The sun was setting in the west.
Su Yu walked out of the school gate and followed the sidewalk toward his rented room in the old city district.
His pace wasn't fast, but every step was steady.
In his mind, the cold mechanical voice had gone silent, but the translucent panel at the edge of his vision—visible only to him—was a real, tangible reminder that this wasn't an illusion.
[Cash-to-Cultivation System]
[Current Balance: 328.5 yuan]
[Exchangeable Cultivation: 328 years]
Su Yu took a deep breath, forcing down the surging heat in his chest that threatened to boil over.
Stay calm.
The more critical the moment, the more absolute calm was needed.
There were only three days left until the college entrance exam.
He didn't need to worry about the academic subjects. Three years of hard work had etched all the theoretical knowledge into his bones.
The real challenge was the martial arts exam.
In the Daxia Kingdom, the passing mark for the martial arts college entrance exam was 6 points of blood energy, with a perfect score of 10.
For ordinary students, scoring 6 points was already a reason to give thanks, earning them a ticket to an average martial arts university.
But Su Yu's goal was no ordinary martial arts university.
Now that he had the system, now that he had a seat at the table, he was going to feast on the best.
The Daxia Capital First Martial Arts University!
It was the holy land in the hearts of countless martial arts prodigies across the entire Daxia Kingdom, a cradle nurtured by the military and top-tier families with all their resources.
Get in, and you leap over the dragon's gate.
But was a perfect score of 10 blood energy points enough to enter the Daxia Capital First Martial Arts University?
Su Yu shook his head inwardly.
Probably not.
This world was too vast. The Daxia Kingdom had thirty-six provinces, with a population in the tens of billions.
The heroes under heaven were as numerous as carp crossing a river!
For those children of noble families who had been soaking in medicinal baths and eating high-grade exotic beast meat since childhood, 10 blood energy points was hardly an insurmountable gap. It was merely the starting point of their martial arts journey.
Every year, at least eight hundred to a thousand prodigies scored full marks in blood energy.
But the Daxia Capital First Martial Arts University only admitted one hundred people each year.
Not one more.
Martial arts was never a game where more numbers meant better results.
Resources were limited. It was better to pour everything into forging one unparalleled god of war who could cleave a giant beast in a single strike than to train ten thousand mediocre warriors.
So, when the number of perfect scorers exceeded one hundred, a brutal second-round screening was triggered.
Practical combat assessment.
It didn't look at blood energy. It only looked at combat power.
"Three days..."
Su Yu planned silently in his mind.
In three days, investing three hundred and twenty-eight years of cultivation would definitely push his blood energy to the passing level.
But practical combat experience and martial techniques would still need time to digest.
Just as Su Yu was lost in thought, lost in thought at the same time...
At the street corner not far ahead, behind a thick locust tree, a small section of a clean pleated skirt edge was visible.
Su Yu stopped walking and sighed inwardly.
It was Lin Xiaoxiao.
She was the universally recognized school beauty of Jiangcheng No. 3 High School. She lived in a luxury villa district on the east side of the city. For a pampered young lady like her, who usually needed a private car even to go to the city center, she was now standing alone in the wind on this broken old street in the west side of town, where half the streetlights were broken.
Actually, Su Yu knew why she kept coming here.
One summer day a year ago, he had been handing out flyers near the man-made lake outside the city when he happened to see Lin Xiaoxiao step on thin air and fall into the water.
At the time, a crowd had gathered around the shore taking photos. No one dared to dive in.
Su Yu was a good swimmer. Without a second thought, he plunged into the deep water and pulled her out.
It had been a random act to him.
He hadn't even left his name before leaving.
But who would have guessed? This privileged young lady had searched through the entire grade to find him and had been a persistent trouble he couldn't shake ever since.
Su Yu understood the mindset of a wealthy heiress.
Raised on elite education, she had a strong sense of pride. She hated being in anyone's debt, especially a life-saving debt.
At first, Lin Xiaoxiao had wanted to give him money as repayment, but Su Yu had coldly refused—even though he was poor, he hadn't saved her to sell his life.
That refusal had only made her psychological burden heavier.
This past year, she had been manufacturing "coincidental encounters" every few days, racking her brains for a chance to repay the favor so she could ease her own conscience.
Like right now.
"Ah!"
Lin Xiaoxiao leaped out from behind the tree, her hands clasped behind her back. On her pretty, innocent face, she wore an extremely exaggerated expression of surprise.
"What a coincidence! Su Yu, how come you're walking this way too?"
Su Yu looked at her.
The evening wind was cold. This girl had probably been hiding behind the tree trunk for a while. Her nose was slightly red from the chill, and there was a faint, almost imperceptible tremble at the end of her voice as she spoke.
Su Yu shook his head inwardly.
Living in the east of the city, yet coming to the slums of the west for a "coincidental meeting."
To repay a debt of life that couldn't be repaid, this rich girl's stubbornness ran deep. She would rather endure half an hour of cold wind just to force out a natural-looking reason to meet.
Forget it.
Su Yu didn't want to call her out on her clumsy excuse, to spare her the embarrassment and prevent her from dreaming up some even more troublesome way to repay him.
"Yeah, what a coincidence."
Su Yu went along with her words, his tone calm. "Came here to buy something?"
"Ah... right! Buying something!"
Lin Xiaoxiao blinked nervously, seeming surprised that Su Yu was being so cooperative today. She quickly took the opening to change the subject. "Oh, the college entrance exam is coming up. Which university are you planning to apply to?"
As she asked this, Lin Xiaoxiao was actually a bit cautious.
She knew Su Yu's situation.
Top ten in the humanities for academics, but dead last in martial arts for the whole school.
A blood energy value of 0.8 was a hard flaw that no amount of effort could disguise.
She was afraid of hitting a sore spot.
Su Yu looked into Lin Xiaoxiao's concerned eyes and was silent for two seconds.
If he didn't tell the truth, given this girl's personality, she would definitely hound him with questions.
If he did tell the truth...
"Daxia Capital First Martial Arts University."
Su Yu's voice wasn't loud, but his words were clear. There was no hint of a joke.
The air suddenly went still.
A gust of evening wind blew, swirling a few fallen leaves on the ground.
The smile on Lin Xiaoxiao's face froze instantly. She seemed to have been hit by a pause button.
She was stunned.
Completely stunned.
She even wondered if her ears had malfunctioned.
"You... what did you say?"
Lin Xiaoxiao's eyes were wide, her voice stuttering. "Daxia... Capital First Martial Arts University?"
Su Yu nodded.
"You?"
Lin Xiaoxiao blurted out without thinking. "0.8 blood energy?!"
As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to slap herself.
Too hurtful!
How could she directly expose someone's weakness like that!
But... this was just too ridiculous!
That was the Daxia Capital First Martial Arts University!
The place that the sharpest prodigies in the entire kingdom were desperate to get into!
Even that arrogant Zhao Ze in his class, with 9.8 blood energy, didn't dare to say he was a hundred percent sure of getting in!
A person like Su Yu, who couldn't even reach 1 blood energy point, actually set his sights there?
This wasn't just a pipe dream.
This was absolutely off the charts!
Watching the expression on Lin Xiaoxiao's face that screamed her disbelief, Su Yu sighed inwardly.
He knew this would be the reaction.
If it were him half an hour ago, and someone told him he could get into the Capital Martial Arts University, he would have thought they were crazy too.
"Is it not possible?" Su Yu retorted.
"No... it's not impossible!"
Lin Xiaoxiao quickly waved her hands and forced an encouraging smile.
Even though she was deeply shaken inside, as a friend, she felt this was absolutely not the time to dampen Su Yu's confidence.
What if he was just talking nonsense under too much pressure?
"Having a dream is a good thing!"
Lin Xiaoxiao gave Su Yu's shoulder a firm pat and said in a serious, comforting tone, "What's the difference between a person without a dream and a salted fish?"
"Right? Maybe tomorrow, when you step out the door, you'll accidentally fall off a cliff and stumble upon a legendary secret manual!"
"Or you might run into a white-bearded old master who insists on passing on a hundred years of martial arts power to you!"
"Or maybe you'll get hit by some alien meteorite and have a genetic mutation!"
"At that point, forget about the Capital Martial Arts University—you might even get a direct recommendation to the War God Battalion!"
Lin Xiaoxiao got more excited as she spoke, as if she could already see the image of Su Yu soaring to the skies.