Chapter 24: 24

The woman conjured a steel sword, raised her delicate chin, and teased, “I’ll take my power down about three points. It’ll be difficult for me to go any lower than that, but I won’t go too hard on you either. I’ll just stand here, not fighting back. Don’t think that you can do better with that low strength score. Come on, show me how much you can do with your measly little strength. One point? Two?”

Three strength points?

Xiao Lin unsheathed his novice dagger and began calculating in his mind. His strength value was three points and his Basic Dagger Mastery was at LV2. In fact, he had always been a little confused regarding Basic Weapon Mastery. The explanation the computer system gave him was that it increased the skill of wielding a dagger, but only then, did he realize what it meant.

The so-called skill referred to the control of one’s strength. A person could have 20 strength points, but it might not be possible to fully exert all 20 points with a sword.

With the help of his SS-level Academic Genius talent, Xiao Lin had LV2 Dagger Mastery since the admissions test. Although his strength was low, he could exert his power better than others. Nevertheless, relying on that aspect alone might prove difficult to meet the woman’s requirements.

Xiao Lin believed that some of the acting class monitors had reached a LV2 standard. Even though they were slightly behind him, they were all talented students who still could not manage to exert 100 percent of their strength.

However, Xiao Lin could only rely on one vital aspect—LV2 Slashing! The Smart Computer explained that skill as the ability to deliver a stronger blow after briefly charging one’s strength.

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After upgrading to LV2, Slashing became even more powerful, but its drawbacks were significant too. Powering up at LV1 took about two seconds, but increased to around four seconds for LV2. It did not have much value in actual combat, but he was lucky that the woman said that she would not fight back.

Under everyone’s scornful and mocking gazes, Xiao Lin raised the dagger and rushed forward without hesitation. The woman held the sword in one hand, standing in front of him nonchalantly. Despite having suppressed her strength to three points, she did not believe that Xiao Lin could break through her defenses.

Slash!

Xiao Lin swung his shortsword high and activated his skill, causing a silver-white cold glow to illuminate the blade. The powering up process took four seconds. He could choose any moment to swing the blade down, but to ensure that his strength could exceed three strength points, he chose to power up for the entire four seconds.

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“What’s he doing? Why did he stop? ”

“Is he scared?”

“Scared of shame!”

Everyone figured that Xiao Lin was just deliberately acting dumb, but the tutor raised her thick eyebrows slightly. The bright light on Xiao Lin’s sword might have slipped the freshmen’s radar, but it could never trick a battlefield veteran like her!

The corners of her eyes twitched as Xiao Lin slashed down with his dagger. Her instinct told her that she was in danger and she immediately raised her steel sword. A purple light then began flowing through it.

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“Ah, damn… ” Xiao Lin was surprised by that, but could not stop his dagger from clashing with the woman’s sword. Then, as expected, he felt an unstoppable force extending through him along the sword’s surging purple light. His entire body was thrown high into the air and he fell straight down.

There was a roar of laughter in the hall; the result was exactly as they had expected. Xiao Lin seemed to have had it worse, perhaps even worse than the unlucky person who received a brutal, disfiguring kick in the face.

Xiao Lin lay on the ground, convulsing and foaming at the mouth. His lungs were on the brink of collapse while the purple current paralyzed him and rendered him motionless. All he could do was stare at the woman to express his anger.

“Tutor, I think your strength exceeded three points!” Cheng Ming took a deep breath, stepped forward, and remarked in a deep voice. The woman said that she would suppress her strength, but any idiot could see that she had not.

The woman was silent, but she raised her head. She ignored Cheng Ming’s accusation, and looked up at the roof. After determining that a student was injured, the Smart Computer would automatically switch on the venue’s treatment system.

The woman suddenly stepped beside Xiao Lin. She fumbled for a glass bottle that she carried with her, the contents of which were filled with viscous red liquid. The woman then forced open Xiao Lin’s mouth, unscrewed the bottle cap, and poured all the red liquid into his mouth.

“Drink this!” the woman ordered firmly.

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Xiao Lin’s entire body was already sore and numb, so he had no choice but to drink that strange liquid. It had a bad taste, tasting like how rust smelled, but soon he felt a pleasant warmth spreading throughout his body. Not only did his numbness gradually fade, but the scars all over his body vanished too.

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The healing glow was just about to land on him when it quickly disappeared after determining that Xiao Lin had healed from the injury.

Everyone realized that the woman had used some kind of magical potion to heal Xiao Lin from his injuries, thus sparing him from having to use redemption points from being automatically treated by the system.

The woman snickered. “You got some gall using Slashing on me? You don’t know the meaning of death, do you! Only under very specific combat conditions will it be possible to power up for four seconds. That renders this skill useless. Other than using it as pre-training for certain skills, it doesn’t have any practical value.”

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Xiao Lin got up again, wiped the blood off his face, then stared at the woman. “You didn’t keep your word!”

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The woman remained noncommittal. After confirming that Xiao Lin was all fine, she stood up too. “What I just gave you was a mid-level complete recuperation drug. On a normal course schedule, you’ll only be able to taste this medicine when you’re in your third year. Redemption points are very valuable for new students, but you don’t need to thank me for saving you a fortune in the treatment.”

Xiao Lin’s face was expressionless. “You didn’t keep your word.”

1

The woman’s face stiffened. If she had not increased her strength earlier, the clash of weapons would have knocked her sword down. It went without saying that she could never accept that possibility, so on instinct, she raised her strength to a higher level. She was never going to admit it and instead said, “I admit, the strength of your dagger earlier exceeded three points, but you were only able to do it with the help of a skill. That’s right, I don’t acknowledge that your swordsmanship has reached the point where you can display a hundred percent of your strength!”

Xiao Lin blinked. “You didn’t keep your word.”

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The woman became irritated, and a network of purple thunderbolts exploded out all of a sudden. Everyone else made themselves scarce, startled, believing that their tutor was going to go berserk at any moment.

Xiao Lin repeated like a parrot. “You didn’t keep your word.”

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“You, you, you…” The woman was trembling with anger. Her fingers—entwined with the purple current—pointed right at Xiao Lin. If she chose to be cruel, she could definitely burn the boastful little freshman in front of her into charcoal, but her action was nothing more than a sudden outburst to vent her anger. The purple lightning soon dissipated completely.

The woman turned around without saying a word. Her black leather boots stomped on the floor, producing heavy footsteps. As she walked, she said, “The Basic Meditation course is in Classroom Three, the first row of Zone B. I’ll give them a call, but I still stand firm on my opinion that there’s no point in magic-martial art dual cultivation. ”

Xiao Lin exhaled a long sigh. Although everything progressed rather differently from what he had planned, the results were still in his favor. After all, the woman was a graduate and seemed to have quite high status. If she went out of her way to say that, then there was definitely a possibility for Xiao Lin to take both courses.

The woman walked toward the door and stopped suddenly before turning around to ask, “What’s your name?”

“Xiao Lin.”

She nodded and opened the door to leave.

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