21: Competition and elimination

"So you are Professor Yan! My teacher often mentions you, saying your scientific research strength is far above his, and he told me I must follow you and study hard once I got here!"

Zhang Sheng said excitedly.

"You brat! That fellow Liu Quan must have slandered me plenty in front of you."

Actually, before setting off, Professor Liu Quan had instructed Zhang Sheng that he must get along well with Yan Xueli.

He had said: "Although that fellow Yan Xueli has top-tier research strength, he is very narrow-minded. You must be careful not to let him give you a hard time."

"You've misunderstood our Professor Liu. What Professor Liu says most is that your achievements in the field of agriculture are unmatched in Huaxia. Even globally, you are among the very top tier, and the next Nobel Prize should have your name on it."

"Haha, cut that out, kid. However, knowing you're skilled in gold spirit rice breeding, I've specially allocated 100 kilograms of gold spirit rice for you. Other students have to use credits to buy it."

"Thank you for your recognition. I will definitely put my heart and soul into cultivating the gold spirit rice, increase my credits, and not let you down."

"I need to remind you that although the school is divided into the Spiritual Plant College, Artifact Refining Academy, and Alchemy College, these divisions are mostly superficial. They only represent the school's planned directions; there isn't much difference in the curriculum. Your studies here should still focus on raising your Realm and improving your actual combat capabilities!"

"Alright, go on! Your first public class is this afternoon!"

As for the farmland, Zhang Sheng didn't mention it because every freshman in the Spiritual Plant College has a quota.

Everyone is standardly equipped with 5 mu of farmland.

Just like the Alchemy College, everyone is standardly assigned an alchemy room. The Formation College provides a certain number of blank Formation Plates, and the Talisman College provides blank talisman paper.

Students from different colleges all have specific basic benefits.

The course schedule of the First Cultivation University is completely different from that of traditional universities.

There are three types of courses on Zhang Sheng's schedule.

Public classes, professional classes, and elective classes.

Among them, public classes are mandatory, whereas professional and elective classes can be attended at one's own discretion.

Every absence from a mandatory public class will result in a deduction of credits, with 10 points docked per session.

Freshmen with only a hundred points will have to pack up and leave after skipping ten classes.

Because the core of the school's system is credits and assessments—ability is paramount! Combat power is paramount!

Zhang Sheng's first public class happened to be the same as Wu Xingyang's.

This was because public classes are for all freshmen and are not specific to any particular college.

Upon arriving at the classroom, like Zhang Sheng, the students were all wearing red and white school uniforms with silver badges on their chests.

It seemed the students valued their credits very much, as even a minor thing like not wearing a school uniform on campus would result in a credit deduction.

The large classroom was filled with over two hundred students. Presumably, there were multiple classrooms for public classes because Zhang Sheng clearly remembered from the opening ceremony.

There were a total of 3,012 freshmen in the early admissions batch.

A man with a buzz cut wearing a black suit entered the classroom and strode up to the podium.

He was 1.9 meters tall with short hair, appearing to be twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, and he exuded an aura similar to Commander Zhao Su.

"Hello everyone, I am your large-class public course teacher!"

The man wrote the three characters "Xu Anmin" in large letters on the blackboard.

"Awakening ability—Space Control, Talent Rank: SS-Rank!"

As soon as he said this, the classroom immediately broke into a commotion.

"Zhang Sheng, I didn't expect it to be a rare SS-Rank, and an even rarer space type at that. Is this the level of our teachers?" Wu Xingyang said excitedly.

"Silence!" An aura of the Qi Sea Realm swept through the entire class.

"Silence must be maintained in my classroom. Violators will have 10 credits deducted!" After Xu Anmin finished speaking, the classroom immediately became pin-drop silent.

Wu Xingyang hurriedly covered his mouth; no one wanted to lose those ten points.

However, at that moment, a student had just reached the classroom door.

All the students' eyes gathered on him, thinking to themselves:

"Buddy, you're finished!"

"10 credits deducted! Return to your seat and keep quiet."

The late student found a seat and sat down with a mournful face.

"First, I want to tell you a fact: don't think you are exceptionally gifted just because you entered the First Cultivation University. It is your honor to be able to enter here early!"

"Next, listen carefully to a set of data!"

Only the teacher's loud and serious voice echoed in the classroom; one could hear a pin drop.

"According to statistics from the Extraordinary Administration Bureau app, out of Huaxia's 1.4 billion population, the number of people who have awakened Talents is as high as 300 million! The Awakening rate is as high as 20%, and the same goes for other countries."

"The awakened population is primarily composed of adolescents and young adults, mostly between the ages of 14 and 28, showing a normal distribution structure with more in the middle and fewer at both ends."

"Currently, the known Talent Ranks are divided into eight levels: E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, and SSS. Among them, Rank A and below account for 97% of the total number of awakened individuals."

"However, even if only 1% of people awaken an S-Rank Talent, that's 3 million people among Huaxia's 300 million awakened. Even if the probability of Awakening an SS-Rank Talent is only 0.01%, there are at least 30,000 SS-Ranks in all of Huaxia."

Hearing this, the expressions of everyone below changed significantly.

"Holy moly!" a student couldn't help but whisper.

"Fifth row, sixth from the right, 10 credits deducted. Come register after class."

Poor kid... Xu Anmin paused. "So, don't think you're so great just because you've awakened an S-Rank Talent. You can find a whole crowd of S-Ranks here just by reaching out, and even SS-Ranks are common. Some of you don't even have an S-Rank Talent."

"Don't think that just because you were admitted early to the First Cultivation University, you're all set. I'm telling you! Your nightmare has only just begun!"

"The First University has only one theme: competition and elimination!"

"I believe you all know that the Huaxia First Cultivation University is open to the whole country. In addition to you three thousand early-batch students, the first nationwide recruitment is about to begin."

"The First Cultivation University cannot only take people in without letting them out. I hope that out of you three thousand-plus people, half will still be left in a month."

"Now, I officially announce the first month's freshman assessment."

Almost all the students below held their breath.

"'Heavenly Circulation Method' Refining Essence into Qi must reach one cycle per half hour, with each Refining Essence into Qi session reaching 10 spiritual power points."

"This is a unified standard for all freshmen. Those who cannot complete it within a month will be directly eliminated and sent back to where they came from."

"Although the First Cultivation University is divided into different colleges, combat capability remains the primary criterion for evaluation!"

"If there's anything you don't understand now, you can raise your hand."

A scattered five or six people raised their hands, one of whom in the first row Zhang Sheng actually recognized.

"First row, sixth from the left."

"Teacher Xu, hello. My name is An Shenhu, and my awakened Talent is also SS-Rank. I would like to ask you, how can I determine if I reach 10 spiritual power points each time I perform Refining Essence into Qi?"

"If you want to test the spiritual power points generated by Refining Essence into Qi, just go to the training building. There are spiritual power testers there. We record the spiritual power value generated by an ordinary person's first Refining Essence into Qi as 1. These are in the freshman common sense manual; didn't you read it?"

Xu Anmin continued, "Next time you ask about content already included in school notifications, 1 credit will be deducted!"

The students once again felt Teacher Xu's severity... Zhang Sheng hadn't expected the number of S-Rank Talent awakeners to be as high as several million. This data was too exaggerated, and there would be even more worldwide.

However, Teacher Xu never mentioned SSS-level Talents; there should be other reasons for that.

To Zhang Sheng's surprise, the first public class actually involved learning about firearms."