Soon, Boulder City returned to the same peaceful days as always.
60 days remained until the final assessment.
That morning, Jiang Lin borrowed Basic Archery from the school library. After practicing for a while, he successfully became initiated.
Then he spent 3 Random Skill Upgrade points to raise it from initiated to limit-broken.
[Basic Archery (initiated) → (limit-broken)]
[Successfully comprehended archery intent]
[Archery talent increased slightly]
After that, Jiang Lin also learned Ring of Holy Healing.
It was a high-tier healing spell that could place a continuously healing aura on a designated target. The healing amount was decent, and it might be useful in certain situations.
He spent 1 Random Skill Upgrade point again, raising it to superlative.
With the remaining skill points, Jiang Lin decided to test the waters by upgrading a mid-tier skill first, to see whether he could handle the memory load of limit-breaking a mid-tier skill.
After consuming 8 Random Skill Upgrade points—
[Mid-level Strengthening (limit-breakable 0/4) → (limit-broken)]
[Mid-tier magic knowledge accumulation increased]
A huge flood of memories surged in.
The method for limit-breaking mid-tier magic was the same as for low-tier magic: completely master the related foundational spells.
But mid-tier magic contained at least several thousand magic essence circuits—ten times that of low-tier spells.
So researching it was far slower than low-tier magic.
His brain spun violently. Jiang Lin slumped in his chair and passed out.
When he woke up again, it was already several hours later.
No one had noticed him.
Only faint light-element particles were soothing his mind.
Letting out a long breath, Jiang Lin continued cultivating.
After that, time passed in day after day of tireless training.
Jiang Lin also began attempting his first high-tier skill’s limit-break.
After consuming 16 Random Skill Upgrade points—
[Seven Star Holy Glow Slash (limit-breakable 0/8) → (limit-broken)]
[Seven Star Holy Glow Slash gained adaptive changes]
[Swordsmanship talent increased moderately; light-attribute affinity increased moderately]
The way to limit-break a high-tier combat technique was similar to magic: you had to fully understand its operating logic, and be able to make certain modifications.
This reduced the consumption dramatically when used, and also allowed you to selectively amplify a particular aspect of its power.
But the required memory load also increased massively.
Fortunately, Jiang Lin’s earlier swordsmanship talent boosts shortened a task that might have taken many lifetimes—he completed it in just five lives.
Even so, the enormous memory load still left him unconscious for a long time.
He even found himself once again staring at the familiar ceiling of the infirmary.
……
In the blink of an eye, 25 days passed.
35 days remained until the final assessment.
Jiang Lin had been sitting at his desk almost without rest for 25 straight days.
He didn’t listen to class. He didn’t sleep.
His only “activity” was probably buying breakfast in the morning—incidentally “kneading ants to achieve the Great Dao”—and buying his dried rations for lunch and dinner.
Although Wills had offered to treat him to a meal, Jiang Lin had gotten used to rations and felt going out to eat was a waste of time, so he wasn’t in the mood to go.
For now, he set aside skill upgrades and planned to raise his level first. Once he understood his weaknesses more clearly, he would claim the corresponding skills.
A trace of sunset appeared on the horizon. The blood-red glow spilled into the elite class of Radiant Junior Magic Academy, falling across Jiang Lin’s body.
His eyes were closed. Around him, magic essence slowly flowed toward him.
His heart was calm as still water as he watched the last drop of magic essence liquid fall inside his body’s “small bowl,” pushing the level-9 liquid surface to its absolute peak.
The next moment, the aura around him began changing rapidly.
Breakthrough to Level 10!
These were the results of his efforts over the past days:
[Level: 5 → 10]
[stamina]: 13,500 → 41,000
[mental power]: 11,500 → 37,000
[Random Skill Upgrade ×25 → 16]
His skill points were now just enough to push another high-tier skill to limit-broken.
Now his body contained explosive power, his mental power was stronger than ever, and his foundational attributes had all improved significantly.
After reaching a higher level, Jiang Lin felt that facing lower-level classmates came with a faint bloodline-like pressure.
It was extremely weak right now—if he didn’t deliberately sense it, he might not notice it at all. In ordinary combat, it was basically useless.
But if the gap kept widening, this level-based suppression would become more obvious.
Perhaps, like demonic beasts possessing racial levels, the human leveling process meant he would transform from an ordinary human into a higher-bloodline human.
No wonder he’d felt such psychological pressure when facing the Hall Master.
After leveling up, Jiang Lin also discovered that using the same amount of mental power or stamina to cast the same skill produced slightly more power than before.
It might be because the quality of magic essence in his body had risen.
At the same time, after reaching level 10, Jiang Lin felt as if a shackle bound him.
It seemed he needed to claim a breakthrough quest in order to break it.
This so-called breakthrough quest required going to a place called the “God-Given Land.”
Jiang Lin wasn’t very clear on what the God-Given Land was like. He planned to ask his teacher later.
“You broke through to level 10?!”
Jiang Lin’s new seatmate stared at him with wide eyes.
Delicate features, smooth long hair, and watery eyes full of innocence and clarity—this was the little priest girl, Aili.
When Jiang Lin transferred into the class, the seat beside her was the only one left, so he was placed next to her.
“Of course,” Jiang Lin replied.
“So amazing! These days I haven’t seen you train your body at all—can your physique really keep up?”
After spending so many days together, Aili and Jiang Lin were no longer strangers, so she chatted casually.
As she spoke, she deliberately pinched Jiang Lin’s biceps, as if testing his physical strength.
Her cool little hand brought a soft sensation, and as she leaned closer, a faint fragrance drifted from her hair.
If it were Tie Chen, he might have blushed, heart pounding, and gotten trained like a dog.
But Jiang Lin only gave her a sidelong look, basically like:
(￢_￢)
“Of course it can. You’re not a genius—you wouldn’t understand.”
This girl liked getting handsy whenever she had nothing better to do, often deliberately leaning in and making “accidentally” suggestive gestures.
He’d seen plenty of these tricks in his previous life, and his own tricks were far richer, so there was no way he’d feel even a flicker of attraction.
What she was doing wasn’t even worth a single gold coin compared to Miss Anya in his heart!
“Clang.”
A sound came from the classroom doorway. It was Zach, who had just finished dinner, and beside him stood a tall shield warrior.
The shield warrior still held unfinished dinner, eating as he walked, trying to save time for cultivation.
But when he saw the scene, he froze in place. He even forgot to keep chewing the chicken leg in his mouth, and the tray fell to the floor with that noise.
Aili saw that two fish from her “pond” had witnessed this and immediately felt enormous pressure.
Letting your fish see you being ambiguous with someone else was absolutely taboo.
If they saw it, you’d lose a lot of favorability—maybe even lose a fish from the pond.
Like secretly liking a girl and keeping an ambiguous relationship, thinking she might like you too—then one day you find her walking hand-in-hand with someone else. You’d explode mentally and instantly fall out of love.
Jiang Lin looked at the two at the door. He knew they were fish in this little girl’s pond. He wanted to see how Aili would resolve this crisis.
She withdrew her hand from Jiang Lin’s arm, then waved to them like nothing had happened:
“Come look—Jiang Lin broke through to level 10 so quickly! And these days he hasn’t trained at all. He reached the body strength needed for breakthrough purely from his previous accumulation. He’s really amazing!”
In one short sentence, she redirected their attention to Jiang Lin’s level 10 breakthrough, and also explained the earlier closeness as “checking his physique.”
While that was indeed the truth, explaining it seriously versus saying it casually like this produced completely different effects.
The shield warrior felt he’d probably overthought it and was embarrassed by his earlier reaction, so he grumbled an excuse for himself:
“Ah, my hand slipped just now. This tray really has issues… what a waste of chicken legs…”
Meanwhile, Zach remained silent.
Jiang Lin watched and smiled without speaking.
Such youthful, innocent, beautiful campus romance…
But it had nothing to do with an old fossil like him who’d lived two lives.
He’d experienced teenage first love, the passionate—or shy—romance of his twenties, and unfortunately they all ended in regret. Then in his thirties he’d had no romance at all, just matchmaking for a practical partner.
So now he didn’t have much thought about feelings. He even felt like he’d lost the ability to truly like someone.
Sigh—being young is nice.
By the way… when exactly had he transmigrated here?
Jiang Lin frowned and tried to recall.
His last memory stopped at a day of overtime. He dragged his exhausted body home, looked at the mortgage that would take more than twenty years to pay off, ate a pre-made takeaway meal, lay on the sofa scrolling videos until midnight—then woke up and found himself in this world.
He wondered if his browser history would get dug up…
Memory over—the shield warrior had already walked up to Jiang Lin.
He seemed curious how strong Jiang Lin really was, so he asked:
“Brother Jiang, can I test your strength?”
As he spoke, he assumed a posture for arm-wrestling.
Jiang Lin smiled faintly.
“Sure.”
Then he also set his elbow and took the stance.
The commotion made quite a few people turn around.
Their palms met.
“You go first,” Jiang Lin said, prompting this newly promoted simp to make the first move.
In the next moment, a pressure burst outward, centered on the two of them, sending a wave of air across the room.
“Damn it—who was that?! My draft paper got blown away!”
A classmate’s curse could be faintly heard.
But the two arm-wrestlers ignored it completely.
The simp—call him simp number two—went all-out, face flushed, using the strength of his life to force Jiang Lin’s arm down.
Yet in the face of that ferocious effort, Jiang Lin remained calm and relaxed, as if the other guy’s full power couldn’t affect him in the slightest.
Then Jiang Lin began to apply force.
Under simp number two’s increasingly desperate gaze, his wrist was pushed down bit by bit. No matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t escape the crushing pressure of Jiang Lin’s hand.
What made him despair even more was that even at this point, Jiang Lin still looked effortless—like he wasn’t even trying.
Right now, Jiang Lin felt to him like a humanoid overlord-class giant dragon, crushing him in strength with no room for resistance.
Finally, his hand hit the tabletop. Simp number two slumped and let go.
“Don’t be discouraged. It’s normal you can’t catch up to me. Right now is the closest you’ll ever be to me—cherish this moment and sprint with everything you’ve got, try not to get left behind too much.”
Jiang Lin consoled him.
“You… how did you do it?”
The other guy asked in confusion.
Jiang Lin shook his head.
“Persistent effort and my world-shaking talent. You’re not a genius—you wouldn’t understand, and that’s normal.”
“Genius…”
Simp number two stared blankly, lost in thought.
Nearby, Zach—who’d been watching—still said nothing, only silently thinking about what he’d seen at the doorway.
From that reaction earlier… did that guy also like Aili…?
Then he began recalling all his moments with Aili, that constant ambiguity and shifting distance…
She seemed like that with a lot of guys?
Had he been baited by Aili?
For a moment, Zach’s mind wavered, as if he’d glimpsed the truth of life—and began his own growth arc.
“Are you planning to take the special assessment?”
At this time, Anya Castrot walked over from her seat.
To be honest, Jiang Lin’s cultivation speed had become so fast she couldn’t understand it.
Even if she sprinted with all her strength, she would still need more than a month to go from level 9 to level 10.
But Jiang Lin was like he’d turned on hacks, starting from level 3 and chasing upward relentlessly.
At a pace of one level per week, he’d climbed from level 3 to level 10.
Had he spent the past three years purely tempering his physique?
But that didn’t make sense either—training the body didn’t stop someone from leveling up.
And as for these questions, Jiang Lin always answered vaguely. Nobody knew what he was really thinking.
“Yeah. Since I’ve decided to show my edge, I won’t let these rigid rules restrict my growth speed.”
Jiang Lin replied, his words full of dominance and confidence.
Anya stared into Jiang Lin’s eyes, silent for a moment.
Then she asked:
“Which Middle Magic Academy are you planning to go to for the special assessment?”
She wanted to know which academy Jiang Lin planned to go “harm.”
Jiang Lin thought for a bit.
“Right now we’re in third year, and the high-level academies don’t recruit students from our year anymore, so I can only choose a Middle Magic Academy.
“And among the middle academies, in Qinghe County, the best one in Qinghe City is Saint Brilliance Middle Magic Academy.
“I checked its special assessment rules. The difficulty doesn’t seem that high—so long as you have some combat ability, I think I can pass easily.”
Anya nodded when she heard that, then said:
“Since you’ve already made your choice, I wish you luck. With your strength, getting into Saint Brilliance Middle Magic Academy definitely won’t be a problem.”
After a pause, she continued:
“I mentioned you to my father. He wants to meet you.
“Do you have time recently? Come sit with us at the Castrot family estate?”
Rate on N.U.
