Yu Fei calmed his mind to perceive the talent the Fate-Defying Pearl had copied from Feng Shuhao. It was named [Enhanced Absorption] and was of blue quality.
He didn't check its specific effects yet, but he could roughly guess from the talent's name that the guy's physique was definitely related to it.
'His body is probably highly efficient at utilizing energy from food!'
"Anyone else want to issue a challenge?"
"Yes, I want to challenge someone!"
"Me too!"
"I want to challenge tenth-ranked Chen Jinbo!"
...
"Alright, alright, no need to rush. We'll spend this first class period settling the rankings!"
Yan Sea said with a smile.
Yu Fei saw that Du Mingxuan and Zhang Qingyu had also issued challenges; only Liu Min made no move.
After participating in the Y City Youth Martial Arts Tournament, Yu Fei looked back at his classmates and found them completely unchallenging. Although they were all in the same minor realm, Yu Fei's blue talent, [Super Speed Reaction], and purple talent, [Abyssal Sight], gave him such a powerful combat boost that his classmates were no match for him at all.
By the end of the class, everyone had to admire Yan Sea's judgment. Not a single person had managed to pull off an upset.
'That old geezer's judgment is viciously sharp.'
Two hours passed. As the martial arts class was about to end, Yan Sea distributed rewards to everyone according to their rank.
Yu Fei delightedly accepted the Vitality Elixirs. He still had eight on hand, and with the three he received today, he now had eleven.
Furthermore, Yan Sea had promised to secure a resource for him as a reward for providing a crucial clue in the extermination of the evil cultists.
'I just wonder when it'll arrive!'
'The future is full of promise!'
Yu Fei thought to himself.
With more resources on hand, he had other plans.
After class, Yu Fei called out to Du Mingxuan and gave him a Vitality Elixir.
"Fei, this is too valuable! I can't take it!"
Du Mingxuan was currently receiving the fourth-tier reward, but the school-issued Blood Storage Powder was useless to him. It was something that could be bought with money, and Du Mingxuan wasn't short on cash. His father, Mr. Du, had already prepared a substantial amount of Blood Storage Powder for him.
Unfortunately, Mr. Du had no connections to get Vitality Elixirs, as they were extremely scarce on the market.
"Cut the crap and take it. We're brothers, aren't we?"
"Fei, thanks!"
"Don't mention it."
In the end, Du Mingxuan didn't act pretentiously; he truly needed the Vitality Elixir.
He felt that his old man's judgment of people was truly spot on. Yu Fei was also short on resources, but his willingness to spare an elixir proved he was a man who valued friendship.
It was a matter of repaying a favor. Without Mr. Du's financial support, Yu Fei wouldn't have completed his Skin Refining so quickly and might have missed the subsequent martial arts tournament, along with the ten Vitality Elixirs he'd won.
Yu Fei smiled at Du Mingxuan and said, "Get to the third tier soon. We'll go to Aurora for some more practice later!"
"You got it! I'll owe you for this one!"
"Get lost!"
...
Among the five stages of the first martial realm, the Flesh stage was the most difficult and time-consuming, while the Skin stage was the easiest to achieve.
The advantage of Vitality Elixirs over Blood Storage Powder was their superior efficiency; cultivating with them could increase one's training speed by about three times in the same period.
Yu Fei had trained his Ox Subduing Pile Skill to the point of great mastery, which significantly enhanced its Body Tempering effect. In his hands, the same resources could produce a much stronger result.
When school let out, he called out to Li Mengyao and gave her a Vitality Elixir.
Li Mengyao looked up at Yu Fei, her small lips parting as she was about to refuse.
Yu Fei stopped her before she could speak, his tone firm as he said:
"I'll be waiting for you in the advanced class!"
The young woman's face instantly flushed scarlet, and her gaze grew intense with emotion!
"Okay! I'll definitely make it to the advanced class!"
Yu Fei turned and left. Li Mengyao stood there for a long time, tightly clutching the elixir in her hand.
It wasn't just a Vitality Elixir; it was the token of their promise.
After all was said and done, Yu Fei was back to having eight Vitality Elixirs, but he had no regrets.
Li Mengyao had been very good to him. He wouldn't worry about the future for now; at the very least, he was more than happy to help her within his means.
Lei Xiaoqiang's ambitions lay elsewhere, so he didn't need one.
'In this second life, all that matters is following my heart!'
Later that evening, Yu Fei entered his spiritual space to take a look.
At this moment, the Fate-Defying Pearl's light was dim, having temporarily lost its ability to copy talents.
Eight specks of stardust glittered as they orbited the pearl's outermost layer. Between the stardust and the pearl floated two gems, one purple and one blue.
The gems bobbed in the river of stardust, shimmering brilliantly.
The purple gem was from the talent of Ma Tianhao, from the Y City Youth Martial Arts Tournament.
[Steel Tendons, Iron Bones]
Description: Extraordinary tendons and bones, unyielding will.
Effect: Makes tendons and bones more resilient, grants greater strength and resistance to attacks, and significantly increases resistance to pain!
This was a purple talent, but unfortunately, he didn't have enough talent slots to equip it.
As for the blue talent copied from Feng Shuhao today, it was called Enhanced Absorption.
[Enhanced Absorption]
Description: A belly big enough to hold the world.
Effect: Your diet will become much broader, your body's resistance to toxins will increase, and you will be able to completely extract all energy from food. The function of your energy-storing cells will be enhanced by 30%.
In the next martial arts class, Yan Sea began teaching the remaining three forms of the Six Harmonies Killing Fist.
Dragon and Snake Double Stack, Mountain-Blocking Celestial Net, and Light Swallow Shadow.
The style of Dragon and Snake Double Stack focused on a balance of hard and soft, emphasizing the control of Qi Blood and power.
In fact, Yu Fei had already discovered this problem in combat. Using Yin Stream Shattered Jade to control the One-Line Pierce felt like a small horse trying to pull a large cart.
Yu Fei had only managed to control it by brute-forcing it with the seven-fold increase in neural reaction speed from his Super Speed Reaction, but this was not the proper way.
The primary function of Yin Stream Shattered Jade was, after all, for attacking.
This move's strength lay in its ability to drive force into an opponent's body, causing even greater damage.
This was where Dragon and Snake Double Stack came in.
This fist form allowed one to freely control multiple types of force, reducing openings in one's moves during combat and enhancing offensive power.
Mountain-Blocking Celestial Net, on the other hand, was a primarily defensive fist form. It could condense Qi Blood within the body into a net-like Qi Blood Armor. If cultivated to great mastery, the gaps in this armor would become as fine as the eye of a needle, granting extremely strong defensive capabilities. It was equivalent to a passive skill, providing both an armor stack and damage reduction.
Light Swallow Shadow focused on short-range evasion and maneuvering, charging, and shifting forms, emphasizing the coordination between footwork, Body Technique, legwork, and fistwork.
The difficulty of these three fist forms skyrocketed. Even a "cheater" like Yu Fei found them extremely taxing to learn.
Among his three active talents, [Extraordinary Comprehension] combined with Super Speed Reaction to greatly increase Yu Fei's learning aptitude, but at the end of the day, both were only blue-grade talents with limited potential.
Of these three fist forms, Yu Fei prioritized learning Dragon and Snake Double Stack.
He had a hunch that this form would help accelerate his progress in learning the others.
While practicing, Yu Fei discovered a hidden secret to the Dragon and Snake Double Stack fist form: Spiritual Power.
According to common martial arts knowledge, only mid-tier Martial Artists could typically utilize Spiritual Power. But the Six Harmonies Killing Fist was an amalgamation of the essential insights of multiple Martial Saints and top experts from the research institute; it was naturally different!
And because of the innate wisdom from his past life, Yu Fei's Spiritual Power was much higher than an ordinary person's. As a result, he reached the initial stage of mastery in less than a week, which was clearly not normal.
He had added Jian Dalong as a contact, and in a private chat, he learned that Dragon and Snake Double Stack was the most difficult form within the Six Harmonies Killing Fist. In Jian Dalong's year, only one person had achieved minor mastery so far. Everyone else, including Jian Dalong himself, was still at the initial stage.
But Yu Fei had reached the initial stage after just one week of practice.
When he heard this news, the corners of Yu Fei's mouth curled up involuntarily!