A lucky guess?

The screen switched to the view of Su Mu's dungeon.

A gray, desolate mountain stood with a bare summit, where a lone stone sat.

"He's already finished creating his space?" The bespectacled teacher pushed up his glasses, somewhat surprised. "A Soul Power of 210 really is astonishing. It's only been a few minutes, and he's already formed a mountain."

"He really is fast." The female teacher nodded. "Anyone else would need at least an hour to build terrain that large. He finished it in a few minutes."

As soon as she finished speaking, a teacher beside her frowned.

"But honestly, this child's choice is rather absurd."

He pointed at the desolate mountain on the screen. "Creating space is necessary, so that's understandable. But why spend so much Soul Power making a mountain? His core card isn't a creature card; it's a stone. In this situation, he should save his Soul Power and use it to place creature cards instead."

"True."

Another teacher chimed in. "Having a stone as his core card already means he'll have to pay a greater price to make up for his lack of combat power early on with creature cards. Yet here he is, spending precious Soul Power on a mountain."

"In a normal dungeon battle against monsters, you lose as soon as your core card is destroyed. It doesn't matter how high or large the mountain is; the monsters can go around it and attack the core card directly. Besides, he didn't even hide the stone. He put it right on the summit."

"Does he expect a mountain to tire the monsters to death? How could that possibly work?"

The teachers looked at the bare, desolate mountain on the screen and shook their heads.

"But then again..." An elderly instructor suddenly mused, "That amount of Soul Power really isn't much to Su Mu."

Everyone was taken aback, then fell silent.

They had indeed overlooked one fact: Su Mu's Soul Power was terrifyingly vast.

Normally, a student with fairly good grades was already considered impressive for reaching 100 points of Soul Power.

Reaching 120 or 130 was already top-tier, just like Ye Qingxue.

But Su Mu had directly reached over 200. By dungeon master standards, that was already the Soul Power of a level-six or level-seven dungeon master.

"Because he has so much Soul Power, he could have made more of this worst possible start." Someone sighed. "He could have compensated with more creature cards. If he threw in a few more cards, he might actually have been able to build up his combat power."

"Then again..." the female teacher said softly, "Su Mu's family can't afford to let him use that many creature cards, can they?"

Everyone fell silent again.

They all knew about Su Mu's family circumstances.

Both his parents were dead, and he lived with his aunt's family.

In a third-tier city like Rongcheng, his aunt's family was only considered ordinary. It was already difficult enough for them to support themselves, so how could they have spare money to buy him creature cards?

Forget E-rank creature cards-even the cheapest F-rank card was a considerable expense for a family like his.

As everyone sat in silence, the scene on the screen suddenly changed.

Su Mu was standing at the foot of the mountain, and a stone stele was slowly rising from the ground.

"What's he doing? Naming it?" The vice principal frowned. "He's naming the terrain this early?"

"This is ridiculous." The bespectacled teacher shook his head. "Naming serves as a conceptual anchor. Once established, it's difficult to change. The normal procedure is to thoroughly research your dungeon's theme first, consult a great deal of material, and carefully name key landmarks only after making sure there won't be any problems with the names. Who gives things names on a whim right after awakening?"

"There's never any material on special themes," someone interjected. "He must have decided to smash an already broken pot."

The principal suddenly raised a hand, stopping the discussion.

"Keep watching."

On the screen, Su Mu finished naming the mountain.

"Flower-Fruit Mountain." The bespectacled teacher read out the three characters and paused in surprise. "That's an interesting name. Flowers and fruit? Where would they come from on a desolate mountain?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the summit in the picture suddenly changed.

A flash of light passed over the surface of the F-rank stone card, and its border changed from white to pale yellow.

"E-rank!" the female teacher cried. "The card leveled up!"

The atmosphere in the office changed abruptly.

Everyone leaned a little closer without realizing it.

"This... naming it directly raised the card's rank?"

The vice principal could hardly believe it. "How closely must it fit the theme?"

"The core card rose from F to E, and all its attributes were enhanced. Its health went from 1,000 to 3,000, its defense from 10 to 30, and it gained an attribute called 'spiritual essence.'" The bespectacled teacher rapidly read out the numbers on the screen.

"Just one naming, and..." someone murmured.

Zhao Jianguo said nothing. His eyes remained fixed on the screen, his body leaning slightly forward.

On the screen, Su Mu pointed a finger again.

"This stone shall be named Mending Heaven."

Ten points of Soul Power were injected.

The stone's card face changed again.

The white border turned pale yellow, then light green. Its name changed from "stone" to "Stone Left Over from Mending Heaven," and its rank rose from E to D.

"D-rank!" The female teacher's voice changed. "Two upgrades in a row! Two namings, from F to D!"

"Seven thousand health, seventy defense. And two attributes: 'spirit stone of heaven and earth' and 'lingering essence of Mending Heaven.'" Even the bespectacled teacher's hand was trembling as he read out the data.

"This... how is this possible?"

"Two namings, and each time he hit on a name, the core card rose a rank. What does that mean? It means his dungeon theme is an extremely close fit for both names!"

"You mean he can pick names at random and guess right?" the vice principal asked.

"No." Zhao Jianguo finally spoke, his voice low. "It wasn't a guess."

Everyone looked at him.

Zhao Jianguo's gaze remained fixed on Su Mu on the screen.

"You've all awakened dungeon themes yourselves."

"You should know that after awakening, you have a faint, elusive sense of your own theme," the principal said slowly. "The stronger that sense is, the more accurately you can grasp the key concepts of the theme."

He paused.

"Su Mu's affinity with the Journey to the West theme... may be even higher than Ye Qingxue's affinity with the Ice and Snow World."

Silence fell over the office.

They all knew this, in truth; none of them had been willing to be the first to say it.

"But his core card is a stone." The dean of students let out a long sigh. "If only he had a different core card, even an F-rank creature card, with that level of affinity..."

He left the rest unsaid.

Everyone understood what he meant.

With Su Mu's ability and such a high affinity for his theme, if his core card had been just a little better, he might have become the most dazzling prodigy since the school's founding.

But it just had to be a stone.

A lousy F-rank stone.

"Two upgrades look impressive, but all that's changed is that its health and defense have multiplied a few times."

The bespectacled teacher calmed down and looked at the data on the screen. "The dungeon's combat power index rose from 100 to 1,170. But the vast majority of that 1,170 is inflated combat power propped up by the core card's health. The entire dungeon has no way to deal damage."

"No matter how much health or defense a stone has, it's still just a stone," the female teacher added. "Any F-rank monster could grind it to pieces, even if it took half an hour."

Hearing that, everyone could not help sighing silently.