No Money to Cultivate Immortality?

With a thunderous rumble beneath their feet, the arena suddenly shifted—towering walls sprang up from the ground, dividing the massive space into dozens of enclosed chambers.

In the rest area for Songyang High, Zhang Yu watched the scene unfold in astonishment. “The stadium at Purple Cloud High can transform? Compared to this, ours is basically just a sandbox.”

Most of the students from Songyang High around him darkened at the comment. But considering Zhang Yu had just clocked in with a physical strength score of 4.95 at Rank 5, no one dared challenge him. Even He Dayou, son of a school board member, pretended not to hear the blatant insult.

After all, at Songyang High, test scores were everything—and Zhang Yu’s performance today had reached a level of supremacy within supremacy. Just a look from him was enough to send underachievers into cardiac arrest.

Wang Hai smoothly changed the subject. “Physical competitions test more than just raw strength. The next events are agility, speed, and power.”

“Agility and speed are each worth 75 points. Power is worth 150. Every category matters. If you’re too one-sided, you won’t rank high. These events evaluate the overall physical quality of a student’s body.”

“Listen up—they’re about to explain the rules.”

On the giant screen, an animated video began demonstrating how this round would work.

Each contestant stood alone in a chamber on the arena floor. A glowing circle, three meters in radius, lit up beneath their feet.

Contestants with larger body types had their circles automatically scaled up to match their size.Then, from all four walls of each chamber, steel pellets began firing at high speed toward the contestants.

At the same time, the glowing circle would gradually shrink. As it got smaller, the difficulty of dodging the incoming pellets increased dramatically.

The round ended either when a contestant was struck by a pellet—or if they stepped outside the boundary.

Scoring was based on how long each contestant lasted within the circle. The longer they held out, the higher their rank. The last one standing would take first place.

Anyone who didn’t make it into the top twenty for this round would be eliminated on the spot—no entry to the next round.

Wang Hai added, “Understand now? It’s just like the agility drills I’ve had you do—only cranked up a few levels.”

Zhang Yu stroked his chin. “So big-bodied folks are at a disadvantage this round. They’ll definitely have to dodge more pellets in the same amount of time.”

Wang Hai nodded. “Large physiques have their edge in the power round, but they pay the price here. Same for the speed round coming up—they’ll struggle there too.”

“These competitions test the complete physical package. Even if you specialize in one area, if the others fall short, you won’t make it to the top. Agility, speed, power—you need all three.”

The video continued, explaining other details. Contestants were not allowed to use mana during the event. They’d wear Detection Patches to monitor mana flow.

Zhang Yu nodded, mentally noting he’d need to pause the passive breathing from his Zhou Tian Qi-Gathering Technique.

And since this was a physical competition, Spirit Roots were also off-limits.

That’s why Bai Zhenzhen had kept hers entirely dormant ever since they got on the bus this morning—no intention of letting it activate at all.

After the last rule played out on-screen, Bai Zhenzhen said, “Ten minutes to go. Come on, Yuzi, let’s hit the bathroom before the match starts. Don’t wanna be holding it in mid-battle.”

The two of them headed toward the restrooms. Along the way, they passed squads from other high schools getting ready for the event—mainly by dosing up.

Students from ordinary schools jabbed unbranded syringes into acne-ridden arms.

White Dragon High’s students, backed by their powerful bodies, downed bottles of premium supplements in front of flashing cameras.

Red Tower High’s monstrous athletes pumped injection after injection straight into their veins.

And at Purple Cloud High, Le Mulan and Lian Tianji were going the extra mile—first heart injections, then intracranial shots to boost their stats across the board…

Watching all this, Zhang Yu no longer felt shocked. He didn’t even bother asking the old question: “Isn’t this a physical-only event? Why aren’t drugs banned?”

If someone asked him that now, he’d answer with absolute confidence: “Of course body contests also test your tolerance to enhancement drugs. That’s just how Kunxu works.”

Outside the restroom, they split up for the men’s and women’s sides.

Now, Zhang Yu had sampled quite a few restrooms in his day—Songyang High, Red Tower, White Dragon…

But this one still caught him off guard.

“This hellhole has a sideboard? And there’s a whole box of chopsticks on it? A box of spoons?!”

With a sideboard present, the table nearby made slightly more sense—though when Zhang Yu spotted the “No Peeing on the Dining Table” sign taped to it, he fell silent.

Damn… do Purple Cloud High students have no standards?

But a glance at the notice on the wall corrected his misunderstanding.

Apparently, due to the rising number of breakdowns and a dip in quarterly profits, the school had rolled out a new “Support the Failing Students” initiative.

To keep them comfortable, they installed dining tables and sideboards in the restrooms and banned all bullying within.

“So that’s it… they’re showing care for underachievers. Though it somehow feels even bleaker.”

Meanwhile, outside the women’s restroom—

Bai Zhenzhen curiously eyed a few other doors nearby.

One of them was labeled “Reserved for Le Mulan.”

“A private stall for the top student?”

She tried to go in, but there wasn’t even a handle. The door seemed to require identity authentication to open.

A hint of envy flickered in her eyes. “Songyang really should learn from Purple Cloud—build private bathrooms for the top three.”

A few minutes later, the two returned to the arena.

Before entering, Bai Zhenzhen took a Cognitive Enhancer to boost her focus for the match.

Zhang Yu downed a bottle of Stimulant to increase his movement speed in the arena.

Though he followed the Natural Body Forging route, he wasn’t about to let pride stop him from improving his score by a few points.

They also shared a few Neural Fillers to avoid getting drowsy in the late-night rounds.

Soon after, all contestants entered the arena. With Detection Patches affixed to their bodies, they were each assigned to a private chamber.

As the glowing circle on the floor flared to life, Zhang Yu instantly tensed.

The next moment, with a whooshing roar, steel pellets came flying from all directions.

“Not bad… slower than Ah-Zhen’s Piercing Sword Aura.”

With the Stimulant coursing through him, Zhang Yu’s muscles were fully awake. His reflexes sharpened. As the pellets came at him, he moved fluidly to dodge them.

“With the circle still this wide, I don’t need Full Focus Mode yet.”

Full Focus Mode—Level 10 of the Celestial Martial Heart-Forging Technique—let Zhang Yu reach an unparalleled level of concentration, even giving him the illusion of slowed time.

But it came with a major drawback: limited duration.

When he first mastered it, he could only maintain it for one minute.

Now, with his Dao Heart strengthened and his Martial Intent honed, he’d stretched it to ninety seconds.

“If I can hold out like this in my normal state, I’ll wait until the circle’s smaller and dodging gets harder—then I’ll activate Full Focus…”

…

In the spectator stands—

Streamer and commentator Gangshan offered live analysis. “As the circle shrinks, difficulty skyrockets. This round tests not just speed and reflexes—but how long you can maintain mental focus.”

Right then, students started getting eliminated.

A high-speed pellet struck a student from a regular high school in the leg, making him stumble.

That moment of hesitation was fatal. More pellets rained down in a hailstorm.

His mind was already panicking. His body and brain couldn’t keep up with the relentless onslaught.

“Is the competition really that much harder than our school training?”

One steel pellet after another pelted his body until he collapsed in a coughing spasm of blood.

As he exited the round, he watched the screen with a mix of envy and bitterness—students still holding strong.

“Are the ones from elite and top-tier schools all monsters? They’re still dodging?”

Scenes like this played out all across the arena—students from ordinary schools being eliminated in droves, many injured.

Gangshan panned the camera from those collapsing students to the Purple Cloud athletes effortlessly weaving through the storm.

Within the circle, Lian Tianji was alert and fluid, shifting in small, efficient movements to evade every shot.

Le Mulan looked even more relaxed—gliding through the circle like it was a dance floor, letting the steel pellets brush past like waltzing partners.

Gangshan sighed. “The gap is staggering. The ordinary schools are basically wiped out. The top three schools haven’t even hit their limits yet.”

Le Jingchen watched the defeated students with disdain.

Blowing thousands of credits each month just to try cultivating?

He didn’t understand why poor people pushed themselves so hard. In his view, cultivation wouldn’t change their lives anyway. All they did was create problems for themselves.

Of course, Le Jingchen would never say this out loud. How else would Purple Cloud Pharmaceuticals rake in money? How else would his family get so many resources?

So, on the livestream, Le Jingchen said smoothly, “The gap isn’t as wide as it looks. I believe there are exceptional students in ordinary schools too. The reason they fall behind is often due to information disparity.”

Before the match, the top three schools had been keeping their breakthrough Body-Refining techniques under wraps.

Now that the competition had begun, there was no reason to stay secret.

Le Jingchen continued, “Take Purple Cloud’s Super Metabolism Surgery, or White Dragon’s pseudo-demonic muscle surgery. If regular students knew about these procedures, and had them done, they could go toe-to-toe with Le Mulan or Song Hailong.”

He then pointed toward Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen. “Look at these two from Songyang High. After adopting a new Body-Refining technique, they’re already on par with the top schools.”

Noticing Songyang’s intention to make a statement in this competition, Le Jingchen figured—why not turn that into free marketing for their new body-refining tech?