High Martial: I Grind Professions

「April 20th.」

The faint light of early morning pierced through the clouds, illuminating the campus of Bluestone Third Middle School.

The second provincial mock exam—a crucial test that would determine the future paths of all third-year high school students in the province—had finally begun.

As usual, Li Wen stepped through the gates of Bluestone Third Middle School just as the final warning bell began to ring.

After simmering for the past few days, his near-universal fame was now on full display.

Therefore, when his tall figure passed through the security check and appeared in the crowd’s view, the original clamor strangely subsided, only to be replaced by even more fervent whispers.

Countless gazes instantly focused on him, weaving an invisible net of shock, awe, curiosity, and undisguised envy that enveloped him.

"It’s Li Wen!"

"The big shot is here!"

"Look, look! It’s really him!"

Faced with the spontaneous greetings and awestruck gazes, Li Wen maintained his usual faint, calm smile.

He wasn’t deliberately reserved or distant. His gaze swept over the crowd, and he gave a calm nod in response to his newfound celebrity.

When his gaze unintentionally brushed past a few girls in bright school uniforms standing at the front, their cheeks instantly flushed crimson, and their eyes darted away, shy and timid.

After Li Wen walked past, their suppressed, quiet gasps finally erupted. "Oh my god! Did he just look at me? He’s so handsome!"

"I saw, I saw! My heart is beating so fast!"

"He has such a great aura..."

...

He also chatted for a bit with a few top-tier students from the Flying Star Class or Hongyi Building with whom he was on nodding terms.

Their words were tinged with probing questions and admiration. Some asked about his goal for the mock exam, while others expressed awe at his cultivation speed.

Li Wen simply responded with a smile. His humble words betrayed a quiet confidence, and he didn’t elaborate.

Soon, the passageway to the examination hall was unblocked. Li Wen followed the stream of people, ascended the stairs, and headed toward his assigned exam room.

To the onlookers, his departing back looked like a treasured sword, about to be unsheathed yet still concealing its peerless edge.

Inside the examination hall, the atmosphere was solemn. The answer sheets and test papers were distributed one by one, the cold print reflecting a fateful glint under the lights.

DING— The bell signaling the start of the exam rang throughout the entire academic building.

And in that very instant, every student in the exam room clearly heard a sharp sound—the scratching of a pen on paper, so rapid it almost merged into a single continuous line: "SCRITCH-SCRITCH-SCRITCH-SCRITCH!"

The source of the sound was none other than Li Wen, who was seated by the window.

His right hand, holding the pen, had already become a blur that was difficult for the naked eye to follow.

The pen tip danced and leaped across the snow-white answer sheet without the slightest pause or hesitation.

Characters, formulas, and answers flowed out from his pen, written with the flawless precision of a pre-programmed output.

His speed was so astonishing that a nearby student who happened to glance over was left utterly dumbfounded, even momentarily forgetting the question in front of them.

By this point, all the academic knowledge from his high school curriculum had long since been fully mastered and deeply seared into his mind, thanks to the terrifying learning efficiency of his passive [Scholar] profession’s ’learn-once, learn-forever’ effect.

Problems that even top students would have to rack their brains over were, for Li Wen, a simple matter of information retrieval.

He didn’t even need to activate [Absolute Focus], saving the Spiritual Power for his saber practice that evening.

His mind was as clear as a mirror, his pen flowing like a river.

Multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blanks, short answers, lab questions... they were like docile sheep before him, easily tamed.

While most students were still struggling with the first half of the test, Li Wen had already written his final stroke.

He put down his pen and began to organize his test paper, answer sheet, and scratch paper with slow, methodical movements, stacking them neatly on the corner of his desk.

There were still a full thirty minutes left before the end of the exam.

He calmly stood up.

The air in the entire exam room seemed to freeze for a moment.

After the proctor gave a routine nod confirming the answer sheet was complete, and under dozens of gazes filled with a mixture of shock, bewilderment, and even a bit of numbness, Li Wen turned and left the exam room without the slightest hesitation.

His back, growing ever straighter as his physical body’s level increased, crossed the quiet hallway and disappeared down the stairwell.

The process for the day’s subsequent exams—Language, History, Math, Geography, and Politics—was much the same as the first.

The sea of questions could no longer pose any obstacle to him. In every exam, that astonishing "SCRITCH-SCRITCH" sound of writing would start on time, only to come to an abrupt halt with a large chunk of time still left on the clock.

Li Wen turning in his paper early gradually shifted from a shock to something everyone in the exam room came to expect, but the sheer amount of time he finished ahead was still enough to make any would-be competitor feel suffocated.

The only slight difference was in the afternoon’s math exam.

When Li Wen reached the final, capstone problem involving geometry and spatial vectors, he dispatched the first few parts with effortless ease. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Only when faced with the final sub-question, with its extremely tricky spatial construction and limit constraints, did he finally pause his pen for a moment, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly.

For just a second.

In his sea of consciousness, the light of [Absolute Focus Lv. 8] quietly lit up.

The 80% boost to his comprehension flooded his mind like a supercharged engine. The complex geometric figure was instantly deconstructed, reconfigured, and calculated in his mind’s eye. A problem that might have stumped other students for ten minutes was solved in a few simple steps of deduction.

’So that’s how it is.’ With a flash of understanding, the light of Lv. 8 faded.

His pen tip descended again, concisely deriving the result on his scratch paper before he smoothly transcribed it onto the answer sheet.

He capped his pen. There were still twenty minutes remaining.

To the accustomed yet inevitably awestruck gazes of the proctor and the entire room of students, he stood up, organized his papers, and left.

Thus, the first day of the second provincial mock exam’s academic tests concluded, overshadowed by Li Wen’s absolutely crushing advantage in speed.

...

Evening arrived quickly.

Fire Hall, Bluestone Branch, 14th floor. The lights in Li Wen’s exclusive Martial Arts Room were brightly lit.

Li Wen had eaten a high-energy dinner and rested for a little over ten minutes, allowing his body to fully absorb the energy.

During the day’s mock exams, aside from activating [Absolute Focus] for a minute or two on the final math problem, his spiritual consumption had been negligible.

At this moment, his Spiritual Power was full and abundant, and he was in peak condition.

Without a moment’s delay, Li Wen walked straight to the weapon rack and casually drew out a standard-issue long saber forged from fine steel.

With a subtle shift in his thoughts, [Absolute Focus Lv. 8] was already active.

In an instant, the world seemed to pass through an invisible crystal filter. All external noise faded into the distant background.

The light became pure, the flow of the air became clearly discernible, and he could even grasp every bit of the cold metallic texture and the imperceptible stress distribution within the long saber in his hand.

The 80% comprehension boost was like an engine igniting its afterburners, directing all his thoughts toward a single target: the third stance of the *Five Luminaries Celestial Rainbow Skill: Flowing Rainbow Shocking Magpie Chapter*—the Defensive Form.

’Defense is the core... Deflecting, redirecting, immovable as a mountain...’ Inside the training room, Li Wen’s figure seemed to transform into an ever-shifting heavy shield.

He repeatedly practiced the complex saber paths of the Defensive Form: horizontal blocks, angled diversions, spinning circles, and heavy guarding strikes... Each transition embodied the concept of deflecting and redirecting force to firmly guard one’s core.

Sharp saber qi would occasionally overflow uncontrollably, leaving faint white marks on the specially made walls of the training room, only to be immediately smoothed over by the energy-absorbing circuits within the walls.

Two hours seemed to compress in his state of absolute focus.

Only when a familiar pain arrived—like tiny steel needles continuously pricking his brain—did Li Wen abruptly stop. He was drenched in sweat, his chest heaving slightly.

He closed his eyes and focused, allowing a wealth of new insights about the Defensive Form—its deflection angles, energy circulation, and borrowing momentum for defense—to settle and merge in his mind.

[You have focused on practicing the Defensive Form for two hours. Defensive Form progress +3%.]

[Defensive Form 5% → 8%]

The depletion of his Spiritual Power brought on a strong sense of fatigue, but a feeling of satisfaction welled up inside him.

’8%!’ This rate of progress far exceeded the difficult grind under the virtual instructor’s guidance over the past few days.

’As expected, solidifying the basics and achieving self-enlightenment are key.’

He strode to the corner of the room and firmly inserted the now slightly hot standard-issue saber into the weapon rack with a soft click.

His gaze shifted to a jade bottle that had been prepared nearby. It was the valuable Starlight Concentration Liquid.

Without hesitation, Li Wen grabbed the jade bottle, pulled out the stopper, and tilted his head back to down the liquid, which flowed with motes of starlight-like light.

A cool yet immense spiritual energy instantly surged into his sea of consciousness, like sweet rain falling on parched earth.

He casually tossed the empty bottle into a nearby trash can, where it landed with a THUD.

Immediately after, Li Wen walked to the simple resting bed in the room, lay down, and almost instantly fell into a state of deep recovery.

Twenty minutes later, the preset alarm rang on schedule.

The crisp ringtone woke Li Wen.

He opened his eyes. A faint glimmer of his Primordial Spirit flashing deep within his pupils indicated a good recovery.

Although his Spiritual Power was not fully restored, it had recovered to about seventy or eighty percent. The annoying, sharp pain and heavy fatigue were completely gone.

Casually turning off the alarm, Li Wen didn’t linger, rising to walk toward the futuristic, silver-white virtual pod in the center of the room.

’Relying solely on practicing the saber forms by myself isn’t inefficient, but it ultimately has its limits.’

’Only by testing and perfecting my techniques under the pressure of real combat, on the knife’s edge between life and death, can I most efficiently improve the Defensive Form’s defensive path.’

This had been his ironclad rule ever since he began his cultivation.

The pod door slid open, then closed.

Consciousness connected. A momentary switch.

When he opened his eyes again, he had arrived at the Infinite Arena. The vast, starry sky of the fighting stage reappeared before him.

Li Wen directly opened the ranked matchmaking system through the [Blue Star Youth Platinum Rankings].

The system’s light screen flickered rapidly, searching for an evenly matched opponent.

Match found.

Opponent ID: Rukawa Gale.

"What a coincidence," Li Wen said, the corners of his mouth lifting in a subtle smile.