Chapter 1 Arrangement

After discussing the arrangements, Li Yun gave a few words of encouragement and provided contact information before dismissing everyone.

Upon exiting the conference hall, the ten specially selected freshmen created a small group chat for easier communication, and Zhou Jing joined as well.

After saying goodbye to the other students, Zhou Jing walked out of the auditorium and immediately saw Xu Lingyun and Zhang Xiao, both waiting for their respective "bosses" at the entrance.

"Yo, you're out."

Zhang Xiao raised a hand in greeting.

"What did you guys talk about?" Xu Lingyun asked curiously.

Hearing this, Zhou Jing casually explained everything.

After listening, Xu Lingyun immediately looked envious. "That's great, you special selections get one-on-one guidance from a personal tutor. I want that too."

"You're Xiao Yin's assistant; you might be able to leech off some special training. What's there to be envious of?" Zhang Xiao curled her lip. "You're just riding her coattails."

Xu Lingyun scoffed and puffed out his chest. "So what if I am? I'm happy!"

The major of a superpowered assistant is the same as their boss. Zhang Xiao would follow Zhou Jing and be assigned to the Crown faction, while Xu Lingyun would follow Li Xiaoyin to the War Flag faction.

The three chatted idly while waiting, but after all the specially selected freshmen had left, Li Xiaoyin still hadn't appeared.

After waiting a good while longer, Li Xiaoyin finally emerged, hands in her pockets, sauntering along.

"You're here? I saw that everyone else had left. What took you so long?" Xu Lingyun asked, puzzled.

Li Xiaoyin scratched her head and said helplessly, "I didn't want to either. After meeting with the War Flag faction's tutor, I wanted to leave, but the dean and vice-dean pulled me aside for a private chat, saying they wanted to focus on cultivating me, give me resource tilts and stuff."

Hearing this, the three exchanged glances.

"Sigh, personal reception by the dean; that must be what an SS-rank is like."

"Sister Yin, can you smell the sourness wafting from my heart?"

"Indeed, truly hateful."

Zhou Jing and the others shook their heads repeatedly.

"Annoying," Li Xiaoyin said, playfully swatting the three of them a few times.

Today was the enrollment ceremony, and classes would officially begin tomorrow. It was still early, so after joking around for a while, the four of them swiped their cards and boarded a small hovering vehicle for transportation within the academy, taking a simple tour of the grounds.

Although the group had seen the academy map on the intranet, it was only unlocked today. Aside from not being able to leave the sensory protective shield enveloping the academy, they could basically go anywhere else and walk freely within the academy. Thus, they agreed to familiarize themselves with the layout to avoid getting lost on the way to classes in the future.

The academy covered a vast area. Besides the essential facilities like dormitory buildings and cultural class teaching buildings, the most numerous were the training grounds for various courses.

There were general facilities like combat halls, shooting ranges, target ranges, vehicle driving practice areas, simulated combat practice fields, and so on.

The special ones were the teaching areas for different superpowered knowledge, such as martial arts training environments, gravity training rooms, superpower testing grounds, mental meditation rooms, mechanical modification rooms, and mage towers. The facilities were complete and could provide auxiliary cultivation sites and environments for all types of superpowered individuals.

The use of superpowers wasn't restricted within the academy. To prevent accidental damage to buildings, all facilities were fortified with multiple layers of protective abilities, including energy shields, rune secret techniques, mental counter-measures, etc. Ordinary attacks couldn't cause damage, and there was round-the-clock monitoring, so anyone who intentionally caused damage would be quickly discovered.

Most students traveled to different academy areas by means of technological vehicles. Small hovering vehicles controlled by others could be seen everywhere in the sky, resembling mechanical flying saucers filling the air.

However, Zhou Jing and his friends also encountered some students on the road using their superpowers to travel. Some used secret techniques to grow magic wings and soar through the sky, some cast levitation spells on themselves and flew slowly, some leaped between buildings like oversized fleas, and others were covered in martial aura flames, streaking across the sky like shooting stars.

The variety of abilities was dazzling, opening the group's eyes.

The rotation period of Water Blue Star was twenty-four standard hours. Zhou Jing and his friends toured from day to dusk before finally returning to their dormitories, feeling satisfied but not fully content, and rested.

Students could choose to live in single rooms or apply to live with friends in large suite dormitories.

Zhou Jing chose to live alone, as he had some secrets of his own, and not disturbing others was the best option.

In addition, the living standards at the Superpower Academy could be described as all-inclusive, with various living supplies available twenty-four hours a day, but not all of them were free; they had to be paid for.

With the allowance provided by the Superpower Bureau, living was naturally not a problem, but it might not be enough to purchase better food, medicine, supplements, and exercise equipment.

Therefore, the academy occasionally held daily activities and topic discussions, offering different material rewards to incentivize student participation.

Zhou Jing currently had a subsidy of 9,000 Naso per month, and his account had more than 100,000 in savings, so he didn't have to worry about money for the time being.

In the evening, he splurged on a rare extravagant meal, buying a table full of delicacies, including mountain delicacies, seafood, and birds and beasts. As long as they weren't protected animals, he could order any dish with money.

The academy chefs were skilled, and the dishes looked and smelled delicious, making one's appetite surge.

Zhou Jing devoured everything, finishing with a contented burp. He felt satisfied and comfortable, feeling that this was the most sumptuous meal he had ever eaten since he was a child.

His body felt warm, and he guessed that the dishes had also been supplemented with highly nourishing medicinal ingredients to help with physical growth.

As usual, he glanced at the panel that was not yet connected to the Star Realm before lying down on the bed, hands behind his head, and said to himself with elation:

"A new life has finally begun..."

...

The next day.

The academy became lively, and all the students got up early to attend the first class of the semester.

Small hovering vehicles formed different convoys in the air, heading towards different areas, resembling floating gray snakes.

Chapter 2 Martial Arts Class

After a night of rest, Zhou Jing was full of energy and arrived at an open-air plaza.

The first class on today's schedule was a superpower knowledge course. He had chosen the Basic Martial Arts Cultivation course, and all the students were freshmen.

Many people chose this course, because most superpower assistants had their bodies enhanced by genetic medicine, and martial arts was the most compatible route. This was the first choice for most assistants, and the choice of which martial arts system to study depended on individual interest.

When Zhou Jing arrived at the plaza, there were already hundreds of other freshmen there. After waiting for a while, Xu Lingyun and Zhang Xiao also arrived; they had also chosen this course.

Only when everyone had arrived did the course instructor appear.

It was a familiar face: Wang Wu.

Wang Wu stood in front of all the students and scanned the crowd. Seeing that everyone had quieted down, he slowly began to speak:

"Martial arts: a broad term that everyone is familiar with, but may not deeply understand. Military boxing and grappling can be considered martial arts, and releasing Qi Gong waves is also martial arts. Inner force, True Qi, Gangjin, martial aura, Yuan Qi... various different systems, cultivating different energy foundations, all kinds can be considered martial arts. So how do we define it?

"Stripping away the outer layers of various systems and theories, martial arts ultimately has only two core definitions: first, exploring the limits of physical strength and refining various derived energies based on the physical body; and second, studying various techniques for using the body to fight, more efficiently utilizing the body's abilities.

"As long as these two definitions are met, it can be considered martial arts."

All the students present perked up and listened quietly to Wang Wu's explanation.

Wang Wu paced back and forth, scrutinizing the crowd, and said in a deep voice:

"With the progress of technology, the role of martial arts is becoming smaller and smaller. In terms of lethality, it is not as good as many technological weapons; in terms of comprehensiveness, it is not as good as magic secret techniques; in terms of richness, it is not as good as superpowers. Even for moving bricks, we can't compare to various construction machines... We seem to only be good at pure destruction, and can't do anything but fight. In the old society, we could rely on force to hunt wild beasts and protect our families, but in today's world of peace, we break the law no matter who we hit. In this era, it seems like there is no place for martial arts.

"But why do we still study martial arts? Because its significance is not simple. It is exploring the limits of the human body... No matter how far technology develops, as long as humans still have physical bodies and need to use their physical bodies to maintain their lives, then the development of the body will never stop.

"Each person grows from a single cell into a human body, completing the birth of life from nothing. Your physical body has undergone countless transformations to become what it is today. It carries your spirit, soul, will, and thoughts, and is the cornerstone of your existence in the world.

"And we perceive the world through the feedback of our physical senses. It is like a keyhole through which we glimpse the appearance of the world.

"With the development of technology, we have researched various instruments and tools to peek into the laws of the world, but these cannot replace the physical body, because it is your most basic tool and also the most precise instrument. No matter how much you detect through other instruments, it cannot compare to the 'feelings' of the physical body. It contains the wisdom that points directly to the truth.

"Martial arts is not just brute force; it is also scientific research. Tempering the body is broadening the keyhole, upgrading our perception, and allowing life to sublimate to a new level, step by step seeing ourselves, all living beings, heaven and earth, time and space... To this day, we still have not unlocked all the mysteries of the body, and this is precisely what martial arts seeks.

"And this is the overview of martial arts for this series of courses. Only with a clear understanding can we know what we are pursuing."

Many students stirred, whispering to each other.

Some people's eyes lit up as they listened, while others disagreed, with varying reactions.

Zhang Xiao muttered softly, "Why do I feel like he's just trying to trick people..."

Xu Lingyun, however, was quite excited. "What he said is very good. Pursuing the limits of the body, improving one's senses, and thus perceiving more natural laws is reasonable."

Zhou Jing scratched his head.

He wasn't particularly moved. Although what Wang Wu said was lofty, in his opinion, martial arts was just about tempering the body into a weapon. Even if there were grand pursuits, the basic needs were still to enhance the body for combat and to maximize the lethality of this weapon with various martial arts techniques.

Wang Wu waited for a dozen seconds for everyone to digest the information, then changed the subject and said:

"Of course, these are still very far away from you. Just listen to them, and even the most ambitious goals must be achieved step by step. What you need to do now is only to temper your physical bodies, and you don't need to think too deeply.

"Those who have signed up for my course are basically physical enhancement ability users. While cultivating this martial arts ability, it is also a process of developing your own superpowers, killing two birds with one stone."

The course introduction was mainly to make the students have a correct view of martial arts. After Wang Wu finished speaking, he began to impart the actual martial arts knowledge.

This course was a martial arts system summarized after the main world generalized various martial arts systems. It can be said to be the current mainstream of martial arts. The energy foundation cultivated is a kind of ability called "martial aura".

By tempering the physical body, while improving physical strength, cells will slowly generate energy, giving birth to martial aura, thereby obtaining various wonderful uses.

According to Wang Wu's simple explanation, Zhou Jing roughly learned that the main world divides the accumulated martial arts systems into three levels: low-martial, mid-martial, and high-martial levels.

Although Wang Wu did not explain, Zhou Jing knew that many martial arts systems in the main world were actually obtained from other dimensions. Some were not high-level and had limited maximum intensity that could be cultivated.

The martial aura system belongs to the high-martial level system summarized by the main world, and the destructive power, energy intensity, and growth limit are the highest on average.

In addition, because of the same type of ability route, the birth source of the energy foundation is often the same thing, such as the body and spirit, so the energy produced has a certain commonality.

Therefore, in various systems of the same type of ability, there is the concept of "energy universality", that is, the feasibility, rate, loss rate, etc. of the mutual conversion of the energy foundations of the same type of systems—often from low-level energy conversion to high-level energy.

The martial aura is not only a high-level system, but its energy universality is also relatively good.

The efficiency of mutual transformation of other martial arts energies such as inner force, True Qi, and Yuan Qi is much lower than the efficiency of converting to martial aura.

In other words, the martial aura system can "accommodate" most of the low-martial and mid-martial martial arts systems... Therefore, the martial aura system has become the mainstream route for martial artists in the main world.

The freshmen all took basic courses. Wang Wu taught everyone the basic training methods of the martial aura system. After that, in addition to simple guidance each time he came to class, the rest was up to each individual to cultivate.

The master leads the way, but the cultivation is up to the individual. Only when an individual develops something can they learn the next course.

The initial cultivation method of the martial aura system is not mysterious in principle. It is to temper the body in a specific way, accompanied by breathing techniques, which can be called "entry-level cultivation method" to some extent.

However, this set of "entry-level cultivation method" does not have any fancy names, it is called "Basic Tempering Method", and all freshmen practice this.

Although the name is simple, the content is quite rich. Since it can be used to teach all students, it is mostly the essence summarized by the main world.

As for whether there are any more powerful "entry-level cultivation methods", Zhou Jing is not sure, but this is his first time contacting martial arts cultivation, so he should not aim too high. He decided to figure out the "Basic Tempering Method" first.

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