Xu Xiaoyan Couldn't Get a Hand In

The testing device's cold figures still flickered on the screen. Xu Xiaoyan stared at her own "536," then instinctively glanced at the two despair-inducing strings of "36897" beside it. Her shoulders sagged slightly. The air around her seemed to freeze, and an indescribable sense of disparity drowned her like a rising tide.

"What's wrong?"

A gentle voice with a touch of pride sounded beside her ear. At some point, Gu Yue had walked over to her, silver hair cascading like a waterfall. Though her tone sounded a little awkward, genuine concern filled her eyes. "Do you feel upset because your strength is so far behind ours?"

Xu Xiaoyan came back to her senses and hastily shook her head, pulling her lips into a somewhat helpless smile. "That's not it, big sister Gu Yue."

She took a deep breath, seemingly making up her mind, and voiced what she had kept hidden for a long time. "Actually... I know my own strength very well. To be honest, I've never been someone who particularly enjoys cultivating."

"Oh?" Gu Yue raised an eyebrow, clearly a little surprised.

Xu Xiaoyan scratched her head and explained somewhat sheepishly, "I have an older brother at home. He's the genius of the family, the kind who cultivates incredibly hard and is really strong. So my family has high hopes for him, but they aren't nearly as strict with me. You could even say they're very lenient. They never force me to cultivate hard."

She paused, then continued under everyone's puzzled gazes. "Besides, my Martial Soul is actually a mutated Star Wheel Ice Staff. It has a very unusual latent trait. Even if I don't deliberately push myself to cultivate, and just attend classes as usual and absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, my Soul Power Level