Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, ten months had passed.
Chu Chengzhou, now on vacation, carried his packed bedding on his back, humming a little tune, and walked toward his home, his short legs wobbling with every step.
In the Douluo Continent, although there were divisions of years, months, and days, there was no concept of the Spring Festival.
Nuoding Academy only had one semester per year, and throughout the entire semester, the academy did not have breaks.
However, a semester lasted ten months.
After each semester, students who had not yet graduated had a two-month vacation, specifically in February and March.
School would start again at the beginning of April, marking the next semester.
A year after his Spirit Awakening, at the end of the first semester, Chu Chengzhou had grown quite a bit taller, and his arms now possessed beautifully defined muscles.
He had finally shed the label of a “little loser with less than Rank 1 Soul Power” and had become a glorious “big” little loser.
[attribute panel]
[Host: Chu Chengzhou]
[Soul Power: Rank 3 Spirit Scholar]
[Spirit: Elemental Summoning Flag]
[Skills: Meditation (Yellow), Body Refining (Yellow), Eye Exercises (White)]
The Summoning Flag Spirit on the attribute panel now had the word “Element” added to it.
The Yellow-Rank Meditation and Body Refining skills, along with the White-Rank Eye Exercises skill, were the results of Chu Chengzhou’s AFK grinding over the year since his Spirit Awakening.
Of course, the results of a year of cheating were naturally not limited to just these.
As early as a month after enrolling, his ordinary-quality Summoning Flag Spirit had been upgraded to Advanced quality through AFK grinding.
After the Spirit’s transformation, the most intuitive manifestation was a significant improvement in his cultivation talent, with his Soul Power leveling speed increasing by about double compared to the original foundation.
If one were to quantify it precisely, his Soul Power cultivation efficiency had actually increased by more than double.
After all, with the same Soul Power Rank, the total amount of Soul Power within a Spirit Master with a high-quality Spirit was significantly greater than that of a Spirit Master with a low-quality Spirit.
With a longer “mana bar,” the accumulation required for leveling up would naturally increase as well.
Besides that, the upgraded Spirit had a higher Soul Power Rank cap.
Originally, the ordinary-quality Summoning Flag could only absorb two spirit rings at most, making Rank 29 Spirit Grandmaster Chu Chengzhou’s limit.
But after the upgrade, the Spirit could accommodate up to six spirit rings, raising his maximum Soul Power Rank cap from a Rank 29 Spirit Grandmaster to a Rank 69 Spirit Emperor.
As for why the upgraded Spirit was named “Elemental Summoning Flag” by Chu Chengzhou, it was because once he possessed a Summoned Spirit, he could freely convert his own attribute-less Soul Power into the attribute possessed by the Summoned Spirit.
For example, if he had a Fire-attribute Summoned Spirit, he could convert his Soul Power into Fire-attribute Soul Power and play the role of a Fire-attribute Spirit Master.
This characteristic might seem unremarkable, but if paired with the powerful offensive skills he would gain from future AFK grinding, he, as a Summoner, could also possess formidable combat power, and it was even possible that his strength might not be inferior to his Summoned Spirit.
Of course, an Advanced-quality Spirit was not considered a powerful Spirit after all; besides the Rank cap, the Elemental Summoning Flag still had serious shortcomings.
In addition to the Summoned Spirit still lacking intelligence, the Bloodline of the Summoned Spirit would also be restricted to below the Top-tier.
For instance, if Chu Chengzhou took a pure-blooded True Dragon Spirit Beast as his Summoned Spirit, due to the Spirit’s limitations, the True Dragon Summoned Spirit could at most only exert the strength of an Advanced-Bloodline Spirit Beast.
This greatly restricted the strength of Chu Chengzhou’s Summoned Spirit; one must know that the strength of a Spirit Beast could not be judged solely by its age.
There was no shortage of geniuses in the Spirit Master’s world capable of challenging those of a higher Rank, and the same was true in the Spirit Beast world.
For example, certain Spirit Beasts with powerful Bloodlines could rival a three-ring Spirit Elder at the hundred-year level, a five-ring Spirit King at the thousand-year level, and when they reached the ten-thousand-year level, even an ordinary Titled Douluo would have to avoid their sharp edge.
That’s right, I’m talking about the Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear.
But once the renowned Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear of the Spirit Beast world became Chu Chengzhou’s Summoned Spirit, with its Bloodline suppressed below the Top-tier, such an exaggerated ability to challenge those of higher Ranks would definitely be greatly discounted.
Fortunately, an Advanced-quality Spirit was not the end of the AFK grinding; as long as he continued to keep it in the AFK slot, this limitation would sooner or later disappear.
However, while upgrading an ordinary Spirit to an Advanced Spirit was easy, upgrading an Advanced Spirit to a Top-tier Spirit was much harder.
Even though the Elemental Summoning Flag had been in the AFK slot for nearly nine months now, the progress toward upgrading to a Top-tier Spirit had barely exceeded one-quarter.
A full one thousand days of AFK grinding time for the Spirit—if not for the substantial benefits of the Spirit’s quality transformation, Chu Chengzhou would not have been willing to spare his currently precious AFK slot.
In ten months, he had gone from a “little loser” with less than Rank 1 Soul Power to barely stepping into Rank 3 Spirit Scholar, with an increase of over two Ranks in Soul Power—his cultivation speed was far superior to before, which was mostly thanks to the Spirit that had undergone a quality transformation.
Of course, besides the Spirit, the Meditation skill that had increased in Rank was also an important factor.
The Meditation skill, now upgraded to the Yellow Rank, had increased his cultivation speed by more than 20% compared to the previous White-Rank Meditation skill.
It was precisely because of the improvements in his Spirit and Meditation skill that Chu Chengzhou’s Soul Power cultivation speed had increased significantly.
As for the Yellow-Rank Body Refining skill on the attribute panel, this skill was upgraded from the Gray-Rank Broadcast Gymnastics after one hundred and thirty days of AFK grinding.
It took thirty days to upgrade from Gray to White, and one hundred days from White to Yellow.
After the Broadcast Gymnastics skill reached the Yellow Rank, Chu Chengzhou saw that the improvement in his physical fitness during cultivation was significant, so he renamed it the Body Refining skill.
After half a year of cultivation, his physical fitness had improved significantly, and even before the vacation, he had arm-wrestled with the working students in Dorm 7.
It was a proper arm-wrestling match, not a fight.
Somewhat unexpectedly, although he was only a seven-year-old child, all of the dozen or so working students in Dorm 7 lost to him in arm-wrestling, except for Li Erniu, who was twelve years old and possessed a Beast Spirit.
According to Chu Chengzhou’s original idea, the Eye Exercises should be able to upgrade into a skill for cultivating Mental Energy.
However, because of insufficient AFK time, the Rank was still White, and the upgrade progress bar had just reached three-quarters.
The White-Rank Eye Exercises did not yet possess the effect of improving Mental Energy.
However, it was not without its uses.
Doing the Gray-Rank Eye Exercises a few times a day could at most prevent vision deterioration, and the effect wasn’t even that great—otherwise, there wouldn’t have been so many students wearing glasses in his previous life.
But the White-Rank Eye Exercises could not only effectively prevent vision deterioration but also had the effect of slightly improving vision.
Over these past two months, he had practiced the White-Rank Eye Exercises a few times every day, and he clearly noticed that his vision had improved somewhat.
Although it wasn’t as exaggerated as an eagle’s eye, distant objects were now much clearer.