After this comment appeared, the comment section went quiet for a full three minutes. Then it exploded even harder.
“Seven rounds? Are you sure? Do you know what seven rounds even means? In all of Hangzhou's younger generation, you can't even find a few with six rounds. And you're telling me an F-rank lightning user has at least seven rounds of bone tempering?”
“Believe it or not, and he even charges money for a challenge.”
“How much per time?”
“Fifty thousand.”
“...”
“Is this an exam or a business?”
The video views rose from hundreds to thousands, then from thousands to tens of thousands. The share count went up too.
Someone tagged the official account of the Hangzhou Ability User Association in the comments, and some tagged the admissions offices of the four top academies.
Others directly moved the video to the National Ability User Forum, changing the title to “F-rank Lightning User Wipes Nine in Hangzhou College Entrance Exam, Eight Rounds of Bone Tempering Likely Confirmed.”
In Magic City, Shen Man was curled up on her hotel sofa watching a show.
A message popped up on her phone—a link forwarded by a colleague.
She clicked it and finished watching the video with its grainy quality. Then she laughed.
“This kid.”
She sent Lin Yuan a message. The signal was too poor; she didn't know when he'd receive it.
“I heard you're holding a challenge stage in Hangzhou? Fifty thousand a pop? Give me half.”
The campfire gradually died out, and the moon shifted westward.
Lin Yuan leaned against a tree trunk with his eyes closed, unaware that he had become a trending topic.
He was just thinking about what to eat tomorrow.
...
When dawn broke, Lin Yuan was vibrated awake by his phone.
It wasn't an alarm, but the notification sound chiming seven or eight times in a row.
He groggily pulled out his phone. The screen's light made him squint. There was only one bar of signal, but the messages forced their way through anyway.
Shen Man, five unread.
The first one: “I heard you're holding a challenge stage in Hangzhou? Fifty thousand a pop? Give me half.” Sent at 11:40 PM last night.
The second was a link to a post on the local Hangzhou forum.
The third: “The video of you taking on nine people is trending too. Congratulations, Boss Lin.”
The fourth was three thumbs-up emojis. The fifth was sent at 2:00 AM: “Reply when you're awake.”
Lin Yuan stared at the screen for three seconds.
The one-vs-nine went viral?
He scratched the back of his head and clicked the link.
The loading circle spun for a while before a video, as blurry as looking through frosted glass, slowly appeared.
Purple spear shadows flashed, nine people lay scattered, and the final thrust shattered a distress signal device.
The title: “F-rank Lightning User Wipes Nine! Mysterious Powerhouse Appears in Hangzhou College Entrance Exam!” The view count had already reached over a hundred thousand.
After watching it, Lin Yuan closed the video expressionlessly because...
It was shot so damn poorly.
It turned his majestic one-vs-nine into a pixel war. Anyone who didn't know better would think it was leaked footage from a bootleg DVD from the early 2000s.
He replied to Shen Man: “Teacher Shen, you don't sleep at night just to binge-watch my videos?”
The message took a while to spin before showing it was sent successfully.
Unexpectedly, Shen Man replied instantly. It seemed she had been waiting for him.
“I don't sleep at night because I'm writing exam questions. You don't sleep at night because you're becoming a viral star. Which of us is more ridiculous?”
Lin Yuan was momentarily speechless and replied: “I didn't film that video.”
“But you're the one making the money. Fifty thousand a pop, eight or nine in one night—that's over four hundred thousand, right? Let me calculate, based on the commission rate for Magic City Academy admissions teachers...”
“Teacher Shen.” Lin Yuan decisively interrupted her: “You are the best admissions teacher in the world.”
“Speak plainly.”
“Can we forget about the commission?”
“Depends on your performance.”
Lin Yuan grinned.
He leaned against the tree trunk, crossed his legs into a comfortable position, and his mind quickly raced.
His lightning attack methods were indeed a bit lacking. Thunder Walk Through Nine Heavens was a spear technique, meant for close-range single targets.
Sands of Time was for control and couldn't kill.
He needed a long-range lightning combat technique that could be used without a weapon.
Shen Man was a Tier 4 lightning user and an admissions teacher for Magic City Academy; she definitely had some resources.
Accessing the academy's technique library would have to wait until he got to Magic City, but he could ask Shen Man for something now.
“Teacher Shen,” he sent another message.
“Hmm?”
“Look, I'm just an F-rank lightning user struggling among three thousand examinees in Hangzhou. I only have one spear technique and no long-range skills.”
“When I run into an opponent who kites me, I can only chase them on foot. It's fine if I catch them, but if I don't, I'm just running around like an idiot.”
“If I fail the exam, whose face will be lost? Mine? No, it's Magic City Academy's face.”
Shen Man was silent for several seconds. Then she replied with one word: “Keep acting.”
“I'm serious.”
Lin Yuan remained deadpan: “Think about it. I'm currently first on the credit leaderboard, and the whole internet is watching. What if a long-range user kites me to death tomorrow?”
“When the video hits the net—‘Number One in Hangzhou College Entrance Exam Kited to Death’—is this the combat capability of a Magic City Academy prospective freshman?”
Another few seconds of silence.
Then Shen Man replied: “You're a damn genius. Not for your ability talent, but for the thickness of your skin.”
Lin Yuan sent a grinning emoji.
Shen Man replied again: “Fine. I have a Tier 4 lightning combat technique here called 《Running Thunder Finger》. It's long-range, single-target burst. The pros are fast activation, low consumption, and no weapon required.”
“The downside is that the power decays with distance; the further it goes, the weaker it gets. Your lightning ability is only E-rank, so how much power you can bring out depends on you.”
“I'll send the digital copy to your private account. Whether you can learn it before the exam ends isn't my concern.”
“Teacher Shen, I love you.”
“Get lost. Pay for your own milk tea.”
Less than ten seconds later, his phone vibrated again.
His private account received an encrypted file with a three-word name—Running Thunder Finger.
Opening it, dense energy circulation diagrams and text explanations poured out. The complexity of a Tier 4 combat technique was quite a bit lower than Thunder Walk Through Nine Heavens, but it wasn't something that could be learned with just a few glances.
Lin Yuan skimmed through it.
The core idea was very direct: compress lightning energy to the tips of the index and middle fingers, forming a “lightning needle,” and then flick it out.
It wasn't shot out, but flicked, hence the name Running Thunder Finger.
The advantage was the extremely fast activation, requiring almost no charge time—flick and fire.
The disadvantage was that the power decayed severely with distance. The optimal range was within five meters; beyond ten meters, the power was halved.
It was exactly what he wanted.
He didn't plan on being a long-range sniper anyway.
What he wanted was an extra killing move that would catch the opponent off guard during close combat.
...
He sat cross-legged and began guiding his lightning energy according to the path in the technique.
This process wasn't hard; what was hard was the “compression.”
Compressing a fist-sized ball of lightning into a grain-sized point required extremely fine control.
On his first attempt, the lightning exploded at his fingertips.
It didn't flick out; it just exploded.
It made his index and middle fingers go numb, and even his fingernails were glowing.
“Fuck,” Lin Yuan shook his hand.
Rate on N.U.
