Evan Lin returned to the classroom, but the looks he got from his classmates were all full of disdain.
"Cheating just to get a high score, Evan Lin—did Old Man Liu chew you out?" someone snickered as soon as Evan walked in.
"As if Evan Lin could've cheated his way to that score. He's Evan Lin, after all! Even Ethan Yi isn't worthy to play soccer with him." Darren Zhao shook his head mockingly as Evan came in, his eyes full of ridicule.
"Darren, you scored thirty-eight—what right do you have to laugh?" Evan turned to Darren and continued, "You're the only one in the whole class who didn't break forty. You really have the nerve to yap here?"
"That's still better than your cheating score!" Darren couldn't sit still after Evan's jab and shouted back at him.
"Thirty-eight-point trash." Evan spat out the words, hands in his pockets as he went back to his seat.
"Just keep running your mouth. Wait till the Summer Cup—let's see if you can talk your way out of that! Mouthy king, huh?" Darren's face turned ugly from Evan's comeback and he yelled at him.
When school let out in the morning, Darren led a bunch of soccer team guys to surround Evan's desk.
"A practice match at noon today. Aren't you supposed to be hot stuff? Let's see you play solo at lunchtime!" Darren glared at Evan. He could handle bombing his math test, but what really got him was scoring lower than Evan.
"No interest in performing for a bunch of trash like you. Just wait for the Summer Cup—you'll see what real soccer looks like." Evan stood up without even glancing at Darren.
"You just don't dare, do you?" Darren sneered, making no move to let Evan pass.
As long as he didn't move, Evan had no way to get out.
"Move." Evan spat out the word. Before Darren and the others could react, Evan stepped forward half a pace and body-checked Darren straight on.
Darren's face changed instantly. Off balance, he was knocked backward by Evan's move, tumbling over and crashing into several desks behind him.
"Darren!"
"Are you okay?" A couple of Darren's buddies rushed over, faces pale, and hurried to help him up.
"Damn you, Evan Lin!" Darren was about to explode with anger. He spun around to look for Evan, but Evan was already gone.
"He definitely doesn't dare to play. The moment he steps on the field, he's gonna embarrass himself." Someone guessed.
"No kidding. Evan Lin, play soccer? If he can actually play, I'll let him use my head as the ball!" Darren snarled, spitting on the floor as he stood up. "Just wait till the Summer Cup—let's see what excuse he has then!"
"Just wait, Evan Lin. Your time to get humiliated is coming!"
Darren's face was full of resentment. He spun around, "Let's go. Today we're playing a practice match against Class Eleven. Play hard!"
The whole group marched off to the field in force, while Evan headed to the cafeteria.
After lunch, Evan found a quiet spot on campus and began circulating the Grand Dao Qi-Refining Art.
A faint white mist drifted slowly over Evan's skin, like a thin veil, but it quickly faded away.
Evan ran two full small cycles, sensing his Bubbling Spring Point fill slightly before he finally opened his eyes.
"Breaking through the first layer of Qi-Refining is still going to take a while. If only I had some heavenly materials and earthly treasures." Evan frowned, quietly thinking.
"If I were on the Immortal Martial Continent, I could just refine a Transforming-Life Pill, expand my meridians, strengthen my body, and break through the first layer in three days tops."
"But here on Earth, finding ingredients for a Transforming-Life Pill is next to impossible."
Evan sighed and took out the Brownrock Grass from his chest.
"Just a tiny Brownrock Grass, still too young to be useful. If it were older, I could refine it into Strong-Meridian Pills—that would help me a ton right now."
In the Qi-Refining stage of cultivation, the most important factor for advancing quickly is physical fitness, and the strength of your meridians plays a key role.
Right now, Evan's meridians can only handle one stream of external qi per small cycle. After running one cycle, he can only refine a single strand of qi. If he tries to refine two in succession, his current body might suffer serious meridian damage.
Strong-Meridian Pills are a pretty common basic elixir on the Immortal Martial Continent, mainly made for cultivators who just entered the Qi-Refining stage. They help fortify the meridians so you can safely refine more strands of qi at once.
Just as Evan was about to put the Brownrock Grass away, his expression suddenly froze.
The Brownrock Grass in Evan's left hand twitched a few times, and its stem seemed to grow about half a centimeter taller than before.
"Is it... growing?" Evan wasn't sure. He closed his eyes and checked internally, discovering that the lingering wisp of spiritual qi he'd drawn from Lily Zhong was slowly flowing into his left hand and being completely absorbed by the Brownrock Grass.
Spiritual qi can only be refined and absorbed by cultivators at Foundation Establishment or above—it can't be processed by those at the Qi-Refining stage. That's why the strand of qi from Lily Zhong had just stayed in Evan's body, never fading away.
"I'm still at Qi-Refining and haven't reached Foundation Establishment yet. Until then, spiritual qi can only sit in my body—it can't speed up my cultivation. But now it's actually nourishing a herb?" Evan was surprised.
Heavenly materials and earthly treasures usually grow in places rich in spiritual qi. The denser the qi, the older and more potent the herbs that get produced. That's because spiritual herbs need long periods to absorb qi from the air, soil, or other media, slowly precipitating it inside themselves and growing stronger over time.
So the Brownrock Grass is growing because it's absorbing the spiritual qi from Lily Zhong? And it can use that qi directly to grow, probably thanks to the dragon mark on my left hand.
Evan quickly figured out the issue.
Most spiritual herbs can't be watered directly with spiritual qi—doing so can easily damage their internal channels.
In fact, every spiritual herb's growth is a kind of cultivation. On the Immortal Martial Continent, there are plenty of herbs that have cultivated into sentience. Some take thousands or even tens of thousands of years to awaken intelligence, and their strength can rival even powerful demon beasts.
But this young Brownrock Grass managed to use that spiritual qi to grow, all thanks to the effect of the dragon mark on his left hand.
"I hadn't planned on absorbing more spiritual qi from Lily Zhong so soon. I can't use it to boost my cultivation until I reach Foundation Establishment, but if I can use it to nourish herbs directly, then I need a lot more spiritual qi."
Evan muttered to himself, staring at the Brownrock Grass in his left hand, his eyes flashing.
It seemed that last time he absorbed spiritual qi from Lily Zhong, it was because of his left hand.
Just as Evan was thinking, he suddenly spotted a familiar figure hurrying out toward the school gate.