Lu Zhiruo opened the door and Lu Lin entered.
“Teacher!”
After Lu Lin greeted, he felt ill at ease and stood at the side.
“Mn!”
Sun Mo nodded. After that, Sun Mo saw that he had opened a book shining in green light. It was extremely thick and could be comparable to two large idiom dictionaries combined.
Ding!
“Congratulations on obtaining the High-tier Botany Knowledge Encyclopedia. Proficiency level: elementary.”
Sun Mo’s heart leaped with joy.
(I’ve finally obtained this skill book.)
This way, his knowledge of botany could be considered to have a breakthrough, and he could officially start a class of it to educate others.
“Learn it!”
Sun Mo instructed.
“Sorry, unable to learn. Your current knowledge of botany isn’t proficient enough.”
The system reminded him.
Sun Mo started and then realized it. If one wanted to learn a high-tier skill book, they first had to raise their previous knowledge to the grandmaster level.
But to the current Sun Mo, this was no problem at all.
As someone who had over 100,000 favorable impression points, he could casually buy as many time emblems as he wanted to.
“Buy! Buy! Buy!”
As he slammed the time emblems, the motes of light flowed into his glabella, and the knowledge was deeply imprinted in his neurons.
Ding!
“Congratulations, your mid-tier botany knowledge has risen to the grandmaster-level. Please continue to work hard.”
The joy of spamming ‘money’ would truly cause one to be unable to extricate themselves.
Sadly, the grandmaster-level was the max. If he wanted to increase his proficiency any further, he could only practice by himself.
Sun Mo cast Encyclopedic Knowledge on himself and learned the encyclopedia. After that, he started to deepen his impression of the knowledge and did his best to memorize everything.
Due to the amount of knowledge being too vast, Sun Mo only regained his senses two hours later.
Lu Lin was very fidgety and he had an anxious look on his face as he waited. Lu Zhiruo sat cross-legged on the ground and was reading an encyclopedia about species of darkness.
She wanted to guard Sun Mo to prevent Lu Lin from disturbing her teacher.
“Lu Lin, you are a young man. Temper yourself more and learn how to keep your composure. Look at your appearance. The first impression you give others isn’t that good.”
Sun Mo lectured.
Humans were very subjective the vast majority of the time. Once the first impression of a target was bad, the target would usually have to spend a large price and a long period to reverse the impression.
Why didn’t the teachers of the Westshore Military School like Lu Lin?
It wasn’t simply because he was the last-ranker, but it was their impression of him.
He was too anxious, too frantic, worrying and panicking too much.
“Teacher, I know my mistake!”
Lu Lin’s countenance dimmed. He didn’t have any friends in school. He had always thought it was because he was the last-ranker, but now, it seemed that this had got to do with his personality.
“If you are my student, I will get you to stand outside for three days to temper your mentality.”
Honestly speaking, Sun Mo also didn’t like Lu Lin.
Qi Shengjia was also a fool with bad potential, but his simple and unadorned personality would make people fond of him. As for Lu Lin, he gave off an extreme sense of cowardice.
Lu Lin fell silent.
“Smile!”
Sun Mo lifted his cup and drank a mouthful of tea.
“What?”
Lu Lin had an astonished look on his face.
“Smile.”
Sun Mo urged.
Lu Lin didn’t understand why, but he still did so. However, it was just a perfunctory smile where his skin moved. There was no joy in his heart. He looked even more unsightly now.
“Regardless of learning or cultivating. You first have to relax yourself and try to like it from the bottom of your heart. Don’t treat them as a type of torment.”
Sun Mo sighed. “Look at how bitter your face looks. If it wasn’t for the fact your elders have expectations of you, you probably would have given up, right?”
Lu Lin remained silent. Finding joy in cultivation?
He had forgotten about this thing. Ever since he entered the Westshore Military School due to his aunt’s help, even in his sleep, he told himself he had to succeed and must not become a joke for his clan.
“You should face the mirror every morning and try smiling three times for a minute each time. At the same time, tell yourself not to feel such great pressure.”
Sun Mo saw Lu Zhiruo eavesdropping at the side and even taking notes in her little notebook. He was speechless and stretched his hand out to rap her head.
(I understand that you are a happy-go-lucky girl, but do you have to partake in the liveliness like this?)
“I’ve remembered it.”
Lu Lin hurriedly bowed.
“No one likes to mingle with people of great bitterness because such people would emit a type of negative energy that causes the atmosphere to become worse.”
Sun Mo would never watch movies, music, or books with content that brought about negative energy because he felt that they would cause one to be very gloomy.
“Speak, what is your matter?”
“I wish to get Teacher to help me. How can I increase my strength?”
Lu Lin spoke and he scrunched up his face in anguish. But after recalling Sun Mo’s words, he hurriedly squeezed out a smile.
“Is it very painful when you are being beaten up by others?”
Sun Mo glanced at Lu Lin’s chin and left eye. Both parts of his face had swelled up greatly.
Lu Lin nodded. Actually, what was more unbearable was the fact that he was ‘useless’. He wanted to fight, but he would only be crushed.
“What questions do you have?”
Sun Mo asked again,
“Why didn’t I improve despite having passed so many stages in the canyon?”
Lu Lin didn’t understand.
“Firstly, the first four stages mainly deepen your understanding toward combat, and they are more of a mental improvement. With regards to your actual combat strength, it wouldn’t help much.”
Sun Mo explained.
A last-ranker who had spent less than five days in the canyon wanted to win against a genius who had trained assiduously for a few years? Was he living in a fantasy?
“Actually, you could clear the stages largely because of my guidance.”
Sun Mo didn’t finish his sentence. (You are someone who copied answers, how much can you improve by?)
“D…doesn’t that mean that the Battlegod Canyon has no meaning toward me?”
Lu Lin had a disappointed look on his face.
“Yes. At the very least, you have to reach the seventh or eighth stage of the Divine Force Realm before you will have some harvest.”
Sun Mo spoke bluntly.
A low cultivation base meant a waste of time here. After all, there was no way the ancient Battle God would want his ultimate cultivation art to be learned by a random person. Hence, he naturally had to set up some ‘barriers’.
“…”
Lu Lin was completely stunned. He initially wanted to depend on the Battlegod Canyon to rise.
“You should place your efforts on your daily cultivation.”
Sun Mo gave a pointer.
“I’ve already worked very hard!”
Lu Lin felt sullen. The duration he trained per day wasn’t short.
“Who taught you your cultivation art?”
Sun Mo asked.
“This..”
Lu Lin was conflicted. His cultivation art was extremely rare and was something deciphered from a set of bells that his aunt had excavated from a darkness ruin 30 years ago.
His aunt told him before that he must never tell anyone about this.
This was because this cultivation art was an inferior-grade saint-tier cultivation art and it was too precious.
But now…
Lu Lin felt that Sun Mo was someone trustworthy, and Sun Mo had helped him before. “What I trained in is the Time I…”
Before Lu Lin could complete his sentence, Sun Mo already spoke.
“The Time Immemorial One Sword Art, right?”
“Ah?”
Lu Lin was stunned. He stared dumbfoundedly at Sun Mo. “H…how did you know?”
That shouldn’t be the case.
His aunt’s scholarly knowledge was ranked in the top three of the Westshore Military School. She was responsible for archaeology work, and this cultivation art precisely came from one of her findings.
“Is it very strange that my teacher knows about this art?”
Lu Zhiruo was a crazy fan and felt that Sun Mo was omnipotent.
“No, I don’t mean it like that!”
Lu Lin and no way to explain this clearly.
“The person who gave you this art. Did he or she tell you how you should cultivate it?”
Sun Mo could tell that there was something Lu Lin wished to keep a secret about. Hence, Sun Mo didn’t ask too much to prevent Lu Lin from being in a difficult position.
“Yes. I was told that my sword should be like a gale. The faster the better and my sword attacks should be at the point where ten thousand sword strikes feel like a single sword strike, so I can kill my enemies formlessly.”
Lu Lin didn’t hide this.
“You have an expert guiding you, so why did you still come and consult me?”
Sun Mo was speechless. “Can’t you simply train according to what this person has said?”
“Yes, but I have trained in this art for so many years but haven’t improved much at all.”
Lu Lin was depressed.
Sun Mo wanted to tell him that his aptitude was too bad, but such words would be too damaging. Hence, he activated Divine Sight and continued to observe.
After that, he discovered a problem.
“Did he or she teach you a meditation art to increase your spirit qi reserve?”
Sun Mo continued to ask.
“Yes!”
Lu Lin nodded.
“Could it be that you didn’t train in it?”
Sun Mo frowned. (Very good, he found the cause.)
“I did train…!”
Lu Lin’s voice grew softer because he lacked the perseverance for this. After all, meditating was too dull and boring.
“This cultivation art needs an extremely deep spirit qi reserve to be able to display its greatest might. Your aptitude isn’t very good and your spirit qi reserve is lesser compared to your peers at the same cultivation level. However, that person has found a powerful meditation art for you to make up for your flaws, yet you actually didn’t want to train in that?”
Sun Mo was helpless.
If a student refused to train according to the guidance of a teacher, what was the point even if they had a more impressive teacher?
“Ah? So that’s the reason?”
Lu Lin was stunned. “What should I do then?”
“For now, don’t comprehend the murals in the canyon and also don’t cultivate. Use this period to meditate and increase your spirit qi’s quality and reserves first.”
Sun Mo then stood up. “Go and lie down, I will help you open up your energy channels.”
“Many thanks, Teacher!”
Lu Lin knelt first and kowtowed three times. After that, he moved over and lay down on a rug.
Ding!
Favorable impression points from Lu Lin +500. Respect (5,600/10,000).
This caused Sun Mo to feel quite gratified. At the very least, this student knew gratitude.
“Also, when you execute this cultivation art, your state of heart must be tranquil and at peace. You are too fickle and impatient. This will cause the might of your sword moves to be greatly reduced.”
The Time Immemorial One Sword Art emphasized on killing your enemy with a single sword strike. Without a calm and composed heart, how could one achieve that?
After two hours, Lu Lin left the campsite of the Central Province Academy. He felt very comfortable, and his perceptivity toward spirit qi also increased.
“I should meditate more!”
Lu Lin glanced in the direction of the Battlegod Canyon and felt somewhat conflicted. If Great Teacher Fu questioned him, what should he say? After all, the purpose of this tempering exercise was for the students to comprehend the murals in the Battlegod Canyon.
“Forget it, I will listen to Great Teacher Sun’s advice.”
Lu Lin decided that every time he headed out, he would find a remote place and spend more time meditating. He didn’t request for his combat strength to rise a lot. But at the very least, he didn’t wish to have a bad ranking during the combat test that would be held at the end of the tempering exercise.
…
For the next few days, the number of people in Battlegod Town kept increasing.
As for Sun Mo, he paid no attention to outside matters and was fully focused on unraveling the spirit runes.
This wait lasted for a week.
Gradually, some people said that Sun Mo couldn’t make it anymore, and that was the extent of his ability and wisdom. After all, how could the Battlegod Catalog be something easy to comprehend?
The teachers and students of the Westshore Military School grew haughty again because Fu Yanqing was ultimately an absolute genius who had passed the fifth stage of the canyon. Some people provoked him so that he revealed the true meaning of this stage, but Fu Yanqing guarded his mouth like a closed bottle.
“Teacher Sun, when will you be able to clear this stage?”
Even people like Zhang Yanzong felt anxious and couldn’t help but seek more information during meal time.
“How about tomorrow?”
Sun Mo’s voice drifted out along with the night wind.
