Qian Duoduo and Shi Potian finally understood. A moment later, their faces lit up with the joy of reunion.
"You brat! You’re finally back!"
Qian Duoduo rushed forward and gave Qin Feng a big hug.
The three of them sat down and began talking about their experiences over the past year.
Qin Feng briefly recounted what had happened.
"Teacher Lin Yue took me away for a long-term combat mission. I was on a planet called Purgatory-VII, and I... killed greenskins for an entire year."
"You spent a year killing greenskins?!"
Hearing this, Qian Duoduo and Shi Potian both sucked in a sharp breath.
Although they had never been to a true battlefield between races, they had learned from various sources just how terrifying and difficult the greenskins were.
"No wonder you have such a heavy killing intent."
Qian Duoduo came to a sudden realization. "So your strength now... your life force index must be at 30.0, right?"
Qin Feng nodded.
"What about you two?"
he asked in return.
"Sigh, don’t even ask."
Qian Duoduo had a look of utter despair. "I’m busy with club activities and private-server battles every day, working my butt off, and my life force index is still only 18.21. Compared to you, I might as well just give up."
Qin Feng’s gaze then turned to Shi Potian.
Shi Potian stated succinctly, "24.3."
This number was already quite astonishing.
Evidently, Shi Potian hadn’t slacked off in the slightest this past year either.
"How about a match?"
Shi Potian looked at Qin Feng, battle intent flaring in his eyes. "Imperial Arena. Let me see just how far your strength has come."
"Alright."
Qin Feng readily agreed.
"Let’s go, let’s go! Time to spectate!"
Qian Duoduo immediately grew excited. "I’m telling you guys, Old Stone’s ranking score in the Imperial Arena is even a bit higher than Old Qin’s was a year ago! Who knows, he might just slaughter Old Qin!"
The three of them immediately went to their own rooms and connected to the Imperial Arena.
A friendly spar between friends commenced.
The battle began quickly, and ended even faster.
Right from the start, Shi Potian unleashed his most ferocious assault.
His Ninefold Thunder Saber was sharper and swifter than it was a year ago.
However, no matter how furious his attacks became, they all vanished before Qin Feng, neutralized with ease.
Qin Feng didn’t even move a single step. He just stood in place, casually blocking and parrying with the Long Spear in his hand, dissipating all of Shi Potian’s attacks into nothingness.
After just one minute, Shi Potian voluntarily stopped his assault, took a step back, and said crisply:
"I surrender."
He knew there was no point in continuing the fight.
The gap between them was even larger than he had imagined.
The three of them exited the arena.
Qian Duoduo looked at the calm Qin Feng and the pensive Shi Potian, guessing, "I bet Old Qin’s killing arts are all at the Perfection realm now, right? Otherwise, there’s no way he could have defended so easily."
Hearing this, Shi Potian shook his head. He looked at Qin Feng, his eyes filled with a trace of shock and deep admiration.
He slowly uttered a single word.
"Control."
"What?"
Qian Duoduo was stunned.
"It’s the ’Control’ realm."
Shi Potian explained, "During the fight just now, I couldn’t even tell if he was using techniques from the Thousand Army Spear or the Ferocious Bird Fist Art. Every one of his moves seemed plain and simple, yet they were perfectly fluid, executed at will, and completely Traceless. The only explanation is that he has cultivated both killing arts to the ’Control’ realm and has incorporated his own ideas into them."
Hearing Shi Potian’s analysis, Qian Duoduo’s mouth hung open in an "O" shape.
Qin Feng looked at their shocked expressions, smiled, and said modestly:
"Yeah, I got lucky and reached Control."
"..."
Silence fell over the dorm room once again.
Qian Duoduo and Shi Potian exchanged a look, each seeing a profound mix of emotions in the other’s eyes.
They didn’t need to think to know just how much tremendous effort and what brutal hardships Qin Feng must have endured behind that simple phrase, "got lucky."
It was something forged bit by bit, through sheer force, with his life and Will in a mountain of corpses and a Sea of Blood!
"Let’s go!"
After a long moment, Qian Duoduo abruptly leaped up from the sofa and shouted.
"Let’s go, let’s go! To the cafeteria! We’re celebrating Old Qin’s kingly return!"
"We haven’t eaten together in forever!"
"Let’s go!"
Qin Feng and Shi Potian also stood up, smiling.
The three of them walked shoulder-to-shoulder, pushed open the door, and strode toward the familiar cafeteria.
The central cafeteria of Qiming First High School was, as always, the most popular and noisiest place on campus.
Tens of thousands of students came and went, getting food, eating, and chatting loudly, filling the air with youthful energy.
When Qin Feng, Qian Duoduo, and Shi Potian carried their three pure black trays, each holding a B-grade Energy Meal that signified top-tier treatment, and sat down at a table by the window, a bizarre "zone of silence" with a radius of about ten meters formed around them, cutting through the surrounding clamor.
Several students who had been walking toward that area froze mid-step the moment they saw Qin Feng, as if they had run into an invisible wall.
Confused and fearful expressions appeared on their faces, and then, as if by unspoken agreement, they all chose to walk around the area, heading for tables farther away.
As for the students already seated nearby, their chatter unconsciously grew much quieter. Their gazes would instinctively, fearfully, and respectfully dart toward the black-haired young man who was quietly cutting his steak, only to quickly look away.
The entire process was silent and tacit, with no command ever being given.
It was a primal instinct to avoid danger.
Because, even though Qin Feng was trying his best to restrain it, the almost tangible killing aura—forged over an entire year of life-and-death struggles amidst a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood on Purgatory-VII Planet—still clung to him like a maggot on a bone, impossible to completely conceal.
It was a pure, cold, and terrifying aura, as if at any moment he could erupt and devour someone whole.
He just sat there quietly, like a prehistoric beast lurking among a flock of sheep, completely out of place in the peaceful and serene campus atmosphere.
Feeling the fearful gazes around him, Qin Feng glanced at his right hand, which had instinctively tightened its grip on his dinner knife when a nearby tray clattered to the floor. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of wry helplessness.
’Teacher Lin Yue was right. Looks like I really do need to rest for a few days and completely unwind the tension and killing intent from the battlefield.’
He realized that he was already finding it difficult to completely separate his "combat state" from his "daily life state."
The experiences of the past year had etched vigilance and killing deep into his very bones.
"Heh heh."
Qian Duoduo, on the other hand, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the feeling of being the center of attention.
He straightened his back, deliberately pushed his B-grade tray forward, and basked in the reverent gazes of the surrounding students with a smug expression, as if to say, "See that? This beast is my brother."
Shi Potian, however, had no reaction to any of it. He just ate his meal quietly, minding his own business, as if everything around him had nothing to do with him.
Of course, there were also quite a few bolder upperclassmen, or those who recognized Qin Feng, pointing and whispering from a distance.
"Is... is that person Qin Feng? The freshman King from a year ago?"
"I think it is! Didn’t he disappear for a year? Why is he suddenly back?"
"Gods, the aura he’s giving off is terrifying... I just glanced at him and I feel a chill all over."
"What on earth did he go through this past year?"
Curiosity, shock, fear... all sorts of emotions spread rapidly through the cafeteria like ripples on water.
...
「At the same time.」
The campus forum of Qiming First High School, the hub for all student information exchange, instantly erupted because of Qin Feng’s return.
Within five minutes of him stepping into the cafeteria, a bolded, red-text, pinned hot topic shot up to the top of the forum’s front page like a rocket.
[Hot Topic 1: The King Has Returned! Freshman King Qin Feng, Missing for a Year, Appears in the Central Cafeteria!]
The poster was a second-year student with the ID "CafeteriaObserver."
Original Post:
"Bros! Something huge just happened! I just saw a legendary figure in the cafeteria—last year’s freshman King, Qin Feng!
He’s sitting with upperclassmen Qian Duoduo and Shi Potian, and he’s also eating a B-grade Energy Meal.
But that’s not the point! The point is the feeling he gives off!
Oh my god! I swear, I’ve never seen anyone so terrifying in my life! He’s just sitting there quietly eating, but even watching him from over ten meters away, I feel like I’m being stared down by a demon that just crawled out of Hell! Every single hair on my body is standing on end!
That aura... he doesn’t seem like a student at all!
Attaching a long-distance candid shot. You guys can feel the atmosphere for yourselves! (Image)
I now seriously suspect that during this past year he was missing, he was secretly conscripted and sent to the real Battlefield of Ten Thousand Races!"
This post was like a giant boulder dropped into a calm lake, instantly creating a thousand waves.
Replies:
"Holy crap! First post! Is the OP telling the truth? That monster is back?!"
"I can vouch for it! I’m in the cafeteria too! The OP is spot on! It’s practically a vacuum for ten meters around Qin Feng! No one dares to get close!"
"Oh my god, I can feel the pressure just by looking at the photo. Is he really a student at our school?"
"A year goes by and he becomes this terrifying? What the hell did he go through?"
"Chilling when you think about it... his return, does it mean... he’s going to participate in this year’s ’Qiming General Star’ competition?"
This post instantly ignited the passion of all the second and third-year upperclassmen.
They flooded the thread, sharing their own observations and speculations, pushing the post’s popularity to a new peak.
Immediately after, a second and third hot topic popped up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.
[Hot Topic 2: Deep Dive! Why is Freshman King Qin Feng Still on a B-Grade Contract After a Year? Has His Strength Stagnated, or is There a Hidden Story?]
The angle of this post was more incisive, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.
Original Post:
"Everyone, I noticed a detail. According to the OP’s description and photo, Upperclassman Qin Feng is still eating a B-grade Energy Meal. This means his resource contract is still B-grade.
This is very interesting.
As everyone knows, with Upperclassman Qin Feng’s performance and talent last year, it would have been no trouble at all for him to raise his contract to A-grade within the year, as long as he trained step-by-step and accumulated merit points.
So why didn’t he?
I’ll venture a bold guess, there are two possibilities:
One: he hit some kind of bottleneck this past year, his strength stagnated, and he couldn’t get enough merit points to upgrade his contract.
Two: he wasn’t at school at all this past year! The mission he was on might not be linked to the school’s merit point system!
What do you guys think?"