Learning to Read and Write, Focused Observation!

Spring passed into autumn, and time slipped by.

For a growing baby, a hundred days could bring enormous changes.

The most obvious change was in appearance.

One-and-a-half-year-old Chen Yan had long since lost his baby fat. He was growing taller, and his features were becoming more defined.

His face still had a childlike roundness, but the handsome outline of his features was beginning to emerge, and his bright black eyes were full of life.

There was already a hint of a young man's spirited confidence in the way he looked around. Anyone who saw him had to praise him as "such a bright and handsome little boy."

At this stage, his parents began patiently teaching him to recognize characters with colorful flashcards.

"Xiao Yan, come on. Read after me."

"I, am, an, idiot."

Chen Yan blinked. "You're, an, idiot."

"Hey, you little rascal. How come you didn't fall for it?"

Du Qionghua said, "All right, all right. Stop messing around and go sit over there."

Only after sending Chen Kefa away did Du Qionghua pull Chen Yan into her arms and teach him one character at a time.

Chen Yan deliberately held back, refusing to show all his abilities right away. Instead, he insisted that Du Qionghua hold his little finger and guide him as they read every character several times.

Only then would he blink his big eyes and correctly identify each character, as if he had only just memorized it.

His "clumsy" efforts delighted Du Qionghua. She thought her son was both clever and adorable.

Suddenly.

[Ding! Congratulations, host. You have unlocked a new skill—Learning to Read and Write!]

[Train diligently to improve your progress in Learning to Read and Write. Once progress is full, you can advance to the next sequence.]

[Advancement sequence: Learning to Read and Write → Photographic Memory → Wide Learning →...]

[Learning to Read and Write]: You have a basic ability to recognize and understand written characters. Reading efficiency increases slightly.

[Photographic Memory]: Build a Memory Palace in your mind, and you can deliberately recall everything you know!

[Wide Learning]: Your comprehension improves greatly...

"Comprehension? That's a word you don't see very often..."

"Could comprehension affect how quickly you gain proficiency?"

Now that he had "mastered" this skill, Chen Yan felt he had laid enough groundwork.

He didn't want to keep pretending to be mute, babbling incoherently. It was time to prepare his parents for what was coming.

So, one evening after dinner, while Chen Kefa and Du Qionghua were chatting about the recent public safety situation in Jiang City, Chen Yan suddenly looked up and blurted out in a clear, childish voice, "Dad is an idiot."

The couple froze, then turned to stare at their son in disbelief.

Chen Yan pointed at a spoon on the table that Chen Kefa had accidentally knocked off. With an "annoyed" look, he said, "Spoon fell down."

A few seconds later, Du Qionghua was the first to react. She let out a delighted squeal and swept Chen Yan into her arms.

"Oh my goodness! Honey, did you hear that? Xiao Yan can talk! He can even say sentences! My precious son is a genius!"

Chen Kefa recovered from his shock, too. Looking at his son's feigned innocence, he felt both amused and proud. He couldn't help reaching out to ruffle his hair. "Attaboy! You even called your dad an idiot again!"

[Aura +2]

Chen Yan laughed to himself. It looked like he had prepared them well.

That very night, as Chen Yan went through his usual pre-bedtime "cultivation," the surging qi and blood and vast mental power within his body finally broke through a certain limit at the same time!

[Notice: Host's qi and blood have reached 10,000 points! Mental power has reached 10,000 points!]

[Detected that the host meets the requirements to break through the second qi-and-blood threshold (Amateur Rank 10). Break through now?]

Chen Yan froze.

"The second qi-and-blood threshold? Aren't there only nine Amateur Ranks? And... I need to reach 10,000 in both mental power and qi and blood to break through? What's going on?"

He immediately sent his question to the system.

[In this universe, the conventional martial arts system caps amateur martial artists at Rank 9. The highest recorded qi-and-blood value is 9,999 points.]

[Reaching 10,000 points of qi and blood while also meeting the requirement of 10,000 points of mental power is an unprecedented special condition.]

[The specific effects of a breakthrough cannot be predicted.]

"Unprecedented? Even the system doesn't know what'll happen?"

A storm of shock swept through Chen Yan's heart, but above all, he felt excited at the thought of challenging the unknown.

"Who cares! The path to divine martial arts is one no one has ever walked before! Let me break through!"

He didn't hesitate any longer. With a firm resolve, he chose "yes"!

[Ding! Breakthrough failed!]

[The host's cultivation has not yet reached Amateur Rank 9. Please try again later!]

"So I still haven't met the prerequisite? Then why did you even ask me!"

Chen Yan glanced at his [Qi Nurturing Foundation Art] and sighed.

"I'll have to wait until the art is perfected before I can break through this second qi-and-blood threshold!"

After that, Chen Yan's life seemed to settle into a steady, leisurely rhythm.

Every morning, he woke up and ate the Alliance's specially formulated nutritional gruel. Then came his unchanging drawing time.

During the day, he either played with the increasingly clingy Xiao Qingmeng...

Or he carried a little stool to the edge of the Training Ground and sat there looking idle, while carefully observing the Martial Arts Hall students practicing their fists.

This seemingly monotonous, carefree routine brought Chen Yan an unexpected surprise before long!

One day, he was watching two students spar as usual.

One of them was practicing the opening move of the Du Family Yellow Fist. His movements were correct, and his qi and blood flowed quite smoothly.

To anyone else, the move already looked fairly convincing.

But Chen Yan saw something different.

When he focused his attention, he could clearly see that the student's qi and blood flow stalled ever so slightly around the shoulder as he shifted between moves. At the instant he exerted force, his center of gravity also shifted by the tiniest fraction.

"There's an opening!"

These flaws were so minute that they were almost impossible to notice, yet in Chen Yan's vision, they were magnified until they stood out as clearly as ink spots on white paper!

[Ding! Detected that the host has been carefully observing martial arts techniques for an extended period!]

[Congratulations, host. You have unlocked a new skill—Focused Observation!]

[Train diligently to improve your progress in Focused Observation. Once progress is full, you can advance to the next sequence.]

[Advancement sequence: Focused Observation → Eye of Void Insight → True Pupil of Myriad Phenomena → Eye of the Great Dao...]

[Focused Observation]: You can notice details that ordinary people easily overlook and perfectly reproduce observed patterns, runes, and terrain.

[Eye of Void Insight]: You can see the weaknesses and falsehoods of things.

[True Pupil of Myriad Phenomena]: You can glimpse the true face of the world and its underlying rules.

[Eye of the Great Dao]: You can glimpse a fragment of the river of fate and observe the general direction of an individual's or event's fate (at the cost of suffering tremendous backlash).

"Oh?" Chen Yan was intrigued. He hadn't expected his daily observations to bring him such a reward!

He immediately turned his gaze to the other student.

Sure enough, under his newly acquired "Focused Observation," several flaws in the student's technique—improper force and unsteady breathing—also became apparent.

"Interesting! It's like having a weakened version of the Sharingan!"

Chen Yan was a little excited.

"Although it's still at the most basic level and can only spot openings in people far weaker than me or whose techniques are unrefined..."

"But as the skill improves, maybe I really will be able to 'break ten thousand techniques with a single glance'!"

This unexpected discovery gave his peaceful daily routine a new source of fun and anticipation.

He observed even more intently, watching not only the students but also carefully studying the movements of his maternal grandfather, Du Chun, whenever he demonstrated a technique.

He tried to absorb more from them and refine his newly acquired Focused Observation.

Perhaps amid these seemingly monotonous days, settling down and accumulating knowledge was itself a kind of rapid growth that no one else could see.