Early the next morning.
Ever since he'd pushed the Zhou Tian Qi Gathering Method to level 10 the night before, and bought the Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art to cultivate it, Zhang Yu had been forced — moment by moment, by the ritual power — to study, cultivate, and work. Having gradually adapted to that grind, Zhang Yu found this Heart Method an almost impossibly perfect fit. His progress was faster and fiercer than he'd imagined.
Especially as the Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art climbed level after level, Zhang Yu grew ever more able to endure the monotony, the dullness, the loneliness of cultivation. Apart from calling on the ritual power to force himself onward, he hardly stopped at all — throwing himself ferociously down the road of cultivating this Heart Art.
By the time dawn began to break, Zhang Yu slowly opened his eyes. His Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art had already reached level 7 (15/21).
To have driven this Heart Method so far in a single night — sometimes even Zhang Yu was a little afraid of his own talent.
And besides that, his Dao Heart had come a long way, too. In particular, Zhang Yu saw a brand-new number on the Feather Book: Dao Heart level 2 (1%).
*Could it be that, after cultivating the Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art, my grasp on my Dao Heart has grown so precise that I can now perceive its concrete progress?*
Zhang Yu shook his head. He still knew far too little about the Feather Book.
After getting up to brush his teeth and wash his face, Zhang Yu kept silently practicing the Heart Method whenever he could spare a moment on the way to school. At the pace this Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art was charging forward, he felt he should be able to push it all the way to level 10 by the end of the day.
...
Songyang High School.
Between classes.
Zhang Yu, mid-cultivation of his Heart Method, heard footsteps drawing closer and closer, and couldn't help but furrow his brow.
A tall, shaven-headed youth walked up to him and spoke. "Excuse me, Zhang Yu, sorry to bother you."
"Could I borrow yesterday's math paper to take a look?"
After waiting a moment, seeing Zhang Yu show no sign of answering, the youth smiled and shrugged it off. "Sorry, looks like I'm bothering you."
"You get back to cultivating. I'll come find you later."
But the moment he turned around, a flash of dark displeasure flickered in his eyes. Zhang Yu, utterly absorbed in his cultivation, ignoring him completely — that felt like a lack of respect.
He thought to himself, darkly: *Heh. Right, he's rank three in the grade. So proud. Someone in my 530-bracket probably isn't even Human to him, right?*
On the other hand, listening to the departing footsteps, Zhang Yu felt nothing but relief. *Finally gone.*
"Is that Liang Qin kid a little too familiar?* Liang Qin was the youth who'd just asked to borrow the math paper.
Ever since Zhang Yu's monthly-exam results came out, plenty of classmates had come up to him, probing for the secret behind his skyrocketing scores. But most came once or twice and then stopped. Especially since Zhang Yu cultivated almost every single break, the other students saw he wouldn't engage with them, and as the hype around the monthly exam slowly cooled, fewer and fewer people bothered him.
Only this Liang Qin came looking for him after nearly every single class.
Not just at the end of class, either.
In martial-arts class, Liang Qin would come bring him water.
When PE let out, he'd walk over to hand Zhang Yu a sweat towel.
At meals in the cafeteria, he'd try to hold him a seat early.
And when he talked, he was forever flattering Zhang Yu.
Like a busy little bee, buzzing around Zhang Yu's side every so often.
At first, Zhang Yu thought the kid wasn't bad.
But after a few days, he found Liang Qin more and more annoying.
Especially how he kept coming over between classes, cutting into his cultivation time.
And all that flattery always came with probing questions — hinting around for the trick behind his improved scores. Zhang Yu found it pretty tiresome.
So over the past couple of days, Zhang Yu had gradually stopped paying him any mind, hoping the boy would take the hint and give up.
Even if the process seemed to have stirred up a bit of resentment in the other boy, Zhang Yu had no other choice.
...
Time flew, and soon it was nearly dismissal.
In the self-study period, Zhang Yu's body gave a slight tremor. It felt as if a stream of sweet dew had welled up from the depths of his Sea of Consciousness, moistening his whole body with an immense ease. At the same time, a soft roar echoed through the mental focus image in his mind — the old ox he'd sketched was not only vivid, but its horns were raised to the sky, a low bellow coming from its mouth, as if it had come genuinely alive.
Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art — Level 10.
When this Heart Method hit level 10, what Zhang Yu felt in his heart was pure, incomparable satisfaction and joy.
Just by thinking of his strength steadily rising, of one method after another being driven to level 10 by him, Zhang Yu's heart brimmed with anticipation — and from that anticipation, a wellspring of joy kept bubbling up.
*So this is what the Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art's level 10 does?*
*As long as you hold anticipation for the future, then even the dullest bitter cultivation, even the endless drudgery, still feels joyful and satisfying.*
Zhang Yu felt this Heart Method only grew more interesting the more he practiced it. A technique that lets you feel joy in bitter cultivation — doesn't that just reduce the pain of cultivating? Improve your efficiency? Why did so many people give it bad reviews?
*Unless... many of the people who cultivate this Heart Art, even after hitting level 10, still can't feel any joy — because their lives no longer hold any anticipation for the future.*
Thinking of how things currently stood on Kunxu's first level, Zhang Yu helplessly shook his head.
*The Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art is a good technique.*
*But no matter how good a technique is, it's still just a technique. What the future holds, in the end, rests on the person.*
Just as Zhang Yu was reflecting on this, a female voice rang out. "Yuzi?"
Bai Zhenzhen looked at his utterly satisfied, joyful face, swept her gaze over him from head to toe, then said with suspicion: "Yuzi, you didn't just... leak in the classroom, did you?"
Zhang Yu snapped his eyes open. Looking at the ever-disdainful Bai Zhenzhen, he said, speechlessly: "Ah, here I was in the middle of marveling at the beauty of cultivation and grasping the world's helplessness, and then you, thick-headed brute, open your mouth and wreck the whole mood."
Bai Zhenzhen, though, couldn't be bothered with whatever 'beauty' or 'helplessness' he was on about. She grabbed Zhang Yu and dragged him out of the classroom.
"Drop the flowery nonsense. Today after school we've got the mana-competition cram session — did you forget? You already paid 3,000 yuan for it."
Zhang Yu's mana had broken into the grade's top ten last month, and together with Bai Zhenzhen he'd been chosen for the first-year mana competition team.
But the things the first-year mana competition tested were all things Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen had never learned in school, far beyond the classroom curriculum.
So Teacher Yan, the mana teacher, had organized a cram session to teach the competition material.
...
In the classroom.
Besides Teacher Yan — who had her hair coiled up and wore black-framed glasses — the only students present were Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen.
Teacher Yan explained: "Other than you two, everyone else has family tutors to help them, and their own supplementary study plans, so they won't be coming to the session."
Zhang Yu said inwardly: *So that means, of the grade's mana top ten, only the two of us are poor?*
Bai Zhenzhen clenched her fists, thinking: I never thought there'd be a cram session you attend that actually lowers your campus prestige.
Teacher Yan's eyes flashed with a blazing fighting spirit, thinking to herself: *Those rich sods are just too disrespectful. They actually all trust their family tutors over me? Those tutors, all smooth talk and tricks, out to swindle money — how could they match my thirty solid years of teaching experience at a key high school?*
*Ten students and only two show up. Isn't that a big hit to my campus reputation?*
*And it's not just that they don't show up — they didn't even pay the cram fee.*
If students from Class 2 or Class 3 dared to do this, Teacher Yan would absolutely ring the parents, call them all down to the school, and teach them the consequences of looking down on a mana teacher.
But thinking of the parents of those eight students in the Elite Class...
Hey, those parents are so busy with work. As their teacher, we really should show a little consideration.
She looked at Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen, thinking: *You two poor things better make me proud, blow right past those eight, and make them all come crawling back to my cram sessions from now on.*
All sorts of thoughts churned in her head, but on the surface Teacher Yan stayed perfectly composed as she slowly began: "What the mana competition tests is completely different from what you usually study. Total mana is only the baseline — the key is control of mana..."
She projected a diagram of a human body with meridians and began explaining with gusto: "The mana inside your bodies right now is the most basic form of mana."
"By controlling the flow and route of mana, you can change its form."
"For example, one branch of advancement is martial applications like sword qi and palm force..."
"Going even further, you can trigger phenomena like heating, cooling, and electric discharge..."
As she spoke, she extended a finger. The tip of it shimmered with a keen, sharp fluctuation, and neatly sliced a page in front of her in two.
A moment later, the tip of her finger flushed faintly red, and a tiny flame flickered to life on it.
"This is the most basic change of mana form."
"Of course, basic form changes rely on fundamental skill — on control over mana — and their power is extremely limited."
"What truly takes things further, and holds practical value, are the special mana forms wrought by the various exquisite techniques and unique arts..."
Listening to Teacher Yan's explanation, Zhang Yu suddenly recalled the yin-cold palm force He Dayou had unleashed against him during the monthly exam's practical combat.
He figured that must be some special mana form turned out by some technique.
At the lectern, Teacher Yan projected an animated diagram of mana-circulation, and said to the two of them: "This is the simplest sword-qi conversion route, able to turn mana into a sliver of keen sword qi."
"Try it and see if you can pull it off, following what I just taught."
Bai Zhenzhen stared at the animated circulation diagram for a while, and before long felt her head start to spin.
"This circulation route is way too complicated!"
Then she tried it herself, and was left completely speechless.
Her mana wound round and round in her left arm, yet never could turn into a wisp of keen aura.
Was this really the simplest sword-qi conversion route?
This was competition difficulty?
She felt like she'd just learned addition, and then the teacher dropped a linear equation with two unknowns in front of her and said, solve it.
Just then, Zhang Yu's voice rang over the classroom. "Zhen, come quick, look!"
Bai Zhenzhen turned her head — and saw Zhang Yu tapping lightly at his notebook, having straight-up cut out a two-variable linear equation.
Yuzi. This stranger's face I'm seeing on you is making me sick.