There was no time to dwell on the girl. Zhang Yu returned to the classroom, and soon the math teacher — black-rimmed glasses, a stack of papers in hand — walked in.
"Today we're going over last time's exam."
"Pass the papers out."
"Look at your mistakes. How many times have I told you — if you don't understand, come ask me. Yesterday afternoon I sat in my office for three hours. Not one student came to ask a single question..."
The papers were barely distributed when a tall, burly man appeared at the door — the PE teacher. He looked at the math teacher and said simply: "You're sick."
The math teacher was dismissed. The PE teacher, Wang Hai, surveyed the students. "This period is PE now."
"Don't forget to review math on your own, though. General subjects count fifty points on the college exam, and one point can separate thousands of people."
"Speaking of general subjects — I've already spoken with your Chinese teacher. Next period is PE too. With the original PE class, the entire morning is mine."
The students followed him to the indoor training hall, which was enormous — a plaza filled with exercise equipment of every kind.
Wang Hai said, "The Qi Refining stage is the first stage of the immortal path. What matters is a solid foundation. How firm your foundation is in first year determines how high you'll climb in second and third year..."
As he spoke, memory fragments flooded Zhang Yu's mind.
After the Ten Great Sects codified cultivation, the immortal path had developed a systematic framework of realms and power — a vast ocean of knowledge. The most famous of these was the Ten Realms of Immortality.
The key metrics that determined which realm you could reach: your resolve level and your mana capacity.
For high school students, only those whose resolve crossed level 10 and whose mana exceeded 60 points could break through from Qi Refining to Foundation Building.
The PE class existed to temper the body and steel the will. A strong body increased mana efficiency, strengthened the will needed for higher resolve, and improved combat ability at the Qi Refining stage.
If resolve and mana were the foundation of the immortal path, then the physical strength built in PE class was the foundation beneath the foundation.
Waves of light swept across the students, scanning their bodies. Physical strength data appeared on a big screen, ranked from highest to lowest:
1st: Qian Shen — physical strength 1.15 2nd: Bai Zhenzhen — physical strength 1.13 3rd: He Dayou — physical strength 1.12 ...
Zhang Yu had to scan down to the 19th line before he found himself.
19th: Zhang Yu — physical strength 0.82
Cultivation technology in Kunxu had grown ever more precise over the years. Physical strength wasn't just quantified — it was re-measured every single PE class.
Like resolve, this metric could reach at most level 10 at the Qi Refining stage. It wasn't the key indicator for breaking through realms, but it governed a cultivator's efficiency and combat power — the essential foundation, worth 150 points out of 650 in the cultivation subjects.
*Down to 19th already?*
Zhang Yu stared at the number. His physical strength had been improving — but everyone around him was improving faster.
Around him, students pulled out syringes and jabbed themselves in the arm, injecting all kinds of enhancement supplements.
These injections raised muscle and bone strength, and multiplied training efficiency by anywhere from several to a dozen times. They were an essential drug for every first-year student.
You could skip a day of training, but you could never skip a day of injections. Top students often took eight or more a day.
Zhang Yu watched Bai Zhenzhen inject nine needles in quick succession — into her thigh, her arm, her back.
Compared with the bulky students around her, Bai Zhenzhen was small. Zhang Yu remembered that different training focuses produced different builds.
Wang Hai noticed Zhang Yu wasn't injecting. He walked over, frowning. "Zhang Yu, how many days since you last used enhancement serum?"
Zhang Yu couldn't say he was broke. At Songyang High, being poor was as shameful as being bad at tests. Only Bai Zhenzhen, who knew him inside and out, could hear the truth.
And the broken memories warned him: the original body had overdosed. Its organs and cardiovascular system were strained, it had fainted several times — it was already life-threatening.
*I can't keep injecting,* he thought. *But how do I survive this school without it?*