Chapter 5 : Chapter 5
Chapter 5: Expel Li Mu? What a Brilliant Decision!
Blackwater High School was a school that ranked at the bottom in every category.
The reason was simple.
It was new.
Because it had only been established for less than ten years, it was extremely difficult for it to stand out.
The principal had no background, and the school was jointly suppressed by the major long-established schools.
Good students did not want to come, so the overall student quality could not improve.
And because of that, the school could not secure resources from the Department of Education.
A vicious cycle.
Sure enough, the moment Li Mu reached the front gate of Blackwater High School, he saw a banner.
“Massive transfer promotion today! All tuition and miscellaneous fees waived! Students at the late stage of First Grade or above will also receive an enrollment gift!”
If you did not read it carefully, you might have thought a supermarket was running a sale...
Li Mu’s eyelids twitched a few times, but he still strode inside.
He was definitely getting that enrollment gift, because he was at the late stage of First Grade.
Within a martial artist’s body, there were four life meridians—Heaven, Earth, Profound, and Yellow—known as the Four Tiers.
Yellow Tier was the lowest, and Heaven Tier was the highest.
Each life meridian had nine nodes, which formed the Nine Grades, with First Grade being the lowest and Ninth Grade the highest.
Li Mu had cultivated bitterly and had only barely reached the late stage of Yellow Tier, First Grade.
All martial artists began cultivating internal arts and general techniques during the first and second years of high school.
But without talent, their speed would be heavily restricted, and they would basically only be able to remain at First Grade.
In the second half of the third year of high school, students began awakening their talents.
And the real gap would rapidly reveal itself after talent awakening.
Those with high-grade talents could even see their cultivation rise rapidly within just a few days after awakening.
For third-year high school students, the early stage of First Grade was the norm.
The late stage of First Grade marked a top student.
If someone could reach the Second Grade realm, that was the domain of geniuses.
If they reached the late stage of Second Grade, that was the domain of heaven’s chosen.
After explaining why he had come, Li Mu was enthusiastically shown the way to the Student Records Office by the guard.
At this moment, perhaps because class was in session, Blackwater High School felt very empty.
Only faint noise drifted over from the teaching building and the martial practice grounds.
Li Mu went straight into the Student Records Office.
The enrollment process went abnormally smoothly. The moment the head of the Student Records Office heard that Li Mu, a late-stage Yellow Tier, First Grade student, wanted to transfer in, he personally tested Li Mu’s realm on the spot.
Then he ran off with Li Mu’s information to file it.
He even had two clerks stay behind to chat with Li Mu, as if he were afraid Li Mu might run away.
Eight minutes later, the department head had even found a school uniform and school badge for Li Mu.
It was no wonder he was so excited.
At Soaring Dragon High School across the street, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of students at the late stage of First Grade.
But in the entirety of Blackwater High School, the number of martial arts students at the late stage of First Grade did not exceed sixty.
Now that one had practically walked into their hands on his own, how could they possibly let him escape?
“Hahaha, come, come, come, Student Li. This is your school uniform, your school badge, and your student card!”
“You’ve been assigned to Senior Year Class Seven. Your homeroom teacher is Zhao Qingshan. You can go report to him right now.”
“In addition, you have an enrollment gift.”
“You may choose any one mortal-grade technique, and you also get ten thousand in cash!”
“The money has already been loaded onto your student card, though you can withdraw it as cash if you want.”
“As for the technique, you can ask your homeroom teacher to help advise you. Choose carefully.”
The head of the Student Records Office handed the uniform to Li Mu with a beaming smile and gently reminded him of everything.
“Thank you, Teacher.”
Li Mu thanked him, took the uniform, and left the Student Records Office.
But inwardly, he was secretly astonished. Blackwater High School was truly willing to spend a lot to attract talent.
Techniques were not cheap to begin with, and since the choice was unrestricted, he could pick one of the more valuable ones.
At the very least, it would be worth ten or twenty thousand.
They were giving him more than twenty thousand in value the moment he enrolled. It was genuinely generous.
Like spirit treasures and weapons, techniques were divided into:
Mortal Grade, Superior Grade, Premium Grade, Special Grade, Rare Grade, Immortal Grade, Divine Grade, and Divine Rare Grade.
Right now, Li Mu was broke to the point of rattling.
Tomorrow he would participate in military training, and three days later would be the First Abyss Battle.
This technique was exactly what he needed to resolve the urgent problem in front of him.
So Li Mu had no intention of wasting time going to meet his homeroom teacher.
He headed straight for the school library.
Techniques existed as energy forms contained within spirit stones.
In essence, they were a powerful martial artist’s understanding of a technique, condensed into an energy form. That was how a technique came into being.
During the creation of a technique, a martial artist could not hide anything, nor could they deliberately distort their own understanding and create a bad technique.
Doing so would only bring severe backlash upon themselves.
So every single technique embodied that martial artist’s deepest understanding and insight into that art.
As for how much a learner could comprehend from it, that depended even more on talent.
If a Special Grade technique fell into the hands of some worthless fool, it would simply be a tragic waste.
When he reached the library, Li Mu used his student card to go straight into the technique section.
If techniques were subdivided further, there were also distinctions such as internal arts, movement arts, martial skills, and so on.
Right now, Li Mu lacks everything.
The only thing he did not lack was an internal art.
One internal art was enough. Li Mu’s No-Grade Celestial Immortal Art was already irreplaceable, and all he needed to do was keep upgrading it.
As for movement arts, Earth-Walking Nine Steps could serve as a temporary solution.
But when it comes to martial skills, the more the better.
The only martial skills Li Mu knew were a few basic ones: Armor-Shattering Burst Fist, Steel-Cleaving Leg, and Gale Fist.
All of them were close-combat martial skills.
But the purpose of learning close-combat ability was so that when fighting Abyss monsters, one would still have the ability to protect oneself even after losing one’s weapon.
A weapon still had to be the main force.
Since Li Mu had already decided to use a staff, then naturally he needed to learn a staff technique.
Under the close supervision of a librarian who did not leave his side for even a moment, Li Mu chose a mortal-grade staff art.
Flowing Cloud Triple Shock.
Among martial artists, there were actually not many who used staves, but there were quite a few who used spears.
Flowing Cloud Triple Shock was a technique usable with both spears and staves, and it was fairly widespread.
After entering a practice room, Li Mu sat down and began comprehending the technique.
The so-called Flowing Cloud Triple Shock was a method of continuously sweeping at the enemy with a long staff through a special form of force borrowing.
During the process of wielding the long staff, true qi was infused into the weapon, and upon landing a hit, it would unleash a shock into the enemy.
Flowing Cloud Triple Shock meant three consecutive swings.
Each strike could stack upon the momentum of the previous one, increasing its power.
The third strike was the strongest blow.
And in actual combat, it could be used repeatedly.
However, the stacking method of Flowing Cloud Triple Shock was rather rigid.
As long as a martial artist understood Flowing Cloud Triple Shock, they could fully see through your next move.
So Flowing Cloud Triple Shock was not well-suited for duels between martial artists.
It was only extremely useful against Abyss monsters.
But with the support of the No-Grade Celestial Immortal Art, Li Mu’s understanding of Flowing Cloud Triple Shock instantly increased by nearly fifty years.
Very quickly, it grew to a level that the original Li Mu would have been incapable of comprehending!
It was as though he were an old monster who had studied this technique for fifty years.
Once he understood the essence of it, what did three shocks even matter?
As long as Li Mu wanted, he could stack five shocks, or even seven.
And the process of stacking them could be transformed far more smoothly.
Even a martial artist would find it impossible to see through.
This staff art was alive in Li Mu’s mind!
Li Mu dared to say that, in terms of this staff art alone, he was absolutely unrivaled among those of the same rank.
While Li Mu was improving at a mad pace, the news of his expulsion had already fully fermented inside Soaring Dragon High School.
The door to the vice principal’s office was struck violently.
The vice principal frowned deeply and barked, “Come in!”
The homeroom teacher of Senior Year Class Nine, Zhai Long, shoved the door open and stormed in, furious, his tone one of open accusation.
“Vice Principal, Li Mu from my class has been expelled by Director Liang Hai! Do you know about this?”
“Li Mu? An F-rank talent? If he was expelled, then he was expelled. Why are you panicking?” The vice principal shot him an annoyed glare.
“I want to know on what grounds he was expelled!”
Zhai Long widened his eyes just as fiercely, then took out his phone and pointed at the video on it, filmed by students watching at the martial practice field.
“The student council president told Li Mu to serve as a sparring partner, and Li Mu fought back and beat Sun Long half to death. So that’s the reason?”
“I just went to ask Liang Hai, and Liang Hai actually said he told Li Mu to go apologize to Sun Long, and because Li Mu refused, that’s why he got expelled?!”
“When Li Mu awakened an S-rank talent, you people treated him like a treasure. It’s only been two days!”
“The Li family has no morals at all. This child has already suffered enough. Are we still going to treat him like this too?!”
The vice principal immediately grew even angrier.
“What? Li Mu even injured Sun Long? Then he should be expelled all the more. What are you shouting here for?!”
“The day before yesterday, there were not ten thousand, at least eight thousand cases of talent transfer!”
“That was a decision made within someone else’s family. What does it have to do with outsiders? Who are you to make irresponsible remarks about it?”
Zhai Long looked utterly incredulous as he demanded, “Vice Principal, what screw came loose in your head? Have you even watched this video?”
“Li Mu lost his S-rank talent. He’s an F-rank talent now!!”
“Sun Long, this A-rank talent holder, is at the same cultivation level as Li Mu, and Li Mu beat him like a dog!”
“Don’t you understand the significance of that?!”
“Can you use that pig brain of yours for once?”
Bang!
The vice principal slammed his hand on the desk and sprang to his feet.
“Zhai Long!! Who gave you the guts to speak to me like that? Get the hell out of here!”
“And let me tell you this too—if anything happens to Sun Long, then you can get the hell out with him!”
Zhai Long was so angry that he laughed instead. He knew that what he had said today had gone somewhat too far.
But he truly could not suppress his fury. He forcibly swallowed his anger back down, then gave the vice principal a big thumbs-up.
“Brilliant... truly brilliant!”
“Just wait and see.”
Zhai Long let out a mocking laugh, then turned and walked out of the office, leaving behind only a faint, lingering sigh in the corridor...