Fitness Class ×, Running √

Class Nine's afternoon lesson was also physical training. Nearly a hundred students lined up in five rows.

The rows were different lengths, some much longer than others.

Students chose their rows according to how they saw their own roles.

Power attack, agility attack, control, and defense each had a row. The fifth, largest row held support and food-type students, along with those with unusual Martial Souls.

Once the roll call was done, Lu Yi and Ning Tian finished counting the students.

Throughout it, Ning Tian kept stealing glances at Lu Yi, only to look away whenever he turned toward her.

At last, Ning Tian hesitantly reported to Mu Jin, "Teacher, Class Nine has one hundred students on the roster and ninety-nine present. Wu—"

"Reporting in!"

A clear voice rang out from behind them. Wu Feng arrived late under everyone's gaze.

Mu Jin finally showed her anger. She glanced at the soul-tool clock beside the field. "Wu Feng, you're six minutes late. One hundred people waited for you. That's five hundred minutes wasted."

The other students thought nothing of it, but Lu Yi gave her an odd look.

How does that peculiar way of calculating time exist in Douluo too?

"Teacher, I know I was wrong. It won't happen again!" Wu Feng did not make excuses. She lowered her head and admitted her mistake.

Seeing that she was genuinely apologetic and that it was her first offense, Mu Jin let it go. "Back in line!"

"Yes!"

Wu Feng shot Lu Yi, who stood in the third row, a vicious glare, then hurried toward the lines.

But without thinking, she followed Ning Tian toward the fifth row and tried to slip in among the support and food-type Soul Masters.

"Xiao Feng, you're in the first row!"

Ning Tian hurriedly reminded her under her breath. Amid the others' laughter, Wu Feng ran back to the first row, her face bright red.

She resented Lu Yi even more now!

Since the afternoon lesson was physical training, Shrek Academy's traditional exercise, practiced for ten thousand years, was bound to make an appearance.

Compared with Zhou Yi's blunt demands, though, Mu Jin was fairly considerate.

Everyone had to run laps, but Mu Jin set different requirements for different roles.

Naturally, the power attack and agility attack students faced the toughest demands.

Power attack students had to run the most: one hundred and twenty laps.

Everyone else had to run one hundred.

Agility attack students faced the strictest time limit: just ninety minutes.

Control and defense students had two hours, while support and food-type students received an extra fifteen minutes.

As the clock started, more than a hundred students surged onto the track.

Lu Yi swore he had never run this far in either of his lives. His longest run had been a ten-kilometer race he had once entered.

At Hogwarts, he had only gotten a taste of riding a broom during Flying Class. That counted as one of the few sports he had ever done.

Yet at Shrek Academy, an ordinary physical training lesson meant running thirty kilometers.

When he had read about it in his previous life, he had thought running drills in fantasy worlds sounded too easy. Now the boomerang had come back and struck him, and he could no longer laugh.

Fortunately, since mastering the Soul Power Cultivation Method, Lu Yi could feel that his body had improved. He was as fit as he had been at his peak at eighteen.

But even at eighteen, he could not have run thirty kilometers at a four-minute-per-kilometer pace!

Damn it. I never should've said I was a control-type! Lu Yi thought bitterly.

Before class, he had asked Mu Jin to let him join the fifth row. She had turned him down without mercy.

He gritted his teeth and kept his pace so he would not fall behind. Just as he finished his thirtieth lap, an unwelcome voice sounded beside him.

"Well, if it isn't our deputy class monitor." Wu Feng clearly still held a grudge over what had happened earlier. Seeing that Lu Yi looked like a dead dog before even half the time had passed, she came over to rub it in. "What happened? I leave you alone for a little while, and you're already this pathetic?"

Wu Feng's taunt was so weak that Lu Yi did not bother answering.

More importantly, he could barely breathe. Where would he find the strength to fire back?

When Lu Yi gave no response at all, Wu Feng grew bored and sped off... only to catch up with him again soon afterward and toss out a few more feeble jabs.

That was not the end of it. Seeing a girl as pretty as Wu Feng repeatedly pester Lu Yi, Zhou Sichen came up beside him too and started gossiping between gasps for breath.

"Come on, man. One lunch break, and suddenly I can't figure you out?"

Zhou Sichen's Martial Soul was a Tome. He had placed himself in the Power Attack System, but his Martial Soul did little to strengthen his body, so his task was no easier than Lu Yi's. Even so, he could not help asking, "Did something happen between you two?"

Lu Yi had no breath to answer. He could only nod.

"Holy shit, nice!" Zhou Sichen habitually nudged Lu Yi's arm with his elbow, a sly grin on his face. "Teach me your secrets, man?"

His roommate's reaction made Lu Yi roll his eyes. He could not tell whether Zhou Sichen was obsessed with romance or just hopelessly frustrated.

Finally, Lu Yi slowed a little and steadied his breathing. He turned toward Zhou Sichen as if about to share his secret, but said only one thing.

"Get lost!"

"Some friend you are. So what if you're a little fairer and better-looking? I refuse to believe nobody likes my type!"

With that, Zhou Sichen abruptly sped up too.

Every time he passed a female classmate, he turned back and flashed what he thought was a handsome smile. All he got in return were eye rolls and more calls to "get lost."

By the time most of the allotted time had passed, Lu Yi was not among the very last, but he was firmly in the bottom twenty.

Lu Yi knew his own body. Finishing at all would count as a success.

Fortunately, as his strength began to run out, threads of energy kept welling up in his meridians.

He immediately recalled what senior Zhu Song had told him: the Inner Court Cultivation Method had incorporated the Mysterious Heaven Skill. The two were not identical, but in many respects, they reached the same destination by different paths.

As he jogged along, Ning Tian, a support-type, overtook him again. She looked at him with puzzlement in her eyes.

Ning Tian had not yet had a chance to ask Wu Feng how her attempt to test Lu Yi had gone, but she could tell Wu Feng's attitude toward him had changed.

Knowing Wu Feng's personality, Ning Tian was sure she would not keep getting in Lu Yi's face to taunt him if she had won.

Wu Feng treated everyone she defeated the same way: she ignored them.

But Lu Yi looked so frail. He did not seem capable of beating Wu Feng at all.

Something's wrong. Very wrong!

This was no time to question Lu Yi face-to-face. She needed to finish her laps, then ask Wu Feng what had happened.

At last, just over a hundred minutes in, Ning Tian finished all her laps. That pace was impressive not only for a support-type student, but for anyone outside the agility attack group.

Wu Feng had also finished all one hundred and twenty laps. She was watching the nearly exhausted Lu Yi with a mocking look, but when she turned, she met Ning Tian's searching gaze.

"What happened at noon? How strong is Lu Yi really?" Ning Tian asked, gripping Wu Feng's shoulders.

"I don't know!"

Wu Feng's answer only confused Ning Tian more. "You don't know? Then what were you doing at noon?"

"I only remember activating my Martial Soul and attacking him, and then..." Wu Feng searched her memory. Her face suddenly reddened, and she tried to save face. "Then I woke up by the bank. Maybe I couldn't find Lu Yi and dreamed it after I fell asleep?"

Wu Feng left out some of the details. If the young mistress learned that Lu Yi had taken her down the moment they met, her position would be hanging by a thread.

At that thought, Wu Feng was suddenly at a loss.