Lin Yuan

Biodata

Background / History

Lin Yuan has worked in No. 3 High School’s martial arts department for six years, teaching the third-year students every year. He is the school’s only senior martial arts teacher, a position earned through perfecting multiple first-tier martial techniques and two second-tier techniques 3.

His teaching extends beyond his own school: students from other high schools occasionally seek private tutoring from him. Zhang Juye has also visited him for additional instruction 4 39.

Appearance

Lin Yuan is a stubbled man of about thirty with a mature, uncle-like appearance. His voice is strong and resonant 3.

Personality

Lin Yuan uses sarcasm and blunt criticism to push students into taking their training seriously. Before the assessment, he deliberately emphasizes that fewer than half the class will remain, creating a sense of urgency. He values diligence and believes martial artists need resolve without arrogance 3 4.

Although strict, he distinguishes forceful training from recklessness. He prohibits lethal attacks and match-fixing, but criticizes timid sparring that would leave students unprepared for real combat. He encourages them to commit fully to their attacks while trusting him to intervene if necessary 33 34.

He is frequently exasperated by Xu Yuan’s money-making schemes, yet accepts the boy’s explanation that poor talent and limited family finances make resources essential. His gentler side appears in his habit of feeding stray cats and carrying treats for them 31 41.

Abilities & Skills

Martial Technique Mastery

• Has perfected multiple first-tier martial techniques and two second-tier techniques 3.
• Has perfected all four first-tier techniques offered free by his school: Savage Bull Heart-Shattering Butt, Mountain-Crushing Strike, Wind-Swayed Sword, and Layered Wave Slash 3.
• Can readily instruct students in those four techniques, but acknowledges that his guidance is more limited for techniques he has not personally practiced 3.

Technical Analysis

• Identifies the weaknesses in Zhou Ling’s spear execution despite being unable to improve the technique’s mastery level directly. He stresses explosive short-range power, changes of pace, and transmitting strength to the spear tip 4.
• Recognizes that Xu Yuan’s exceptional assessment punch uses an embryonic martial skill designed to concentrate whole-body strength within the required punching form 16.
• Judges Xu Yuan’s defense against Jiang Yong as apparently flawless, finding no openings in his posture, movement, footwork, or breathing. However, he cannot perceive the openings Xu Yuan deliberately offers 35.

Combat Instruction and Refereeing

• Selects Chen Hu to demonstrate serious fighting because of his six months of Divine Guard Army experience 33 34.
• Enforces a ban on cheating and thrown matches, with loss of cultivation-base eligibility as the penalty 33.
• Supervises increasingly forceful bouts and promises to intervene when students cannot control their attacks 34.

Relationships

• Xu Yuan — His student. Initially skeptical of Xu Yuan’s claimed hidden talent, Lin Yuan becomes impressed by his technique comprehension while remaining wary of his schemes and concerned about his poor Divine Talent 5 18 26 35.
• Zhou Ling — His student. Lin Yuan criticizes his reliance on brute force and excessive arrogance; Zhou Ling resents the criticism and wants to prove him wrong 4 17.
• Zhang Juye — A student who also receives private tutoring from him 39.
• Niu Gang — The school’s martial arts department director. After Xu Yuan reveals a Transformation Realm technique, Niu Gang angrily blames Lin Yuan for failing to discover his talent; Lin Yuan protests that Xu Yuan had never demonstrated a technique 2 18.
• Little Blackie and the stray cats — Cats he feeds, unaware that Xu Yuan has assigned Little Blackie’s underlings to watch him 39 40 41.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Martial Arts Assessment

In the final lesson before the assessment, Lin Yuan offers individual technique guidance and challenges Xu Yuan and Sun Hao to demonstrate their abilities. He does not believe Xu Yuan’s promise to make him proud, but stops the class from continuing to mock him 3 4 5.

During the assessment, he identifies the special force-exertion method behind Xu Yuan’s 1,003-jin punch. Even afterward, he expects a perfected technique at most and is stunned when Xu Yuan demonstrates Transformation Realm Savage Bull Heart-Shattering Butt 16 17 18.

Lin Yuan then supplies an explanation for Xu Yuan’s performance: the boy had supposedly developed his punching method to pass without revealing his strongest technique, only to abandon that plan when the competition proved too strong. Xu Yuan agrees, despite not having devised that explanation himself 18.

Training at the Azure Cloud Martial Arts Base

Lin Yuan reprimands Xu Yuan for flooding school group chats with reports of deadly Weird Beast attacks. When the boy subsequently sells protective leather armor, the teachers recognize that the frightening articles were preparation for his sales pitch 24 26.

As referee for the cultivation-room challenges, Lin Yuan pushes the students toward more decisive combat. After Xu Yuan defeats Jiang Yong, he stops the crowd’s mockery and states that other fifth-stage students would have lost the same way. His endorsement frustrates Xu Yuan, who worries it will discourage future customers for his challenge-slot auctions 33 34 35.

Beast Ranking and Surveillance

Xu Yuan discovers Lin Yuan in seventh place on the Beast Ranking, listed for intentional homicide. This conflicts with his impression of the teacher. The victims and circumstances are not identified, and Xu Yuan considers the possibility that the ranking counts killing as evil regardless of whom the victim was 38.

Rather than immediately act against him, Xu Yuan arranges surveillance through Little Blackie’s feline underlings. Six stray cats are taken to Lin Yuan’s neighborhood; Lin Yuan begins feeding them. Seeing him carry cat treats and feed Little Blackie further weakens Xu Yuan’s suspicion, though it does not explain the homicide entry 39 40 41.

Weird Beast Rescue

When a gigantic boar-like Weird Beast attacks a bus in the city, Lin Yuan helps rescue survivors while other martial artists fight the creature. News coverage credits him with moving more than fifty injured people to safety, allowing several to receive lifesaving treatment 43 45.

The rescue sharply reduces his Sin Points. For Xu Yuan, this brings the possibility of overtaking Lin Yuan on the Beast Ranking—and obtaining another reward—within reach 45.