Experience Baby

In the bedroom at home.

Jiang Ran sat cross-legged on the floor.

A faint white haze of blood and qi steamed around him.

When he slowly opened his eyes, the panel information in the upper right corner of his vision had already 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's done."

Jiang Ran exhaled a mouthful of turbid qi, but suddenly furrowed his brow.

This upgrade felt completely different from before.

The moment he invested 3 profession points into Dragon-Tiger Fist, the surging blood and qi inside him seemed to crash against an invisible barrier, then burst through with a roar.

Some kind of shackle had been shattered.

Jiang Ran stood up and walked to the more open space in the center of the bedroom.

He sank his waist and settled into a horse stance, assuming the starting posture of Dragon-Tiger Fist.

With a flicker of thought, blood and qi surged from his dantian and poured into his fists.

Hum...

A low hum echoed through the room.

Then, Jiang Ran's pupils contracted.

He saw that on the surface of his fists, the crimson haze of blood and qi had begun to slowly condense.

Over his right fist, the haze faintly outlined the phantom of a fierce tiger's head, fangs slightly bared, eyes wide with fury.

Around his left fist coiled a slender dragon shape, scales and claws faintly visible, whiskers and mane drifting.

Though still blurry, far from solid, the aura of power already far surpassed before.

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

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

So the profession panel's tier divisions for supernatural skills.

Level 3 was a key threshold.

Once crossed, the skill would undergo a qualitative change, manifesting a form closer to its true essence.

He withdrew his blood and qi, and the Dragon-Tiger Phantom slowly dissipated.

"Without a test target, I can't accurately gauge how much the power has increased." Jiang Ran pondered. "But I'm sure that now, Dragon-Tiger Fist's lethality is at least several times what it was before."

This gave him much more confidence for the next time he entered the Abyssal Void to challenge that Zhi.

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

Still early.

Jiang Ran picked up his phone and unlocked the screen.

His thumb scrolled through the WeChat list, finally stopping on the chat box labeled "Little Sister."

The last conversation was from over ten days ago—a brief "living expenses sent," and the other side replied with an "mm."

Jiang Ran's fingertip hovered over the screen, hesitating for a few seconds.

At school, he could only teach Chinese; his skill experience source was too narrow.

If he could tutor, teaching other subjects, his experience gain efficiency would be much higher.

And the most convenient tutoring target was, naturally, his own little sister.

Even though... their relationship wasn't good.

The year their parents died in a car accident, Jiang Ran was a junior in college, Jiang Xiaoyu a third-year in middle school.

After the funeral, Jiang Ran juggled his studies and part-time jobs to cover both their living expenses.

He was naturally quiet by nature, and his sister grew increasingly silent.

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

Their connection had dwindled to a fixed monthly transfer and a few sparse words of greeting.

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

He hit send.

A few seconds later, the top of the screen showed "typing..." for a good while.

In the end, only a lone question mark bounced back.

?

Jiang Ran's mouth twitched slightly as he continued typing: "I've got some free time lately. I can tutor you."

This time, the reply came faster.

Jiang Xiaoyu didn't say a word—she just sent two images over.

Jiang Ran opened them.

The first was a recent monthly exam report: Chinese 138, Math 145, English 142, Science 255... total 680.

The second was a screenshot of the grade ranking.

2nd place.

Jiang Ran stared at the scores and rank, then slowly typed out a few dots.

If he remembered right, Xiaoyu had only been in the top 100 last time.

This progress was like taking off.

Meanwhile.

In a girls' dorm at a key high school in Fengcheng.

Jiang Xiaoyu sat on a chair, using a cotton swab dipped in iodine to carefully dab at a inch-long scrape on her left calf.

The wound wasn't deep, but the edges were red.

It looked like a graze that had gotten dirty afterward.

"Xiaoyu, what happened to your leg?" The girl across from her leaned over and gasped.

Jiang Xiaoyu didn't stop her movements, her voice calm: "It's nothing. I tripped and fell yesterday."

The girl let out an "oh," didn't press further, and retreated back to scrolling on her phone.

Jiang Xiaoyu finished applying the medicine, stuck on a band-aid, and pulled down her pant leg.

Her phone on the desk buzzed again.

She picked it up.

Jiang Ran: "Still have enough living expenses lately?"

Right after came a 5000 transfer notification.

And a line: "Don't skimp on living expenses. My salary's pretty good now. Eat more nutritious food."

Jiang Xiaoyu looked at the screen, her fingertips lightly tracing the edge.

A few seconds later, she turned off the screen and looked over at the round-faced girl on the next bed, who was grinning at her phone.

"Xiao Rou."

"Huh?" The girl looked up, eyes crinkling. "What's up, Xiaoyu?"

"Do you want a tutor?"

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

Jiang Xiaoyu nodded, her tone flat: "Alright, then I'll tell my brother it's off."

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

The next morning.

Fengcheng No. 3 High School, teachers' office.

When Jiang Ran pushed the door open, he found several teachers gathered by the window, murmuring about something with mixed expressions.

"Teacher Jiang's here?" A female teacher near the door saw him and smiled in greeting.

"Morning." Jiang Ran nodded, put down his bag, and asked casually, "What's everyone chatting about? Sounds lively."

The female teacher's face immediately shifted to a mix of surprise and emotion: "Teacher Jiang, you don't know? That senior, Wang Lei, came back to school."

A middle-aged male teacher beside her took over, lowering his voice: "That kid's going around telling everyone he got superhuman abilities from that Second World."

Jiang Ran raised an eyebrow: "For real?"

The female teacher hesitated, then said quietly: "Should be true. I heard the school's already processing his withdrawal."

Jiang Ran nodded thoughtfully.

Looks like he got recruited by the Federation.

He didn't ask further. Picking up his lesson plans and textbooks, he headed to Grade 2 Class 15's classroom.

The room was still noisy today.

But when Jiang Ran pushed the door open, the troublemakers in the back row just glanced up at him, exchanged looks, and surprisingly didn't cause any trouble.

The whole class went smoothly.

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

[Chinese Lv.8 (464/800)]

Yesterday and today combined, I gained over seventy experience points.

At this rate, leveling up my Language skill would only take five or six days.

Noon, Shooting Club.

Jiang Ran invited Li Xintong again for high-intensity training.

She didn't refuse, nor did she complain about being tired.

She just silently kept competing with Jiang Ran, though today she swapped the compound bow for a traditional war bow.

By evening at the training center, Old Chen didn't bring up the topic of Jiang Ran joining again. Instead, he followed the other seven people, training in close-combat techniques while griping about how freakish Jiang Ran was, just like usual.

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

Six in the evening.

Jiang Ran glanced at his phone.

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

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

"Xiaorou said she wants a tutor. Are you coming?"

Jiang Ran replied yes.

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

Back when they were kids, both families lived in the alleyways of the old city, door to door.

Lin Xiaorou was much livelier than Jiang Xiaoyu, always tagging along behind Jiang Ran, calling him "big brother" all day.

Later, Lin Xiaorou's father struck it rich in business, and the whole family moved to the villa district. But after the two girls ended up in the same high school, they reconnected.

As for Jiang Ran himself, he'd seen less of her over the years.

The taxi stopped at the entrance of Cloud Ridge Garden.

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

After a few soft chimes, hurried footsteps came from inside the door.

The door opened, and a round-faced girl in casual clothes with a ponytail poked her head out—it was Lin Xiaorou.

When she saw Jiang Ran, her eyes lit up, and she flashed a slightly embarrassed smile. "Jiang Ran-ge, you're here! Come in, quick!"

Lin Xiaorou pulled him toward the living room.

"Ge, have a seat first. Juice or tea?"

"No need." Jiang Ran changed his shoes and took in the spacious, bright living room. "Let's start right away. Which subjects are you weakest in?"

Lin Xiaorou's smile instantly turned a bit strained.

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

"Uh... well, it seems like all of them are pretty weak." Her voice dropped, and she pulled a crumpled test paper from the pile, carefully pushing it toward Jiang Ran. "This is last week's quiz."

Jiang Ran took the paper and glanced at it.

Multiple-choice questions: four wrong out of five.

Fill-in-the-blanks: half blank.

Problem-solving: creative thinking, but the answers were completely off track.

At the top of the paper, a glaring score was written in red pen: 42.

He also looked at the physics and chemistry workbooks lying nearby, covered in red crosses and correction marks, though many corrections seemed to be just copied answers without real understanding.

Her foundation was worse than he'd imagined.

"I see." Jiang Ran put the paper down, his expression calm. "We'll start from the basics of first-year high school. Take out your textbooks."

Over the next two hours, Jiang Ran entered a state of intense focus on teaching.

He explained concepts, gave example problems, and guided Lin Xiaorou step by step through the reasoning.

Though her foundation was weak and her comprehension wasn't fast, she was serious, trying hard to follow Jiang Ran's train of thought, occasionally asking very basic or even clumsy questions.

Just as Jiang Ran finished explaining a key knowledge point, and watched Lin Xiaorou, half-understanding, attempt a variation problem, a faint line of text appeared at the edge of his vision on the Pale Blue Panel:

[Mathematics experience +8]

Jiang Ran paused slightly.

This experience gain... was way more than in class.

When Lin Xiaorou finally stumbled through solving that problem, a look of sudden realization dawning on her face, [Mathematics experience +6]

Another prompt flashed by.

Jiang Ran's mind stirred slightly, but his face remained impassive. "Alright, let's switch to physics. You made a lot of mistakes here in your previous homework."

He changed subjects and began explaining physics.

Similarly, as Lin Xiaorou struggled to understand and finally grasped a small improvement, the experience points for the physics skill on the panel showed a more noticeable jump than usual.

[Physics Experience +7]

[Physics Experience +5]

Within two hours.

The experience points for math, physics, and chemistry 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 attending six classes.

A thoughtful look appeared in Jiang Ran's eyes.

He knew that the efficiency of gaining teaching experience depended on how much the learner actually absorbed.

He just hadn't expected Lin Xiaorou to improve so quickly during one-on-one tutoring, given how poor her grades were.

Moreover, she was weak in multiple subjects simultaneously.

For the coming period, Jiang Ran could rotate teaching different subjects, efficiently gaining experience in various skills.

This was almost like...

An experience baby specifically designed for him to farm teacher skill experience.