BEEP BEEP BEEP—BEEP BEEP BEEP—
The alarm clock rang five times, and his mother, Zheng Qiuling, called to wake him up three times.
Finally, with great difficulty, Lu Yuan crawled out of bed.
It's worse than I thought...
Lu Yuan sat on the edge of the bed, an expression of helplessness on his face.
What happens to someone who has long neglected physical exercise when they suddenly embark on an intensive workout? Lu Yuan was a prime example.
Lu Yuan felt as if every single part of his body ached. Even when brushing his teeth, he had to use one hand to steady himself against the washstand mirror.
If it weren't Monday, he would have gladly spent the entire day in bed.
Breakfast consisted of porridge, buns, fried dough sticks, and two hard-boiled eggs.
Lu Yuan ate slowly.
Getting ready for school, which usually took him fifteen minutes, took over half an hour today.
Fortunately, after breakfast, he regained some energy and his limbs loosened up. His condition had improved slightly by the time he went downstairs with his backpack.
At the very least, it was much better than when he had just gotten up.
Lu Yuan had originally planned to run to school this morning, but in his current state, that was clearly impossible. Walking was strenuous enough, and he was also short on time.
So, he decided to indulge himself for once and took a cab to school.
The taxi driver drove extremely fast, perhaps noticing Lu Yuan was a high school student, a time when academics are crucial.
Despite the morning rush hour, Lu Yuan surprisingly arrived at school five minutes earlier than usual.
"Lu Yuan!"
As soon as Lu Yuan entered the classroom, a figure shot towards him like an arrow.
"You're finally here."
Cheng Peng said as he tried to take Lu Yuan's backpack, "Quick, let me copy your homework."
Lu Yuan clutched his backpack to his chest, teasing, "What's in it for me?"
Cheng Peng glanced agitatedly at the electronic clock above the teacher's desk. "Anything! Please, bro, hurry up! Morning self-study starts in fifteen minutes..."
"Two meals, the best kind."
"Deal!"
Cheng Peng nodded eagerly, like a chick pecking at rice. Only then did Lu Yuan smugly take out his homework from his backpack.
Cheng Peng snatched the papers and, without bothering to return to his own seat, sat down next to Lu Yuan and began to write frantically.
The black gel pen in his hand moved like a frenzied snake, its path impossible to trace.
"Cheng Peng, go back to your own seat to copy. This is my seat."
A chubby, bespectacled boy tried to pull Cheng Peng up.
Cheng Peng looked up at him, his hand never ceasing its motion. "Finished all your homework?"
"None of your business!" the chubby boy retorted irritably.
"Let me sit here for a bit. Grab whichever subject's homework you need."
Cheng Peng slapped Lu Yuan's stack of notebooks and test papers down in front of the chubby boy.
The chubby boy hesitated, then glanced at Lu Yuan. Seeing no reaction, he quickly pulled two notebooks from the pile and started copying too.
After copying for a while, he paused as if realizing something. "Hey, wait. If our answers are all identical, won't the teacher notice? Forget it, I'm not copying."
"Idiot," Cheng Peng scolded. "Can't you just deliberately get some parts wrong to avoid having all correct answers?"
The chubby boy had an epiphany.
"Oh, right! Why didn't I think of that?"
"Physics and Chemistry homework! Cheng Peng, Group Four is just waiting on you..."
A girl holding a stack of papers by the teacher's desk yelled in their direction.
"Hold on, almost done!" Cheng Peng shouted back. "Geez, morning self-study hasn't even started. What's your hurry to collect homework..."
Monday mornings were always the liveliest.
The Fourth High School wasn't a key high school in Burnt Rock City, and Class Three was just an ordinary class, so students like Cheng Peng were numerous.
Once, Lu Yuan had been one of them. Then one day, he had suddenly broken free from the mold.
Lu Yuan took out his foreign language textbook, casually flipped to a page, and laid it open in front of him.
His eyes seemed to be on the textbook, but he was actually looking at his profession panel.
[Fighter LV1 (35/100)]
[Basic Professional Skills:
Initial Body Forging LV1 (71/100)
Basic Fist Skill LV1 (53/100)]
His intense training last night had boosted his Initial Body Forging experience by nearly fifty points.
His profession experience had also increased by some twenty-odd points—a truly significant improvement.
My profession experience has reached thirty-five points. I just need sixty-five more to reach LV2. Factoring in the recovery time my body needs, a week should be enough.
Leveling up Student from LV3 to LV4 also takes about a week.
Once both these professions are upgraded, I'll get two free attribute points and two skill points. My overall strength will undergo a massive transformation then!
At this stage, Lu Yuan didn't intend to spend any more attribute points or skill points on the Student profession or his Intelligence attribute. He planned to use all the benefits gained from the Student profession panel to support his Martial Arts training.
For him, Student had now become a secondary profession, while Fighter was his main one.
This even inspired a new leveling strategy in him—
If I can unlock several secondary profession panels and use them to support one main profession, the main profession's leveling speed will be incredibly fast!
This was because, regardless of the profession, the early levels were the easiest to achieve, and attribute and skill points were also relatively easy to obtain then.
However, he still didn't know the conditions for unlocking new profession panels and needed to research it thoroughly. Plus, for the time being, he hadn't thought of any new professional identities that suited him.
BRRRING—
With the piercing ring of the bell, morning self-study began at Burnt Rock City's The Fourth High School.
A clamorous chorus of foreign language recitation echoed from every classroom, heralding the start of a new week.
The morning classes were Language, Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry.
Empowered by his Absolute Focus state, all these classes were, naturally, "experience-grinding dungeons" for Lu Yuan.
After lunch in the cafeteria and a short noon break, there were four more classes in the afternoon.
It wasn't until 5:45 PM that the day's academic tasks were finally over.
"School's finally over! Today was exhausting..."
Cheng Peng, backpack slung over his shoulder, walked listlessly along the school's tree-lined path. He grumbled to Lu Yuan, "I always feel like Mondays are the most tiring. Time passes exceptionally slowly; it's like every second lasts a year."
Lu Yuan didn't bother responding. Compared to Cheng Peng's exhaustion, he found classes much easier than Martial Arts practice.
In his Absolute Focus state, a forty-five-minute class passed in what felt like the blink of an eye.
During the ten-minute breaks between classes, he would stretch and move around in the hallway. By the end of the day, his physical condition was actually much better than when he had first arrived at school that morning.
At least his body no longer ached like it had that morning.
"Right, are you going to the martial arts gym?" Cheng Peng suddenly perked up and asked Lu Yuan. "I can train with you for a couple of hours before heading home."
Lu Yuan hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "I'll skip today. I overdid it training at home yesterday, and my whole body is still aching."
"No wonder you were walking funny all day! I actually thought your hemorrhoids were acting up. I was too embarrassed to ask in class..." Cheng Peng looked enlightened.
"Piss off!"
"Haha, just kidding." Cheng Peng slung an arm around Lu Yuan's shoulder. After a moment's thought, he said, "Look, since you let me copy your homework every week, my treat today, bro. I'll take you somewhere. I guarantee you'll feel completely refreshed afterward, and your body won't hurt at all."
Hearing this, Lu Yuan's eyes widened as if he were seeing Cheng Peng for the first time.
"Cheng Peng, how old are you to be going to *those* kinds of places? Don't think I won't tell your mom."
"???"