254: Chapter 254: The truth can't be hidden anymore, the results are exposed.

Chen Mo took a moment to experience the feeling after his martial arts Realm Breakthrough. He discovered that although the total amount of Internal Energy hadn't changed much compared to before, his strength had undergone an earth-shattering transformation. This was because after entering the Transcendent Realm, his Internal Energy seemed to have become a part of his body, no longer limited to the simple and crude usage as before.

For example, the last time he sparred with Old Li at the Sanatorium, he was caught off guard by the sudden, fierce force Old Li erupted with, and subconsciously blasted all his Internal Energy out at once, causing Old Li to vomit blood. Part of the reason was that Chen Mo's level of control over his Internal Energy was quite average at the time; once the Internal Energy was blasted out, it was very difficult to retract.

But now, after the Breakthrough, Chen Mo felt that manipulating every trace of Internal Energy within his body was as easy as controlling his own arms. If he were to reenact the sparring scene with Old Li with his current strength, not only was Chen Mo confident that he could retract his Internal Energy the instant he blasted Old Li away, but he was also fully certain he could manage to just push Old Li back without causing him the slightest injury.

With such a precise level of control over his Internal Energy, it could be said that even without significant changes to the quality and quantity of his Internal Energy, Chen Mo's own strength had reached a new level, which was truly something worth being happy about.

However, Chen Mo thought that even if his martial arts cultivation became the best in the world, it didn't seem to hold much meaning. In modern society, there didn't seem to be many scenarios where martial arts could be put to use, and the things he needed to do—whether it was waking up classmate Tang Yao, earning more main god points to develop the Main God Space, or resisting the Otherworld invasion—none of these could be accomplished by personal martial prowess alone.

Seen in this light, there wasn't really anything worth being particularly happy about.

After Chen Mo figured this out, he calmed down from the emotional fluctuations following the Breakthrough. His mood was unprecedentedly calm, and the content of his classmates' chatter reached his ears once again.

"By the way, how many points did Brother Mo actually score?"

"Who knows? But judging by his usual exam scores, it should be at least in the high six-hundreds. After all, the difficulty of this year's College Entrance Exam questions wasn't any higher than our usual exams."

"Sigh, look at Brother Mo; he's been so calm all day, his emotional stability is terrifying. You can tell at a glance he's full of confidence; he's definitely getting into a key university."

"I don't think so..." a classmate said weakly. "If his grades were exceptionally good, the school would have hung up banners long ago, but why isn't there any movement at all?"

This classmate was speaking the truth. Once exam scores are released, if the score is exceptionally high, there would be reactions from all sides. In the case of doing exceptionally well, not to mention the school, even the local neighborhood would post congratulatory notices. However, the scores had been out for over a day, and they hadn't seen any movement. Could it be... that Chen Mo's College Entrance Exam score this time wasn't particularly outstanding?

Realizing this, many classmates couldn't help but ask curiously, "Brother Mo, what exactly is your score this time? Tell us and let us broaden our horizons."

"Yeah, Brother Mo, what's there to hide? Even if you got into Tsinghua University or Peking University, we wouldn't be jealous."

"No matter how good your grades are, they are the result of your usual hard work; we have all seen it. No matter how high a score you get, we old classmates will only be happy for you."

Watching his classmates looking so eager to know his College Entrance Exam score, Chen Mo felt a sense of helplessness. He knew that once his College Entrance Exam score was exposed, setting aside whether he would be mocked by his classmates, the key was that he would lose face. Looking at his classmates now, brushing them off didn't seem like an easy task.

And this kind of thing couldn't be hidden anyway, because one could check every student's score at the school. If they were determined to ask the teacher, they would naturally find out exactly what he scored. So, Chen Mo had no choice but to helplessly accept the fact that his grades were about to be exposed, and honestly confessed, "Actually, I haven't even checked my score yet, but based on my estimated score, it seems hopeless to get into college."

As soon as these words were out, the other classmates expressed their disbelief, "Impossible, Brother Mo, you're joking again."

"Yeah, the scores came out the night before last; how could you not know your score by now?"

"Exactly, exactly. Brother Mo, you love to joke too much. Even if only one person in our whole class gets into college, it would definitely be you. How could it be hopeless to get into college!"

The classmates kept saying this, completely unwilling to believe that there would be a graduate who didn't care about their exam results at all, to the point that they hadn't checked their score even though the College Entrance Exam results had been out for over a day; thinking about it, it didn't seem very likely. However, when they saw Chen Mo take out his phone and, without any hesitation, search for the score-checking website and click on it, everyone couldn't help but mutter to themselves, wondering if Chen Mo was really that confident that he hadn't even checked his score after it was released.

As Chen Mo entered his admission ticket number and password, the score page appeared on the phone screen. Everyone's gaze immediately focused on the total score column at the bottom of the phone screen. On the white page background, it displayed in bold black text, 'Total Score: 445'.

The entire KTV suddenly went quiet. Even though the music was still playing, everyone could feel that the atmosphere in the area where Chen Mo was had suddenly become eerily quiet. All the classmates were curious about what had happened there; they stopped singing and drinking, and all crowded around.

"Total score, four hundred and forty-five?"

The classmates who saw this score were dumbfounded, suspecting they had misread it, or that this wasn't Chen Mo's own account they were logged into. However, after comparing the name and the score, they found they hadn't misread it; this was indeed Chen Mo's College Entrance Exam score.

For a moment, everyone was speechless.

Because this score was just slightly above the undergraduate line, which meant it would be hard to attend a proper university. Only those privately run schools that existed just to make money would admit him. If it was just to get a diploma, that wouldn't be a problem, but in terms of practicality, it was far inferior to some properly taught vocational colleges. Getting such a score, for their elite class, was an almost impossible thing.

And what made it even more unbelievable to everyone was that the person who got this score was none other than the first place in their class, Chen Mo. His mock exam scores were all in the six-hundreds, but when it came to the actual College Entrance Exam, it suddenly dropped by two hundred points. This made everyone completely unable to believe it.

For a moment, everyone didn't know what to say.

If Chen Mo's score was just a slight underperformance that led to him not being able to attend a key university, everyone might still have felt a bit of schadenfreude. But now, Chen Mo's performance had slipped too severely, directly losing a massive two hundred points, making it almost impossible to even attend a proper university. It could be said that it was so miserable that they couldn't even summon a shred of schadenfreude; instead, they felt deep pity for him, almost not daring to even breathe, fearing that any inappropriate movement would stimulate Chen Mo's fragile heart, making him unable to accept reality and causing some kind of mental breakdown.

But Chen Mo seemed to have expected it long ago, saying in a calm, slightly relaxed tone, "Four hundred and forty-five points, not bad, it's ten-plus points higher than I estimated myself."

In fact, Chen Mo had indeed expected this score. On the night after the exam, he had estimated his score by comparing it to the standard answers online. The score he estimated was a little over four hundred, and now the real score he found was close to four hundred and fifty, which was slightly higher than his estimated score. Of course, this little bit of higher score had no practical use.

However, it is worth mentioning that after his martial arts Realm broke through to the Transcendent Realm, his mindset seemed to have become much more peaceful. For example, if it were before, if he were surrounded by all his classmates while his College Entrance Exam score of four-hundred-something was exposed, even if he didn't value this score, he would definitely have felt that he couldn't save face. But now, he didn't care at all about everyone's opinion of him. Even Chen Mo himself felt a bit strange about how his mentality had become so strong.

Chen Mo himself didn't care about this score, but the other classmates changed their expressions when they heard him say this. Seeing that he was not only not disappointed or annoyed but instead looked calm and relaxed, they all thought that he had become mentally unstable due to being unable to accept reality for a moment, and quickly tried to comfort him, "It's okay, even if you failed this time, just try again next year."

"Yeah, at worst you can just repeat a year; good things take time."

"And repeating a year will definitely result in a higher score; maybe by then you'll get straight into Tsinghua University or Peking University!"

Listening to everyone's comfort, Chen Mo felt a warmth in his heart. Originally, he had thought that once everyone knew his score, even if they didn't mock him, they would give him the cold shoulder. He hadn't expected everyone to be so kind; it was warm and very heartwarming. In this way, he could actually develop these classmates into game players after absorbing all the members in the game group into the Fantasy Jianghu game. Although if this kind of collective recruitment were discovered to be abnormal, it would be easy to suspect him, but now that the Otherworld projection Dungeon had already started, Chen Mo couldn't worry about so much for the time being.

As for the first player to be recruited, Song Xiaoqin would definitely occupy a spot, because he had been farming with his family since he was a child, using traditional planting methods that didn't use chemical fertilizers but only human manure. With his planting experience, he should be able to get rich quickly after going to Xiao Huang Village.

While Chen Mo was planning the development of the Main God Space, his classmates who had finished comforting him scattered one after another. After all, everyone now didn't really know how to face Chen Mo; no matter how they comforted him, it seemed like rubbing salt in the wound, so they simply stopped mentioning it and went back to drinking and chatting among themselves.

However, as they chatted, the topic inevitably turned to the classmates in the class.

"Do you guys think our class is a bit strange?" a classmate said mysteriously.

"What's strange?"

That classmate with the mysterious expression glanced at Chen Mo to make sure he wasn't paying attention to them before whispering, "First of all, the one with the best grades in our class was class monitor Tang Yao, right? But she suddenly got into a car accident and became a vegetable. Then, Chen Mo, who was originally ranked second, became our class's number one. Everyone thought that with his grades, getting into a key university wouldn't be a problem. But now, you've all seen his score; four-hundred-something is too low even if he missed an entire subject. So, don't you think this is strange?"

Hearing him say this and thinking about it, "Hiss—" the few classmates around gasped.

"It really does seem to be the case."

"It's cursed."

"Stop making wild connections; it's just a coincidence. This is a new society now; don't engage in this feudal superstition."

"How is this a coincidence? And there's one more thing you guys probably don't know: that Tang Yao liked Chen Mo, but Chen Mo is a bookworm, so he probably didn't notice at all."

"Tang Yao liked Chen Mo? How come I didn't see that?"

"You don't know jack. You definitely wouldn't know, but I do know that our Brother Chen used to chase Tang Yao too, but Tang Yao was only interested in Chen Mo, which is why he didn't succeed."

"Ah! Is that so?" Everyone was very enthusiastic when it came to gossip, and as they listened, some classmates even started to doubt their own lives. How come they didn't notice any of the things being talked about when they were in school? Could it be that they weren't even attending the same school?

"So what you mean is, Tang Yao's luck is too bad? Not only did she end up in the hospital, but she also jinxed Chen Mo into losing two hundred points on his College Entrance Exam?"

"I didn't say that; that's what you thought yourself."

These few classmates were whispering and gossiping in a corner a bit further away from the crowd. In their view, Chen Mo was so far away that he definitely couldn't hear them. However, they didn't know that Chen Mo's current sensory ability was far beyond that of an ordinary person; even without intentionally using his Divine Sense, he had heard every word they said clearly.

However, Chen Mo didn't say anything after hearing it. After all, this was their private conversation, and they had already tried hard to avoid others. It was just that he found it a bit strange: Tang Yao liked him? Where did this conclusion come from?

Chen Mo didn't pay much attention to their chat, but they were getting a bit carried away with their gossip, and their voices were getting louder and louder, causing Ye Chen, who was relatively close to them, to finally be unable to help but say, "Enough, stop talking about this."

Those few people were suddenly startled. Seeing the displeased expression on Ye Chen's face, they immediately knew that their voices were too loud and Ye Chen had heard them, so they immediately ended the current topic and said repeatedly, "Okay, okay."

"Brother Chen, don't take it to heart; we were just chatting nonsense."

"Stop talking about this useless stuff and hurry up and drink and sing."

Because Ye Chen was paying for everything today, as soon as he spoke, the few who were secretly gossiping immediately softened up, picked up their wine bottles, and drank gulp after gulp to cover up their act of gossiping behind people's backs just now.