Chapter 9: How old are you to be going to that kind of place?

"Beep beep beep—beep beep beep—"

The alarm clock went off five times, and Mom Zheng Qiuling's wake-up call rang three times.

Lu Yuan finally struggled to get out of bed.

"This is worse than I expected..."

Lu Yuan sat on the edge of the bed with a helpless expression.

What would happen if a person who had been lacking in physical activity for a long time suddenly engaged in retaliatory exercise?

Just look at Lu Yuan now to find out.

Lu Yuan felt pain all over his body, even needing to use one hand to support the bathroom mirror while brushing his teeth.

If it weren't Monday, he would have wanted to just lie in bed all day.

Breakfast consisted of porridge, steamed buns, fried dough sticks, and two boiled eggs.

Lu Yuan ate slowly.

It usually took him fifteen minutes to get ready for school, but today it took him over half an hour.

Fortunately, after breakfast, he had some energy and his limbs were loosened up. When he went downstairs with his schoolbag, his condition was slightly better.

At least it was much better than when he first woke up.

Originally, Lu Yuan had planned to run to school this morning, but in his current state, it was definitely impossible. Even walking was difficult, and he didn't have enough time.

He decided to take a taxi to school, which was a rare luxury.

Perhaps because he saw that Lu Yuan was a student and in high school, a crucial time for studying, the taxi driver drove very fast the whole way.

Despite the morning rush hour, Lu Yuan actually arrived at school five minutes earlier than usual.

"Lu Yuan!"

As soon as Lu Yuan entered the classroom, a figure rushed towards him like an arrow.

"You finally made it."

Cheng Peng was about to take Lu Yuan's schoolbag off his back. "Quick, quick, let me copy your homework."

"What's in it for me?"

Lu Yuan shielded his schoolbag with his chest, deliberately teasing him.

Cheng Peng glanced at the electronic clock above the blackboard and said urgently, "Anything! Please, hurry up, there's only fifteen minutes left before morning self-study..."

"Two meals, the best kind."

"Deal!"

Cheng Peng nodded his head like a chicken pecking at rice, and only then was Lu Yuan satisfied enough to take out his homework from his schoolbag.

Cheng Peng snatched it away and sat down next to Lu Yuan without even bothering to return to his own seat, immediately starting to write furiously.

The black neutral pen in his hand was like a wild snake, its trajectory impossible to capture.

"Cheng Peng, go back to your own seat and copy, this is my seat."

A chubby boy with glasses tried to pull Cheng Peng up.

Cheng Peng glanced at him without stopping his hand. "Have you finished all your homework?"

"None of your business."

The chubby boy replied angrily.

"Let me sit here for a while, find whichever subject you need yourself."

Cheng Peng slapped Lu Yuan's stack of homework books and test papers in front of the chubby boy.

The chubby boy was stunned for a moment, then looked at Lu Yuan. Seeing that Lu Yuan had no reaction, he quickly pulled out two books from the pile of homework and started copying as well.

After copying for a while, he seemed to think of something. "Hey, wait, if all our answers are the same, wouldn't the teacher figure it out? Forget it, I won't copy anymore."

"Stupid, you can deliberately change some of the answers to avoid the correct ones."

Cheng Peng scolded him, and the chubby boy suddenly realized.

"Oh right, why didn't I think of that?"

"Hand in your physics and chemistry homework! Cheng Peng, you're the only one in group four who hasn't handed it in yet."

A girl holding a stack of test papers by the teacher's desk shouted towards them.

"Wait, I'll be done soon. Hey, morning self-study hasn't even started yet, why are you in such a hurry to collect homework..."

Monday mornings were definitely the most lively.

The Fourth High School wasn't a key school in Jiao Yan City, and Class Three was just an ordinary class. There were quite a few students like Cheng Peng.

There was a time when Lu Yuan was also one of them.

Then one day, he suddenly broke free.

Lu Yuan took out his foreign language textbook, flipped to a random page, and spread it out in front of him.

His eyes seemed to be fixed on the textbook, but he was actually looking at his profession panel.

[Fighter Lv1 (35/100)]

[Basic Profession Skills: Beginner Body Tempering Lv1 (71/100) Basic Fist Lv1 (53/100)]

Last night's hard training had caused his Beginner Body Tempering to gain nearly fifty experience points.

His profession experience also increased by more than twenty points, which was significant progress.

"My profession experience has reached thirty-five points, only sixty-five points away from reaching Lv2. Considering the time needed for my body to recover, one week should be enough."

"[Student] Lv3 to Lv4 also takes about a week."

"Once both professions level up, I'll have two free attribute points and two skill points. By then, my overall strength will undergo a huge transformation!"

At this stage, Lu Yuan no longer planned to spend attribute points and skill points on the [Student] profession and intelligence attribute. He intended to temporarily use the gains from the [Student] profession panel to support his martial arts training.

For him, [Student] had become a secondary profession, while [Fighter] was now his main profession.

He even came up with a new leveling strategy from this:

"If I can unlock more secondary profession panels and use several secondary professions to support one main profession, the main profession's leveling speed will be very fast!"

This was because no matter what the profession, leveling up was easiest at the beginning, and the difficulty of obtaining attribute points and skill points was relatively low.

However, he still didn't know the triggering conditions for unlocking new profession panels and needed to study them carefully. Moreover, he hadn't yet thought of a suitable new professional identity for himself.

"Ring ring ring—"

With the piercing sound of the bell, morning self-study began at the Fourth High School of Jiao Yan City.

The noisy sounds of foreign language recitation rang out in every classroom, announcing the start of a new week.

The morning classes were language, math, physics, and chemistry.

With the support of [Absolute Focus], they naturally became Lu Yuan's "experience grinding dungeons."

After lunch in the cafeteria and a short afternoon break, there were four more classes in the afternoon.

It wasn't until 5:45 PM that the day's learning tasks were finally completed.

"Finally, school is over. This day has tired me out..."

Cheng Peng walked listlessly along the tree-lined path on campus with his schoolbag on his back, muttering complaints to Lu Yuan. "I always feel like Mondays are the most tiring, and time passes so slowly, it's like every second is a year."

Lu Yuan was too lazy to pay attention to him. Compared to Cheng Peng's fatigue, he actually found attending classes much easier than practicing martial arts.

In the state of [Absolute Focus], a forty-five-minute class flew by in the blink of an eye.

Taking ten minutes after class to stretch his body in the corridor outside the classroom, by the end of the day, his condition was actually much better than when he had first arrived at school in the morning.

At least his body didn't ache as much as it did in the morning.

"By the way, are you going to the martial arts school?"

Cheng Peng suddenly perked up and asked Lu Yuan. "I'll take you to practice for a couple of hours before going home."

Lu Yuan hesitated for a moment and shook his head. "I'll skip it today. I trained too hard at home yesterday, and my whole body still hurts."

"No wonder I noticed you walking strangely all day. I thought you had hemorrhoids but didn't want to ask in the classroom..."

Cheng Peng looked like he suddenly understood.

"Get lost!"

"Haha, just kidding."

Cheng Peng came up and put his arm around Lu Yuan's shoulder. He thought for a moment and said, "Since you copy homework for me every week, I'll treat you to something special today. I'll take you to a place where you'll feel refreshed and your body won't hurt at all afterwards."

Hearing this, Lu Yuan's eyes widened as if he were meeting Cheng Peng for the first time.

"Cheng Peng, how old are you to be going to that kind of place? Do you believe I'll tell your mom?"

"???"