"Hold what against you?"
Fang Yu laughed at that. "There are ten recommendation places in the second batch. If I don't get one, that's my own failing... and besides, if we both get recommended, we get another two years as roommates."
At a martial arts university, roommates could be freely chosen.
"Recommended?"
"Old Fang, you're confident of a recommendation? If my dad hadn't bought a pile of treasures to raise my Life Tier, I wouldn't have the slightest confidence." Wang Mo shot upright, leaned out through the doorway and looked at Fang Yu with interest. The girl beside him obediently withdrew her hands.
Fang Yu could not help smiling.
At the third-year final assessment Wang Mo's Life Tier had been Level 18. Two levels in a single month, even inside the Golden Age Bracket, was an outrageous rate of progress.
At Level 10, the standard punch force was 300 kilograms.
At Level 20, the standard was 2,000 kilograms.
And at Level 30 the standard was 10,000.
The higher the Life Tier went, the wider the gap between one level and the next, and the harder the breakthrough became.
A coin in, a coin's worth out — no empty saying... Fang Yu estimated Wang Mo had spent at least ten million Star Coins this past month.
After all, Wang Mo had only awakened a Lower Aspect, and in martial skill, at the third-year finals, he had still been short of even Lesser Completion of Subtlety in bodily technique.
If his Aspect and his martial skill had not both been unremarkable, then on that towering Life Tier alone Wang Mo would certainly have been on the first recommendation list.
Even so.
A Life Tier of Level 20 essentially locked in a place on the second list.
Not that Fang Yu believed the gain had come easily. Wang Mo must have put in hard graft as well... he simply made it look effortless.
Wang Mo went on. "Old Fang, don't tell me you awakened a Void Star Aspect over the holiday?"
"No." Fang Yu shook his head.
"Then it's Great Completion in Subtlety." Wang Mo said it with certainty. "Right — your martial skill was high to begin with, you little devil... it has to be Great Completion in Subtlety."
Fang Yu smiled.
Not denying it was as good as admitting it, and there was nothing worth hiding here.
"Holy shit!"
"Your martial skill actually broke through?" Wang Mo could not contain himself. "Old Fang, you absolute beast. Body at Great Completion in Subtlety, circulating blood and qi! In our whole year, apart from that freak Wu Ya, you must be the second."
The Wu Ya that Wang Mo meant.
He was the true martial genius of their year.
He had failed to awaken a Void Star Aspect at the entrance exam and been forced into junior college, but in his second year he awakened an Upper Aspect outright, and with his staggering talent for martial skill he had become the undisputed first man of Fang Yu's year.
He had reached Great Completion in Subtlety two months earlier than Fang Yu.
He was on the first recommendation list.
"Not necessarily," Fang Yu said, smiling. "At the finals there were plenty of people in other classes who could manage a perfect sinew and bone in unison, and it's been a while since. Some of them may have broken through too."
"True enough." Wang Mo turned it over. "Still, with your skill in Subtlety your Life Tier must be climbing fast too. Yours wasn't low before, as I recall — you're probably near Level 17 now."
"Nine times out of ten you're recommended." Wang Mo sounded thoroughly pleased. "So I won't be on my own when I get to Huguang Martial Arts University."
Fang Yu smiled.
Wang Mo was in fact quite an interesting man: he had money, but he never looked down on classmates who did not, and he got on well with most of the class.
There were plenty who could not stand him, of course.
He never made any secret of being rich, after all... and money, for better or worse, is always easy to resent.
***
The fourth-year opening assessment at Wuling Martial Arts Junior College decided the transfer and nothing else, and only students in the top ten percent at the third-year finals could apply.
Of course, a student further down who genuinely believed he had made huge progress over the holiday could register by paying 1,000 Star Coins, but in practice very few extra registrations came in.
Besides, a good many students inside the top ten percent knew they had no hope and did not turn up for the assessment at all.
In Class 5703, only Fang Yu and Wang Mo were sitting the second assessment.
At ten in the morning, when Fang Yu and Wang Mo reached the ground-floor hall of the Martial Arts Building, they found fewer than two hundred students waiting.
"Wang Mo."
"Wang Mo's here too?"
"He's purely riding on family money for a slightly higher Life Tier, and he's got the nerve to come?"
"That's Fang Yu next to him, isn't it?"
"Mm, Fang Yu's martial skill is decent, but he never awakened an Aspect. Shame. The pair of them are just here to make up the numbers." The students came from dozens of classes, and not many knew Fang Yu; far more of them knew Wang Mo.
There were plenty of children of wealthy families at the school.
But few as loud about it as Wang Mo.
"Old Mo, it seems we've been cast as the denominator," Fang Yu said, smiling.
"Pack of dumbasses." Wang Mo's scorn was open. "Old Fang, tell me — don't they look exactly like the extras in a web novel, lined up waiting for the protagonist to slap their faces? And I'm the protagonist."
"Somewhat," Fang Yu agreed.
"Pity they've only got the nerve to mutter behind our backs. Nobody's actually stepped up... It's going to take some of the satisfaction out of slapping them later," Wang Mo said regretfully.
Fang Yu gave a slight smile.
Out of envy, or out of a sense of superiority... plenty of people talk behind your back, but in reality, with no grudge between you, very few will actually step out and mock you in the open.
Before long.
Several teachers came out.
"Quiet! No talking."
"You'll enter the examination hall in the random order given in the assessment notice." A female teacher in a loose martial uniform ran her eyes over the students. "Remember, the whole examination is monitored in real time by the Martial Path Department and the Education Department, the recordings are on file, and the scoring is done by AI, which guarantees absolute fairness... You've sat exams for years and you're nearly graduates, but I'll go over the rules once more."
"No movements unrelated to the assessment. No banned substances. No..."
"Finally, I hope you'll all take this seriously and show the standard you've trained to."
"Once every assessment is done, go and have lunch, then assemble in the ground-floor hall at two o'clock, where the second recommendation list will be announced directly," the martial teacher said. "The application requirements for the third batch, the combat assessment, will be released at the same time."
Everyone listened in silence.
"Number one, Luo Pengfei."
"Number two, Duan Bai. Into the halls, both of you. Candidates three and four, prepare," the teacher said, and two students at once went off down separate corridors.
There were two examination halls, so two students could be assessed at the same time.
"I'm number 114," Wang Mo said quietly. "You, Old Fang?"
"Forty-six," said Fang Yu.
"That much earlier than me? Fine, wait for me once you're out. Old He posted in the dorm group — he wants a farewell lunch," Wang Mo said. "Qionglin Garden, private room 12."
"Right." Fang Yu nodded.
***
With only a hundred-odd students in total and two examination halls, the assessment moved fast, and Fang Yu's turn came quickly. His identity verified, he went straight into the examination area.
The assessment for a martial junior-college student was in fact very simple.
Three major items: Aspect detection, Life Tier detection, and martial skill — each of which broke down into several sub-items.
Life Tier detection, for instance, split into instrument-based blood-qi measurement, basic punch force, and speed.
And martial skill split into combat testing, maximum punch force, maximum speed, weapon testing and a good deal more... the aim of all of it being to assess a student's strength from every angle.
And Fang Yu, having awakened no Aspect, naturally skipped the first item outright.
***
On the second floor, in a huge office, dozens of martial teachers sat watching the enormous projection at the front of the room.
The projection showed the two examination halls.
The whole assessment was scored by AI, and these teachers could not intervene... but the final list still had to pass their collective review and signature.
And as the martial form tutors of their various classes, with their own performance bonuses at stake, they took an interest in their own best students and in who would make the recommendation list.
Every extra student selected meant another sum in their bonus.
"Old Yan."
"This one's from your class, isn't he?" A lean, tall male teacher pointed at Fang Yu on the projector. "Why has he skipped the Aspect test outright?"
"Mm."
"Name's Fang Yu. Top ten in skill scores at last term's finals." A powerfully built man going slightly bald sounded genuinely regretful. "His skill is very good and his Life Tier isn't low either — his family must have put a fair bit in... A pity he's never awakened a Void Star Aspect."
This was Fang Yu's martial form tutor, Yan Fu.
"No chance at a recommendation."
"But his body technique and blade work are both good. We'll see whether he makes the combat assessment list at the end." The balding, powerfully built man shook his head.
Not everyone made the combat assessment either; you had to rank in the top eighty overall to qualify.
The combat assessment was held on the Primordial Star, after all, and it carried a cost... there was no possibility of everyone taking part.
At this moment.
Most of the teachers in the office, seeing Fang Yu skip the first item, stopped paying much attention... Without a Void Star Aspect the disadvantage was too great.
Under normal circumstances, making the recommendation list was all but impossible.
Besides, at the third-year finals Fang Yu's martial skill had not been so far ahead as to be untouchable, so naturally he attracted little notice.
"Life Tier detection next." The teacher beside Yan Fu pointed at the projection. "Old Yan, he looks very composed to me. Confident, even. Maybe his Life Tier's at 17."
On the projection, Fang Yu had reached the blood-qi scanner.
"Level 17? We can hope." Yan Fu did not hold out much hope.
Fang Yu counted as a good student in his class, so he knew his results: at the third-year finals his Life Tier had been 15.5.
The way he saw it.
Fang Yu's family did not appear to be especially rich, and he had awakened no Void Star Aspect... From 15.5 to 17 in a month and a half?
The hope was far too slender.
But in the next instant.
"Level 20.1?" The teacher beside Yan Fu let out a cry of shock. "Is the blood-qi scanner broken?"
"Level 20?"
"Who? Fang Yu? Level 20?" The other teachers, who had lost interest, all turned to look, and none of them quite believed it... A junior-college student reaching Level 20 in Life Tier.
For rarity, that was not far behind a student at Great Completion in Subtlety.
"Level 20? How — how is that possible!" Yan Fu's heart lurched. "Not two months, and he's gone up more than four levels? Doubled his basic punch force? Impossible!"
"Even Great Completion in Subtlety shouldn't raise you that fast."
"Is Fang Yu's family secretly rich? How did I not know?"