Tianning County, Nanguan Second Senior High School.
Class 6 of the second-year students was in the middle of martial arts training.
It was late summer. The air was stifling hot, cicadas shrilled endlessly in the trees, and the students' sweat fell like rain.
Yu Fei's whole body was drenched. He struggled to hold his stance, trying to keep his posture precise, aligning with the requirements of stake training.
Sweat streamed from his pores, merging into rivulets, sliding down the bridge of his nose before dripping to the ground.
The heat distorted the air, and his vision blurred, as if he were trapped in a hellish mirage.
His muscles trembled.Pain. Irritation.
Yu Fei felt like a fish stranded on dry land beneath a blazing sun. In his haze, he even thought he saw his great-grandmother smiling at him from afar.
"Train in the heat of midsummer, endure the chill of midwinter,""Only with an iron will can you break through to become a martial artist. Willpower can shatter stone!"
The martial arts instructor's voice was hoarse yet powerful, like a rusted iron blade scraping against rock—harsh, grating, yet oddly piercing.
"Raise your hands higher, straighten your back!""Put strength into it—do you even know what that means?""Flowery movements won't awaken your blood and qi!"
Yan Hai, dressed in a black martial uniform, stalked the training field with a teaching rod in hand, correcting students' stances one after another.
The path of martial cultivation began with tempering the skin, working from the outside in until one transcended the ordinary.
This group of second-year students had only been training for a month. It was the stage for laying foundations.Without small steps, there could be no thousand-mile journey.
Yan Hai was determined to see results.
"Change form! Turn, resist, Niu Li Punch!"
Checking the time, he barked the command.
On the practice field, the teenagers shifted into new stances. Movements were sloppy; one even toppled over.
Yu Fei lunged into a forward stance, fists clenched, knuckles facing down at shoulder height, body weight leaning forward.
"Hah!"
Following the requirements of stake training, he imagined himself ramming his head against a rock.
Perhaps it was his imagination, but a current of heat surged inside him, rising from his lower back, flowing a few inches through his body—only to vanish again.
Funiu Stake was a fundamental method of the first martial realm. It was meant to strengthen blood and qi, to open the first threshold—tempering the skin.
By now, Yu Fei had attended twelve of these classes, three per week, yet he still hadn't touched the threshold of blood and qi.
Class 6 had fifty-four students—thirty boys and twenty-four girls.
Yu Fei's performance was poor. After just one month, twenty-one of his classmates had already sensed their blood and qi. He was falling behind.
The stances were awkward, designed to push the human body to its limits.
"Remember this: on the path of martial arts, the most important thing is always willpower! Talent and wealth may help you at the start, but how far you go depends only on your will!"
Yan Hai's voice rang with steely conviction.
The students on the field were wilted and listless.
To Yu Fei, it all sounded like nonsense.Clearly, the most important things were talent and wealth.
He had awakened innate memory at age three. With deliberate training, his body was stronger than most of his peers—but that was as far as he had gotten.
And the only unusual thing about his awakened state was that, when he calmed his mind, he could sense a blue pearl in his spiritual sea.
At first, the pearl was dull and lifeless. Over time, threads of light began to spread across its surface. Now, the glow covered nearly all of it, leaving only a sesame-sized patch of dimness.
Yu Fei guessed that when the light covered the entire pearl, something might change. Until then, all he could do was wait.
But deep down, Yu Fei had already realized that even with this second chance at life, his fate wasn't soaring any higher.
Before high school, he had excelled at academics—thanks to his past life's study habits and steady mindset.
But in high school, he discovered that greater wisdom did not equal higher intelligence.Especially in mathematics—if you didn't understand, you simply didn't.
In fact, as he remembered from his previous life, most repeat students didn't perform much better their second year; some even scored worse.
The same applied to martial arts.
The first student in Class 6 to sense blood and qi was Jiang Yifan, the top student. Jiang always scored above 145 on math exams, and when it came to practicing the Funiu Stake, his progress was exceptional.
By the third lesson, Jiang had already awakened his blood and qi.
Within just two weeks, his body had visibly toughened.
The second was Du Mingxuan.
Du came from a wealthy family; his father owned several businesses in Tianning. Rumor had it that his father had spent a hundred thousand yuan to buy him five doses of Blood-Nourishing Powder.
With those five doses, Du not only sensed his blood and qi but also made significant progress in tempering his skin.
That was why Yu Fei firmly believed: on the martial path, talent came first, and wealth second.
At last, the lesson ended. Yan Hai hauled out a cart with two and a half crates of energy fluid, distributing bottles to each student and watching closely to ensure they all drank.
Martial training drained immense stamina. The school's resources were limited, so they provided only the most basic energy fluid. With three classes per week, anything more would damage the students' bodies.
All things considered, Yu Fei thought, unless one had extraordinary talent or wealth beyond measure, it was nearly impossible to succeed in martial cultivation.
Class had run from two in the afternoon until three-thirty. The remaining schedule was one history lesson, followed by self-study.
During history, half the class collapsed onto their desks. Only a handful endured.
No matter how hard the history teacher, Liu Ximao, slammed the lectern, the dull bang bang bang couldn't wake them.
Yu Fei drifted in and out of consciousness, and when he finally opened his eyes again, it was already the latter half of self-study period.
"You're awake?"
Li Mengyao pulled a bottle of yogurt from her desk pocket, her eyes sparkling with expectation as her soft voice called out to him.
"This is your favorite—yellow peach flavor. I brought too many and can't finish. Here, it's for you!"
Still foggy from sleep, Yu Fei stared blankly at her for a moment before taking the yogurt. He didn't bother saying thanks. Ever since he and Li Mengyao had become desk mates, she had been "feeding" him constantly.
He had tried to refuse at first, but after her relentless persistence, Yu Fei had unwillingly grown accustomed to the shameless habit.
He stabbed the straw into the carton and began drinking leisurely.