Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Rapid Growth

Early the next morning, he discovered that his physique and strength had each increased by 0.1. His strength reached 10.6, and his physique was 10.5. Seeing such an astonishing rate of improvement, he felt increasingly confident.

Perhaps, it wouldn’t be long before he could truly pass… the Martial Artist Apprentice assessment.

In the morning, he practiced Swordsmanship for a while, as usual.

After lunch, as soon as it hit twelve, he quickly rode his bicycle and rushed to the Youth Martial Arts Training Center.

He had thought he’d be the first to arrive, but to his surprise, there were quite a few students already waiting on the benches outside.

“Chen Shouyi, you signed up for this class too?” Before he even got close, he saw Guo Qianqian standing up and waving to him. Her boyfriend Lin Feng was sitting beside her, clearly here to accompany her.

“What a coincidence. I found out about this class online. I heard the tutor here is really good, so I came attracted by fame,” Chen Shouyi said with a smile, able to face Guo Qianqian calmly now.

Lin Feng raised his head with some surprise to look at him. After all, this was a high-level tutoring class, quite expensive, and those who signed up usually had hopes of passing the Martial Artist Apprentice assessment. He felt he might have underestimated him but didn’t think too much of it, since Chen Shouyi didn’t pose much of a threat.

As the time approached one o’clock, students began arriving one after another.

Including Chen Shouyi, there were a total of eleven students, four girls and seven boys, all seeming to be high school students.

…

The tutoring teacher stepped lightly and quickly into the classroom, clapped his hands:

“Unless otherwise notified, all classes will be held at one o’clock every Sunday afternoon. It’s best not to be late.

If you’re here for tutoring, I assume you are preparing to pass the Martial Arts Apprentice assessment.

Whether Swordsmanship is easy to pass or not, whether you can defeat the assessment robot in a battle, is both simple and complex. It depends on whether your Swordsmanship is fluid and instinctive and whether your basic footwork is proficient.

Many have a misconception, believing that mastering as many basic Swordsmanship moves as possible is better, but that’s not the case. Real combat often ends within a few moves, and except for sparring, there aren’t many stalemates.

Mastery of one is better than surface-level knowledge of many!

Even if you only master the simple forward lunge, if you perfect it, you can easily pass the assessment.

Generally speaking, as a Martial Arts Apprentice, if your movements aren’t instinctive, don’t exceed three moves; otherwise, your focus will be divided, resulting in mediocrity in everything.”

Chen Shouyi listened in a dream-like state, waking from the joy of learning new Swordsmanship yesterday. Similar words had been said by the teacher of his Martial Arts Class, but never as incisively and to the point as today.

“Any standard Sword Form, slightly modified, becomes a formidable Swordsmanship. In the first class, I will still teach thrusting, you’ve learned the forward lunge, now I’ll teach you upper and lower thrusts and the application of basic steps in combat.”

…

Without realizing it, almost a month had passed since the start of the term, and the first monthly exam of senior year was approaching.

It’s said that after this exam, there will be a parent-teacher meeting. Sun Xin was finally feeling an omnipresent anxiety, vaguely sensing his imminent dreadful outcome.

“How’s your preparation going?”

“What preparation?” Chen Shouyi asked in confusion, turning around from his practice papers.

“Monday’s exam next week?” Sun Xin was a bit annoyed by Chen Shouyi’s nonchalance.

“I’ve prepared what I should. It depends on whether the test papers are hard or not,” Chen Shouyi said.

He hadn’t relaxed his studies this month. Whether his grades improved or not was unknown, but the data on that row of Knowledge attributes generally increased by one, with some particularly prominent ones improving by two.

“Sigh, I wish I had studied hard too,” Sun Xin sighed. This month he was busy playing, barely touching his books.

“You’re at a late stage of laziness! Still hoping for a cure?” Wang Daguo said gloatingly from behind, “Wouldn’t you rather hire a ’parent’ for some money?”

Sun Xin’s eyes lit up but then darkened miserably, “I want to, but it’s impossible. The class teacher already visited my home. If the truth comes out, it might lead to a tragedy.”

His father had a military background, and when he hit, he did not hold back.

“Then there’s no way. Brother Yi has the right mentality! If you ask me, why study so hard? You should have passed the Martial Artist assessment by now,” Wang Daguo, true to his name, tall and burly, spoke with a naturally loud voice, causing several classmates to look over, seemingly interested in whether Chen Shouyi could pass the assessment.

Raising his head, Chen Shouyi could now bear the gazes of others calmly. After considering, he said, “Still a long way to go. The main issue is physical fitness. Today’s Martial Arts Academy’s spring enrollment depends on luck.”

In the past ten days, with the optimized and persistent practice of Body Refining Thirty-Six Styles, all his main attributes, except agility, had reached 11 points, with even agility at 10.9.

Specifically, his bench press now reached 150 kilograms, still far from the 200-kilogram standard for male Martial Artist Apprentice assessments.

However, at the previous month’s amazing pace, it would take just over a month, at most two months, to meet the standard.

Yet, as his body neared its limits, the improvement speed of the Body Refining Thirty-Six Styles was noticeably slowing down.

“That’s already impressive. You can always retake the test next year. If I were you, I would have dropped out already,” Wang Daguo said with envy. His physical fitness was decent, but his Swordsmanship progress was stagnant, and no amount of practice helped.

Martial Arts Academy admissions aren’t limited to high school graduates. Anyone under 24 who passes the Martial Arts Apprentice assessment can enter specialized academies for further study.

“Our neighboring class’s Shao Dawei, after attending a few days of school, took a year off to focus on the Martial Artist assessment. His physical strength, as I recall, was around 160 kilograms, with Swordsmanship not nearly as good as yours,” the black-skinned boy in the front row said, turning around.

In truth, Chen Shouyi was a bit helpless too; he hadn’t expected his progress to be so spectacular, to see the hope of being a Martial Arts Apprentice in under a month.

He now didn’t know how to tell his parents and make them believe that their seemingly ordinary son was, in fact, a Martial Arts prodigy like his sister. It wouldn’t be long before he passed the Martial Artist assessment.

Although he continued to attend classes diligently, it was merely habitual, for what else was there to do?

…

The school bell finally rang, and Chen Shouyi grabbed his backpack from the desk and walked out.

“Wait for me!” Sun Xin quickened his pace to catch up with Chen Shouyi.

“Have you been watching that show ’The War of the Divine System’ recently?”

“Nope!” Chen Shouyi had been as busy as a dog these days, with no time to watch TV.

“I heard it’s adapted from the real-world history of the Divine System’s development, super captivating,” Sun Xin recommended. Seeing Chen Shouyi unmoved, he clicked his tongue in disinterest.

Since entering senior year, Chen Shouyi had drifted from the group.

The previous trio had turned into a duo now, and for some reason, Zhao Yifeng no longer played with them, keeping his distance. Once, Sun Xin even went to find him, only to be coldly ignored by Zhao Yifeng, who walked away alone.

Maybe Chen Shouyi could vaguely understand Zhao Yifeng’s feelings, as he used to be like him, insecure and sensitive, living cautiously in a damp and dark world like snails, afraid of getting hurt or receiving strange looks. Only their kind could communicate tacitly.

But now, Chen Shouyi had jumped out of this mire, and to Zhao Yifeng, he was no longer one of the same kind.

At this moment, a fighter jet zoomed past at low altitude, quickly flying into the distance.

Gazing at the fighter jet, Chen Shouyi felt a heaviness in his heart, suspecting trouble somewhere again. This month’s news had reported over half a dozen alien invasions.

The most serious incident involved five stowaway Barbarians who brutally massacred several remote mountain villages, with over a thousand men, women, and children decapitated, their bodies formed into an altar, seemingly for a blood sacrifice.

The news showed an extremely bloody and eerie image, with a sense of religious ritual, even masked, it made him shudder.

PS: Seeking recommendations!!!

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep