Chapter 6 - Unlocking the New Fighter Profession Panel!
What he saw was a teenage boy looking about sixteen or seventeen years old.
He was continuously repeating punching and air striking motions.
His eyes were focused, and every move was meticulous.
Although many of the moves didn't seem very standard from Lin Zhiqin's perspective, it was obvious the boy was doing his best.
One punch, two punches, and so on.
Every punch from the boy was like this.
Sweat dampened his hair tips, sliding from his forehead to his nose, yet he seemed oblivious.
The focused and diligent aura the boy exuded even moved Lin Zhiqin slightly.
"I haven't seen such a diligent student in a long time," Lin Zhiqin couldn't help but think back to when he was young and had practiced martial arts like crazy, even neglecting eating and sleeping.
Back then, the old headmaster was in his prime, and the martial arts school was much more prestigious.
With technological developments, fewer and fewer people were willing to practice martial arts.
Most who came to sign up were just looking for novelty, and would lose interest after the initial excitement wore off.
Or they just treated martial arts as a workout, lacking the drive of true martial arts practitioners.
He wondered what things would look like in another ten or twenty years.
"Sigh," Lin Zhiqin suddenly felt a little discouraged, and lost interest in going down to instruct. After leaving a word for the students to "keep practicing freely," he turned and left.
"Huff Huff-" After throwing a punch, Lu Yuan suddenly staggered, his limbs going limp as he instantly collapsed to the ground, gasping heavily for air. His whole being also exited the Absolute Focus state.
"How long was I practicing?" Lu Yuan felt his arms were sore, swollen and numb now, completely exhausted without an ounce of strength left.
"Are you alright?" A soft female voice came from the side.
Lu Yuan looked up to see a girl with glasses and chubby cheeks standing in front of him, handing over a bottle of water.
"Thanks." Lu Yuan hesitated briefly before deciding not to stand on ceremony. He accepted the water from the girl and started drinking thirstily.
He was parched and finished over half the bottle in one go.
"What time is it now?" Lu Yuan saw many other students sitting down to rest in the training area, some chatting, some looking at their phones.
He was the last one still training.
"9:50, ten more minutes until class ends," the chubby-cheeked girl checked her phone and answered Lu Yuan.
"So I was practicing for less than an hour." Lu Yuan wasn't surprised.
After all, practicing boxing mainly consumed physical strength, and the shortened duration of Absolute Focus was normal.
"You were really diligent just now. Teacher Lin was watching you for a long time," the chubby-cheeked girl said admiringly to Lu Yuan.
"Oh, is that so?" Lu Yuan just smiled without commenting.
"I'm Liu Yue, what's your name?"
"Lu Yuan."
"Are you from No. 2 Middle School? I think I've seen you around campus before."
"I'm from No. 4 Middle School."
"No. 4? Many of my middle school classmates went there too." The chubby-cheeked girl seemed quite interested in Lu Yuan and kept chatting with him.
Lu Yuan responded perfunctorily, his attention focused on his Profession Panel.
Upon summoning it, Lu Yuan got an unexpected pleasant surprise.
[Your focused practice for twenty minutes has improved your comprehension of new skills]
[You have comprehended the new skill - Basic Boxing lv1]
[Your Basic Boxing skill has improved, EXP +3]
[Your Basic Boxing skill has improved, EXP +5]
[Congratulations, you have unlocked a new Profession Panel - Fighter!]
The newly unlocked Fighter Profession filled Lu Yuan with excitement.
On the profession panel displayed in a tree structure, only the two skills at the very bottom were lit up.
They were - [Basic Boxing] and [Beginner Body Tempering], both at level 1.
The latter was probably comprehended during Lin Zhigin's strength training, but was hidden until the new profession panel was unlocked and revealed it.
[Fighter]!
The newly unlocked career makes Lu Yuan excited.
This profession sounded much more advanced than Student, like a hidden profession in a game.
"If the ultimate goal of the Student profession panel is to groom me into a super top student.
Then could the end goal of Fighter be to become the supreme master of the martial arts world, an unparalleled expert?"
Terms like "plucking flowers as one passed, breaking steel bars with fingers" flashed through Lu Yuan's mind.
He was a little unable to contain his excitement, feeling the 10,000 tuition fee wasn't spent in vain.
"What's your phone number? Let me save it. If I have any questions later I can ask you." The chubby-cheeked girl said haltingly.
Lu Yuan was in a good mood and immediately smiled and replied, "The martial arts school added us new students to a group chat right? I'll add you there later. Your name is Liu Yue, right?"
"Mm mm." The girl nodded vigorously, looking very happy.
The two chatted casually for a while more until someone came in at 10 o'clock to announce class was over.
The students instantly scattered like they were pardoned.
Coach Lin Zhiqin never showed up again.
Lu Yuan dragged his exhausted body into the showers. As the warm water jets quickly rinsed his body, the constant soreness in his arms finally alleviated slightly.
After showering and changing, he came out of the locker room with his backpack to find Cheng Peng already waiting for him in the martial arts school lobby.
"Lu Yuan, you finally came out. What took you so long showering like a girl?"
"Piss off!" Lu Yuan's strength hadn't fully recovered yet and his arms were still sore, so he wasn't in the mood to banter with him.
"Hehe." Cheng Peng put his arm around Lu Yuan's shoulders and grinned, "So how was your first day of class? Feel worthwhile?"
"Not bad, much more useful than I expected," Lu Yuan said seriously.
"Good to hear, I was worried you wouldn't persist," Cheng Peng said with a laugh. "Hurry up and finish the basics so you can get promoted to my class. I'm looking forward to beating you up good in sparring."
"Heh, we'll see who beats who then," Lu Yuan slanted him a glance.
This look irritated Cheng Peng and he immediately started shouting, "Wow, you're too pretentious. My punching power is already 50 kg. The coach said I can test for rank soon. And you think you can beat me up?"
"Test for rank?" Lu Yuan seized on a new term Cheng Peng mentioned and was curious to ask more.
"You don't know martial artists have rankings too? I'll explain as we walk." Cheng Peng pulled Lu Yuan along out of the martial arts school.
On the way they ran into that chubby-cheeked girl Liu Yue from class. She was with another girl who seemed to have come with a friend like Lu Yuan, but didn't have class together.
Liu Yue smiled at him but didn't dare come say hi.
Over half an hour later, Lu Yuan walked out of an internet cafe alone.
From Cheng Peng's explanation and some online research, he had a rough grasp on the ranking system for martial artists in this world.