The homeroom teacher arrived quickly.
He was a middle-aged man with glasses, named Zhou, who had taught them Chinese for three years and was dubbed "Old Zhou" by the students.
Standing on the podium in a relaxed posture, Old Zhou clapped his hands with a light expression. "Long time no see, class. How was your summer break?"
Everyone below respectfully chorused back, "Good~"
Neat, orderly, and cheerful.
Old Zhou's expression grew even more serene. "As long as you had a good time~ I won't ramble on. Everyone received the text notification from the Municipal Psionic Bureau, right?"
"We got it~" the students answered in a drawn-out, sluggish drone before breaking into chatter again.
He smiled and tapped on the podium, gesturing for quiet. "At nine-thirty this morning, staff from the Psionic Bureau will arrive at the school to conduct a psionic census for incoming tenth-graders. Soon, there will be a broadcast announcement. Whichever class is called will head down to prepare. You'll line up by student ID number, going one by one. Don't rush, and keep it quiet."
At that point, Old Zhou paused, his smile carrying a hint of a homeroom teacher's habitual authority as he added with emphasized weight, "The results of this census will be entered into your files, affecting your track placement and developmental path in high school, so take it seriously."
A buzz of discussion broke out in the classroom.
Sitting by the window, Jiang Zhaoye listened to the chatter around him, his fingertips gently tapping the desk now and then.
At nine-thirty, the staff from the Psionic Bureau arrived right on time.
Looking through the window, Jiang Zhaoye saw several black military jeeps driving onto the nearby sports field, alongside a white medical truck the size of a freight van.
Soldiers clad in black tactical gear and holding psionic guns stepped out of the jeeps first, quickly dispersing around the sports field to stand guard in formation.
Following them, staff members in matching uniforms emerged one after another from the medical truck, setting up silver-gray tents side by side in front of the sports field's flag-raising platform.
The school's public address system crackled to life, announcing for Classes 1 through 3 to head downstairs.
The campus instantly burst into noise.
From afar, Jiang Zhaoye watched students swarm the sports field like ants. Under their teachers' direction, they lined up in queues before the gray tents, going inside one by one and coming out in twos and threes.
Soon, the broadcast called Class 9; Class 10 would be up next.
Jiang Zhaoye felt a nudge on his shoulder. Turning around, he saw Lin Shutong holding out her forearms to show him several smudges of dust. She nodded her chin toward his desk drawer. "Wet wipe."
Chen Tuizhi whipped his head around. "Me too!"
Realizing they had gotten dirty from the dust on the desks and chairs, Jiang Zhaoye felt amused as he pulled out the half-used pack of wet wipes from under his desk, opened the lid, and gestured for her to pull one out.
Lin Shutong quickly grabbed two. Before anyone could react, a dense cluster of hands reached in from every direction, clamoring with cries of "I want one too!" In the blink of an eye, the entire pack was emptied.
Before Jiang Zhaoye could even recover, he heard Chen Tuizhi's tragic wail: "It's gone already?! You didn't even leave one for me?!"
Watching the disappointed students who didn't get any wipes disperse around him, Jiang Zhaoye slowly looked down, only to see the deflated plastic packaging left in his hand: "..."
The school's broadcast room chimed in right on cue: "Would students from—former Class 10 to Class 11, Grade 9—please head downstairs in an orderly manner. Under the guidance of your homeroom teachers, line up to enter and prepare for your psionic test."
Having finished, it lazily repeated: "Would students from—former Class 10 to Class 11, Grade 9—please head downstairs in an orderly manner..."
Old Zhou clapped loudly to grab the students' attention. "Time to go downstairs! Walk slowly, and gather by the second flower bed—did you hear me—?"
"We—heard—you—!"
The students surged out in a loud wave, answering back in a sparse drone, leaving Old Zhou shaking his head with an amused sigh.
Swept up in the crowd of his class, Jiang Zhaoye blended in unobtrusively, heading downstairs, gathering, and lining up.
Under Old Zhou's direction, he followed the queue to the silver-gray tent.
The entrance to the tent was wide open without any cover. Perhaps due to the enhancement from his spirit eye, Jiang Zhaoye's eyesight was exceptionally good; even from afar, he could clearly see inside through the tent door.
The two inspectors responsible for testing their class were a man and a woman wearing dark blue uniforms under white coats, with the badge of the Psionic Bureau pinned to their chests.
The man looked to be in his thirties, tall with a solemn face, busy organizing the instruments on the table.
The woman looked much younger, her hair tied in a ponytail, resembling a college student who had recently graduated. However, her expression was cold, and she held a silver-white device in her hand that appeared to be some kind of testing apparatus.
Next to the two stood a display screen the size of a television, constantly fluctuating with various data.
Teacher Zhou stepped forward, smiling as he shook hands with the male staff member and spoke with him in low voices for a few moments. Then he turned around and waved to the students. "Everyone line up by student ID. Starting from Number 1, come in one by one for testing. Once you're done, don't linger in the tent—come straight out and wait in the classroom."
Jiang Zhaoye's student ID was Number 26, placing him somewhere near the middle-back of the queue.
Glancing at the long line ahead of him, he quietly looked down at the data on his watch.
[Psionic Energy: Metal 13, Water 36, Ice 62]
These days, his attribute gains through direct cultivation were growing slower and slower. When Jiang Zhaoye resumed practicing Water-Ice Attribute Conversion, he found that the efficiency was actually higher. Pushing himself to the limit, he had finally pushed his Ice attribute past the 60 mark, equivalent to the tier of a high-grade ice spirit root... However, once the Ice attribute exceeded 60, it required two points of Water attribute to convert into one point of Ice attribute. When the Water attribute dropped below 40, it took four points of Water attribute to convert into a single point of Ice attribute.
In late summer, Huaicheng's sun remained scorching. With noon approaching at nearly eleven o'clock, sunlight beat down relentlessly, making skin sting with heat and causing the specially treated grayish-black sports field surface to gleam a blinding white.
Ever since the previous century, the world seemed to have leveled up alongside the revival of spiritual qi. As if aware that human endurance had increased, summers became hotter and winters colder. In certain places, saying the sky was "raining fire from heat" was sometimes not a metaphor... but a literal description.
At its hottest, Huaicheng's sky would truly rain fire.
Dragged out onto the sports field to roast, the students were all drenched in sweat, looking listless and drained.
The students ahead eagerly entered the tent one after another, then exited through the door—some beaming with joy, others thoroughly dejected, and a few with hands in pockets and blank expressions.
The queue shortened at an unhurried pace.
A boy lined up a few spots ahead of Jiang Zhaoye came out after finishing his test, his face visibly pale and glum. His desk mate, who had been waiting outside, leaned over and asked, "How'd it go?"
"Metal 3, Wood 12, Earth 11, Water 8." The boy grumbled dispiritedly, "I spent nearly two months practicing attribute conversion, and it only raised my Wood attribute by one point. Still far from reaching the awakening threshold."
"Tell me about it." The desk mate nodded in sympathetic agreement. "Converting attributes is way too hard... At least yours went up by a point. Mine didn't budge at all over the entire summer break."
The boy said expressionlessly, "My overall rating is only E-rank. The Psionic Bureau people suggested I take the liberal arts track to see if I can bring my Earth or Wood attributes up to the threshold over three years, so I can try for a civil engineering major later."
Patting his shoulder, the desk mate comforted him, "Honestly, that's not bad. I heard civil engineering actually has pretty good prospects and it's easy to find a job."
The boy said nothing more, simply hanging his head and walking forward.
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