5: Everyone is trying.

Cultivation is all about balancing work and rest.

My previous life was for hard work, this life is for comfort, and I'll leave the hard work for the next life.

I'm just following the steps, is there something wrong with that?

There isn't, I'm just stating facts.

Looking at the Spirit Stones in the System warehouse, he decided to leave them there for now. Anyway, he had strength now and no enemies, so there was nothing to fear.

Increasing strength can be done slowly; a couple of days won't make a difference.

I believe in the Empress, I believe in the System—an automatic Cultivation Technique must exist!

lottery tickets: 12.12

Lottery Wheel: Blue Quality

With only 12 lottery tickets left, the ones he had painstakingly saved before suddenly didn't seem so precious anymore.

Keep them for now.

Drawing 1, 10, or 100 times in a row gives extra rewards, and the quality of the wheel will also upgrade.

Maybe a 1000-draw streak will also have extra rewards.

Perhaps the first 1000-draw streak will give me an automatic Cultivation Technique.

In the past, I'd have to do thousands of good deeds to earn that much. I'd literally go bald before I could save up enough.

It's different now; I have the Empress. I have high hopes for her!

She gave me 400 lottery tickets in the time it takes to eat a meal. Is saving up 1000 even a problem anymore?

With the Empress around, this speed of strength improvement leaves absolutely no sense of life experience.

Regarding the rewards obtained from those 400 draws, Su Chen expressed that he had nothing to say.

He really had nothing to say.

In one sentence: I'm covering for the Empress.

Whoever dares to bully her, I'll fight them to the death!

...After resting for a bit, Su Chen also headed toward the training grounds.

Although Xia Weiyu said she could handle the mission assessment herself, he was still a bit uneasy.

He'd go talk to the Ability Association and find someone to help her breeze through the assessment.

This challenge assessment was mainly about sparring.

The Superpower Society would send someone to spar with the examinee to check their strength. Those who were too weak wouldn't be allowed to go on missions, which was also for everyone's safety.

Judging by Xia Weiyu's Realm at noon, her strength was a bit weak, and she might have trouble passing this stage.

He needed to go smooth things over. This kind of thing wasn't strictly enforced anyway, and they would likely give him some Face.

If talking didn't work, then he'd have to take action.

Beat them up first, then see what they have to say.

As for breaking the rules or cheating, he naturally wouldn't. Aside from anything else, the Dean himself had set the rules.

In this Superpower University, the law of the jungle prevailed. Whoever had the bigger fist had the say; this was something the Dean tacitly allowed.

If the Superpower Society really didn't give him Face, beating them into submission would give them no reason to trouble him.

Could he win?

Before, he might have been ganged up on, but now it was different.

He had just obtained the Lightning Element Ability with 100% proficiency. Did he still need to fear them?

The only weakness was his current First Rank strength. Because his spiritual energy was limited, the power of his Lightning Element Ability could only one-shot a Fifth Rank.

Is a Fifth Rank strong?

In this Superpower University where even the Dean is only at the Fifth Rank Realm, I can't think of anyone I'd lose to... Campus life was relatively leisurely, and he bumped into some friends he'd teamed up with for missions before on the way.

"Hello, Brother Chen."

'Ding, gained Sun Zhibin's favorability, lottery ticket +0.01.'

"Su Chen, remember to take me along on the next mission."

'Ding, gained Wang Yu's favorability, lottery ticket +0.02.'

"Zhao Feitian, running laps again? Work hard and you'll definitely become the fastest man in our school."

'Ding, gained Zhao Feitian's favorability, lottery ticket +0.05.'

Looking at the hardworking youth who had already run far off, Su Chen felt emotional.

Even those with poor talent work so hard; I can't be lazy either!

If I don't work hard, I'll eventually be overtaken by their grind, and my title of number one in the grade won't be safe.

Effort, I also need to put in effort... He silently took out a speed amplification potion and drank it.

'Ding, host's speed attribute permanently increased by 1 point.'

As the potion entered his mouth and his strength increased, he felt he couldn't take much more. This was already today's limit!

If he drank any more... he'd have insomnia and wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

Although everyone chooses a different path to become stronger, they are all filled with hardships.

Is it easy for me to get stronger... Along the way, he met previous teammates. When they greeted him, Su Chen responded with a smile.

Earning some lottery tickets along the way was an unexpected bonus.

Though it was pitifully little, he was used to it.

Getting 0.01 and 0.01 at a time, I can't even scrape together one ticket in a week!

But even a mosquito's leg is meat. If I keep it up, I'll eventually save enough for one. It's almost laughable to think about working so hard for a single ticket.

But it wasn't their fault. Their talent was what it was, and talent determined the upper limit of the lottery tickets given.

lottery tickets were given based on the other person's talent. The lowest tier of talent gave 0.01. Depending on the person's emotional changes, the number of lottery tickets would also fluctuate.

He had made statistics before:

E-Rank Talent gives 0.01--0.05.

D-Rank Talent gives 0.01--0.1.

C-Rank Talent gives 0.01--0.5.

B-Rank Talent gives 0.01--1... He had less contact with geniuses above that. Although he hadn't clearly verified it, the amount just kept increasing; the better the talent, the more they gave.

Hanging around those with poor talent, the lottery tickets simply wouldn't budge.

This was the fundamental reason why his half-year of hard work didn't earn as much as a few casual words with the Empress!

He had considered live streaming before, since quantity can lead to quality, but after trying for a week, he eventually gave up.

Firstly, he had no popularity and no one watched.

Secondly, he didn't know if it was because the distance was too far or if the System didn't recognize it, but he couldn't even earn 0.01.

It was better to go help an old lady across the street.

Go to famous schools to find those geniuses?

They're all arrogant; whether they'd even look at him was one thing, let alone leaving a good impression in their hearts to farm lottery tickets.

Various methods failed, which was why he was willing to take the risk.

The reason he came to find the Empress Xia Jue to farm high-value lottery tickets.

It wasn't just that she gave a lot, but mainly because earning through other channels was just too slow... "Brother Chen, are you also going to the training grounds?"

"Yeah."

Zhang Mu put on his jacket and asked again, "Brother Chen, are you also going to watch Gu Dog abuse a girl?"

Su Chen didn't understand that term and thought it was some new slang.

"What? Who is Gu Dog? Tell me more."

Zhang Mu explained, "You're busy with missions all day, so you might not know this nickname.

Gu Dog is the Vice President of the Superpower Society, Gu Xiangke. This guy is impartial to a fault and goes out of his way to make things difficult. He's a blockhead with no human touch at all.

Those of us with poor grades have been screwed over by him. Every time there's an exam, we suffer a lot at his hands.

Because of our resentment toward him, we call him that in private.

I just heard the news that there's a girl in our year who wants to complete the mission assessment to start taking missions.

Originally, it was just an assessment to check strength, something you could pass with a few words of instruction.

At worst, you'd get a scolding and still pass.

Usually, these things are handled by members of the Superpower Society. Only if you're unlucky and it's too busy at the start of the semester would you bump into the Vice President doing it personally.

As it turns out, this girl is unlucky today. Not only did she run into the Vice President personally conducting the assessment, but it's Gu Dog.

A Second Rank bullying a girl who hasn't even reached First Rank yet.

I don't know what's gotten into Gu Dog today. Not only is he doing it himself, but his strikes are unusually heavy. If that's not 'girl abusing,' I don't know what is.

I just saw a video in the group chat; she's already been beaten to the point of spitting blood. Since I've got nothing else to do, I'm going to take a look and join the crowd."

Su Chen had a bad premonition because this assessment was only for freshmen who hadn't gone on a mission and needed a spar to check their strength.

At this time, there were really few people still doing this assessment, and today happened to be when Xia Weiyu was going there.

"Do you know her name?"