Everyone looked at Qin Ze with glee, waiting for him to make a fool of himself.
Who was Brother Ze?
His skin was thicker than a city wall.
Without a change in expression, he got up and sat in the empty seat beside the lectern.
"Begin gathering qi," the homeroom teacher said in a deep voice.
Qin Ze blinked.
Gather qi?
How?
Come to think of it, after the radish-stuffed buns he'd eaten that morning, there was indeed a ball of gas in his stomach.
Qin Ze and the homeroom teacher stared wide-eyed at each other.
The teacher frowned. "What are you looking at me for?"
"Close your eyes and meditate to gather qi."
Qin Ze obediently closed his eyes.
Then...
Pfft~
A smell of radish spread through the air.
"Hahahaha!"
The class burst into laughter.
He Bi clicked his tongue contemptuously.
He didn't believe for a moment that Qin Ze had beaten his second brother into the ground last night.
He must have used some underhanded trick.
The homeroom teacher's face darkened. "Qin Ze, Qin Ze, there are only three months left until the college entrance exam, and you still can't meditate on your own!"
Qin Ze was speechless.
You keep saying 'gather qi,' but why don't you tell me how?
Clatter-
The homeroom teacher pulled the blackboard apart, revealing a stone lotus carving in the middle.
The lotus had ten petals in all, a bud poised to bloom.
"Look at the lotus pedestal and concentrate. Slow your breathing, and keep a rhythm as you breathe in and out."
"When you establish a mental connection with the lotus pedestal, close your eyes immediately and use your spiritual power to sketch the lotus in your mind."
"At that point, you'll have successfully activated the Lotus Visualization Breathing Technique."
Qin Ze, who had just managed to hold it in, nearly let another one slip.
Lotus visualization?
Who came up with such a casual name?
Following the teacher's instructions, Qin Ze fixed his gaze on the lotus pedestal on the blackboard.
After staring for a while, he felt that even the lotus pedestal had become pleasing to the eye. Then it turned into countless threads that streamed toward him.
At that moment, Qin Ze felt a subtle connection form between him and the lotus pedestal.
To ordinary people, spiritual power was something profoundly mysterious.
For martial artists, however, it was a different story.
Qin Ze closed his eyes, and with the faint sound of waves in his mind, he entered a spiritual sea of consciousness.
He continued to meditate on the lotus's form in his spiritual sea of consciousness, and the first petal was soon outlined.
The homeroom teacher beside him was astonished.
Qin Ze had actually entered a meditative state so quickly.
Even with the lotus pedestal's help, that speed was enough to beat ninety percent of the class.
Could Qin Ze really be a genius he had overlooked?
Qin Ze's breathing gradually slowed.
Once he entered the meditative state, his breathing automatically became rhythmic.
At the same time, petal after petal was quickly outlined.
When the eighth petal appeared in his mind, Qin Ze felt a trace of fatigue in his brain.
It was a sign that his spiritual power had reached its limit.
"Can you do it or not, weakling?"
"He's done, he's done."
"Start over."
"I gave it a try. Three petals at most."
"Freak, watch me."
"We're all freaking blank slates, so of course we can all only manage three petals."
The clones chattered away as the ninth petal took shape, followed immediately by the tenth.
The moment all ten petals were complete, the lotus bloomed, and Qin Ze felt as though he were bathed in a spring breeze.
Well, I'll be damned.
It turned out that his chatterbox clones were the best way to temper his spiritual power.
After an unknown amount of time, Qin Ze opened his eyes and slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.
The entire classroom was silent, and his classmates stared at him as though he were a monster.
"What the heck happened?" Qin Ze was a little bewildered.
The homeroom teacher said gravely, "It's already second period."
"I didn't notice at all," Qin Ze said in surprise.
For someone in a meditative state, time passed quickly.
Usually, the meditative state would end on its own once their spiritual power was exhausted.
That was why the homeroom teacher hadn't disturbed him.
He had thought Qin Ze would be a quick one, finished in no time.
He hadn't expected him to stay in that state for nearly an hour.
"How many petals did you draw?" the teacher asked.
"Ten."
The homeroom teacher sighed.
He had been overthinking it. Qin Ze still loved to boast just as much as before.
He might have come out of meditation ages ago and been acting the whole time.
"Holy crap, what a load of bull."
"Even He Bi, the best in our class, only managed four, right?"
"I'm dying. Trash is trash, and he really thinks he's a genius."
"You can fool us, but don't fool yourself too."
Nobody believed Qin Ze could draw ten complete petals.
If he really could, his spiritual power would be comparable to a level-one martial artist's.
"All right, I actually only drew one," Qin Ze said.
His classmates all wore expressions that said, Just as I thought.
Qin Ze was helpless.
Why does nobody believe the truth?
Qin Ze was just about to return to his seat when the homeroom teacher suddenly placed a hand on his lower abdomen.
"Don't move. Let me feel."
The teacher's eyes lit up. "So big!"
Qin Ze's face darkened. "Where are you touching?"
The teacher said, "I meant your qi sea is huge."
The Lotus Visualization Breathing Technique gathered qi by consuming spiritual power.
All the qi gathered in the qi sea before slowly transforming into qi and blood.
Each lotus visualization also tempered spiritual power bit by bit.
Although the technique was quite ordinary, it was the most crucial and important introductory technique.
It allowed one to cultivate spiritual power and qi and blood together, and every high school taught it.
Given the size of the qi sea Qin Ze had formed, his spiritual power was easy to imagine.
Could he really be a genius?
"Not bad, not bad."
"Make the most of these three months to cultivate, and you'll still have a chance of passing the martial arts entrance exam."
The homeroom teacher was delighted.
Qin Ze might really be a genius he had overlooked.
Two academic classes followed, and just like that, the morning's lessons passed.
After the lunch break, Fatty nudged Qin Ze with a mysterious air.
"Brother Ze, I've got something good to show you."
Fatty handed him a small, square box.
Inside were two pitch-black pills.
"Qi-gathering pills. I asked my dad to buy them."
"One for each of us."
"The qi and blood test is in two days. If your qi and blood value is below one hundred, you can't sign up for the martial arts entrance exam."
"Pop a qi-gathering pill and that'll be enough to meet the requirement."
Qi-gathering pills were expensive, and even with money, they were hard to come by.
The authorities controlled these pills, so ordinary people could only buy them on the black market, and at an enormous markup.
Qin Ze shook his head. "You take both."
Fatty froze. "You don't want to sign up anymore?"
"Even without a qi-gathering pill, my qi and blood value will meet the requirement," Qin Ze explained. "Take both of them and use this time to cultivate hard. Don't waste them."
Although he didn't know exactly what his qi and blood value was, he could meditate for an hour, so he figured it couldn't be too low.
Qin Ze planned to find a martial arts gym and get tested after school that evening.
"Brother Ze, did you really meditate on ten petals?" Fatty had thought of something.
"Basic stuff, no need to praise me," Qin Ze said calmly.
If Qin Ze's personality and way of life hadn't still been the same as before, Fatty would have suspected that his good brother had been possessed.
"I'll hold on to this qi-gathering pill for you. Come get it whenever you need it." Fatty put the little black box away.
The afternoon was body-forging class, and the whole class had to gather at the martial arts field.
At the high school level, the school taught only two techniques.
One was the Lotus Visualization Breathing Technique.
The other was the Fate Reversal Technique, which tempered the body and was used in combat.
The Fate Reversal Technique was simple enough: it used qi and blood to break through acupoints.
A person had 720 acupoints in total, and each level of the Fate Reversal Technique could break through eighty.
The higher one's qi and blood, the more acupoints one could break through, the tougher one's body became, and the stronger one's combat power would be.
Body-forging class was the practical application of the Fate Reversal Technique.
"Teacher Wang is sick. I'll be in charge of body-forging class from now on."
After the class bell rang, a tall female teacher in a white martial arts uniform walked into the martial arts field.