Chapter 36

Yan Yan’s question made Qin Xue fall silent for a while. Following that, she said, “I’m sorry, but I still think that students should focus on their studies.”

Upon seeing Qin Xue’s expression, Yan Yan wanted to say something. However, Qin Xue had spoken before she could do so.

“Well, I’m alright. But you… I have this feeling that you’ve changed. This is the first time you’re shunning a man. You used to be indifferent around men, didn’t you?”

“No…”

…

Lin Yao was unaware of what was happening outside his home. After returning home, he washed up and went to bed. The next day during the daytime, Lin Yao continued to train his body, making his vital energy seed absorb spirit energy. He then stimulated the light-based vital energy seed to unleash the Clear Mirror Sword-Drawing Technique in order to become proficient at it.

He had three training methods. Physical training would take time, and the vital energy seed also needed time to absorb the spirit energy. Lin Yao could not help it. He had almost finished the nutrient drinks subsidized by the country.

He had taken three bottles a day for the past few days and eight bottles yesterday. In total, Lin Yao had consumed 23 bottles of nutrient drinks. Including the two bottles that he had given to his siblings, Lin Yao only had six bottles left.

These six bottles were not even sufficient for Lin Yao to condense one vital energy seed. After he absorbed six bottles and sunbathed for a day, his vital energy seed only split to form a second seed when it was almost evening.

At the moment, Lin Yao had three vital energy seeds. This also meant he could unleash three martial arts moves.

‘It’s still too little. Chinese citizens who practice military boxing won’t reach a bottleneck until they have 10 seeds. They only need to train their body to compress the blood and aura from the 11th seed onward. As far as the class competition is concerned, my opponents are about a couple of months ahead of me. In that case, they probably don’t have that many vital energy seeds either.’

The arrangements for student-to-class allocation were very realistic. Most of the talented and wealthy students had entered the No.1 High School in the city, and some of the geniuses overlooked had entered the top class of the No.4 High School in the city. The students from ordinary classes had ordinary talent and backgrounds and many did not come from wealthy families.

In his class, Lin Yao’s family situation was the norm. Even for the few top students in his class, it was considered extravagant to consume one nutrient drink per day. According to Lin Yao’s guess, besides Zhou Yang, all his other classmates who had advanced to the martial artist level would only receive a nutrient drink bottle every three or more days.

If ordinary people who had not advanced to martial artists consumed these nutrient drinks, it would naturally widen the gap between them and other students.

However, martial artists needed a lot of spirit energy, and consuming one bottle every three days was insufficient. The improvement would be negligible. Therefore, Lin Yao guessed that very few of his classmates had more than six vital energy seeds.

‘Three is not considered a lot, but I’m not the weakest one either. Besides, my Sword-Drawing Technique can achieve a one-shot kill. I don’t need to put up with a long fight to defeat an opponent.’

Speaking of the Sword-Drawing Technique, Lin Yao now had a smile on his face. The first two training methods required precise and painstaking effort, and the outcome was not that ideal.

Nevertheless, while he was training for the last move, the Sword-Drawing Technique, everything went smoothly.

The main reason was that Lin Yao had built a very good foundation during the past few days. The foundation of the Sword-Drawing Technique was commonly used in all kinds of sword-drawing abilities. The vital energy Sword-Drawing Technique was one of the ways to unleash vital energy. It would work as long as the timing of the sword unsheathing coincided with the unleashing of the vital energy. Both these actions were to be carried out by the body, and it was thus easy to get the timing right. Lin Yao did that effortlessly after practicing several times.

The Clear Mirror Swordsmanship Technique merely transformed the unleashed vital energy into vital energy of light. This required some special techniques. As he did not need to study the technique and speed of unsheathing the sword, Lin Yao’s training progress was very fast.

In just one day, he was able to transfer the vital energy of light from his arm to the long sword without a problem.

The additional move of unleashing the vital energy had changed Lin Yao’s Sword-Drawing Technique from completed proficiency to initial proficiency, which was still of some use.

At night, Lin Yao felt quite excited about tomorrow’s match.

‘Everything will depend on my performance tomorrow. I hope I won’t be disappointed by the rewards of the class competition.’

As usual, Lin Yao went to the orphanage after a day of training. Neither Yan Yan nor Qin Xue came to the orphanage this time. Lin Yao didn’t care either. He didn’t go to the orphanage for the two ladies.

Lin Yao did not have further training after he returned home from the orphanage. He washed up and fell asleep immediately.

The next day was the first day school would reopen. After dawn, Lin Yao carried out one round of training before heading to school. He ran into his best friend on his way there.

“Buddy, I see you at last. You don’t know what I’ve gone through in the past few days. I’m exhausted.”

Upon seeing Zhang Heng running up and throwing himself at him, Lin Yao quickly took a few steps back. He did not want to embrace a man.

“Stop, stop, stop.”

After he stopped Zhang Heng, the two of them walked to school together.

As they walked, Zhang Heng confided his difficulties to Lin Yao. Lin Yao found out that Zhang Heng had indeed undergone training this week. However, Lin Yao could not sense any condensation of spirit energy about him. He thus knew his best friend had not advanced to a martial artist despite the training.

‘It seems that my best friend has no chance of getting any rewards at the class competition this time.’

Lin Yao sighed, but Zhang Heng was full of confidence.

“Ah Yao, let me tell you something. Although I didn’t advance this time, I mastered a powerful combat skill. I might be able to defeat the martial artists with a surprise attack. There are only three martial artists in our class. As long as I beat one of them, I’ll definitely be rewarded this time.”

As he looked at Zhang Heng, Lin Yao very much wanted to tell him he was definitely not the only one who had crammed for this. However, he did not want to ruin Zhang Heng’s mood. Therefore, he didn’t say a word in the end.

Instead, Zhang Heng quickly thought of something and told Lin Yao, “I heard that you’ve awakened. This can’t be true.”

“What do you think?”

Upon seeing Lin Yao’s calm and indifferent gaze, Zhang Heng was about to suffer an emotional breakdown. However, he calmed down soon.

“Hump! I don’t envy you. It’s not as if this is the beginning of the Spirit Energy Revival. Only half of the top 10 powerhouses are awakened. The strongest king-level powerhouse is an ordinary martial artist. When I become a martial artist, I will definitely beat an awakened individual like you.”

Ordinary martial artists occupied half of the population of king-level powerhouses. It seemed like the ordinary martial artist was powerful and dominant, but there was only one awakened individual amongst 10,000 ordinary people.

Lin Yao didn’t say this out loud. He merely smiled and pointed to himself.

“Well said. Coincidentally, I’m already a martial artist.”

“Uh… Are you kidding me? You were not as strong as me at martial arts in the past. I had krypton gold training, yet I can’t beat you?”

“You had krypton gold training, but I used a cheat.”

“Damn it! You got a special talent after the awakening. Heaven treats scoundrels like you well. I don’t envy you. I don’t envy you… Argh… I am so envious.”

As they jested, Lin Yao and Zhang Heng entered the classroom.

As soon as he entered, Lin Yao discovered that after the holidays, all the boys in the entire class were full of fighting spirit and eager to compete.

At the same time, Lin Yao also noticed that there were three more martial artists in addition to the original three.

One was an ordinary student who had a fairly rich family background. He had also undergone special training this time and become a martial artist in one fell swoop.

The other one was Zhou Yang. The tall and strong man had also achieved a breakthrough to become a martial artist. In comparison to the other three martial artists, Lin Yao felt more pressured about facing Zhou Yang in a match.

After Zhou Yang came in, he also raised his fist at Chen Peng, the top martial artist in the class.

“Victory is mine this time.”

The student named Chen Peng did not cower either.

“This is not necessarily true. Your body is indeed very strong, but I’ve also learned a powerful combat skill. I don’t believe your body can withstand my combat skill.”

The two of them would compete for the first place, and the remaining four martial artists were eyeing the second and third places. Just as Lin Yao had said, the gap between new martial artists and ordinary people was not that big. Therefore, although the top 10 students of the class had not broken through to become martial artists, they might still stand a chance to win the match with their combat skills.

‘It’ll be a tough fight this time.’