The Many Uses of Mana

Although Teacher Zhao was still lecturing at the front, Chen Yu had mastered mere calculus in his previous life.

After all, Third Cultivation High School was a body cultivator high school, with its focus on physical fitness. The students were all burly, muscular men.

Their favorite pastime was sculpting their muscles. Girls were like air to them, but the sight of a strong, well-built man left them unable to move, eager to spill every cultivation secret they knew before letting him leave.

Math Prince Teacher Zhao also doubled as the PE teacher. He was both scholarly and martial, and remarkably handsome.

Chen Yu had not come here because he had a particular fondness for body cultivation. It was because this high school had low admission scores, and the principal wanted some smart students, so he had been admitted as an exception.

After confirming that he had mastered everything Teacher Zhao was teaching, Chen Yu let his mind wander and continued studying the effects of his Constitution.

The Awakening Pill he had taken that morning had already worn off, but his Constitution's new effect forcibly injected him with mental energy, making him even more excited.

Ma Daqiang, beside him, had nearly fallen asleep. But when he saw Chen Yu suddenly perk up, a smile appearing at the corner of his mouth as he grew increasingly alert, he was startled awake as well.

Ma Daqiang felt a jolt of energy too. His brother was no ordinary man.

He actually likes math class!

What a freak!

Little did he know that Chen Yu was happily researching the effects of his Constitution, growing more excited the longer he played with it.

Setting everything else aside, the mere fact that it could grant mana was already immensely promising.

To cultivators, mana's usefulness went without saying. There was even a saying: "Those who gain mana gain the Great Dao."

It could be used to cast spells, control magical artifacts, and fuel every kind of cultivation system. It was an indispensable resource for cultivators.

Because demand was so great, one point of mana officially cost ten dollars, though in reality it was even more expensive.

Of the mana cultivators refined by consuming spiritual energy, eighty percent would be absorbed by their bodies, while the remaining twenty percent would be stored in their dantian as fuel for cultivation.

Thus, Chen Yu's delight at gaining ten thousand mana points out of nowhere could not be summed up by a single word like "awesome."

Without hesitation, Chen Yu immediately burned mana. A single point was absorbed by the cultivation technique within him, turning into scorching blood and vitality that flooded through his body and brought fine beads of hot sweat to his forehead.

Though it was only a basic body-tempering method, with the continuous support of mana, its benefits were three times greater than usual, causing copious sweat to steam from his back.

Seeing his hot sweat, Ma Daqiang could not help opening his mouth.

He's tempering his body during math class instead of sleeping?

What a freak among freaks!

And Chen Yu, have you been secretly getting extra tutoring behind my back and buying mana?

If it's cheap, can you introduce your brother to the source?

Chen Yu cultivated for an entire class before emerging from his meditative state after the bell rang, his heart growing more excited.

That session had used only two points of mana, yet he already felt lighter on his feet, strength filling his arms. The muscles on his upper arms seemed to have been carved over again, revealing new lines.

If he kept cultivating like this, he should be able to raise his score by five points in the exam ten days from now!

Mana truly was cultivation's greatest cheat!

Although improving his score would grow harder the further he went, with mana's support, perhaps he could reach 370 points on the National College Entrance Examination a year from now. He might even get into his dream university with a low score.

After exhaling a long breath of stale air, Chen Yu continued examining the effects of his Constitution.

"Huh, is there another new Trait?"

A new progress bar had appeared beside the name of his Constitution. The difference was that this one had the character "Positive" after it.

Placed alongside the "Demon" progress bar, Chen Yu immediately understood that this bar tracked his absorption of Positive Emotion.

"One Positive and one Demon. It seems the Heavenly Demon Body can absorb both. But Positive Emotion is much harder to obtain than Negative Emotions, so Negative Emotions will still be the main source. Their limits are the same too. It seems the cap rises after every breakthrough."

The new discovery made Chen Yu nod repeatedly. The Heavenly Demon Body really was something else.

Looking at his remaining 9,998 points of mana, Chen Yu's heart surged with excitement.

He could not use that much mana in his daily cultivation. He could exchange the excess for cash, then buy all sorts of supplementary materials, cultivation techniques, and spiritual pills, rapidly increasing his strength.

He would enroll in the best cram school, buy the best study guides, and undergo the harshest training, striving to raise his score by a hundred points in a year!

Though ten thousand mana was only the beginning, he could continue harvesting more Negative Emotions and gain even more benefits.

Thinking of this, Chen Yu began thanking his ancestors for what they had done to the Heavenly Demons.

And Chapter Two of The Dreamer could also be put on the agenda. It was time to make the other players even crazier.

The foreshadowing he had laid earlier could erupt at this moment. The players would gain the ultimate experience and the wildest pleasure from it, then provide him with the most Negative Emotions.

With that thought, Chen Yu immediately stretched his limbs and prepared to begin.

Now that he had mana, Chapter Two could be even more refined.

This time, Chen Yu purchased a more complete Dreamscape framework, adding real voice acting, more lifelike character models, better environmental effects, and more impressive Dreamscape visual effects.

As a result, he raised the cost of a single Dreamscape to three thousand mana. But compared to the potential returns, that amount of mana did not matter.

A day later, Chen Yu looked at the completed Dreamscape and nodded in satisfaction.

This Dreamscape had reached the limit of what he could achieve at his current stage. To improve it further, he could only wait until his realm broke through.

After clicking publish with satisfaction, he stared at his Constitution Panel, eager to see what surprises the players would bring him.

At this moment, Lu Ziqi of Third High School had already become somewhat deranged.

The Dreamer had an almost demonic allure. Its Dreamscape-themed setting, intertwined with Dreamscapes themselves, produced effects even Chen Yu had not anticipated.

The atmosphere of a Dreamscape that seemed both real and false was highly appealing to ordinary cultivators. For cultivators like Lu Ziqi who followed the Visualization Path, it was even easier to become addicted and unable to pull themselves free.

After all, what Visualization Path cultivators needed was imagination.

They needed to imagine Cloudglow, imagine gigantic beasts, imagine themselves fighting nature amid a boundless ocean.

Through imagination, they stimulated their potential and achieved better spiritual energy absorption.

For the past two days, he had entered the Dreamscape as soon as class ended. Sometimes he danced about wildly, sometimes he wailed in tears. He had become completely unhinged.

He skipped evening classes, rushed through his homework, and spent all his spare time immersing himself in the Dreamscape, experiencing that bizarre yet irresistibly alluring world.

The outstanding script made up for the shortcomings elsewhere. The storyline, impossible to distinguish from reality, blurred the boundary between Dreamscape and reality for Lu Ziqi, giving him sensations he had never experienced before.

In the Dreamscape, he had already escaped the karst cave with Sun Huowang, rescued the other fellow disciples, and set out together on the road home.

The journey was fraught with danger. Their shared experiences constantly deepened his bond with Sun Huowang, and they gradually came to admire one another.

However, because they encountered too many incidents, he noticed Sun Huowang's emotions gradually becoming more volatile.

His methods grew increasingly ruthless. At the slightest provocation, he would skin people, pull out their tendons, murder, and set fires. His behavior became more and more absurd.

Last time, he had even slapped each of the junior disciples and called his fellow disciples worthless trash, his attitude utterly overbearing.

The fellow disciples met behind Sun Huowang's back more and more often, occasionally gathering to discuss something in low voices. But whenever Sun Huowang approached, they immediately fell silent and merely watched him warily.

The atmosphere grew increasingly oppressive, and the joy of escaping the karst cave gradually faded, leaving the campfires that had once been filled with laughter quieter by the day.

Fortunately, the oppressive atmosphere did not last long.

Because the first chapter had ended.

I'm finally free!