"Introduce yourself," Wu Zhangkong said to Xu Xiaoyan as soon as they entered their classroom.
Facing Wu Zhangkong with her usual bashfulness, she stood and said, "Hello, everyone. I'm Xu Xiaoyan. I'm 10 years old and my martial soul is the Starwheel Ice Staff. My soul power is at rank 17."
Wu Zhangkong nodded. "Over the next month, you need to prove your strength and adaptability with class zero. At the end, I will decide whether or not you will stay."
"Yes," Xu Xiaoyan cutely answered.
Wu Zhangkong turned to the other four. "You've had a month to rest, so I need to test your bodies again as well as run another combat test. You have half an hour to meditate and prepare." He turned back to Xu Xiaoyan. "Same for you."
Considering the glimmer he saw in Tang Wulin's eyes earlier, he was very curious as to how much he improved. Wu Zhangkong was curious about the other children's progress; only with accurate data could he properly plan out their curriculum.
In the results that followed, however, his usual calm bearing was breached.
There weren't any major changes in their physical strengths. Only Gloxinia's number observed a increase, but it was nothing too big. Tang Wulin's strength left Xu Xiaoyan stupefied.
She wanted to turn to Xie Xie and ask, 'Is this guy even human? Are you sure he isn't a soul beast?'
Xu Xiaoyan's body strength was feeble to the point of being tragic, no different from an ordinary person's.
What shocked Wu Zhangkong instead were the results of the spiritual power test.
The first to take the test was Xie Xie.
His spiritual power had surprisingly broken past 50 and was now at 59. Finally progressing from the Spirit Origin realm to the Spirit Connection realm, he could now upgrade his spirit soul to the thousand-year level.
The second to go according to Wu Zhangkong's plan was the newcomer, Xu Xiaoyan. He believed that since the academy allowed such a physically weak girl to join class zero, her special strength must lie in a combination of spiritual power and her ice-attribute trait.
Contrary to his expectations, however, Xu Xiaoyan's spiritual power was at 61 points, placing her in the Spirit Connection realm. Strangely enough, she only just barely eclipsed Xie Xie in this respect yet it seemed to be her strongest point.
Tang Wulin went next; his results left Wu Zhangkong and his classmates utterly flabbergasted.
"212 points?" Xie Xie read out the displayed number, incomprehension clear in his voice.
"Teacher Wu, are you sure there's no problem with the machine?" Xie Xie blankly stared at Tang Wulin.
Tang Wulin was also shocked. 212 was a massive improvement!
As for Gloxinia, he was watching all this with interest, everything was still going as according to the novel. If you exclude the fact that there is an extra person, of course.
Tang Wulin's mediocre spiritual power had surpassed Gu Yue's first monstrous result now. A spiritual power of 212 points was enough to make the hearts of geniuses tremble.
Xu Xiaoyan finally understood why Tang Wulin was the captain. 'Isn't this too monstrous? He's only ten years old and has 212 points of spiritual power?' Her bafflement deepened further when she considered spiritual power's trend of rapid growth until twenty years of age before its growth would slow to a crawl.
Having over 200 points at ten-years-old meant that even if he halted all cultivation, his spiritual power was still guaranteed to reach the Spirit Sea realm. He would then have the foundation of spiritual power to become a powerful figure!
"Heavens! Boss, what elixir did you drink this last month? How did your spiritual power increase by over one hundred?" Xie Xie stared at Tang Wulin, his expression disbelieving.
"Gu Yue, your turn." Wu Zhangkong's momentary astonishment vanished, returning his expression to normal shortly after.
"T-two-hundred-seventy-eight?" Once more, they were stunned, but this time by Gu Yue's number.
Gu Yue clipped her chin towards Tang Wulin as if to say, 'I'm still better than you!'
Wu Zhangkong wasn't as surprised this time and quickly said, "Gloxinia, you're up."
As everyone watched with a strange fervor, Xu Xioayan felt the atmosphere change slightly and couldn't help but wonder if this pretty boy was going to have an even better result than the rest..
Finally, the result came out.. 599!
Witnessing the astonishing number show up on the screen, not only were Xie Xie and Xu Xiaoyan stunned, even the ever-cold Wu Zhangkong was astonished!
Reaching the Spirit Sea Realm is inconcievable for most Soul Masters, let alone a 9 year old boy!
A score of 300+ points like what he had last time was still reasonable and Wu Zhangkong had expected it to rise to 400ish but this massive growth of 200 points was just too unbelievable.
How long had it been since the last test? 3 months?
A trace of a smile crept onto Wu Zhangkong's lips. These brats are really starting to look like monsters.
Xu Xiaoyan had thought one month was plenty of time to prove herself but after seeing these numbers, she finally understood how large the gap between her and the other four.
Xu Xiaoyan raised her hand. "Teacher Wu, I'd like to test my spiritual power again at night."
"Hm?" Wu Zhangkong turned to look at her. "Does the night affect your spiritual power?"
"Mn." Xu Xiaoyan nodded.
This had been her greatest secret, but her competitive nature dragged it out of her.
"Alright."
"The combat test will begin in a moment. You'll battle in pairs; Tang Wulin with Xu Xiaoyan, Xie Xie with Gu Yue. As for Gloxinia.. you'll fight me alone!" Wu Zhangkong instructed.
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Words: 1104
Author's Note: Letting y'all know that for like the next 2 or so chapters its mostly just me tryna scale strengths by comparing it to the original novel and then tweaking the story a bit. After that we'll get into fucking up the plot.
Also, I'm in 5 different clubs and im a vice-president for 3 of them so my application looks good for college and there's a ton of club events rn that I need to attend. Chapters may be delayed by 10 or so minutes more than usual due to that. Though I will try to write the chapters the night before and have it on timed upload.
Thank you for so many collections and powerstones!