Chapter 2: Teacher, Please Stop Lecturing—He Showed Off and Left

The Crane-Seizing Finger was one of the nine mandatory martial arts taught in Great Xia’s martial high schools.

Although it was basic, it placed extreme demands on a person’s neural reaction speed and bodily coordination.

It was very difficult to master.

Even among the students in elite martial arts classes, not many could train this martial art to the level of accomplished proficiency.

Even those top students with exceptionally strong martial talent, who devoted themselves single-mindedly to grinding out proficiency in the Crane-Seizing Finger, would still find it hard to reach the level of flawless mastery before graduation.

As for fingertips flashing like a crane in flight—that was something they had never even heard of.

Everyone rubbed their eyes, all convinced that they were simply too sleepy in the afternoon and had seen things wrong.

“Even if it was just a blind cat stumbling into a dead rat, he still broke the Old Witch’s undefeated streak.”

“This is good. I like this. Give us more.”

All the students were waiting to enjoy the show.

Laymen came to watch the excitement, but even experts could not make sense of it!

Even their homeroom teacher, Huang Chunli, was a little stunned, her eyes widened into perfect circles.

“Fang Qingchen’s Crane-Seizing Finger is this good?”

“During the last martial arts standardized exam, I remember his Crane-Seizing Finger score was only barely at the beginner level.”

“It hasn’t even been a month since then. How could he have improved this much?”

“He caught it without even looking up?”

For the first time, Huang Chunli felt that the Crane-Seizing Finger had become strangely unfamiliar.

Although she was not a martial arts teacher who specialized in combat, she had still awakened an E-rank martial talent, and her physical stat had reached 2.

Against the students in her class, whose physical stats hovered around 1 at best, she could handle them with ease.

And as for her trick of flicking chalk—she had never missed.

She had flicked chalk at students through so many classes at Linjiang No. 7 High School, yet before talent awakening, not a single one of them had ever been able to dodge it or catch it.

Not to mention that among the nine mandatory martial arts, the Crane-Seizing Finger belonged to the category with a very high learning difficulty.

Many students with poor talent only dabbled in it, trained it to the beginner level, earned the score they needed for graduation assessment, and then stopped practicing it altogether.

A student like Fang Qingchen, who had hovered below the middle ranks all year long, should have been even less likely to put real effort into studying it.

She simply could not figure it out.

But with all the students in the room watching her, she could only suppress the doubt and shock in her heart.

Even the classic three soul-searching questions she had prepared as a homeroom teacher got stuck halfway in her throat.

After pausing for a moment, gathering herself, and clearing her throat, she finally glared and opened fire like a rapid barrage.

“Fang Qingchen, what were you laughing at just now?”

“Do you even know what this class is about?”

“Do you know that the one minute you wasted, multiplied across all sixty students in this class, amounts to—”

Teacher, please stop lecturing...

Why not just do the multiplication while you’re at it?

Looking at his homeroom teacher’s familiar and oddly lovable broad face, and listening to that quality trio of questions he knew so well he could recite them in his sleep, even Fang Qingchen—who in his previous life had already become Great Xia’s strongest Martial Saint—felt his head start to ache.

Yet his mood was unusually relaxed.

A smile spread across his lips.

He was back.

It was all back...

Being alive... really was wonderful.

The Old Witch was still on the podium, continuing her relentless verbal barrage.

His deskmate, Lu Qingqian, who had been taking notes, stole a quiet glance at Fang Qingchen.

When she saw that he still had no reaction, her delicate brows knitted slightly.

Her white teeth lightly bit down on her lower lip, and her eyes instinctively flicked toward Lin Wanxing in the front row.

She hesitated for a moment.

Then, in the end, she still used the worn fountain pen in her hand, its paint already chipped away, to poke Fang Qingchen in the arm.

Right after that, she quickly lowered her head again.

That poke seemed to carry a trace of emotion.

And honestly, it hurt.

It kicked Fang Qingchen straight out of his thoughts in an instant.

Hiss!

Baring his teeth slightly, he clutched his arm and stood up.

He casually swept a glance across the content on the blackboard, and in that instant, he understood everything.

“Report, Teacher. Just now, I was listening so intently to the lesson and reached such a marvelous part that joy welled up in my heart, and that was why I laughed out loud.”

The Old Witch rolled her eyes so hard she nearly exploded from anger.

She was not blind. His soul had been drifting somewhere beyond the heavens the entire class, and he had not looked at the blackboard even once.

She had seen it all.

Just as she was about to continue scolding him, Fang Qingchen suddenly lifted one leg and, under the astonished gazes of both her and the entire class, walked straight up onto the podium.

He picked up the half-stick of chalk from the floor, and with swift, flowing strokes like dragons and snakes in motion, he continued the unfinished writing on the board while speaking in a calm, fluent voice.

“Among all the martial arts in the world, whether it is the lowest E-rank martial art or an exalted SSS-rank martial art, each one is divided into five realms according to a martial artist’s level of mastery.”

“Beginner: one can bring out 30% of that martial art’s power.”

“Accomplished Proficiency: one can bring out 50% of its power.”

“Flawless Mastery: one can bring out 100% of its power.”

“Transcendent Mastery: one can bring out 120% of its power!”

“And Perfect Completion is even more terrifying—it allows one to unleash 200% of that martial art’s power!”

The moment he finished speaking in one breath, the writing on the blackboard was completed as well.

His handwriting was vigorous and forceful, with strokes as sharp as iron and silver hooks, as though a fierce fighting spirit were rushing straight out from the words.

Set against the Old Witch’s neat and graceful handwriting, the contrast was immense.

Looking at the classmates below the podium, who were already staring in utter dumbfounded silence, Fang Qingchen’s lips curved slightly upward.

He flicked his finger.

The half-stick of chalk in his hand traced a perfect parabola through the air and landed neatly inside the chalk box on the podium.

At that very moment, the bell for the end of class rang right on cue.

He dusted the chalk from his hands.

“Make sure you write this down properly in your notes, classmates. This point will be tested in the martial exam later on.”

“Class dismissed!”

With that, he paid no attention whatsoever to the astonished look Lin Wanxing cast his way and strode out of the classroom.

Tomorrow was the day they would test their martial talent, so there was only this one class this afternoon.

Right now, he only wanted to hurry home.

Fang Qingchen showed off and walked away, but the classroom behind him exploded once again!