Early that morning, Yun Qingqiu arrived at the dean's office with a form in hand. After entering, she first offered a respectful greeting. "Lord Dean."
"No need for 'Lord.' Just call me Dean." Zhang Qingyuan smiled.
"Ah, all right." Yun Qingqiu looked a little embarrassed. Tianyang Martial Dao Academy really was very different from other sects.
Zhang Qingyuan did not want people addressing him as "Lord," either. This was a martial arts organization, not a government office. Being called "Lord" felt awkward.
Seeing that she still had not quite adjusted, Zhang Qingyuan smiled and took the initiative to ask, "Have a seat. So, how many people broke through to the eighth rank yesterday?"
As for the realms in this world, those who knew only unarmed combat were called ninth rank.
Once they developed internal power, they had entered the Eighth-Grade Realm.
The Ninth-Rank Realm involved tempering the muscles and bones and learning moves.
The Eighth-Grade Realm involved generating internal power and combining it with those moves.
They learned to use internal power to support various martial techniques, thereby increasing the power of their attacks.
In the Seventh-Rank Realm, they had to project internal power outside their bodies. In other words, their attacks could produce certain special effects with internal power.
Internal power was, at its core, a form of energy.
Learning how to bring that energy's power to its fullest was what the Eighth-Grade Realm was about.
The students had cultivated for a whole day yesterday, but he still did not know exactly how effective it had been.
Since this was their first time cultivating together, Zhang Qingyuan had given them three days.
Zhang Qingyuan had therefore also required the second-year teachers to record the students' cultivation progress over those three days, especially noting down all the highly talented ones so they would have a clear picture.
Yun Qingqiu sat across from Zhang Qingyuan and handed over the list.
There were three copies in total: one for the dean, one for the teachers' office, and one for the academy archives.
As Zhang Qingyuan scanned the list, Yun Qingqiu explained, "From yesterday to this morning, within twelve two-hour periods, a hundred and nine people broke through to the Eighth-Grade Realm."
Of those, eighteen had broken through within the first two hours.
"Liu Sidao, Ma Shou, Murong Xue, and Liu Che were the fastest. Liu Sidao and Ma Shou, in particular, took only three breaths."
Even Yun Qingqiu could not help pausing when she said this.
Finding a sense of Qi and developing internal power in just three breaths-at that speed, they practically had it the moment they started cultivating.
It was pretty much a matter of sitting down, thinking over the method, and then knowing how to do it. Their very first attempt was spot-on!
With talent like that, even in a top sect, they would be supreme geniuses whom all the elders fought to take as disciples and nurture with special attention.
With geniuses like these, unexpected setbacks later on were actually very rare.
They were like those child prodigies Zhang Qingyuan had seen on television in his previous life, those freakishly gifted kids who were clever from childhood and competed in all sorts of Mathematical Olympiads.
With that talent from childhood and proper nurturing on top of it, they were pretty much all material for Project 985 and Project 211 universities.
Among a group of geniuses like that, it was hard to find more than a few who failed to do well in the college entrance examination later.
Those who failed were the tiny minority. Most would rise straight into the clouds.
Of course, there were also peerless geniuses, extraordinary talents, and supreme geniuses unlike any among ten thousand.
But how many of those appeared in a century?
What was a supreme genius unlike any among ten thousand?
Even among 1.4 billion people, only a handful could be found.
They were people who could point straight at Liu Sidao and the others' noses and call them idiots.
Some might ask whether such people existed.
Heh.
Zhang Qingyuan recalled something one of the predecessors who had given him a backbone in his previous life had said: "However slow someone is, surely they can learn calculus by fourteen?"
Another equally brilliant predecessor had pulled a similar move, pointing at a computer and saying, "It's wrong!"
That was a supreme genius. In this world, they would be one of those martial prodigies unlike any among ten thousand.
Of course, Zhang Qingyuan did not know whether he would encounter such a monstrously gifted big shot in the future.
He really hoped that one day he could take in a disciple who would open their mouth and spout something as pretentious as, "Being a genius is merely the threshold for meeting me."
That would feel so damn good!
His thoughts had wandered a little too far.
Zhang Qingyuan continued looking at the list. At this stage, having Liu Sidao and the others was already quite enough to make the academy look impressive.
A greedy heart was like a snake trying to swallow an elephant, always wanting something better. Ah!
"The rest are Li Goudan'er, Xiao Yan, Zhao Hongbing, Sun Xiaohu, Shi Tiezhu, Murong An, Huang Xiaoju, Zhang Xiaohua, Xu Liang, Lin Pingzhi, Du Sha, Yin Tianqi, Liu Ying, and Zhao Ling'er."
Zhang Qingyuan nodded. It was basically the same as the list of geniuses the teachers had provided earlier.
Yun Qingqiu continued, "Twenty-seven developed internal power within six hours."
Zhang Qingyuan looked at the next twenty-seven names on the list. Three of them had not been among the hundred geniuses listed before.
They were Xie Anyang, Li Sihai, and Tang Qinghe.
Further down, among those who had developed internal power within a day, the names differed considerably from that previous list of a hundred geniuses.
Of the remaining sixty-four, thirty-eight had placed in the top hundred in the earlier martial arts competition.
Another twenty-six had placed outside the top hundred.
Two had even been among the slow ones during the first three months of basic martial arts training.
Who would have thought they would be so talented at internal cultivation!
This was the importance of a martial artist's talent, as well as the uncertainty involved in cultivating internal and external arts.
Some people were just like that: their limbs were uncoordinated, but they were very good at cultivating internal power.
Some were not much good at internal cultivation, yet their martial skills were truly top-notch.
Lu Guying: "..."
Of course, most people were still normal.
Either they were good at both, or they were a little lacking in both.
Some were slightly better at technique, while others were slightly better at internal cultivation. It all fell within a reasonable range.
To be honest, Zhang Qingyuan was also crossing the river by feeling for stones. This was the first cohort, after all, and all sorts of data were important.
Once Yun Qingqiu finished her report, Zhang Qingyuan put away the list, gave her a few instructions, and returned to his courtyard to practice.
With nothing else to do, he began practicing the martial arts awarded by the system.
He did not need to practice any other internal arts. His current internal cultivation method was sufficient.
The main focus was external arts. Zhang Qingyuan practiced another two sets of sword techniques.
One was the Twelve Immortal-Slaying Forms from a webnovel, and the other was Jian Jiuhuang's Nine Swords.
After finishing, Zhang Qingyuan headed straight for Zhan Hongling's quarters-Elder Sister Zhan's.
As a first-year teacher, Zhan Hongling had little work to do over these three days, since the disciples were all currently cultivating internal power.
It amounted to three days off.
But she had nowhere to go, so she rested in her quarters.
As a widow, she was lonely.
Over these three months, she had worked hard at teaching. Her own son was among the students, and in her own class at that. He was not particularly obedient, either, which gave her plenty to worry about.
Though it was a little tiring, her life was far more fulfilling than before.
There were two memorial tablets in her quarters.
One was the tablet of her father, the great hero Zhan Peng.
The other was the tablet of her husband, Ma Ke.
After getting up early that morning, she had offered incense to her father and husband.
She talked about her son's recent performance. "Dear, our son really has done us proud. He takes after you in martial talent. He developed a sense of Qi within three breaths and completed a Greater Celestial Circuit within the time it takes an incense stick to burn.
"With talent like that, even in the Northern Realm or the Southern Realm, he'd be a genius people fought over.
"Our Ma family finally has someone to carry on its legacy.
"The boy takes after you in temperament, too. He's always standing up against injustice whenever he has a moment.
"Over there, you..."
Zhan Hongling rambled on, as though chatting with her husband about everyday things.
Her husband had been gone for so many years. Only during the first year or two had she cried whenever she offered incense.
By now, she had grown used to it. There was no longer so much sorrow.
When she spoke of her son, she grew happier with every word. He really did make her proud!
Just then, Zhang Qingyuan appeared outside her door and knocked.
"Elder Sister Zhan, are you in?"