After leaving the free cultivation room, Lin Mo's head suddenly became much clearer.
Calculating based on 12 hours of intense practice per day, he could increase his experience points by an average of 0.21 points daily.
However, the merit points he had accumulated from leaving in the morning until just now had stacked up to 400 points, which would be equivalent to 80 experience points if converted.
Then 80 divided by 0.21 equals...
"380 days!?"
Lin Mo once again arrived at an astonishing number.
Even ignoring the decimal point, the merit points deducted in those few hours were equivalent to over a year of his hard training!
It wasn't that Lin Mo was slow to react, but mainly due to the influence of the intense competition environment. His daily practice routine had almost become ingrained in his genes.
Most crucially, because of his meditation earlier, he accidentally failed to catch the cooldown countdown for merit points, losing at least a few minutes over several hours.
This amounted to 5 or 6 merit points, which translated to several days of hard practice.
No matter how he looked at it, meditation was an extremely inefficient activity.
Lin Mo looked at the long ellipsis on the panel and finally interrupted the operation of the qi cultivation technique in his body. The persistent ellipsis finally stopped:
[Ding! Meditation interrupted.]
Lin Mo sat there for a while, suddenly feeling bored.
In the Great Cultivation Era, there was no concept of three meals a day, usually only two meals.
To allow students to fully immerse themselves in cultivation and study, the school provided meals in the morning and evening.
It was only about 12 noon now, with six hours left until the afternoon meal time.
He still had to deduct 1, and sleeping was out of the question...
He thought for a moment, took out his phone, and turned off airplane mode.
Just as he was about to play the Immortal Farm mini-game, suddenly his phone chimed with a "ding dong!" A class group message popped up—
It was a red envelope notification.
Lin Mo's finger almost uncontrollably tapped on it.
Then he clicked on the red envelope, opened it, all in one smooth motion.
"Congratulations, you've received 0.01 yuan."
The moment the message appeared on his phone, he suddenly thought, "Oh no."
Before he could react, he saw the old silver coin Li Xiang, who had been lurking in the class group, jump out.
[Teacher]: "Aha, caught you! Not cultivating properly, grabbing red envelopes, huh!?"
[Teacher]: "Those who grabbed the red envelope, you'll have to copy the key points of the Qi Cultivation Technique ten times during evening self-study before you can leave!"
Damn it, fell for this old trick again!
Looking at the 0.01 yuan credited notification in the red envelope, Lin Mo felt like he had lost his pants.
Helplessly, he could only switch his phone to airplane mode, then toss it aside, and start earnestly deducting 1.
Now only the constantly displaying [Merit +1] on the system interface could make him feel like he was profiting.
This continued until 6 PM, the meal time, when Lin Mo was finally "released" from the "prison" after 10 hours of confinement.
He first glanced at the merit points on the panel. Apart from the 200 points invested in his spirit root in the morning, he now had a total of 528 merit points left.
"If I invest all of this into the experience bar, I can directly add 105 experience points!"
Lin Mo's eyes lit up at first, but then he shook his head, admonishing himself to resist.
To be safe, he directly tapped with his small hand, investing 500 merit points into his spirit root:
[You have invested 500 merit points into the Gold Spirit Root. The Gold Spirit Root has received a slight boost. Purity ratio: 24.1% → 29.1%]
In less than a day, the Gold Spirit Root had already increased to nearly 30%.
"At this rate, won't it be fully maxed out in just a few days?"
Lin Mo felt a surge of excitement.
Calculating the average purity ratio of the spirit roots, it had increased from the original 20% to 21.42%.
The average purity ratio of spirit roots represents the speed of qi cultivation technique practice.
With the average increasing by 1.42%, his cultivation speed also increased by 1.42%.
Now there were still a few hours until midnight, and he expected to be able to increase the average to over 22% without much problem. This way, he could improve his cultivation speed by about 2% in a day, which wasn't slow...
Lin Mo was calculating in his mind while walking out of the cultivation room, following the flow of people downstairs.
However, his first destination wasn't the cafeteria to grab food, but the nearby Third Teaching Building to record his cultivation check-in time.
This was also the school's way of checking if students were slacking off during meditation.
But before he could leave the area of the First Teaching Building, suddenly a commotion broke out ahead.
"Ye Chen, you're going too far!"
A shout pierced through the crowd, coming from afar.
Hearing a familiar name, Lin Mo instinctively raised his head and looked in the direction of the voice.
The crowd was gathered around the arena near the playground of the First Teaching Building. Following the principle of "only a bastard would miss out on excitement," he skillfully squeezed into the crowd.
"Oh, isn't this the protagonist?"
As soon as he squeezed in, Lin Mo saw the class's protagonist, Ye Chen, standing on the arena below the teaching building, arguing with several students.
One of the arguers he recognized was named Zhu Hongyuan, a top student from the special class.
Ranked third among the exam candidates in No. 4 High School this year, he seemed to have a father in the Foundation Establishment stage, a typical second-generation cultivator.
One ranked in the top five, the other in the top three, how did these two end up arguing?
Lin Mo was a bit puzzled.
It wasn't until he stood in the crowd and listened for a while that he understood why.
The cause was that Ye Chen wanted to push for the late stage of Qi Condensation before the college entrance exam, but he found the daily meditation time in the spirit qi cultivation room too short. So he set up an arena near the teaching building.
He wanted to win more spirit qi cultivation time through betting battles.
As long as the meditation time wasn't sold outside and only traded among campus students, this method was approved by the school.
The homeroom teacher Li Xiang often transferred his medium-level cultivation room quota as a reward to outstanding students in the class. Lin Mo had even enjoyed the spirit qi of the medium-level cultivation room once or twice.
So, although setting up an arena seemed a bit arrogant, it was allowed by campus rules.
Zhu Hongyuan seemed to disapprove of Ye Chen's actions and threw a few taunts while passing by, which led to the argument between the two groups.
One was a second-generation cultivator, the other a campus celebrity, naturally attracting a large crowd of onlookers.
Zhu Hongyuan, with a righteous face, glared at Ye Chen and said:
"You're relying on your high cultivation to bully ordinary students? Just because you need to take the immortal exam, does that mean others don't?"
Ye Chen coldly looked at Zhu Hongyuan and said:
"Heh, you high and mighty second-generation cultivators, enjoying the privileges given by your parents, how could you understand the difficulties of us lower-class students?"
Zhu Hongyuan frowned: "What privileges have our parents given us? The school gives us all the same spirit qi cultivation time."
A hint of mockery appeared on Ye Chen's face:
"The school's cultivation time might be the same, but what about outside school?"
"Do you dare say you haven't had extra lessons in spirit vein cultivation rooms outside school on weekends? Do you dare say you haven't enjoyed high-priced cultivation rooms?"
Zhu Hongyuan was almost laughing from anger and said, "So what? That's my business, what does it have to do with you?"
Hearing their conversation, the spectators also started to discuss.
"Ye Chen is right, ordinary students can't afford to have extra lessons outside school. Calculating monthly, doesn't this give them several more experience points than us?"
"But what does that have to do with you? If you have the ability, go for extra lessons too."
"If my family had money, would I need you to tell me! Besides, the immortal exam should be fair. If we can't go, they shouldn't be allowed to go either!"
"Why so sour! They're second-generation cultivators because of their parents' efforts. If you have the ability, go find yourself a Foundation Establishment father."
"..."
Not only were the second-generation cultivators and Ye Chen arguing, but the spectators below also started debating.
For a moment, the atmosphere at the scene escalated again, with everyone's tempers flaring.
At this point, Ye Chen seemed tired of arguing with Zhu Hongyuan and directly said:
"If you're not convinced, come up and let's have a match."
"If you lose, transfer all your cultivation time for the last month to me. After all, you have money to supplement outside school."
Just as Zhu Hongyuan was about to retort, he heard a group of students who loved to watch the excitement around him egging them on.
"Good! Well said!"
"That's right, what's so great about being a second-generation cultivator? If you have the guts, go up and fight in the arena!"
"Haha, are you chickening out?"
"If you're not convinced, just do it! Don't be afraid, Bro Zhu, we'll cheer for you!"
"Fight him! Don't be a coward, Bro Zhu!"
"..."
Standing in the crowd, Zhu Hongyuan's face alternated between green and red as he heard these provocative words.
Finally, unable to bear it anymore, he gritted his teeth and glared at Ye Chen, saying:
"Fine, I'll fight you!"
Well, he fell for it... Lin Mo shook his head, thinking to himself.