Chapter 279: Advancing to Longevity
“Did the freshman… win?”
“…Unbelievable. There have been freshmen beating second-years before, but those were cases we could more or less predict, right?”
Some freshmen were special. Thanks to exceptionally privileged upbringings, they had sparring partners from a young age to hone their combat skills, and were already well-known even before enrollment.
But such cases were ultimately rare. The vast majority—one could even say 99%—of freshmen had no chance against upperclassmen. That was why this sudden upset felt so shocking.
“So this is the strength of someone topping the rankings? I’ve been totally fooled! You all said that even with great talent, she’d still need time to grow!”
“Time to grow? She’s straight-up steamrolling people!”
“Damn it, my money!!”
“Where did this monster come from? Never heard of her before, and now she just pops out of nowhere?”
“I just want to know—how much did the people who bet on her make?”
As soon as that was said, the surrounding crowd fell silent. Envy, jealousy, and resentment practically condensed into something tangible.
“…So the gamblers actually won? I can’t accept this!”
Once the result was decided and people gradually recovered from the shock of “a freshman actually won,” they suddenly realized that their heavy bets had truly gone up in smoke.
“Is the rooftop still open? I need to go up and calm down.”
“It’s already full. You’ll have to wait until others finish jumping before it’s your turn.”
Conversations like these filled the air.
Meanwhile, Xu Zhi—who had stolen the spotlight—naturally entered the attention of many.
Or rather, upperclassmen had already been watching her. With such exaggerated entrance exam results, it was impossible not to stand out. In fact, the student council had already placed her on their observation list the very day her results came out. After all, it was extremely rare for a first-year to attract the attention of the inner academy’s student council.
And now, Xu Zhi had directly proven to them—wait to grow?
She didn’t need to wait. She could already crush second-year students.
“Her ability… is it something like… word-spirit?”
“Like speaking things into reality?”
“Looks pretty similar. Man, I want an ability like that too!”
Capable of offense, control, and even defense—it was practically an all-around ability.
“But from what we can see now, the weakness is obvious. She seems to have to speak for it to take effect.”
“Yeah. If she runs into a situation where she can’t speak, her ability is basically useless.”
Those on the arena floor were mostly experienced fighters. In just a few exchanges, they had already dissected part of the truth behind Xu Zhi’s ability.
At present, as they said, the most fatal flaw of Curse Speech was that it had to be “spoken aloud.”
If the opponent could silence her, then she was done for.
“Still, even with that weakness, the power is ridiculous. Did you see that? Chunming’s flames were completely suppressed. That kind of suppression is on par with some third-years, isn’t it?”
What they didn’t know was that Xu Zhi hadn’t even spent much effort suppressing Chunming’s flames.
Even so, she had already earned the label of “monster.”
“Good thing I’m not in the same year as her, or that’d be miserable~”
“Yeah, yeah. Lucky she’s only a first-year.”
They sighed. If they were in the same cohort, wouldn’t they be completely overshadowed?
More importantly, there were only so many key competition slots. If they were in the same year, they’d have to compete directly.
But now it was fine. This monstrously talented junior was only a first-year, and first-years couldn’t register for those competitions, nor did they qualify for the Lost Lands selection.
By the time she reached second year, she might be able to participate across levels in some competitions. But the key point was this year—major competitions were all piled together, meaning resources would also explode in availability this year.
As long as one achieved good results—or even just made it into the official competition team—one could obtain a huge amount of resources!
What a pity. This junior was exceptionally gifted, but unfortunately, she was born a little too late.
Xu Zhi, however, didn’t care what these “old-timers” thought. Her mind was filled with one thing—get the money as soon as possible and exchange it for resources. It just so happened to be the monthly break, giving her time to fully absorb whatever she exchanged.
As soon as the match ended, Xu Zhi left the arena and planned to head straight home. Meng Chuanling had placed the bets for her, so she just needed the latter to transfer her share.
On her way out, though, there was a small hiccup. The way those seniors looked at her was downright strange—like she had robbed them of their money. Well… that wasn’t entirely wrong. Still, a bet was a bet, and no one made an issue of it. Instead, some people actually asked for her contact information.
Not for flirting, but because aside from the student council as an “official organization,” there were many smaller teams within the inner academy. These teams usually participated in competitions together. Even student council members didn’t necessarily team up exclusively within the council.
Many of those asking for Xu Zhi’s contact were from such teams.
Anyone with a discerning eye could tell—this was the most promising first-year prospect.
Xu Zhi didn’t bother to haggle with them. She exchanged contact information with everyone but didn’t agree to anything on the spot, only saying she’d consider it. That was enough to shake off those overly enthusiastic seniors.
After leaving, she didn’t go find Meng Chuanling either. She simply sent a message asking her to claim the winnings and transfer her share directly.
Meng Chuanling obediently sent a photo of the total amount and transferred Xu Zhi’s portion.
To Xu Zhi’s surprise, she received a full 120,000 points.
Twenty thousand more than expected!
Besides the transfer, Meng Chuanling sent her a bunch of messages, but Xu Zhi skimmed through them—mostly flattery—and ignored them.
With a huge sum in hand, Xu Zhi eagerly opened the academy’s exchange page. Besides cores, she also planned to get herself a suitable weapon.
Clearly, while her extraordinary ability made it easy to deal with weaker opponents, she still lacked sufficient offensive methods when facing evenly matched enemies.
As for what weapon to choose…
Xu Zhi temporarily gave up on the saber.
At this point, revealing that she was actually highly skilled with a blade would be… awkward.
After browsing for a while, she suddenly realized that her ability would pair extremely well with a certain weapon.
A handgun.
The idea came from Chunming. With her Curse Speech, she could ensure bullets always hit their target. And now, she felt she was already brushing against the threshold of “Authority.” Once she stepped into the Longevity stage, she might regain control of this ability.
At that point…
By using Authority to engrave the power of Curse Speech onto the bullets, she wouldn’t even need to activate it on the spot or speak—she could still fire guaranteed-hit shots.
All that remained was the power of the bullets themselves.
And that was easy to solve.
As long as she could restore the [Moth] circuit, she could infuse its abilities into the bullets. Bullets with the Moth attribute inherently carried chaos. Moreover, her own extraordinary ability, [Moth], went far beyond that—once it hit, the opponent would suffer anything from momentary confusion to complete loss of combat ability, becoming her puppet.
“Perfect!”
She really had to thank Senior Chunming—what a massive experience pack.
She could even try creating bullets that combined both [Lamp] and [Moth] attributes. Normally, the two abilities would remain separate within the bullet, but upon impact, they would collide and trigger a clash of extraordinary attributes.
“Now that’s the way!”
That was the plan.
To achieve this, both Authority and [Moth] were indispensable. Without Authority, she couldn’t freely control and modify extraordinary abilities. Without [Moth], there was nothing to work with.
Just thinking about the power of such a weapon made Xu Zhi impatient.
She browsed the handgun category for quite a while and quickly settled on one. Its raw power wasn’t particularly high, but it had a larger magazine than most handguns. More importantly, it was made using relatively mild extraordinary materials, making it more durable when channeling extraordinary abilities.
Even so, the handgun alone cost 10,000 points.
Fortunately, Xu Zhi was now rich. She placed the order without hesitation.
She spent the rest of her points on cores. She already had a clear idea of how many she needed to advance to the Longevity stage, so most of her points went into purchasing [Lamp]-attribute cores.
A smaller portion went into [Moth].
After all, besides the large number of Lamp cores needed for advancement, she also needed a reserve supply. She definitely planned to participate in future competitions—no way she’d pass up opportunities to reap rewards.
Moreover, she wasn’t sure if her internal circuit might act up again and devour large amounts of energy, so she bought an especially large amount of Lamp cores.
The purchased items were quickly delivered to her dorm.
Qi Yanxin wasn’t home. The inner academy was vast, almost like a complete miniature society. Recently, Qi Yanxin had become absorbed in attending classes—ordinary ones accessible even to non-extraordinary people—so Xu Zhi let her be.
With no one to disturb her, Xu Zhi returned to her room, opened the package, and took out the Lamp cores, preparing to advance herself directly to the Longevity stage.
After getting ready, she had Xiao Yi stand guard, then took out a pile of gleaming Lamp cores. Since these were mostly high-level cores, she didn’t gulp down a handful at once, instead cautiously starting with two.
The moment the cores entered her mouth, the familiar sensation returned. A large amount of Lamp-type extraordinary energy flowed down her throat into her body. For a brief moment, she felt as if the sheer volume of energy might tear her apart—but in the next instant, the complex circuit within her seemed to sense “food” and instantly drew in all the energy flooding her system.
Those tiny “tendrils” that had been quiet for a while reappeared, greedily devouring the abundant energy for the first time since their birth. The energy that had nearly overwhelmed her was rapidly absorbed.
Xu Zhi vaguely sensed something like “satisfaction” from the circuit.
She was momentarily speechless, but as soon as the energy was nearly depleted, she promptly added two more cores.
Like this, she quickly broke through to Level 7 Proficiency, so smoothly that it felt entirely natural, without any sense of difficulty.
But that wasn’t enough—her goal was Longevity.
Through her studies, she now understood that ordinary extraordinary beings couldn’t continuously consume attribute cores like she could. Though she didn’t know why she was an exception, she had no intention of wasting the advantage.
However, the energy required to go from Level 7 to Longevity was immense. Even after consuming more than half of her pile of Lamp cores, she still didn’t feel close to breaking through.
Only after another core’s energy was absorbed—most of it flowing into the circuit, with a small portion integrating into her flesh—did she finally sense a change.
A feeling of “fullness” emerged from her core.
She suddenly realized—this was the moment.
As that sense of fullness reached its peak, faint starlight appeared before her eyes. She instinctively tried to look closer, and in the next instant—without even realizing it—everything changed.
She seemed to have arrived somewhere special.
It felt familiar, yet unfamiliar.
Familiar, because it was a forest. Unfamiliar, because everything here was brimming with life, utterly different from the “forests” she had seen in the Federation.
Those forests were dead, filled with danger and withered trees.
This one, however, was vibrant—dangerous, perhaps, but also full of vitality.
Here, it felt like anything was possible.
Xu Zhi’s mind remained clear. She immediately realized—this was likely the great dream realm that other extraordinary beings longed for, the true Mansus.
Looking at the dense forest with no clear paths, she cautiously took a few steps forward.
It was easy—there was no sense of obstruction at all.
Birdsong and floral fragrance surrounded her, the atmosphere calm and pleasant.
She walked forward again, wandering for quite some time without encountering any danger. The sunlight filtering through the forest was warm and comforting, the air dry, and occasional birdsong echoed around her.
But as she stepped past a certain tree, her vision suddenly blurred. When she opened her eyes again, she was back in her bedroom.
Then she realized—
She had already returned to the Longevity stage.
Though only at the initial level…
“So easy?”
Her internal circuit had expanded several times over without her noticing. Within it, a new, complex pattern had appeared. Unlike [Spirit Body] or [Kin], this pattern seemed to be built upon the entire circuit itself, almost as large as the circuit.
It represented [Authority].
It was back. Everything was back.
As expected, the upper district was on another level. She had stayed in the lower district for so long with barely any improvement, yet after coming here for just a month, she had already returned to the Longevity stage.
