in her last year of middle school.

After the funeral, Jiang Ran completed his studies while working to support them both.

He had always been quiet by nature, while his sister grew increasingly withdrawn.

By the time he'd nearly maxed out his psychology skill and tried to mend their relationship, he found that Jiang Xiaoyu's personality made it difficult to communicate with her.

Their contact had dwindled to a fixed monthly transfer and a few brief greetings.

Jiang Ran typed: "How have your grades been lately?"

He hit send.

A few seconds later, "The other person is typing" appeared at the top of the screen and stayed there for quite a while.

In the end, a lone question mark popped up.

?

Jiang Ran's mouth twitched. He continued typing: "I have some free time lately. I can help you with your studies."

This time, the reply came faster.

Jiang Xiaoyu didn't say anything. She simply sent him two pictures.

Jiang Ran opened them.

The first was a recent monthly exam report: Chinese 138, math 145, English 142, and science 255... for a total of 680.

The second was a screenshot of the grade rankings.

Second place.

Looking at the scores and ranking, Jiang Ran slowly typed a few dots.

If he remembered correctly, Xiaoyu had only been in the top hundred last time.

This improvement was like taking off.

Meanwhile.

In the girls' dormitory of a prestigious high school in Feng City.

Jiang Xiaoyu sat in a chair, carefully dabbing iodine onto a cut about an inch long on her left calf with a cotton swab.

It wasn't deep, but the edges were red.

It looked like a scrape that had gotten dirty.

"Xiaoyu, what happened to your leg?" the girl in the opposite bed exclaimed when she noticed.

Jiang Xiaoyu didn't stop. "It's nothing. I had a little fall yesterday."

The girl gave an "Oh" and didn't ask any more questions. She shrank back and continued scrolling through her phone.

After applying the medicine, Jiang Xiaoyu stuck on a bandage and pulled down her pant leg.

Her phone vibrated again on the desk.

She picked it up.

Jiang Ran: "Do you still have enough for living expenses?"

Right after that came a transfer notification for 5,000 yuan.

Then a message: "Don't skimp on your living expenses. My salary is pretty good now, so eat more nutritious food."

Jiang Xiaoyu gazed at the screen, gently rubbing its edge with her fingertip.

A few seconds later, she turned off the screen and looked toward the round-faced girl in the next bed, who was hugging her phone and grinning like an idiot.

"Xiao Rou."

"Huh?" The girl looked up, her eyes curving into crescents. "What's up, Xiaoyu?"

"Are you looking for a tutor?"

"No." Xiao Rou shook her head like a rattle drum. "Why would I need a tutor? You explaining things to me is enough."

Jiang Xiaoyu nodded, her tone flat. "Okay, then I'll tell my brother never mind."

Xiao Rou froze. "Wait, who did you say?!"

The next morning.

Fengcheng No. 3 High School, teachers' office.

When Jiang Ran walked in, he saw several teachers gathered by the window, speaking quietly about something. Their expressions varied.

"Teacher Jiang's here?" A female teacher near the door noticed him and greeted him with a smile.

"Morning." Jiang Ran nodded, set down his backpack, and casually asked, "What's everyone talking about? You sound excited."

The woman's face immediately filled with surprise and emotion. "Teacher Jiang, you haven't heard? Wang Lei, the senior, came back to school."

A middle-aged male teacher nearby picked up the conversation, lowering his voice. "That kid's been telling everyone he got supernatural abilities from the Second World."

Jiang Ran raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

The female teacher hesitated before replying quietly, "It must be true. I heard the school's already processing his withdrawal."

Jiang Ran nodded thoughtfully.

It seemed the Federation had recruited him.

Jiang Ran didn't ask any more. He picked up his lesson plan and textbooks and headed for Grade 2 Class 15.

The classroom was noisy as usual that day.

But when Jiang Ran walked in, the few troublemakers at the back only glanced up and exchanged looks. They didn't make a sound or cause trouble.

The entire lesson went smoothly.

When the bell rang, Jiang Ran closed his lesson plan and walked out of the classroom, unconsciously glancing at his panel:

[Chinese Lv.8(464/800)]

He'd gained more than seventy experience points between yesterday and today.

At this rate, it would only take five or six days for his Chinese skill to level up.

At noon, at the Shooting Club.

Jiang Ran arranged another intensive training session with Li Xintong.

She didn't refuse or complain of being tired.

She simply kept silently competing with Jiang Ran, though today she switched from the compound bow to a traditional war bow.

At the training center that evening, Old Chen didn't bring up the idea of having Jiang Ran join again. Instead, he trained close-combat techniques alongside the other seven, grumbling as usual about how ridiculously talented Jiang Ran was.

After all, he knew how long Jiang Ran had been learning Freestyle Fighting.

Six in the evening.

Jiang Ran glanced at his phone.

Jiang Xiaoyu had sent him a location in Cloud Ridge Garden, a villa district in the city center.

Last night, just when Jiang Ran had thought his tutoring plan had fallen through, Jiang Xiaoyu sent another message:

"Xiao Rou says she wants to hire a tutor. Are you interested?"

Jiang Ran replied that he was.

Xiao Rou's full name was Lin Xiaorou, Jiang Xiaoyu's childhood friend.

When they were little, both families lived in a hutong in the old district, right across the street from each other.

Lin Xiaorou was much more outgoing than Jiang Xiaoyu and followed Jiang Ran around all day, calling him "Big Brother" over and over.

Later, Lin Xiaorou's father made a fortune in business, and her whole family moved to the villa district. But when the two girls ended up at the same high school, they got back in touch.

Jiang Ran himself, though, had seen less and less of her over the years.

The taxi stopped at the entrance to Cloud Ridge Garden.

Jiang Ran got out, followed the navigation to a three-story modern-style villa, and pressed the doorbell.

After a few soft chimes, hurried footsteps sounded from inside.

The door opened, and a round-faced girl in casual home clothes, her hair tied in a ponytail, peeked out. It was Lin Xiaorou.

Her eyes lit up when she saw Jiang Ran, and she gave him a slightly embarrassed smile. "You're here, Jiang Ran. Come on in!"

Lin Xiaorou led him toward the living room.

"Have a seat, Big Brother. Would you like juice or tea?"

"No, thanks." Jiang Ran changed his shoes and looked around the bright, spacious living room. "Let's get started. Which subjects are you weakest in?"

Lin Xiaorou's smile immediately turned a little strained.

She scratched her head and led Jiang Ran over to the desk, where several textbooks and workbooks were already spread out.

"Um... I guess I'm pretty weak in all of them." Her voice trailed off. She pulled a crumpled test paper from the pile and carefully slid it over to Jiang Ran. "This was from last week's test."

Jiang Ran took the paper and glanced over it.

She'd gotten four out of five multiple-choice questions wrong.

Half the fill-in-the-blank questions were empty.

Her approach to the written problems was bizarre, and her answers were completely off-topic.

At the top of the paper, someone had written a striking score in red ink: 42.

He glanced at the physics and chemistry workbooks beside it. They were just as covered in red crosses and corrections, though many of the corrections seemed to have been copied straight from the answer key without any understanding.

Her foundation was worse than he'd imagined.

"I see." Jiang Ran set down the test paper, his expression calm. "We'll start with the basics from your first year of high school. Get your textbooks out."

For the next two hours, Jiang Ran taught with intense focus.

He explained concepts, worked through examples, and guided Lin Xiaorou through the reasoning step by step.

Though Lin Xiaorou's foundation was weak and she was slow to understand, she was earnest and tried hard to follow Jiang Ran's explanations. From time to time, she asked some very basic, even rather silly, questions.

Just as Jiang Ran finished explaining an important concept,

Lin Xiaorou tried to solve a variation of the problem, looking as though she understood only half of it. At the edge of his vision, a faint line appeared on the Pale Blue Panel:

[Mathematics Experience +8]

Jiang Ran's hand paused slightly.

This experience gain... was much higher than in class.

When Lin Xiaorou finally worked through the problem with some difficulty and looked enlightened, another line of text flashed past:

[Mathematics Experience +6]

Jiang Ran's thoughts shifted, but he kept his expression neutral. "All right, let's switch to physics. You got a lot of these problems wrong in your homework."

He switched subjects and began explaining physics.

Likewise, as Lin Xiaorou struggled to understand and finally grasped a small new concept, the physics skill experience on the panel jumped more noticeably than usual.

[Physics Experience +7]

[Physics Experience +5]

Within two hours.

The experience gained in math, physics, and chemistry had increased by nearly 180 points in total.

[Math Lv.5 (312/500)]

[Physics Lv.4 (193/400)]

[Chemistry Lv.5 (264/500)]

That was almost equivalent to six lessons.

A thoughtful look appeared in Jiang Ran's eyes.

He knew that teaching experience depended on how much the student actually learned.

He just hadn't expected that, despite Lin Xiaorou's poor grades,

she could improve so quickly during one-on-one tutoring.

And she was weak in several subjects at once.

For a while, Jiang Ran could rotate between teaching different subjects and efficiently gain experience in multiple skills.

It was practically as if...

she were an experience farm created specifically to help him gain teaching skill experience.