Chapter 37

‘It’ll be a tough fight this time.’

While Lin Yao was smiling, the class began.

Formal matches were to be carried out in the competition arena. The school’s arena could not accommodate everyone at the same time. Therefore, the selection would be conducted on a class-by-class basis starting from the weakest one. Lin Yao’s class was neither strong nor weak. Naturally, it was not the first to participate in a match.

There was nothing worth mentioning about the morning lesson. Lin Yao only felt upset about something—although he was sitting by the window and was exposed to the sunlight, he could not train his body without executing any rigorous movements, let alone stimulate his blood and aura to integrate them into the spirit energy.

‘Sigh. It looks like I will have to apply for special treatment.’

As Lin Yao thought about this, he felt that the school would definitely agree to his request. The talent label was still very useful. At the same time, Lin Yao also thought of the top class.

‘I don’t know if I can enter the top class yet.’

The top class was not fixed. Martial artists were keen to compete. In order to create a competitive atmosphere, an elimination system that dictated that the worst performer would exit the top class had been implemented. The winner would enter the class, and the loser would leave the class.

Each monthly examination at school was an assessment of all the students. It was also an opportunity for the ordinary classes to advance up the ranking. Students who obtained the first few places in class would receive a chance to compete with students from the top class. The winner would then join the top class.

“Remember that this is also an inter-class match. The strongest students will be determined and will finally duel with the students from the top class.”

The top class was a notch better than the ordinary class. In the class, intermediate martial artists were common and there were several advanced martial artists.

They were the quintessence of the high school and also where the school spent most of its training resources. Everyone wanted to enter the top class. Therefore, Lin Yao was not surprised.

As Lin Yao exclaimed about wasting the entire morning, it was already noontime. The match of his class was about to begin.

When it was time, the one-eyed instructor in charge of his class also arrived.

Upon sensing the enthusiastic atmosphere in the class, the one-eyed instructor nodded in satisfaction.

“It seems that you guys have had a very fulfilling holiday. Very good. Martial artists need to engage in competition. The time has come for you guys to widen the gap between you and others. Come with me.”

Thus, a group of people followed the one-eyed instructor to the sports stadium inside the school.

Lin Yao and his classmates were not the only ones in the stadium. Other people were competing too.

Geared with special protective clothing, the students in the arena wielded their knives, guns, and swords and engaged in heated combat. Occasionally, the martial artists would unleash their combat skills and elicit cheers from the bystanders.

Some people didn’t care about the matches of other classes, but Zhou Yang and Li Peng began to observe students who might become their opponents in the subsequent matches. They were confident and they did not just want to compete for the first place in their class but also for the first place in the cohort.

Amid this atmosphere, the balloting began.

However, just as Lin Yao was about to follow the majority and draw a lot, the one-eyed instructor said, “Martial artists, please stand beside me. You guys don’t need to participate in the first round of the match.”

These words did not cause the others to feel any dissatisfaction. As an unspoken rule, the martial artists and the top few students in the class could skip the first round of the match. Although there was stability in this world, strong people were still entitled to some privileges.

Upon seeing this, Zhou Yang and the group immediately went up to the one-eyed instructor. Lin Yao patted Zhang Heng’s shoulder before following suit. Zhou Yang only heard him saying, “Work hard. I’ll wait for you up there.”

“Damn! Ah Yao, you’ve really awakened and advanced to a martial artist. How lucky!”

Along with the initial three martial artists, the three students who had just advanced to martial artists, as well as Lin Yao, composed a total of seven martial artists that stood beside the one-eyed instructor.

The one-eyed instructor was not surprised by the first few students who went up to him. They had already been on the verge of a breakthrough. However, he had not expected Lin Yao to come on stage.

‘Isn’t this guy still short of the requirement? Even if he takes nutrient drinks and absorbs enough spirit energy, it will take him two or three more months, right?’

He was not the only one feeling surprised. Lin Yao ranked 19th in class, so he was neither the best nor the worst student. Furthermore, he was very unobtrusive. At the moment, many people were surprised that he had advanced to a martial artist.

“What’s the matter? How did he advance to a martial artist?”

“Something is wrong. He was defeated by me in our last spar.”

“Did his failed love confession improve his martial arts tremendously? I heard that he has been depressed for a long time after being rejected. Did he break through immediately after recovering from a broken heart?”

“Is it true that falling out of love can speed up one’s training?”

These bold thoughts flashed in some of the people’s minds. The people on stage also peered at Lin Yao with strange expressions.

However, no one said a word eventually.

The one-eyed instructor was a typical martial artist with a swift and decisive style. He did not waste time on useless comments. Soon, the rest of the students began combating after drawing lots.

It was very boring to watch the matches. This was because the government, school, and families were not supportive of children learning combat skills before they became martial artists. The young ones only needed to focus on practicing military boxing.

The country wanted social stability, and the school and families felt that practicing military boxing was the fastest way to improve one’s physique. There was evidence to support this. Also, practicing this technique would take time and physical energy. One would not be able to practice military boxing if one were to overexert oneself. At the same time, most of the other existing boxing methods were not useful, so adopting them was not worth it.

Lin Yao’s practice was an exception. He could absorb sunlight and could thus afford to use some more physical strength.

He had picked up the Sword-Drawing Technique very quickly, which proved that he had adopted the right approach. Also, Lin Yao had been able to achieve sword-drawing proficiency in just seven days mainly because he had relied on military boxing to build a strong physical foundation.

Practicing military boxing was beneficial to one’s future, but there was also a problem. Below the martial artist level, the mass student population had very similar abilities and their lethality power was very low.

The country was not concerned about this situation, though. China had a huge population and high-level officials did not permit students aged 18 years old or below to fight in battle.

However, this had led to an embarrassing situation in combat. ‘I’ve practiced the same moves as you for more than 10 years. Therefore, I know everything that you do. This is a forward punch. The next move is taking a shoulder hit. One can deal with it by…’

All the abilities were similar. As a result, one would have the opponent’s moves at one’s fingertips. This caused everyone to be merely competing based on their physique in the end.

Whoever had a stronger body, greater strength, or faster reaction speed would be the final victor.

Due to the differences in human physiques, this type of combat had not been considered fair in Lin Yao’s past life. However, this was not the case in this world. Military boxing enabled people to absorb spirit energy to develop their bodies. As long as one was able to reach the Human Body Limit, people who were born with a weak body constitution could also beat people with strong physiques who were too lazy to train.

There was still some unfairness. For example, an extraordinary existence like Zhou Yang. Absolute fairness was non-existent.

While watching the students wrestling below, Lin Yao felt a little sleepy. Such combat was akin to this era’s examinations, and the spoon-feeding teaching method had not disappeared in China. Therefore, he had to attend such a combat once a week or even once every two to three days. After many years, he had lost all passion and excitement.

Because they were older than 16, some of his classmates were allowed to use other moves during combat, which attracted Lin Yao’s attention.

However, after watching them, Lin Yao saw that these classmates had not achieved distinct combat outcomes.

To reiterate, military boxing was a golden technique. The moves it involved might not entail strong offensive power, but it had sophisticated defensive and capturing moves. Every student had practiced military boxing daily, and the majority of them had attained real success.

Those who adopted other moves were likely to be using iron or silver combat skills. Furthermore, they were not that proficient in them. Many people were defeated when they used them hastily.

What left Lin Yao speechless was that his confident best friend, Zhang Heng, was one of them.

He had mastered a fairly good skill during his seven days of training. However, he was not proficient in it and hence did not execute it perfectly. Therefore, he was defeated by a classmate who had previously lost to him.

“Damn it! The dojo that taught me this said I would win as long as I hit my opponent with this move.”

“Your soaring cannon is indeed powerful, but it took too long to unleash it and the action was too obvious. How could it possibly hit me?”

As the defeated Zhang Heng conversed with that classmate, Lin Yao also felt slightly worried about himself.

‘If Zhang Heng’s move is useless, will mine work?’

This thought was in Lin Yao’s mind, and he very soon analyzed it thoroughly.

‘The pure Sword-Drawing Technique is merely rated iron. Even though I’ve attained proficiency in it, I only have the power of one sword move. It’s difficult to succeed without a sneak attack. When I draw the sword, there is a huge flaw. My classmate and opponent has already trained in military boxing until his body can be moved by his mind. If my sword move does not yield anything, it’s likely that I’ll be defeated by the opponent.’

The Sword-Drawing Technique, which was only rated iron, was not a good choice for fighting the opponent.

However, Lin Yao knew more than the iron Sword-Drawing Technique. Only a martial artist could execute a combat skill.

Upon sensing the three vital energy seeds in his body, Lin Yao immediately felt relieved.

‘One seed during advancement, one seed after I absorbed eight bottles of nutrition drink on the same day, and one seed after I took six bottles of nutrition drink and sunbathed for the entire day the next day.’

‘I will not fail.’

After this exchange of punches, the first round of combat was soon over and 29 people remained.

If one added these 29 students and seven martial artists (including Lin Yao), 36 students were now competing for the top three places in class.

“Stand up straight. When I read your name, please step into the arena. Zhou Yang, Lin Yu.”

The first person was Zhou Yang, who had a natural physical advantage. He leaped onto the stage upon hearing his name. On the other hand, the classmate called Lin Yu had a bitter expression on his face.

Regardless of this, he had to fight.

There were no surprises. Without using his vital energy seeds, Zhou Yang forced Lin Yu out of the arena with 10 consecutive punches. He purely relied on his physique to make the other party suffer a crushing defeat.

“Winner: Zhou Yang. Next…”

The names were pronounced one by one. Soon, it was Lin Yao’s turn.

“Fifth round. Lin Yao vs. Yao Tian.”