201: Chapter 201 Professor Lin's First Lecture

Kyoto University, Practical Combat Academy, Lecture Hall One.

The massive space, capable of seating five hundred, was currently packed to capacity.

The air was thick with an aura of youthful restlessness.

Every single person sitting here was a top-tier genius selected from across the nation.

They carried their own pride.

For this legendary young professor who had seemingly parachuted in through

backdoors

and

monetary power

, they felt more disdain and curiosity than reverence.

Many troublemakers among the students were already rubbing their hands together in secret, ready to give this new Professor Lin a taste of his own medicine.

"Did you hear? This Lin Fan is only eighteen, younger than us,"

a red-haired boy in the front row said with a smirk, one leg crossed over the other.

"An eighteen-year-old professor? What a complete joke."

A girl in training clothes next to him sneered, a metal pen spinning rapidly between her fingers.

"He's just relying on his military connections. I heard he's a Shrewd Merchant dealing in second-hand goods. That such a person can come teach at Kyoto University really lowers the standard of our academy."

"Shh, keep it down. He is a Major General, after all."

"So what if he's a Major General? This is Kyoto University. What matters here is strength and knowledge, not military rank."

The murmurs rose and fell, not diminishing in the slightest even as the class bell rang.

Just then.

The heavy solid wood door was pushed open from the outside.

The noisy classroom paused for an instant, all eyes converging on the doorway.

Lin Fan walked in, dressed in his well-tailored grey suit, gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, a thick teaching plan tucked under his arm.

He strode up to the podium with unhurried steps.

His leather shoes made crisp, rhythmic sounds against the wooden floorboards.

Lin Fan reached the center of the podium and casually tossed the teaching plan onto the desk.

He didn't speak immediately. Instead, he leaned forward slightly, hands braced on the edges of the lectern, his gaze sweeping slowly over every face in the room through his lenses.

That gaze wasn't sharp; it even held a touch of gentle amusement.

Yet, for some reason, every student it passed over felt an involuntary chill run down their spine, as if being watched by some apex predator.

The murmurs in the classroom gradually faded until they disappeared completely.

"Let me introduce myself."

Lin Fan straightened up, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote two large, flamboyant characters on the blackboard behind him.

Lin Fan.

"My name is Lin Fan. I will be your instructor for 'Battlefield Resource Studies' this semester."

He turned around, clapped the chalk dust from his hands, wearing that trademark benign smile of his.

"I know many of you aren't convinced."

"You think I'm too young, think I lack experience, even think I'm a Shrewd Merchant reeking of money."

Lin Fan's voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly to every corner of the room.

The red-haired boy below the podium snorted, just about to speak.

*BOOM!*

A terrifyingly immense pressure erupted from Lin Fan's body without the slightest warning.

This pressure wasn't a pure suppression of spiritual energy; it was mixed with the profound weight of underground dragon vein essence and the savagery of the S-Rank Divine Ember Flame.

It was like an invisible mountain, instantly crashing down upon the hearts of everyone present.

The red-haired boy's gaping mouth froze mid-air, his face instantly flushing a purplish-red, veins bulging on his forehead.

He felt like an insect trapped in amber; even moving a finger felt like an impossible luxury.

It wasn't just him.

All five hundred genius students in the entire classroom felt the suffocating pressure at that moment.

Lin Fan still maintained his smile, but in the students' eyes, it had transformed into the grin of a demon.

"There's only one rule in my class."

Lin Fan said leisurely, his fingers lightly tapping the lectern.

"That is, I speak, you listen."

"You can keep your opinions to yourselves. You can line up if you want a challenge. But before I give permission..."

His voice suddenly turned icy, a flash of golden light vanishing from his eyes.

"...hold back all that laughable pride of yours."

The pressure lasted a full ten seconds.

For the students present, those ten seconds felt as long as a century.

Just as many were on the verge of collapsing and fainting, the terrifying pressure vanished without a trace.

*Whoosh!*

A collective gasp for air echoed through the classroom.

Everyone was breathing in large gulps of fresh air, their backs already soaked with cold sweat.

The way they looked at the young man on the podium had completely changed.

No longer dismissive, but filled with deep fear and wariness.

Grandmaster!

And definitely not an ordinary Grandmaster!

To suppress five hundred Martial Master Realm geniuses with sheer presence alone—such power was something even the veteran professors at the academy might not be able to achieve.

"Good. It seems we've reached a preliminary understanding."

Lin Fan nodded with satisfaction, as if nothing had just happened.

He adjusted his glasses, reverting to that refined scoundrel appearance.

"Now that everyone can listen to the lesson calmly, let's officially begin."

"Open your textbooks to the first page."

*Rustle, rustle.*

A wave of page-turning immediately sounded from below the podium, uniform and synchronized. No one dared to make any other move.

"'Battlefield Resource Studies,' as the name implies, is the discipline of researching how to obtain, utilize, and maximize the value of resources on the battlefield."

Lin Fan didn't stick to the script. He casually tossed that thick teaching plan into the trash bin.

This action once again made the students' eyes widen.

"The theories in the book are all bullshit,"

Lin Fan said shockingly. "On a real battlefield, the situation changes in an instant. No one gives you time to calculate formulas."

"On the battlefield, the only truth is: exchange the smallest cost for the greatest benefit."

"Even a piece of scrap metal, a dry bone—if used properly, can become the chip you use to turn the tables against the odds."

Pausing here, Lin Fan stopped.

He reached into the wide pocket of his suit jacket, fumbling around for a moment.

Under the watchful, knowledge-hungry gazes of all five hundred students, he slowly pulled out a...

...perfectly ordinary black iron box.

The box didn't look ornate, even a bit generic, like a common box from a supermarket.

"For example, this."

Lin Fan placed the box in the center of the lectern, his fingertips lightly tracing the patterns on its surface.

"In your eyes, this might just be a worthless piece of junk."

"But in my eyes, it's an opportunity, it's power, it's the turning point that can change fate."

Lin Fan raised his head, the smile at the corner of his mouth growing richer, his eyes gleaming with a tempting light.

"Students, for today's first class, we won't discuss theory."

"Let's play a game."

"A game about insight, courage, and luck."

Lin Fan's voice was full of allure, like a serpent tempting Eve to eat the apple.

"Inside this box is sealed a... special item I picked up at the edge of the Ten Thousand Races Battlefield."

"Who can guess its value? Or, who dares to bet their own credits on what's inside?"

The classroom fell deathly silent.

The students looked at each other, then at the shabby iron box. Their eyes held both suspicion and a flicker of curiosity stirred by Lin Fan.

Looking at these lambs ready for slaughter, Lin Fan chuckled inwardly.

Once curiosity was piqued, opening their wallets wasn't far behind.

For this first class, he not only had to establish his authority but also make these prideful elites understand one thing.

At Kyoto University, besides diligent cultivation, there was another way to grow stronger.

And that was spending money.