Studying Hard

Yue Shi didn't sleep a wink all night.

After the lights went out, the room was plunged into total darkness, without a single sliver of light.

He lay on the bed with his eyes closed, playing dead. His mind was incredibly sharp, and every sense was dialed to the maximum, capturing every subtle change in the room.

The Snow Leopard was curled up by his pillow, its tail covering its nose, motionless like a plush toy.

Happy Daoist and Foreshadowing were also quiet, their breathing absent.

There was the voice of a fourth person in the room, and no one dared to make a move.

A moment later, the voice of the fourth person rang out again, very close to Yue Shi's bed.

“Sigh.” A heavy sigh.

“The cafeteria served a new dish tonight. It tasted quite good; have you tried it?”

No one responded. The three continued to play dead.

“Really, why is everyone so quiet?” the voice spoke again.

Yue Shi wondered who was speaking.

This was most likely a trap. Someone was testing whether they had actually fallen asleep on time.

The dormitory manager, or some other entity, had entered the dormitory after lights out, using various methods to lure them into responding.

The moment they spoke, it would prove they weren't sleeping.

Given how treacherous this school was, Yue Shi felt certain there were rules regarding the dormitory. One had to sleep after lights out, even if they were just faking it.

If they didn't sleep after the lights went out, they might suffer a punishment.

Yue Shi didn't know what the punishment was, and he didn't want to find out.

So, he continued to fake sleep.

Happy Daoist and Foreshadowing were clearly no fools either; they had both realized this. The three remained motionless and silent.

The voice continued to mutter for a while longer. Seeing that there was still no response, footsteps echoed as the entity moved from the room toward the door. The door opened briefly and then clicked shut.

The footsteps vanished completely.

But the three still didn't move, nor did they open their eyes. What if the other party pulled a sudden turnaround?

In this school, even sleeping was a trap.

...

The next day, on the playground.

Wails and groans echoed through the air.

The freshmen who had chosen to sleep on the playground last night were now lying on the ground, clutching their severed limbs. Blood gushed from between their fingers and was absorbed by the ground, vanishing without a trace.

They were missing hands or feet, their faces pale as they cursed incessantly.

“Sleeping on the playground is out of the question!” a man who had lost a leg cried out.

He had spent the whole night lying on the grass without issue, but the moment he opened his eyes this morning, his leg had been severed.

It was likely the penalty for staying out at night.

“They’re forcing us to take the exams! They want us to find any way possible to earn points!” another person ground out through clenched teeth.

No exam meant no points, no points meant no dormitory, and no dormitory meant being dismembered. Every path to survival was being cut off!

Fortunately, those who could come here were not ordinary people. Their willpower was incredibly resilient; even after suffering such heavy injuries, no one fell into despair.

After complaining for a short while, people began running toward the teaching building and the library. They were going to take exams, re-exams, and extra exams—they would earn points by any means possible!

...

Yue Shi went straight to the library after getting up.

No one said a word about what happened the previous night.

When he took out his student card, Yue Shi noticed that the black lotus mark on it had changed. It had seven petals last night, but when he woke up this morning, one was missing.

He immediately realized that the protection had a time limit. The help Tang Zhuhe had given him was not infinite; perhaps one petal was consumed every day.

He wasn't sure what would happen once all the petals fell off, so he had to hurry. He needed to learn enough knowledge, get high scores, and graduate to leave this school before the protection failed.

The library was even more crowded than yesterday.

Some were flipping through books, some were taking notes, and some were discussing in low voices or reciting with their eyes closed.

These transmigrators were all true gods; their memory, comprehension, and analytical skills were countless times stronger than those of mortals.

A book that would take an ordinary person a long time to read only took them ten minutes.

But the problem was that there were too many books.

The library's collection was so dense it was impossible to see the end of it. Even with the abilities of true gods, it was impossible to finish them all in a short time.

Yue Shi decided to take a shortcut.

He raised his right hand and tapped the air. A mirror emerged.

Then, mirror clones of Yue Shi walked out of it, one after another.

Countless Yue Shis silently walked toward the bookshelves, took down books, opened them, and began to read.

The library was filled with Yue Shi's figure. They leaned against bookshelves, sat on chairs, crouched in corners, and stood in the aisles.

Every Yue Shi was reading, frantically recording the contents of the books. There was no need to understand them for now; he would memorize everything first.

The other freshmen stopped what they were doing and looked at the Yue Shis with complex expressions.

Many people knew how to use a cloning technique.

However, creating so many clones at once—and having each clone perform a different task—consumed an immense amount of mental energy.

When the clones were retracted, he would have to endure the memories of all of them. Could someone really learn this way?

If he memorized the points incorrectly by swallowing the information whole, he would have to waste time re-reading. It would be better not to learn at all.

“This...” A young man opened his mouth to speak but then closed it. He looked at the book in his hand, of which he had only turned a few pages, then at the Yue Shis who were reading like madmen, and his lip twitched. He lowered his head and continued flipping through his own book, his speed doubling.

Yue Shi’s main body stood in the center of the library with his eyes closed.

The reading material from countless clones was continuously flowing into his consciousness.

Those words, formulas, theorems, definitions, and case studies... like countless rivers, they surged from all directions into his mind.

His brow furrowed slightly; the volume of information was too vast. With so many books being read simultaneously, thousands upon thousands of words flooded his consciousness every second.

Therefore, he chose to skip the process of filtering and categorizing, recording everything indiscriminately.

His brain was operating at high speed, like an overloaded computer with fans spinning wildly and a burning processor.

The Snow Leopard saw that smoke was rising from the top of Yue Shi's head. It jumped down from his arms and crouched at his feet, looking around alertly.

Ghost poked his head out from a collar button and found a book to read as well. He could confidently say his information processing speed was faster than Yue Shi's, but unfortunately, he couldn't enter the exam room with him.

The others in the library cast a few glances at the unusual combination.

Everyone here had their own way of studying. Even if it looked bizarre, no one would disturb them.

Because they knew that in this school, knowledge was points, and points were life. Everyone was studying with their lives on the line.

In Yue Shi's vision, the reading screens of his clones were still overlapping, like countless screens playing different content at once.

He paused for a moment, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and continued recording.

The sunlight outside moved from the east to the west, but Yue Shi remained absorbed, forgetting to eat or sleep.

At first, it was just rote memorization, but he soon discovered that the knowledge in the books was actually useful.