Yuzhou No. 4 High School has a history of fifty-nine years and ranks among the top three senior high schools in all of Yuzhou City. Although it falls slightly short of the elite No. 2 High School, it possesses its own unique strengths.
Several large wooden boards stood in front of the Academic Affairs Office, plastered with the class assignments for the incoming freshmen.
A large crowd of students had gathered, making a noisy commotion.
Jiang Ning had already come to check two days ago. There were twelve classes in the freshman year in total; classes one through three were the experimental classes, commonly known as the key classes. The maximum score for the high school entrance examination was 925, with the regular classes requiring 640 points and the key classes requiring 700.
He was placed in Class 8, Grade 1, exactly the same as in his past life.
Since he already knew his class, Jiang Ning did not bother joining the bustling crowd and walked straight toward Class 8.
Barring any unexpected circumstances, his classmates would likely be the same as well.
Class 8, Grade 1 was located on the first floor in a prominent position. For various reasons, Class 1—the premier key class—was right next door. Jiang Ning knew that in a month's time, Class 8 would be relocated to the second floor of the adjacent teaching building.
When Jiang Ning stepped inside, over half the students had already arrived. At a glance, the room was filled with faces that were both familiar and unfamiliar; fewer than a handful could be matched to names.
He had forgotten the better part of what his classmates did during high school, how their grades turned out, or where their futures took them, remembering only a few of the more prominent ones.
The classroom was a noisy hubbub. Close friends sat together chatting about various topics, some bolder students sat directly on top of the desks, while others quietly played with their mobile phones.
Shen Qing'e had already arrived. She was sitting in the third row, chatting with two girls.
Jiang Ning's entrance only drew a momentary glance before the others lost interest and went back to what they were doing.
With his ordinary looks and background from a township, he naturally possessed no striking qualities.
Upon noticing him, Shen Qing'e initially thought about greeting him, but after a second thought, she decided against it. Befriending someone like Jiang Ning would bring her no benefits; he was far inferior to his cousin Jiang Junlong. Earlier, she had mentioned to a newly acquainted girl that Jiang Junlong had made it into the experimental class of No. 2 High School, which had drawn quite a few gasps of astonishment.
The admission score for a regular class at No. 2 High School was comparable to an experimental class at No. 4 High School, to say nothing of No. 2 High School's own experimental class—those students were guaranteed seeds for top-tier universities.
Finding a corner seat by the window, Jiang Ning pulled out his phone. At the same time, he released his Divine Sense, and the chaotic sounds inside the classroom felt as though they were being plucked by an invisible hand, instantly separating into clear layers like individual strings on a harp. If he wished, he could tune in to listen to any conversation he chose.
Jiang Ning filtered out most of the noise, leaving only two pleasant female voices before sinking into his own world.
Body refining progressed step by step without requiring Jiang Ning's worry, and his Divine Sense was tempered through secret arts. However, the most crucial aspect—cultivation method—had not yet been finalized, though he already had a rough idea.
Spiritual Qi was scarce in the current era, so any cultivation method naturally could not demand high concentrations of Qi. Jiang Ning had two candidate techniques in mind. One was called "Evergreen Longevity", a method that placed minimal demands on Spiritual Qi and emphasized a Dao born from the heart. Its progress was slow, relying on the accumulation of years. Even with Jiang Ning's Heaven Spiritual Root aptitude, choosing this technique meant he could only grind through realms relying on time, though its advantage lay in greater stability.
The other technique, the "Star Transformation Formula", was all-encompassing. Notably, not only could it absorb Spiritual Qi, but its real strength lay in its exceptionally high efficiency at converting various other types of energy, such as starlight.
After weighing the pros and cons, Jiang Ning decided to practice the "Star Transformation Formula".
He had deduced this technique many times in his past life, always feeling it contained the rules of the Great Dao, though unfortunately he had never managed to fully deduce those rules in the end.
Thinking about it now, if he could master the rules of the Great Dao back in the Nascent Soul Stage—even just a sliver of them—he could use those rules to evade the Spirit Severing heavenly tribulation.
Yet the rules of the Great Dao were hard to find. Jiang Ning had once ordered people to scour the ten-thousand-year history of the Luoyun Sect, and had never heard of any cultivator below the Spirit Severing stage mastering the laws of the Great Dao. It was likely just a legend.
*For me, the world is devoid of spiritual energy, so Medicinal Pills are indispensable. Although spiritual herbs are extremely scarce nowadays and mostly consist of ordinary plants, with the capabilities of the "Star Transformation Formula", reaching the Golden Core Stage will not be difficult.*
After all, a Heaven Spiritual Root possessed no bottlenecks whatsoever prior to the Nascent Soul Stage, eliminating the need to painstakingly search for various breakthrough pills.
In his past life, he had lived half a lifetime as an ordinary, mediocre person with no special talents, only to discover after entering the cultivation world that he actually possessed a Heaven Spiritual Root—a true trick of fate.
Right next to Yuzhou City lay the renowned medicine capital of Qiaozhou, home to the largest Chinese medicine wholesale market in the central region of the country. Once he got the gold from Xue Yuantong's family, he would go there for a proper shopping trip.
As Jiang Ning was pondering, a familiar set of footsteps drifted into his ears. With his hearing, distinguishing who was approaching based on their footsteps was effortless.
He looked up just as Xue Yuantong stepped through the classroom door. Her little face was flushed, her forehead covered in a fine layer of sweat, and she looked thoroughly exhausted.
*It's scorching hot, and she walked three kilometers—the little girl is quite tough,* Jiang Ning thought to himself.
Xue Yuantong was among the very last students to arrive. Not long after, a round-faced man in his thirties walked through the classroom door holding a roster. As he stood by the podium, the classroom gradually quieted down.
He wrote three large characters on the blackboard: Dan Qingrong.
The students immediately understood that this was their future head teacher.
Dan Qingrong swept his gaze around the room and spoke in a booming voice: "My name is Dan Qingrong, and from now on I am the head teacher of Class 8, Grade 1. For the foreseeable future, I will be responsible for all class affairs."
As his voice trailed off, the classroom fell completely silent. In high school, the deterrent presence of a head teacher still held plenty of weight.
"Clap, clap." Jiang Ning clapped his hands from the corner. The other students reacted a beat later and joined in, their applause merging into a single piece that echoed throughout the entire classroom.
Dan Qingrong noticed Jiang Ning and nodded inwardly—a sensible student.
He pressed his hand downward virtually, and the applause instantly ceased.
"Let's do a roll call first. Raise your hand when you hear your name."
"Huang Zhongfei"
"Bai Yuxia"
"Dong Qingfeng"
"Xue Yuantong"
"Shen Qing'e"
"Ma Shicheng"
Hearing one familiar name after another being called, those distant memories gradually clicked into place.
Huang Zhongfei's name sounded rather old-fashioned, but he himself was tall and handsome—the most handsome boy in the entire freshman year. He would later be elected class monitor and was well-liked by his classmates, especially the girls.
Dong Qingfeng came from a privileged family, had good grades, and looked quite decent, but he looked down on students with poor grades as well as those from county towns and townships.
Ah, the kind of person he looked down upon was precisely someone like Jiang Ning. Back then, Jiang Ning had even clashed with him and had an unpleasant falling out.
Reliving it once over, Jiang Ning had long since forgotten the details of those conflicts; they were probably just trivial matters anyway.
Then there was Bai Yuxia. She was universally acknowledged in Class 8 as the most popular girl, with seven or eight boys in their class alone secretly nursing crushes on her.
Bai Yuxia surpassed Shen Qing'e in appearance, consistently ranked in the top three of the class for grades, and came from a decent family: her mother was an associate chief physician at the Municipal People's Hospital, and her father was an associate professor at Yuzhou University of Finance and Economics. In a tier-three or tier-four city like Yuzhou, this was undoubtedly an upper-middle-class family.
After finishing the roll call, Dan Qingrong used a ruler to draw several straight lines on the blackboard, marking them sequentially from 150 to 180.
"Come up to measure your height and collect your military training uniforms."
Huang Zhongfei took the lead, easily surpassing the 180 line, probably standing around 182. The crucial point was that he was only in the first year of high school, aged fifteen or sixteen, with potential to grow even taller in the future. His tall and handsome appearance prompted quite a few female students to whisper amongst themselves.
Things normalized considerably after that, with most boys falling within a five-centimeter range around 170, since boys could continue growing until they turned eighteen.
Jiang Ning went up to measure himself: 165. He sighed inwardly; this height was slightly below average among the boys in the class. In the future, Jiang Ning would grow to 175.
Although height wasn't all that important—especially after entering society, where money was king—if someone could grow a few centimeters taller without paying any price, most people would probably be willing. It was beneficial after all.
Even later on, when Jiang Ning cultivated immortality and could alter his physical form at will, he never bothered to change it.
Actually, Jiang Ning's parents had good genes, but during his developmental period in high school in his past life, he often skipped meals out of spite toward his eldest aunt's behavior, which had stunted his growth.
On the girls' side, Xue Yuantong claimed the title of the shortest person in the class. In private, some boys called her an elementary schooler, making Xue Yuantong's lungs practically burst with rage as she wished she could tear them apart with her bare hands.
Jiang Ning watched silently. He knew that in the future, Xue Yuantong would grow to 160 and no one would call her a shorty anymore, but the year she hit 160 would also be the final year of her life.
"Jiang Ning, have you noticed that there are quite a few pretty girls in our class?" Ma Shicheng's adolescent pimples seemed to light up with excitement.
Before Jiang Ning could reply, a male classmate with a middle-part hairstyle chimed in:
"Yeah, my little buddies and I are simply stunned."
The corners of Jiang Ning's mouth twitched. What an era-appropriate internet meme...
"The one with long hair is so pretty. Her eyes are so nice, and her skin is great too—not a single pimple."
"Oh yeah, I think she's pretty too." Another classmate joined the conversation.
"You guys are still too young; you don't understand," Ma Shicheng said, putting on a wise and unfathomable air.
"Oh, so you understand then?" the classmate challenged, unconvinced.
"Whether someone is truly good-looking or not won't be revealed until we put on the military training uniforms," Ma Shicheng declared firmly.
From the girls in their military training uniforms, the group drifted to talking about soldiers, then veered off to retired veterans they knew, dragged in national hatreds and family grudges, jumped to a comparison of military equipment, and finally projected themselves into the picture, pointing out the country's destiny with spirited vigor.
Truth be told, listening to them made Jiang Ning feel a genuine taste of youth.