Chapter 756 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 23

Mo Lan leaned on her wooden sword, sweat pouring down like rain. Her chest heaved violently, every muscle in her body trembling, yet her spine remained ramrod straight, a blazing light burning in her eyes.

An unprecedented sense of exhilaration washed through her exhausted body.

She had finally experienced the allure of martial combat! It wasn’t as flashy as magic, but it was thrilling in its own visceral way.

“Go prepare a blade and dagger that suit your hand! Tomorrow I’ll teach you Mo Lan leaned on her wooden blade, sweat pouring down like rain. Her chest heaved violently, every muscle in her body trembling, yet her spine remained ramrod straight, a blazing light burning in her eyes.

An unprecedented sense of exhilaration washed through her exhausted limbs and bones.

She had finally experienced the allure of martial combat! It wasn’t as flashy as magic, but it was thrilling enough to be utterly satisfying.

“Go prepare a blade and dagger that suit your hand! Tomorrow I’ll teach you the 《Hundred Battles Blade Art》 and 《Reverse Edge Kill Technique》!”

Yan Shuang herself found it rather incredible, but this child had indeed learned the Nine Edge-Breaking Forms to a graduation-worthy level in just one lesson. She naturally wouldn’t hold back the girl’s learning pace.

“Yes!” Mo Lan planned to use the Book of Cards to craft weapon cards for herself after school.

Mo Lan had long since fed the weapons left behind by her original body’s parents to the Book of Cards as materials. Using those to design a blade and dagger whose appearance met her requirements, forged with this world’s weapon materials and smithing methods, was entirely within her capabilities.

Seeing that Mo Lan had been the first to master the Nine Edge-Breaking Forms, and that Instructor Yan Shuang was going to teach her signature martial techniques—the 《Hundred Battles Blade Art》 and 《Reverse Edge Kill Technique》—ahead of schedule, how could the other students possibly sit still? An invisible pressure instantly blanketed the entire class.

Lin Yue pressed her lips together tightly, immediately calculating that she would have her father’s private martial arts instructor increase the training intensity that very evening. She had to catch up as quickly as possible.

She was number two in the class! She genuinely admired Mo Lan from the bottom of her heart, but she couldn’t fall too far behind!

A sharper sense of urgency appeared in the eyes of Chen Xingye and Zhao Wuchen as well. With their families’ resources, hiring a tutor who knew the Nine Edge-Breaking Forms wouldn’t be a problem—they needed to arrange it immediately upon returning home.

Wang Jingnan’s expression remained relatively composed, but the slight furrow of his brows betrayed his concern.

The Mirror Lord’s Prefecture Pioneering Corps was full of experts. He needed to have his father find him a blade master to ensure he maintained his leading position.

Zhou Ming and several other students sponsored by the Wang Family had already cautiously gathered around, earnestly requesting additional “martial arts resource sponsorship,” hoping to secure better instruction so they wouldn’t be left too far behind.

Wang Jingnan deliberated briefly, then nodded in agreement. This too was a form of investment and a way to consolidate his circle of influence.

The training grounds quickly emptied, but Su Yu seemed utterly oblivious to the undercurrents swirling around her.

She had neither the family resources of Lin Yue and the others, nor was she willing to accept sponsorship from other factions like Zhou Ming’s group.

After the dismissal bell rang, she simply walked silently to the edge of the grounds, picked up another training wooden blade, and practiced “thrust,” “parry-counter,” and “step-cut” against the empty air, over and over again. Her movements were perhaps still somewhat stiff, but her eyes were intensely focused, every swing of the blade carrying an almost stubborn earnestness.

Her learning progress was actually not bad at all—it could even be said to far exceed many of her more privileged classmates. She was only slightly behind Mo Lan.

Because she had long since stopped merely simulating combat on a safe training ground.

The desperate struggle for survival in the Wilds, the multiple life-and-death battles against mirror beasts and even treacherous human hearts, had given her the most primal, direct understanding of how to inflict maximum damage with a dagger and long blade, and how to stay alive.

The systematic martial techniques that Yan Shuang taught were, for her, the key to integrating, refining, and elevating those scattered combat experiences bought with blood.

She wasn’t learning something “new”—she was finding more efficient, more powerful ways to express the combat instincts she already possessed.

Every practice session was an act of channeling lethal wildness into a rigorous framework.

From that day forward, body-tempering elixirs and martial combat became the primary themes of Mirror Explorer Class One’s curriculum.

As for psychic power cultivation, it was unceremoniously lumped together with theoretical textbooks by Yan Shuang into the category of “self-study after class.”

Her philosophy was simple and brutal: body tempering was the foundation, martial techniques were the claws and fangs—these two things were the fundamentals of surviving in mirror space in the short term.

Theoretical knowledge and psychic power cultivation could only be completed on whatever time the students managed to squeeze out on their own. This pushed every student’s schedule to the absolute limit. During the day they exhausted their physical strength on the training grounds, and at night they still had to drag their weary bodies through meditation with mind jade and pore over textbooks. They also needed sufficient sleep, otherwise their psychic power might not withstand the mind jade’s suppressive effects, resulting in injury.

It was only thanks to the fact that body-tempering and martial arts classes were limited to one session per day that they could find enough time to complete the tasks Yan Shuang assigned.

This high-intensity, combat-oriented regimen continued for a full two months. When every student’s foundational physique and combat reflexes had been hammered into preliminary shape, and their eyes had gained a certain gravity that came from being tempered through hardship, Yan Shuang finally proposed—for the first time after a martial arts lesson—taking them to the psychic cultivation chamber to test their psychic power levels.

“Testing by student number!” Yan Shuang announced.

Every gaze instantly focused on Mo Lan.

She had been the most dazzling presence over these two months—her martial progress was astonishingly fast, her body-tempering endurance remarkable. Now, with two months having passed since the last psychic power test, would her perfect score in innate psychic power continue to translate into results despite insufficient cultivation resources?

Mo Lan stepped forward with a calm expression and walked toward the testing apparatus.

With her psychic power, blowing out the testing device entirely wouldn’t have been a problem.

During this period, she had kept a book in hand at all times and had long since familiarized herself with the growth rates of this world’s top-tier geniuses.

During the test, she deliberately held her psychic power steady at One-Star Fifth Stage.

This was a result shocking enough to astound, yet when paired with a perfect score in innate psychic power, it wouldn’t appear excessively “earth-shattering.”

One-Star Fifth Stage in two months was merely slightly faster than the historical geniuses who had also scored perfect marks in innate psychic power.

“One-Star Fifth Stage!” Yan Shuang was somewhat excited. This child might become even stronger than her someday!

Mo Lan stepped away from the testing apparatus with satisfaction, only to find her classmates wearing expressions of utter, extreme shock.

The astonishment and disbelief on Wang Jingnan’s face were plainly visible.

Lin Yue had instinctively covered her mouth just in time to keep a gasp from escaping her throat. The look she directed at Mo Lan was complex beyond measure—admiration, envy, and a thread of helplessness all woven together.

“Next!”

Lin Yue stepped forward.

“One-Star Third Stage!”

She had originally been quite pleased with herself for exceeding Instructor Yan Shuang’s One-Star Second Stage requirement a full month ahead of schedule. But with Mo Lan’s One-Star Fifth Stage gleaming like a jewel before her, she now felt her own result was merely… average.

Chen Xingye, who tested after her, also registered One-Star Third Stage. Su Yu came in slightly lower at One-Star Second Stage, though she was only a small distance away from One-Star Third Stage.

Zhao Wuchen and Wang Jingnan were also at One-Star Second Stage, though one of them had scored four points lower than Su Yu in innate psychic power, and the other seventeen points lower.

Yet at this moment, Zhao Wuchen’s total psychic power was actually a notch higher than Su Yu’s, and Wang Jingnan was roughly on par with her.

In the end, Su Yu’s cultivation progress had been held back somewhat by her lack of resources.