"This soul level must be what 《Introduction to the Martial Path》 calls spiritual force," Fang Yu thought. "If my spirit hadn't surged, getting my blade work to Subtlety in barely a month would have been all but impossible."
"No wonder High-Rank Warriors are generally so strong in skill."
High-Rank Warriors did tend to have a higher standard of skill; they had trained for years, and most of them could reach Great Completion in Subtlety.
Was it because their insight was greater?
No! It was because a powerful warrior's spirit was stronger, and his foundation was stronger.
A strong body nourishes a stronger spirit, and the sense of one's own sinew, bone, blood and qi grows clearer... so bringing the body to Subtlety naturally comes more easily.
Rather as a middle-schooler generally learns faster than a primary-school child — not because the child's talent is worse, but because a child's brain is still developing.
Training skill worked the same way.
The stronger the body, the stronger the spirit, and the easier skill was to raise... and high skill in turn raised the Life Tier faster. The two fed each other.
Which was also why the Blue Moon Alliance took Void Star Aspects so seriously.
A warrior who awakened a powerful Void Star Aspect could become a High-Rank Warrior on absorbed Star Force alone, without leaning on resources and treasures... which saved the whole civilization an enormous amount.
Fang Yu had noticed it long ago.
As his Life Tier rose, his soul was transforming at speed too... He had never deliberately trained his spirit, and yet his soul level had always run several levels above his Life Tier.
This past month.
Fang Yu had trained at home with a single mind, and beyond coaching his brother and sister he had done nothing but drill the fist and the blade — and without noticing it, his blade work had entered Subtlety.
Blade work at Subtlety!
The union of mind, body and instrument, which a good many High-Rank Warriors trained for years and never attained.
"Those grandmasters of the ancient world had physical standards no better than mine now, and yet their skill could reach the legendary union of heaven and man. Astonishing, when you think about it." Fang Yu marvelled.
Put one of those ancient grandmasters into this age, and given time, he could probably become a Starry Sky Warrior.
"Blade work at Subtlety, Life Tier Level 20. There's a recommendation place there."
"It has to have my name on it." Fang Yu was confident. Even if one or two more formidable students had appeared, it should not matter; there were ten places, after all.
***
Time passed.
Wang Mo went into the assessment area soon enough.
The rate of progress he showed startled the martial teachers on the second floor as well.
"This Wang Mo — his skill has reached Subtlety?"
"Sinew and bone in unison. Lesser Completion of Subtlety."
"And his Life Tier's reached Level 20 too. With money, a Life Tier really does climb fast. His family must have spent no small amount." The teachers were suitably impressed.
"Old Yan, you've taken two places now."
"The rest of us are ruined." The other teachers made a joke of it.
A Life Tier of Level 20 was extremely rare among junior-college students.
The hundred-odd students who had come to this assessment were already the top five percent, elite students... and only three of them so far had a Life Tier of Level 20.
Fewer than twenty were above Level 17.
Wang Mo's newly reached Lesser Completion of Subtlety was nothing outstanding, but it did not drag his score down either.
Counting Fang Yu, only two students so far had bodily skill at Great Completion in Subtlety, and only Fang Yu had blade work at Subtlety.
Wang Mo's results were enough to hold a recommendation place.
Yan Fu kept saying "luck", but he could not press the smile off his mouth, and he marvelled privately. "So Wang Mo's talent for skill isn't bad after all, for all that he looks like a slacker. He just can't keep up with a freak like Fang Yu."
"Which makes sense."
"With family support like that, they've probably spent tens of millions. Some elite university students don't get resources on that scale."
"With results like these, it's normal enough." Yan Fu turned it over. "If my information is right, his family's assets run past a billion."
Students like Fang Yu did not know these things.
But martial teachers like Yan Fu had wide information channels, and far more accurate ones.
At a school like Wuling Martial Arts Junior College there were even dedicated staff whose job was to investigate every student's family circumstances... the better to invite parents to donate.
"Family support is a fine thing. That's exactly what the rich should do." Yan Fu smiled faintly.
He did not resent Wang Mo throwing money at the martial path at all; he thought it correct.
In this age, a coin in, a coin's worth out. That was the consensus.
Money, to a degree, was martial potential... and if you were rich enough, a few billion thrown in could make an Earth Warrior in a very short time.
Except.
Raising your martial attainment on money alone was very hard to recoup... The way Yan Fu saw it, spending like Wang Mo's would most likely never pay for itself.
A powerful warrior who did not fight it out on the Primordial Star, but worked a normal job, earned about a million a year as a High-Rank Warrior; an Earth Warrior generally earned tens of millions.
A warrior's force had far less use inside the Blue Moon Alliance than on the Primordial Star.
"Still."
"A rich family's son paying a price like that to reach a martial arts university isn't necessarily after the university's training resources." Yan Fu saw it clearly.
What the man wanted, in all likelihood, was connections.
If he could make friends with a whole cohort of future High-Rank Warriors and Earth Warriors... for a family like Wang Mo's, that was extremely useful.
***
Half past twelve.
Fang Yu, Wang Mo and He Jiyu met outside the canteen, Qionglin Garden.
"Old He, I thought I was slow. You're slower than me." Wang Mo threw an arm warmly around He Jiyu's shoulders, keeping his tone light, letting his displeasure show anyway.
"Sorry about that. I was on the phone with my wife, it held me up." He Jiyu ducked his head slightly.
Wang Mo's arm stiffened a little.
"Old He, since when do you say sorry to me?" Wang Mo could not help saying.
Fang Yu looked at He Jiyu. Nearly two months, and his appearance had not changed much, but there was a visible weariness in his eyes.
Clearly.
He had been through a good deal in those two months, and it had changed him.
"Come on, let's get to the room and talk over the food," Fang Yu said, defusing it.
"Right, food first." Wang Mo let it go, and the three of them headed up to the canteen's second floor... The ground floor was open seating, the second floor private rooms.
Just as they reached the turn of the stairs.
"Oh — Fang Yu, senior?" A pleasant voice; on the stairs stood a short-haired girl in a black martial uniform, good-looking, who had spoken first.
Beside her came a burly young man with handsome features.
"Ye Zhiyin?" Fang Yu recognised her too.
"Ye Zhiyin? Old Fang, this is the second-year girl you mentioned, the one who chased you — oh, right, she'll be a third-year now." Wang Mo grinned broadly.
"Old Mo." Fang Yu frowned slightly.
"Ha, sorry, junior — my mouth ran away with me." Wang Mo smiled at the short-haired girl at once. "It's only that Fang Yu mentioned you a few times and it stuck. There aren't many juniors in this school that a training maniac like him remembers."
He Jiyu simply watched in silence.
"Zhiyin, who are these?" the burly young man finally asked, and the look he turned on Fang Yu carried an unmistakable thread of hostility.
"A senior I met at a school event," Ye Zhiyin explained.
"And you are?" Wang Mo's eyebrow went up.
He was warm with friends like Fang Yu and He Jiyu, and not at all so with anyone else — particularly when the other man had already shown the first sign of hostility.
"That's enough."
"Old Mo, the list goes up at two." Fang Yu put out a hand to block him. "Let's go and eat... Ye Zhiyin, we'll talk another time."
"Mm." Ye Zhiyin nodded quickly, sensing that things were turning, and went straight down the stairs with the burly young man.
Only the three of them were left on the staircase.
"Old Fang, why did you stop me?" Wang Mo frowned. "Couldn't you see that fellow's chasing this Ye Zhiyin? Weren't you interested in her before? She's not bad-looking, I'll say that."
Wang Mo was certain he had read the man right.
"I did consider it, once."
"But she isn't right for me." Fang Yu shook his head. "The partner I want is someone who can climb to the summit of the martial path with me — or at the very least, someone who can quietly support me climbing it."
"The martial path is our life's work."
"A man puts his work first."
"What I want is not a girlfriend who messages me while I'm drilling the blade to ask me to take her to a film, or out on the lake." Fang Yu smiled; plainly this had happened between him and Ye Zhiyin.
"We're in the Golden Age Bracket."
"Girlfriend or wife... if she affects our martial training, that means she isn't suitable."
"If she isn't suitable, don't force it — and don't keep bothering her either." Fang Yu smiled. "Come on. Food."