There Is Always Someone Better

"Guess how high her True Essence is?"

"I'd say at least 130."

"130? Are you looking down on her or Guanghua?"

"I said 130 and up. That includes 140 and 150, of course."

"I think her True Essence might be close to 160?"

"No way. That's monstrous!"

"Last year's top scorer at Cultivation University had 162 True Essence. I think she's probably about the same."

"That makes sense."

Everyone was buzzing with discussion, Lu Yuan included. Naturally, he wanted to know roughly where his 120 ling placed him among the examinees.

He knew Jia Xuanxuan had a little over 120, which already put him among the best at No. 1 High School. Lu Yuan still had 1,499 Merit Value, enough to raise his True Essence to its limit of 134 ling at most.

But if that number still wasn't safe, Lu Yuan would have to find a way to get more Merit Value.

"The number's out!"

An examinee at the front of the crowd called out.

"How much?" someone behind him asked.

The people at the front fell silent for a long moment before announcing an astonishing number. "184 ling!"

"How much?!"

"184!"

"Holy shit!"

Gasps rang out across the room.

The study god was actually this terrifying!

Li Tao walked out with her test results, looking less than satisfied.

"I wasn't in the best condition..." She wasn't talking to anyone in particular, and her face reddened slightly. After all, she knew she'd been showing off earlier.

All the examinees looked at her as though she were a god. Even a god in poor condition was still a god!

After getting her results, Li Tao hurried away without lingering. To her, this was just an insignificant episode in a brilliant life, and she would never cross paths with these ordinary people again.

For many of the examinees present, though, it would be a story they talked about with relish for a long time to come.

Lu Yuan sighed under his breath. He had a heavy burden and a long road ahead. The system's reading of 120 ling had originally made him rather pleased with himself, since his good friend Zhou Xiyun only had 108.

Now he knew there was always someone better.

184 ling-even cheating with the system would take seven or eight thousand Merit Value. This girl was no ordinary person!

Li Tao was only a student, to say nothing of actual cultivators. Lu Yuan couldn't forget Ji Yin's fight the night before. Ji Yin had punched through a wall, blasting apart the cultist behind it as well.

How was that any different from Superman? Lu Yuan envied him and longed for it himself.

He stood in line, thinking about all this, and after about half an hour, it was finally his turn. He entered the examination room and saw an oval machine the size of a small car. It looked a little like an MRI scanner.

"Lie down on it, and take off any accessories you're wearing."

A doctor directed Lu Yuan to lie on the pad attached to the machine.

"Don't I need to take my clothes off?" Lu Yuan asked.

"No."

Lu Yuan lay down on the pad, and the machine began to rotate, scanning him from head to toe. He noticed a milky-white spiritual light flashing constantly from the machine's probe and striking his body.

His body seemed able to feel the light tapping against it, a faint sensation rather like a balloon being smacked against him.

The whole process took about five minutes. The doctor called Lu Yuan up and handed him a freshly printed form.

Lu Yuan looked at the True Essence field. The reading was 111 ling.

It matched the system. The system's True Essence was indeed the same as medically measured True Essence.

With his mother given Xikangnuo and his True Essence tested, Lu Yuan's trip had come to a satisfactory end.

The sun was already slanting west, and it was time to go home. Xiao Bing still had school tomorrow.

Lu Yuan found Xiao Bing in the hospital room, and the siblings said goodbye to their parents again and again.

"Dabao, keep studying hard. Mom will come home and cook for you in a few days." Xu Yongmei was full of confidence in the future. At the very least, she would get to see her son go to university with her own eyes.

Xiao Bing smiled strangely. "Mom, I'm afraid you might not get a chance to do the cooking anymore."

It was around four in the afternoon by the time Lu Yuan and Xiao Bing returned to Ning City. Lu Yuan sent Xiao Bing home ahead of him, while he went to the market to buy "a little" food.

Xiao Bing naturally raised both hands in agreement.

Lu Yuan bought a whole lot of food. There was so much that it definitely wouldn't fit in the refrigerator, so he even bought a freezer on the way and arranged for someone to deliver and install it.

Xiao Bing was dumbfounded.

Lu Yuan had quite a bit of money. Although paying for his mother's medical treatment had used up most of it, Jia Shengnan had also given him 50,000 yuan at the time, and Lu Yuan had put that money to full use.

There was another little surprise he only learned about after getting home: Ji Yin had sent someone to deliver the pot for cooking porridge. Since no one had been home, the person from the Internal Affairs Bureau had left it at the door. Couldn't they even find a box to put it in? The Internal Affairs Bureau really was sloppy!

Xiao Bing had carried the pot into the kitchen when she got home.

That evening, Lu Yuan made Xiao Bing a lavish dinner to make up for serving her nothing but a bowl of egg custard for breakfast.

After dinner, Xiao Bing returned to her room to do her homework. She hadn't gone to class today, but she still had homework to do. Students really had it rough.

After returning to his room, Lu Yuan opened his revision materials and began studying.

His mother's condition was stable for the time being, so he should put all his effort into preparing for the upcoming college entrance exam. Only by getting into Cultivator University and becoming a cultivator would he have a chance of curing her Twilight Syndrome.

From the instructions in the entrance exam guide, Lu Yuan had figured out the admissions process for Cultivator University.

First, fill out the Cultivation University application form and pay the fee before May 15.

Second, take the written portion of the college entrance exam on June 7 and 8.

Third, take the standardized True Essence assessment on June 9, with each examinee's reading determined on the spot. Examinees who hadn't paid the fee and didn't intend to apply to Cultivation University didn't need to take it.

Fourth, the written exam results would be released on June 15, and examinees would fill in their university preferences.

Students applying to ordinary universities would be judged solely on their written exam results.

For those applying to Cultivation University, the final score was a combination of their written exam and True Essence scores. The conversion was fairly complicated: roughly speaking, the total written score was converted to a hundred-point scale and then multiplied by 0.3.

The application guide had a conversion formula. Lu Yuan calculated that if he scored 500 on the written exam and had 120 True Essence, his final combined score would be 140.

If he scored 600 on the written exam and had 120 True Essence, his final combined score would be 144.

A hundred points on the written exam made only a four-point difference in the final score. That didn't look like much, but raising True Essence was incredibly difficult. Over the whole of high school, a natural increase of four or five points was already remarkable. Anyone who wanted more had to spend a great deal of money, and even then, there was no guarantee how many points they would gain. Ultimately, it came down to talent.

But there were many ways to raise a written exam score by a hundred points.

That was why the vast majority of Cultivation University examinees hadn't given up studying their textbooks.

This admissions system had both advantages and disadvantages for Lu Yuan.

The advantage was that raising his True Essence was relatively easy. As long as he had Merit Value, he could use the system to add it to his True Essence.

With his current 120 ling of True Essence, he could be said to have a secure place at some of the lowest-ranked Cultivation Universities.

The bad news was that Cultivation University admissions required at least a passing grade on the written exam. Out of a possible 750 points, Lu Yuan needed at least 450.

That was a real problem.

Lu Yuan hadn't touched a textbook in over twenty years. There were many things he couldn't just pick back up at will. And that wasn't even the main reason.