Pearl High School

"Students, pay attention. The ones coming to this spell competition are the elites from middle schools across the country. They will be your greatest competitors in the college entrance examination."

"Today, if you can defeat them, then in the college entrance examination, you'll be able to defeat even more people..."

"Qi Ming, Ji Songzhi, Liao Yongjun, Zhang Jingjing—you are the pride of No. 1 High School. Your teachers hope you can fight for the competition's gold awards."

"..."

"The rest of you must also keep your spirits up. Try your best not to drag the school down!"

The teacher leading the group spoke with great fervor, placing enormous importance on this spell competition.

And rightly so. Though the National Hundred-Schools Spell Exchange Competition had the word "exchange" in its name, it was, in truth, still a competition—a competition of extremely high caliber.

The organizer was Changhai City's Pearl Education Group, whose full name was actually "Jade Pivot University Affiliated Pearl Education Group."

Jade Pivot University was a top cultivation university on par with Ten Thousand Arts University. Both universities were famous for their spell education.

The National Hundred-Schools Spell Exchange Competition would determine one hundred gold award winners, three hundred to five hundred silver award winners, and three thousand bronze award winners.

There were over fifty thousand participants, every one of them an elite from their respective schools. Winning a medal was as difficult as climbing to the sky.

Silver and bronze awards were more symbolic, but gold awards were a completely different matter.

Based on the distribution of gold awards, Jade Pivot University would funnel resources toward different high schools, including but not limited to spell manuals, the latest spell lesson plans, spell training equipment, and more.

One hundred high schools, one hundred competition gold awards.

In other words, on average, every high school ought to win one gold award to be considered up to standard.

This time, Pingjiang No. 1 High School had registered more than five hundred students. Their greatest hopes rested on super academic stars like Qi Ming, the class monitor of Class One.

It was worth mentioning that Zhang Jingjing was also a popular candidate for a gold award.

Her overall grades were not especially outstanding, placing her around the top hundred in her year.

Zhang Jingjing was not particularly exceptional in athletics. The reason she could still frequently rank among the top hundred was entirely because her spell talent was astonishing and her spell grades were simply too good.

Over several senior-year mock exams, Zhang Jingjing's spell grades had remained firmly within the top two. To be precise, she had only taken second place once; every other time, she had been first...

Qi Ming, Ji Songzhi, and Liao Yongjun were a notch weaker, but each had their own strengths.

As for the other five hundred students...

Including Jiang Ran, they were all ordinary people there merely to make up the numbers.

A competition gold award and a competition bronze award were not even concepts on the same level.

The Feitong Passenger Coach continued flying steadily.

In less than an hour, they would arrive at Tianlu's capital, Changhai City.

"Dapeng, I wasn't here earlier. Did the teacher say what rewards there would be for winning a gold award in this spell competition?" Jiang Ran asked curiously.

"Rewards? He did..."

"Seems like there are cultivation methods, martial techniques, and prize money."

"Prize money?" Jiang Ran immediately perked up.

It was not that he worshipped money. Without money, nothing could be done.

Speaking of which, he still had two million in unregistered bearer notes that he had not used. But those were, after all, gray assets that could not see the light of day. He could only use them quietly and had no way of making large payments openly.

High school students had few opportunities to make money. If he could earn more prize money, he definitely could not let the chance slip away.

"Come on, what are you thinking about..." Tao Dapeng said carelessly.

"With goods like us, even getting a bronze award would be a struggle. Is a gold award something we're worthy of even looking at?"

"Forget it, Ran. I heard there's a place in Changhai with especially delicious seafood in sauce. Let's sneak out and have a meal when we get the chance..."

Jiang Ran curled his lip and said nothing more.

Actually, he really wanted to tell Tao Dapeng—we're not the same.

Qi Nourishment Perfection, Mystic Spirit Body forged.

After testing himself again and again along the way, Jiang Ran had confirmed one thing.

The improvement brought by Qi Nourishment Perfection was enormous. The most obvious change was that his mind had become incomparably clear, his thoughts far sharper than before, and his intentions flowed as though aided by divine hands.

With the same Water Ball Technique, it had once taken him three or four seconds to complete the casting. Now, it took less than half a second.

And that was only the Water Ball Technique. With higher-level spells like the Torrent Technique and Flame-Raising Technique, his casting speed not only did not slow down—it became even faster.

Those profound spells that ordinary students considered unfathomable were now practically elementary arithmetic to Jiang Ran, without the slightest difficulty.

Winning a spell competition gold award no longer seemed so far out of reach.

They arrived in Changhai before long.

Looking down from the flying passenger coach, the entire city was incomparably magnificent.

Changhai was called Changhai because it bordered the sea to the east. Seawater flowed into the city and formed a great river, while towering buildings lined both banks, creating the Changhai of today.

Pearl High School was located in Changhai's Haidong District.

The flying coach landed in the parking lot, where more than a dozen flying vehicles from different schools were already parked.

The dozen or so teachers leading Pingjiang No. 1 High School first took the students to Pearl High School to check in, where they received identity wristbands.

Afterward, they moved together into the dormitory building Pearl High School had prepared in advance.

It had to be said that Pearl truly deserved to be an education group directly affiliated with Jade Pivot University. The entire Pearl High School campus was astonishingly vast, covering tens of thousands of mu—nearly ten times the size of an ordinary high school.

The spell competition was being held in the Spell Hall, a professional venue for spell practice.

Walking among the crowd, Jiang Ran examined the various facilities within the Spell Hall, his eyes full of wonder.

Spell force-testing steles, spell practice sand fields, Five Elements spell training ranges...

There were even professional freezing training chambers and mental tempering chambers!

"This is way too luxurious..."

"Why doesn't our school have any of this?"

"Pearl is the best high school in Changhai. How could Pingjiang compare to them..."

It was not only the teachers and students of Pingjiang No. 1 High School who were envious. Of all the students and teachers who had come here, almost no one could remain calm inside.

Normally, a high school could only afford one large stadium, which had to serve both physical training and spell training.

Professional spell facilities were too expensive to build, and their enormous wear and tear required heavy spending to maintain. Ordinary middle schools simply could not afford them.

"With an environment like this for training, it'd be hard for your spell grades to be bad!" Jiang Ran could not help sighing.

Children in big cities truly were different. Even the most ordinary Low-Grade Spirit Root would definitely see tremendous improvement under such superior conditions.

There were two paths in spell study: either one possessed extraordinary talent and comprehension far beyond ordinary people—but such geniuses were few, after all.

Most people relied on repeated practice, over and over again.

This was where professional spell training equipment showed its value. A first-year student at Pearl High School could practice the Fireball Technique a hundred times a day and identify even the tiniest casting error every time.

Meanwhile, high school students in small cities could only cast spells in empty spaces on the athletic field. Whether their casting was wrong depended entirely on whether their teachers could spot the mistakes clearly enough.

Jiang Ran fell silent and slowly walked away.

There had never been absolute fairness in this world. Poor families could produce distinguished children, but the word "effort" weighed as heavily as a mountain.

By lunchtime, the competing teams from all the major high schools had all arrived.

The spell competition officially began at two in the afternoon.

There was no buildup. Right from the start came a thoroughly satisfying examination—the written test.

Jiang Ran had never felt that taking an exam could be such an easy thing.

Everything tested was something he knew, and everything he wrote was correct.

Even for some unfamiliar major problems, he only needed to think for a moment to reach the answer.

"So this is how good students feel..."