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The competition for class officer positions was set to take place a week later.
Xu Yuan was quite looking forward to it.
He was genuinely curious about Wu Siduo's strength.
In the original storyline, Tang Wulin had been utterly crushed by her, unable to withstand her might without the Dragon God Transformation. Without that transformation, Tang Wulin would have been completely helpless against Wu Siduo.
Self-fusion martial soul technique.
Xu Yuan was highly anticipating it.
At the same time, he was also curious.
Would the split Tianyuan Brush and Tianyuan Five-Element Spear still be able to fuse again—through a self-fusion martial soul technique?
If they simply fused back into their original forms as the Tianyuan Brush or Spear, it would be utterly meaningless. What Xu Yuan wanted was for them to fuse into an entirely new weapon-type martial soul, one with unique abilities through a martial soul fusion technique.
The first lesson ended quickly.
One by one, his classmates watched Xu Yuan leave the classroom, their gazes filled with awe as if he were some kind of monster.
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Office
"Xu Yuan, are you enrolling in the mecha operation course?" Wu Changkong asked.
"Yes."
"Hmm, though the course exists, are you sure you want to enroll? It might take up a lot of your time."
"Don't worry, Teacher Wu. I'll balance my cultivation schedule properly."
"Alright, I'll register you. However, our grade won't start the mecha operation course for a while. If you want to learn now, I can enroll you in the second-year course."
It was easy to sign up for the mecha operation course.
Every year, aside from students who took the course just for credits, very few actually studied it seriously. Classes often couldn't fill up. Students like Xu Yuan, who came from lower grades but approached the course with sincere intent, would be welcomed not just by second-year teachers but even fifth-year instructors.
However, considering the generational gap between Xu Yuan and fifth-year students, Wu Changkong decided against enrolling him in higher-grade courses and instead registered him for the second-year class.
"Thank you, Teacher Wu."
Xu Yuan took the registration form from Wu Changkong and prepared to head over to the second-year area.
While the first-year students had just started school, the second-years were already deep into their regular coursework.
Xu Yuan had checked ahead of time—today, the second-years had a mecha operation class.
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Second-Year Teaching Area
Due to his cultivation, his martial soul had grown with each added soul ring, feeding back into Xu Yuan's body. At this point, his physical development was nearly complete.
Standing at 183 cm, his build wasn't bulky but was strong and athletic.
When he appeared in the second-year area, he didn't look out of place at all.
However, the second-year students had been studying together for three years now, so even if they weren't close, they at least recognized one another. It was immediately obvious that Xu Yuan didn't belong to the second-year class.
"Junior? What brings you to the second-year area?"
He couldn't be mistaken for a senior, as Xu Yuan looked slightly youthful, clearly a newly enrolled first-year student.
"I'm here for class," Xu Yuan said calmly.
He didn't deny being a junior but claimed he was there to attend a second-year class?
The older student's head slowly sprouted a metaphorical question mark.
The senior didn't understand.
"I'm here to study mecha operation. Senior, where is the second-year mecha operation course held?"
Since the senior had approached him, Xu Yuan decided to make use of the opportunity and directly ask, saving himself the trouble of searching.
"Ah?" The senior looked completely baffled, stammering and unable to point in any direction.
Xu Yuan was utterly speechless.
Could it be? He knew the students at Shrek Academy weren't interested in mechas, but he hadn't expected them to be this disinterested.
They hadn't paid attention to any mecha operation courses at all.
Not even for credit-padding purposes?
With no other choice, Xu Yuan had to search on his own.
Fortunately, the classroom wasn't hard to find. Mecha operation classes were held outdoors. After circling the second-year teaching building, he finally identified a small group of three people who were clearly in class.
They were indeed attending the mecha operation course.
Unbelievable.
Xu Yuan stared at the trio, his lips twitching.
The mecha operation teacher, along with two students.
Perhaps at the start of the course, a few students attended, but after three years of cultivation at Shrek's outer court and three rounds of eliminations, these second-year students had no intention of wasting energy on mechas anymore.
"Are you here for the class?" Mr. Zhang, the young-looking teacher, greeted Xu Yuan enthusiastically.
Xu Yuan hesitated before nodding.
The second-year mecha operation class might have fewer generational gaps with Xu Yuan, and there were fewer students here.
After three more years, when battle armor crafting and soul power cultivation began to show results and after six rounds of eliminations, third-year students would generally feel less pressured. Some might choose to spend their free time learning mecha operation—perhaps five or six in the third year, and maybe a dozen from the fourth year onward.
But compared to the hundreds of students in a single grade, this was still a very small fraction.
This showed just how unpopular mechas were at Shrek Academy.
No wonder Xu Yuan could become familiar with the receptionist who handled all the outer court students—Yu Yang was incredibly idle. Whenever Xu Yuan visited, he'd find Yu Yang dozing off out of boredom.
Xu Yuan understood this. After all, everyone was pursuing the greater power offered by battle armor.
But mechas didn't mean a lack of power.
On the contrary, Xu Yuan had high hopes for mechas.
After hearing Yun Ming's explanation of stellar energy, Xu Yuan had gained his first understanding of the differences between cultivating using the plane's ambient energy versus the power of stars in the universe.
The reason this theory hadn't spread widely was due to the scarcity of successful cases.
Not divine-level cases, but even examples of reaching the Limit level through this path were rare.
Moreover, those who cultivated stellar energy and still became Limit Douluos were already top talents of their generation. Achieving the Limit level wasn't surprising for them, but such examples lacked persuasive power.
The only thing that could be forced into this framework was that these geniuses' breakthroughs were relatively smooth.
However, there was no doubt that this was still a level of cultivation that most soul masters wouldn't readily accept.
Stellar energy was inherently difficult to cultivate.
Pure cultivation using stellar energy was different from developing stellar attributes or absorbing parts of stellar energy to refine soul power.
Walking the former path might allow for smoother transitions in the future, but overly pursuing pure stellar energy cultivation could delay a genius's progress. Someone who might have achieved their title before forty could end up not even reaching Soul Sage by fifty.
Stellar energy was just that difficult to cultivate.
And with cultivation speed delayed, there was no guarantee they'd even reach the opportunity to break through from Level 98 to Level 99.
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