章 8: Chapter 6: The Den of Swallowing Metal
"Could it be that my talent is very high?" Li Yuan's pupils contracted slightly.
He couldn't help but think of the note on the Mind Spirit Divine Palace data panel: "Contains some kind of high-rank Spiritual Nature yet to awaken."
Li Yuan trusted the Divine Palace panel's detection; it had never been wrong over the past year.
It should be more reliable than Teacher Xu's estimate.
The information Teacher Xu revealed today also gave Li Yuan more to ponder.
Previously, although Li Yuan had searched multiple times on the virtual network, he couldn't find much information due to insufficient permissions.
"My talent is high? Having the Mind Spirit Divine Palace may also be a kind of talent," Li Yuan murmured to himself.
Over the past hundred years, as many Cultivation Methods have gradually become available, and with the development of technology, a large number of Martial Artists have been born into human civilization.
And those exceptional Martial Artists who could soar into the sky and survive nuclear explosions, which one of them didn't have a growth journey filled with legends?
Li Yuan didn't believe that his Mind Spirit Divine Palace would be an exception.
"Teacher, what should I do?" Li Yuan asked proactively.
He was smart; given that Teacher Xu had called him over, he surely intended to do more than encourage him.
"Persevere," Xu Bo advised, looking at Li Yuan. He originally wanted to say "proceed step by step," but he changed it at the last moment.
Seeing Li Yuan's surprised expression, Xu Bo continued, "Your progress is already very fast, and there's no need to be too anxious about the Martial Spirit not awakening yet. With your results, it's easy to get into Martial Arts University."
"If you practice normally, in at most two to three years your Physical Quality should be able to reach level 10.0."
"Once you become an Entry Rank Martial Artist, High Rank Cultivation Methods will no longer be your restraint."
"Who knows, in the future you might even create a set of High Rank Cultivation Methods unique to yourself," Xu Bo said with a smile.
"Create Cultivation Methods?" Li Yuan couldn't help asking, "Can I?"
"Haha, what's this about being able or not?" Teacher Xu laughed. "How old are you? When you're young, you have endless possibilities."
"Even the founders of the three great Martial Halls, who could have known about their achievements when they were young?" Xu Bo looked at Li Yuan with a smile. "The founders of the three great Martial Halls are far-fetched, but do you not even have the ambition to surpass me?"
"My Physical Quality is only level 19," he added.
Li Yuan held his breath.
Ever since Xu Bo became his Martial Arts class's homeroom teacher, Li Yuan had always seen him as a target to strive for.
Now, knowing his strength, a Physical Quality that reached as high as level 19, it was no wonder he was a First Class Martial Arts Teacher.
"Let's talk about something more practical," Xu Bo said to Li Yuan, "Although you haven't awakened your Martial Spirit, your Physical Quality and Martial Arts Skills are quite good. Combining that with your family situation... I will apply to the school for a Third Class scholarship for you."
"A Third Class scholarship?" Li Yuan's eyes lit up.
Martial Arts Cultivation consumes a lot of resources.
Therefore, for students with excellent Martial Arts results, the country provides various awards and subsidies starting from the first year of high school.
As a provincial key high school, Guan Mountain District Number One High School receives more state funding than ordinary high schools.
For each large-scale standardized test, students who rank within the top hundred in Martial Arts receive additional rewards.
The top fifty get a reward of two thousand Blue Star Coins.
The top thirty get a reward of five thousand Blue Star Coins.
The top twenty receive on top of the previous reward two Basic Lifeblood Elixir portions.
The top ten in the grade will, on top of the top twenty's basis, also be allocated a separate Martial Arts Cultivation Room.
These are examination rewards.
Scholarships are even more special; they are allocated based on academic results in combination with family circumstances and also require a teacher's recommendation to have a chance of being granted.
Those who receive a scholarship are few.
"You have made considerable progress, but after all your Martial Arts results are only within the top thirty of the grade. If you want to apply for a Second Class scholarship or higher, it's quite difficult," Xu Bo said. "But there is still hope for a Third Class scholarship. Of course, even if the application is successful, the money isn't much, just twenty thousand; don't think it's too little."
"Teacher, you're too kind," Li Yuan felt immensely grateful in his heart.
Twenty thousand? That's equal to two months of his aunt's salary.
All the scholarships he had received since starting high school, when added up, didn't even amount to twenty thousand.
"Is there anything I can do for you, Teacher?" Li Yuan followed up with another question.
"There's nothing you need to do, just earnestly cultivate and get good grades," Xu Bo waved his hand, "Go have your meal. When the application goes through, I will let you know."
"Yes," Li Yuan replied as he left, closing the door behind him as he exited.
He watched Li Yuan leave.
"This kid, does he still think I want some kind of reward?" Xu Bo shook his head with a laugh.
Suddenly his brows furrowed slightly.
This man, who was as tough as an iron tower, now showed a fleeting expression of pain.
"Time for medicine again?" Xu Bo suppressed the pain and walked towards the therapy room.
...
Upon leaving the office building.
"Good," Li Yuan couldn't help but clench his fist, struggling to contain his joy.
Before entering the office, he had guessed it was something good.
But he hadn't expected it to be this significant.
"Did Teacher Xu not tell me these things before because, although my past grades were not bad, he didn't think they were outstanding enough?" Li Yuan thought to himself, "Was my performance today sufficient?"
Li Yuan had read many books.
In those stories, many seniors liked to promote their juniors.
But the precondition was also that the juniors were worth promoting.
"If one doesn't try hard enough, or isn't talented enough, then even if opportunities come by, they will be missed," Li Yuan reminded himself.
"Should I send a message in the family group?" Just as the thought appeared in Li Yuan's mind, he immediately suppressed it.
Phew!
A gust of wind blew by, helping Li Yuan to calm down further.
"No rush," he told himself.
"Teacher Xu is a First Class teacher, but he's not part of the school management. Even if it goes through, it probably will take some time," Li Yuan reasoned in his mind. "And if it doesn't happen, it would just be a false hope."
"I'll wait until the scholarship is really granted before I tell my uncle and aunt," he decided.
"Yes, I shouldn't tell the other students either," Li Yuan had thought it through. "Teacher Xu called for me alone and had Wan Xiao leave first; he probably doesn't want others to know."
"If the school wants to publicize it, I'll wait for the school to announce it in the future."
All his experiences up to this point, combined with the books he had read, made Li Yuan understand the saying, "Success is achieved in secrecy, while failure is caused by loose talk."
Don't boast about things that haven't happened yet.
"First, let's get something to eat," Li Yuan regained his composure and ran towards the cafeteria.
...
The Guan Mountain District's First High School has over six thousand students, so the cafeteria is quite large.
Li Yuan had just entered the cafeteria.
"Brother Yuan, over here." Zhou Qi, who was squatting in the distance, called out, sitting with Wan Xiao, Yan Zhou, and over a dozen other boys, occupying two large tables and eating.
Seeing this, Li Yuan walked over with a smile.
The boys in his class really liked to gather and eat together.
"Brother Yuan, here are your two nutrition meals," Zhou Qi said while eating, pushing two specially prepared meal boxes in front of Li Yuan.
"Who swiped their card? Was it Yan Zhou?" Li Yuan asked with a smile as he sat down to eat.
"I told you I was paying you back," Yan Zhou said with a smile.
"The breakfasts I brought you a few times were just hot dry noodles, eggs, and soy milk, all together less than fifty coins," Li Yuan shook his head, "These two nutrition meals alone cost one hundred and fifty."
There was a big difference in the price of meals among all the boys present.
For ordinary meals with two meat dishes and two vegetable dishes, or three meat and two vegetables, a meal costs less than twenty coins.
Zhou Qi and Yan Zhou were eating this kind of meal.
Because they were going to attend cultural classes in the evening, they wouldn't have any intense physical activity, and their energy consumption would be low...
But for someone like Li Yuan, who still needed to undergo high-intensity martial arts cultivation in the evening, ordinary meals wouldn't suffice. Over time, this would lead to a deficiency in his body's vitality.
He must eat the specially prepared nutrition meals from the cafeteria, which were much more expensive.
One meal cost seventy-five Blue Star coins, and Li Yuan needed two of them.
To be precise, Li Yuan's normal three meals a day would end up costing nearly three hundred coins per day.
At least eight thousand Blue Star coins a month.
And that was still not enough to support Li Yuan's normal cultivation; he occasionally had to consume various expensive vitality potions and supplements.
If you include physiotherapy, his monthly expenses were a startling number.
This was also because Li Yuan was a student and could always cultivate in the school's martial arts classroom, where various training equipment like cold weapons, sandbags, and areas for practicing spear technique were well-equipped.
The effects couldn't compare to a private martial arts cultivation room, but the advantage of the school's martial arts classroom was that it was free.
If one were to go to a formal martial hall in society? The rent was charged by the hour, and ordinary families simply couldn't afford it.
The martial path is a gold-swallowing beast; it's not just a saying.
This was also the reason Li Yuan longed to be admitted to one of the top five prestigious schools.
Because supporting his martial arts cultivation had already become very difficult for his uncle and aunt to continue.
...
Leaving the cafeteria.
"Brother Yuan, we're heading off to the academic building, see you tomorrow," Zhou Qi and Yan Zhou said to Li Yuan.
"Okay," Li Yuan nodded.
In this era, starting from freshman year, students would study academic courses in the morning and engage in martial arts cultivation in the afternoon.
In the evening? It was up to the students to choose, depending on the path they wanted to take.
There are only twenty-nine Martial Arts Universities across Xia Country.
While there are more than a thousand cultural universities nationwide.
If one applies for Martial Arts University, their academic scores are converted and account for 10% of the total.
If one chooses the academic course route, martial arts scores are converted and account for 30% of the total score.
Though the decision to pursue the martial path or the academic path is made at the time of choosing preferences, the vast majority of students start leaning towards one since their freshman year.
Li Yuan returned to the martial arts classroom.
Glancing around, he saw that there were less than ten people left in the classroom, which was empty.
Most of the students from Class 3 (2) were focused on academic courses, which was the choice of the vast majority of students.
"Getting into Martial Arts University is indeed difficult," Li Yuan thought to himself.
Every year, there were millions of students taking the college entrance exam in Jiangbei Province.
The only Martial Arts University in Jiangbei, 'Jiangbei Martial Arts University', admits no more than ten thousand students each year, making up less than 1% of all applicants.
As a key school in the province, the Guan Mountain District's First High School also rarely sees its students exceed a hundred admissions to Martial Arts Universities each year.
The sky was not yet dark.
Most of the ten or so people in the classroom were idly chatting with each other.
The evening martial arts practice was unsupervised by teachers; it relied entirely on self-discipline.
"Li Tianyou." Li Yuan's gaze flicked towards a figure in the corner of the classroom.
The boy was about 1.8 meters tall, with a somewhat thin face, wearing a martial outfit, silent, and seriously practicing the Basic Cultivation Method.
He wasn't disturbed at all by the chatter of others.
Seeing the sweat dripping from his forehead, it was evident that he had been cultivating for a while.
"He's such a studious one!" Li Yuan sighed inwardly, "Deserving of being the top studious person in the class."
Without disturbing the others,
Li Yuan took out his spear from his weapon locker, chose an open spot in the classroom, and began practicing his spear technique.
Why not practice the Basic Cultivation Method?
Because Li Yuan would get up at around 3 am every day to come to the school and practice the Basic Cultivation Method alone in the empty martial arts classroom for more than two hours.
Then, shortly before 6 am, he'd go to the cafeteria for breakfast, then to the academic classroom for self-study.
In the afternoon, he'd practice the Cultivation Methods for two hours with everyone else.
Every day's cultivation should be divided into two to three sessions, lasting four hours for optimal results; this has been verified by numerous martial arts experts through repeated experiments.
Life evolution and the tempering, recovery, and growth of the body and bones take time.
Too much can be as bad as not enough.
With the remaining time, Li Yuan was able to delve into his spear technique and movement technique.
Two hours later,
The school bell echoed through the campus, and the students in the classroom had already left one by one. Aside from Li Yuan, who was still practicing his spear technique, the only other person left was Li Tianyou, still cultivating his sword technique.
Suddenly,
In Li Yuan's field of vision, a message popped up that only he could see.
[Your spear technique realm has increased from Third Stage 36% to Third Stage 37%.]
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