Actually, running a school in this world, especially a martial arts school, made it very easy to end up with a hot-blooded high school.
Martial heroes broke the law with their martial prowess. Never mind this high-martial world-even in Zhang Qingyuan's previous life, middle and high school students formed gangs.
Especially after watching Young and Dangerous, there was no shortage of kids of every stripe at school.
So in this world, fights between students were perfectly normal. Not fighting would have been abnormal.
Anyone whose strength suddenly improved by leaps and bounds would go through a brief period of inflated confidence.
Commonly known as: I don't eat beef!
Zhang Qingyuan would not stop this phenomenon, because competition created pressure, and pressure created motivation.
If our class lost to yours today, we would fight back tomorrow.
Only this kind of healthy competition could drive people forward.
The condition was that no one could bully others at will or deliberately injure or cripple anyone. Anyone caught would be expelled immediately, without leniency!
In the blink of an eye, three months had passed, and the ten classes were about to hold their new-student martial tournament.
Zhang Qingyuan had obtained lists of each class's genius students from the ten teachers ahead of time.
After three months of foundational cultivation, every disciple had ninth-rank strength. The only difference was who could fight and who could not.
Looking at the lists of genius disciples in his hands, Zhang Qingyuan felt deeply gratified. At last, he felt that opening this martial arts academy had not been for nothing.
Among Class One's genius disciples, Liu Sidao came first. The kid was top-notch in temperament, talent, and strength alike.
Put it this way: several fierce battles at Tianyang Martial Dao Academy had revolved around our Brother Dao.
Next was Yin Tianqi. This rich second-generation kid also had good talent and was now Class One's second-in-command.
After him came Li Goudan, a typical farming family's child. On the day he arrived, he had not even had a pair of shoes.
Next was a girl named Zhao Yajing, from Ripple Water City. She came from an ordinary family and had excellent physical flexibility.
Xiao Yan, on whom Zhang Qingyuan had placed high hopes, was not highly regarded by his homeroom teacher, Lu Guying. His aptitude was average, and he had displayed no particularly dazzling talent. He worked fairly hard and counted as reasonably outstanding among the masses, but the word "genius" had nothing to do with him.
Among Class Two's geniuses, the first was Ma Shou. He had inherited his father's talent, and besides, his mother was the homeroom teacher. Would he dare not work hard?
Second was Zhao Hongbing. The kid had a ruthless streak. His father had been a soldier in his early years and had commanded a ten-man squad. After he laid down his armor and returned to farming, Great Zhou had awarded him over thirty mu of land, making him a small landowner of sorts.
Next was Liu Ying, from the same hometown as Zhao Hongbing. Liu Ying also stood out in fights and particularly liked using a saber.
There was also Sun Xiaoke, a country girl.
Zhang Shitou, a country kid.
Li Shuangping, an ordinary city kid.
These three had also displayed some truly eye-catching moves.
Class Three had quite a few geniuses. It was hard to say whether Chen Siwen had simply lucked into them or really knew how to teach.
In the first three months, more than a dozen young geniuses had emerged in his class.
Zhou Kun's father was an escort guard. His lightness skill was handed down through his family, and his kicking techniques were first-rate.
Han Mei, an ordinary girl whose personality did not stand out.
Shi Tiezhu, a country kid...
There were more than a dozen names below, all the sort whose promise was apparent early on, most of whom would be able to kill opponents above their level in the future.
Class Four: Zheng Tu. His family really did sell pork, and his saber techniques were excellent.
Wang Shuxiang's father was an old scholar who had spent his whole life taking the examinations without passing. Afraid his son would end up like him, he had sent him to study martial arts.
Sun Xiaohu looked sturdy and bright-eyed and possessed innate divine strength. In raw strength alone, the kid was definitely the best of this intake. Every day, he talked about becoming commander of the Brocade Guard's Northern Pacification Office.
Class Five: Murong An, a merchant's son. His father had sponsored Zhang Qingyuan to the tune of over twenty thousand taels of silver in several installments. It was clear that learning martial arts was not the main point; his father mainly wanted to get acquainted with Sect Master Zhang.
Yet unexpectedly, his son really was cut out for martial arts!
Of course, he was also the older paternal cousin of Murong Xue in Class Seven.
Next was Huang Xiaoju, an ordinary girl.
Song Yi, a carpenter's son.
Tian Xiaoyu, Shen Yue...
Class Six: Xu Liang. His father was a constable in East Sea City, and his dream was to join the Six Doors. So whenever a fight broke out at school, he would go mediate. He was busier than the teachers.
Zhu Dazhuang, a chubby farming family's child.
Zhang Xiaohua, a boy with sunny, rugged good looks.
Kong Wu, whose father could also be considered a renowned martial hero in one part of Yu Province.
As for Class Seven, Murong Xue had a secret crush on Xiao Yan and wanted only to follow in Brother Xiao Yan's footsteps.
Lei Zhen, Liu Qingqing, Ding Buyang and Ding Buyin, a pair of twins.
Class Eight was quite distinctive. Zhang Qingyuan had been bewildered when he saw the names in their class. Apart from Class One, Class Eight received the most attention from him.
Because the names of Class Eight's children really carried some weight.
Xie Xiaofeng, Lin Pingzhi.
Xie Xiaofeng came from a scholarly family, not some martial Lineage.
Lin Pingzhi was the second young master of the Lin Lineage Sword Fortress-the second son of the Lin Lineage Sword Fortress north of the city.
Du Sha, Han Li, Huang Rong'er, Yue Buqun...
With names like those, how could he not pay attention?
Sharing names was normal, but wasn't the proportion in Class Eight a little too high?
Scary!
Class Nine: Qin Shuang, Liu Yunlong, Sun Xiaoman, Bai Xiong, Chu Qiao, Huang Mutou...
Class Ten: Liu Che, the Eight Great Vajras, and two girls.
Across the ten classes, there were probably over a hundred students who could be called geniuses.
Compared with two thousand students, a ratio of one in twenty was already extremely high!
Even for ordinary major sects, whose disciples were carefully selected, the proportion who ultimately amounted to something was only one in twenty, or an even lower one in thirty.
They recruited disciples every three to five years, selecting three to five hundred outer disciples each time. After three to five years of cultivation, only several dozen of those three to five hundred would enter the inner sect and be chosen by the elders. Those who became the sect leader's personal disciples were fewer still.
If that was not concrete enough, take the Wudang Sect in The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber as an example.
What proportion of those young Daoist attendants ultimately became first-rate experts?
These hundred-plus students at Tianyang Martial Dao Academy were merely the ones who already looked exceptionally gifted in the early stages.
Of course, some of them would definitely run out of steam later, getting stuck in the middle three ranks, or even around the seventh rank. There were bound to be some.
Just like their homeroom teachers, who had picked everything up immediately when they were young, only to get stuck at cultivating internal arts and converting True Qi.
But out of a hundred people, how many could there be like that?
Allowing twenty should be plenty, right? That still left over eighty geniuses.
These eighty-odd students would, at worst, become middle three ranks experts, and almost all could reach the Fourth-Rank Realm.
Because entering the third rank required an enlightenment in the Dao.
Cultivating quickly was not the same as comprehending the Dao.
Cultivation depended on physical talent, while comprehending the Dao was a journey of the heart.
There were plenty of geniuses who became stuck at the Fourth-Rank Realm and could go no further.
In Zhang Qingyuan's projections, if eight of the remaining eighty could successfully comprehend the Dao and enter the upper three ranks, that would already be cause to burn incense in thanks. A one-in-ten ratio was a little greedy, but there was hope.
One intake a year, with eight upper three ranks experts trained in each intake-even if the school operated for only ten years, that would be eighty people in the Upper Three Ranks Realm...
What did eighty experts in the Upper Three Ranks Realm mean?
Steamrolling the Eastern Realm!
Wait!
The system had previously rewarded him with ten geniuses and one protagonist-level talent. In other words, this intake was guaranteed at least eleven upper three ranks experts!
Aside from the system rewards, another four naturally occurring ones would not be too much to ask, right?
By that calculation, this intake would produce fifteen upper three ranks experts. Holy shit...
Just thinking about it was exciting.
Zhang Qingyuan made quite a fuss.
Actually, aside from the current hundred-plus geniuses, there were also plenty who would build up deeply before bursting forth.
There were also those who cultivated slowly early on, then suddenly saw the light later.
Xiao Yan belonged to the kind who would build up deeply before bursting forth, because he was not on the genius list Lu Guying had given Zhang Qingyuan.
Some people simply performed unremarkably as children, only to ascend to the heavens in a single step later.
Hard to calculate, hard to calculate. He could not count them all in detail; he would still have to see the results in the future.
But the guaranteed minimum was definitely there.