102: Chapter 102 The Second Mock Exam Arrives

April twentieth.

In the early morning, faint light pierced the clouds, illuminating the campus of Qingshi No. 3 Middle School.

The Provincial Second Mock Exam, a crucial test determining the future path of all high school seniors across the province, finally raised its curtain.

As usual, Li Wen stepped through the gates of Qingshi No. 3 Middle School right at the last moment before the preparatory bell rang.

After days of buildup, his nearly universally recognized fame was fully evident at this moment.

Therefore, when his tall figure passed through security and appeared in the sight of the crowd, the originally noisy sounds strangely subsided, only to be immediately replaced by more fervent whispers.

Countless gazes instantly focused on him, weaving an invisible net of shock, awe, curiosity, and undisguised envy that enveloped him.

"It's Li Wen!"

"The Big Shot is here!"

"Quick, look, it's really him!"

Facing the spontaneous greetings and reverent looks from those around him, Li Wen maintained his usual calm, faint smile.

He neither deliberately acted aloof nor distant; as his gaze swept over them, he nodded composedly, acknowledging the celebrity effect.

When his eyes inadvertently swept across a few girls standing in the front row, dressed in bright school uniforms, their faces instantly flushed crimson, their eyes darting away shyly.

After Li Wen walked past, suppressed squeals finally burst out: "Oh my god! Did he just look at me? He's so handsome!"

"I saw it, I saw it! My heart is beating so fast!"

"So charismatic—"

He also exchanged a few words with some classmates from the Flying Star Class or Hongyi Building whom he usually nodded to, students whose strength was considered top-notch.

Their words were filled with probing and admiration; some asked about his goal for this mock exam, while others admired his Cultivation speed.

Li Wen only responded with a smile, his words humble yet revealing calm confidence, without elaborating further.

Soon, the examination hall corridors were unsealed. Li Wen followed the crowd, ascending the stairs toward his assigned examination room.

His retreating figure appeared to everyone as a peerless treasured blade, about to be drawn yet concealing its ultimate sharpness.

Inside the examination hall, the atmosphere was solemn. Answer sheets and test papers were distributed in order, the cold printed text reflecting a destiny-deciding sheen under the lights.

"Ding—" The start bell echoed throughout the entire teaching building.

At that very instant, in the ears of every examinee in the room, a sharp sound—"susu sususu!"—produced by the friction of pen tips against paper, hurried to the point of becoming a continuous line, was clearly captured.

The source of the sound was Li Wen, seated by the window.

His right hand holding the pen had already transformed into a blur almost impossible for the naked eye to capture.

The pen tip danced and leaped across the snow-white answer sheet, without the slightest pause, without the slightest hesitation.

Characters, formulas, and answers were written out as smoothly as output from a pre-set program, precise and flawless.

The speed was so fast that examinees who accidentally glanced over were deeply shaken, gaping, and even forgot the questions in front of them for a moment.

At this stage, all cultural knowledge points for the high school level had long been thoroughly mastered and deeply imprinted in Li Wen's mind, thanks to the terrifying learning efficiency granted by the Scholar profession's passive ability, One Proof, Eternal Proof.

The difficult problems that required ordinary top students to rack their brains were merely simple information recall for Li Wen.

He didn't even need to activate Absolute Focus, saving the Mental Energy for his Blade Technique Cultivation that evening.

His thoughts were clear as a mirror, his writing flowed like a river.

Multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, experimental questions—all were like docile sheep before him, easily tamed.

When most people were still struggling to tackle the first half of the questions, Li Wen had already completed the final stroke.

He put down his pen and began organizing the test paper, answer sheet, and scratch paper in a relaxed and orderly manner, stacking them neatly at the corner of the desk.

There was still a full thirty minutes until the exam ended.

He stood up calmly.

The air in the entire examination room seemed to freeze for an instant.

After the invigilating teacher gave a routine nod confirming the completion of the answer sheet filling, under the gaze of dozens of eyes mixed with shock, bewilderment, and even a degree of numbness.

Li Wen did not pause at all, turned, and left the examination room.

His back, gradually becoming more upright as his Physical Body Rank increased, passed through the quiet corridor and disappeared at the stairwell.

The subsequent exams of the day—Chinese, History, Mathematics, Geography, Politics—followed a process nearly identical to the first subject.

The sea of questions could no longer pose any obstacle to him. In every exam, the attention-grabbing sound of writing would ring out on schedule, only to abruptly stop long before the end.

Li Wen's early submissions gradually shifted from shocking to somewhat expected by everyone in the examination room, but the amount of time he saved was still enough to suffocate any pursuer.

The only slight difference was the afternoon Mathematics exam.

When Li Wen scanned to the final, culminating question—a comprehensive problem involving geometry and spatial vectors—the preceding parts were as easy as chopping vegetables.

However, when facing the final small part of the question, an extremely tricky spatial construction and extreme constraint condition, he finally paused his pen slightly, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly.

Just one second.

In his Sea of Consciousness, the light of Absolute Focus Lv8 quietly illuminated.

The 80% Comprehension Ability boost was instantly injected into his thought process like a supercharger. That complex geometric body was instantly disassembled, reconstructed, and calculated in his vision—the difficult problem that stumped other examinees for minutes without resolution only required a few derivation steps before his eyes.

"So that's how it is."

Understanding dawned in his mind, and the light of Lv8 extinguished.

The pen tip fell again, concisely deriving the result on the scratch paper and smoothly transcribing it onto the answer sheet.

He capped his pen. There were still twenty minutes left until the end.

Under the gaze of the invigilating teacher and all the examinees—a gaze that was accustomed yet could not help but feel awe once more—he stood up, organized his things, and left.

The first day of the Provincial Second Mock Exam's cultural courses concluded under Li Wen's absolutely crushing speed advantage.

Time quickly arrived at the evening.

The Xinhuo Hall Qingshi Branch, 14th floor, Li Wen's exclusive martial arts room was brightly lit.

Li Wen consumed a high-energy dinner and rested for a little over ten minutes to allow his body to fully absorb the energy.

In today's Provincial Second Mock Exam cultural tests, aside from activating Absolute Focus for one or two minutes on the final culminating Math problem, the Mental Energy consumption during the rest of the time was negligible.

At this moment, his Mental Energy was full and abundant, and his condition was excellent.

Without the slightest delay, Li Wen walked directly to the weapon rack and casually drew a standard long saber forged from fine steel.

With a slight movement of his mind, Absolute Focus Lv8 was activated.

Instantly, the world seemed to be filtered through an invisible layer of crystal. All external noises faded into a distant background.

The light became pure, the trajectory of the air flow was clearly discernible, and he even had complete command over every trace of cold metallic texture and the minute stress distribution on the long saber in his hand.

The 80% Comprehension Ability boost was like a thought engine igniting its afterburner, all his focus directed toward a single goal: the third stance of the Five Luminaries Heavenly Rainbow Art—Flowing Rainbow Startling Magpie Chapter—the Shou Que Style.

"Defense is the core—deflecting force, circulating energy, immovable as a mountain—"

In the Cultivation room, Li Wen's figure seemed to transform into a constantly shifting heavy shield.

He continuously practiced the complex saber routines contained within the Shou Que Style: horizontal saber blocks, diagonal saber guiding flows, circular saber sweeps, heavy saber holds—the transition between every move embodied the Concept of dissipating force, redirecting energy, and guarding the Origin.

Sharp Saber Qi occasionally overflowed uncontrollably, leaving faint white marks on the walls of the specially designed Cultivation room, which were immediately smoothed away by the energy circuits embedded in the walls that absorbed the excess.

Two hours seemed compressed under the state of Absolute Focus.

It wasn't until a familiar pain, like tiny steel needles continuously stabbing his brain, hit him, that Li Wen abruptly stopped his movements, his entire body drenched in sweat, his chest rising and falling slightly.

He closed his eyes to concentrate. A large amount of new insights regarding the Shou Que Style's deflection angles, energy circulation, and borrowing force for defense settled and fused in his mind.

[You focused on Cultivating the Shou Que Style for two hours. Shou Que Style progress +3%]

[Shou Que Style 5% → 8%]

The exhaustion from depleted Mental Energy brought intense fatigue, but a sense of satisfaction welled up inside him.

Eight percent! This progress far surpassed the difficult rate of improvement achieved under the guidance of the Virtual Mentor in previous days.

As expected, solidifying the foundation and self-realization were key.

He strode to the corner of the room and steadily placed the standard long saber, which was already somewhat hot to the touch, back onto the weapon rack with a light clink.

His gaze shifted to the jade bottle already prepared beside it—the invaluable starlight condensing spirit fluid.

Li Wen grabbed the jade bottle without hesitation, pulled out the stopper, and tilted his head back, drinking down the liquid flowing with starlight-like specks.

A cool yet immense surge of spiritual energy instantly poured into his Sea of Consciousness, like timely rain falling on parched land.

He casually tossed the empty bottle into the nearby trash can with a "thud."

Immediately afterward, Li Wen walked to the simple cot in the room, lay down, and sank into a state of deep recovery almost instantly.

Twenty minutes later, the alarm he had set rang precisely on time.

The crisp bell woke Li Wen.

He opened his eyes; the fleeting glimmer of Primordial Spirit light deep within his pupils indicated a good recovery state.

Although his Mental Energy hadn't reached ten-tenths, seven or eight parts had recovered. That irritating stinging pain and heavy fatigue had completely vanished.

He casually turned off the alarm and, without pausing, got up and walked toward the silver-white virtual pod, full of technological sophistication, in the center of the room.

Relying solely on practicing the Blade Technique himself had a limit, even if the efficiency was not low.

Only by testing and perfecting his skills under the pressure of life-and-death combat, in the most intense confrontations, was it the most efficient way to improve the defensive path of the Shou Que Style.

This was an ironclad rule since he began Cultivating.

The hatch slid open and closed.

Consciousness connected, switching instantly.

When he opened his eyes again, he was already in the Infinite Arena. The background of the vast starry sky arena reappeared.

Li Wen directly initiated the ranking match System via the blue star youth platinum ranking.

The System's light screen flashed rapidly, searching for an evenly matched opponent.

Match successful.

Opponent ID: Rukawa Jinfu.

"What a coincidence."

A subtle smile curved Li Wen's lips.