My setting is above yours!

Chapter 78 The Monthly Exam is Approaching, the Era of Potions Returns (5k)

It took five minutes to walk into Jia Qian's office, but fifty minutes to leave.

God knows where this person learned so many sales techniques...

Even Ron, a student who didn't need the "power amplifier" at all, couldn't help but listen to his sales pitch and was stuck for almost fifty minutes, wishing he could swipe his card and buy all the collars.

Fortunately, Ron was still somewhat conscious—he was still wearing the "ability amplifier" that Irina had personally given him around his neck, so why would he buy the emasculated version from Jia Qian?
He politely declined Jia Qian's sales pitch and hurriedly followed the class schedule to catch his next class.

But when he found the classroom for the next class, he discovered that although the classroom was full of students, there was not a single person on the stage.

Where's the teacher?!

Ron found a seat and sat down next to someone he knew:

"What's going on? Class has already started... hasn't the teacher arrived yet?"

Yun An, standing to the side, shook his head and shrugged at Ron, indicating that he didn't know either.

But soon, they found out where the teacher was.

Suddenly, a holographic projection lit up on their stage, and a round-headed humanoid AI appeared on the stage.

"Hello students, I am your teacher for today's class. You can call me 'Moen Zhitu'."

He said in a steady, mechanical voice:

"Please open your phone and download 'Moen Map' through the official Moen University app. All our cultural courses will be taught on 'Moen Map' from now on."

I never expected Moen University to actually use a smart AI projector for teaching...

Ron was somewhat surprised, as even in Ideal City, there were very few organizations or individuals with this kind of technology.

After all, this "Moen Tu" teacher doesn't look like an ordinary AI...

Judging from his dexterity and the subtle details of his movements, his intelligence level may already be approaching that of a normal human.

What level of teaching would he be at?
Ron couldn't help but feel a little hopeful, so he opened his phone and downloaded "MoenZhiTu".

Upon opening the app, a cute, cartoon-style AI appears, emitting the same mechanical voice as the projector on the podium:
"I know that everyone's level is different and their learning progress is also very different, so we will make a course arrangement that is more suitable for each student's individual physical condition according to their choices and academic abilities."

They even offer customized courses...

Ron thought that Moen University's words made sense. After all, the students at Moen University were of varying abilities, and there was indeed a huge difference between geniuses and those who got in through connections.

It wouldn't be appropriate to assign them the same courses, and Ron wasn't willing to learn courses he already knew just because of those connections.

He is a genius!
With this in mind, Ron clicked the class button in the app—

[Introduction to Mathematics]

1+1 equals...

?

Ron stared at the screen that popped up on his phone app, and for a moment his mind went blank.

I came to Moen University... to learn if 1+1 equals 2.
He shook his head, came to his senses, and saw the "Skip this course" button at the end of the screen, and breathed a sigh of relief.

It turns out it was simply a matter of embracing diversity, including even the most basic teaching courses...

Just skip this and see what the first-year university courses are for.

Ron quickly clicked skip and soon jumped to a first-year university course.

But a new notification popped up on his mobile app—

This is a university-level course. To promote intellectual property protection and paid knowledge services, VIP access is required.

Ron:?
He silently paid to activate VIP access, only to discover that the first-year university courses were things he had already self-studied long ago...

Deng arranged these learning materials for him during the summer vacation, and Ron easily learned them with his Lv.3 computing power.

This is what they show me after I become a VIP member...

Forget it.

It's not Moen University's fault... This course is indeed a first-year university course, it's just that I learned it too quickly.

Why not just learn it later?

Ron skipped his first year of college and went straight to his second year.

At this point, content that Ron hadn't learned on his own appeared. The small AI of "Moen Intelligence" on the app immediately acted in a human-like manner, like a top teacher who had been rooted in the education industry for a long time, and seriously taught Ron a lesson...

Ron listened to the lesson, nodded in satisfaction, and a sense of approval arose in his heart.

This money wasn't a complete waste...

But he had barely nodded his head when he froze again.

Because the "MoenZhiTu" mini AI on the app suddenly paused, a new pop-up window appeared:

[The student detected is a first-year university student; second-year courses will not be available.]

[The free trial has ended. If students wish to continue learning, please activate SVIP and use the "Advanced Learning" function...]

Ron: "..."

……

Augmented Reality Course.

This was another big class. Ron saw many familiar faces in the classroom, including interviewee number 776, who had been in front of him during the entrance interview and had taken out a large student loan.

After finding a seat, the teacher arrived quickly and the class began.

The teacher in this class, Ge Tai, seemed unremarkable, but he spoke with great passion:
"Personal reality! The sole foundation upon which all ability users utilize their abilities!"

"How to improve one's personal reality is the most important thing that a superpowered person needs to understand..."

As he spoke, he abruptly changed the subject:
"But I'm a rough guy, I haven't studied education courses systematically, and I've always preferred to teach according to students' aptitudes... Your Moen University official app should have already sent you the course materials for augmented reality, right?"

"You can start by studying on your own and trying to improve your skills by expanding your personal capabilities. I will pay attention to each of you and provide individualized guidance..."

Upon hearing this, the students in the classroom immediately began to unleash their individual talents and try to hone their skills according to the methods in the textbook.

Yun Xiaoxiao blushed and tried to visualize a flower in her personal life, following the contact information in the textbook.

The air in front of her distorted and trembled, and a flower shape appeared out of thin air, but it quickly dissipated into scattered clumps of air.

Ge Tai glanced at her, and his prosthetic eye immediately recognized her face. With the assistance of Artemis, he found Yun Xiaoxiao's identity information.

"[TianTing News] The executive's daughter... is not bad, she has some potential."

He thought to himself, walked to Yun Xiaoxiao's side, and said gently:
"Come on, classmate, you're not practicing correctly. Let me guide you through a personal simulation; try to imitate it..."

As he spoke, he spread out his personal reality to envelop Yun Xiaoxiao's personal reality, easily distorting the air in front of Yun Xiaoxiao and creating a lifelike little white flower.

Holding the small white flower, Yun Xiaoxiao watched it dissipate into a clump of air as it lost its personal reality and became distorted. Feeling the disturbance and distortion of her personal reality, she suddenly understood.

At this moment, Ge Tai slowly paced back and forth, seeing Yu An not far away, who had opened his personal reality, activated his [Ability Formula], and was trying to forcefully distort the physical properties of a pen into a liquid by exerting all his strength. He was immediately filled with emotion:
"Constructing a [Capability Formula] at Lv.3? He's only just enrolled, and he already possesses such an ability!"

"He's the vice principal's son... Just how deep is his superpower potential?"
"No, we can't let him waste his time on these meaningless training methods that are beyond the limits of human potential at Lv.3..."

Ge Tai immediately strode towards You An and said in a friendly manner:
"Student, this method can't help you augment reality. Let me use the computing power of [Artemis] to assist you!"

"Although it won't be of much help, it might let you experience what Lv.4 feels like early..." After that, Ge Tai walked around the classroom, having already "taught according to aptitude" quite a few students.

Ron was speechless for a moment as he watched Godey's actions.

This guy's targeting is way too obvious—

What kind of individualized education is this? It's clearly "individualized education based on financial means"!
Ron sighed, too lazy to waste any more time learning those useless augmentation techniques from the textbook.

He has reached a bottleneck, and those methods are no longer effective.

But just then, Gertay walked up to him, his prosthetic eye recognizing Ron's face, and he was immediately filled with respect for him, thinking to himself:
"A student from Zone D? A student from Zone D can get the top score in the college entrance examination?"

"He secured an exclusive investment plan from [Tian Ting Media], quickly passed the old woman's assessment... What? He's even one of our inspection team members, and he earned a first-class merit for stopping [Noah Pharmaceuticals]'s [Knowledge Experiment] during the summer vacation?!"

"A genius, an absolute genius! His superhuman potential is overflowing. We can't waste this genius's time. I must step in and help him master his skills!"

He immediately patted Ron on the shoulder, "Hey kid, I see you've reached Lv.3, but you haven't constructed the [Ability Formula] yet. You've hit a bottleneck, haven't you?"

"Come on, let me help you. I'll use Artemis's computing power to create a temporary formula for you..."

As soon as Ge Tai got involved, Ron immediately felt his computing power increase dramatically!
A forcibly calculated [ability formula] suddenly appeared in his mind. Although this formula had no practical effect, it still filled in some gaps in Ron's ability model...

His personal reality bottleneck seemed to have loosened a little, and Ron immediately seized the opportunity to train using the augmented reality methods in the tutorial. His personal reality began to improve very slowly.

Nearly half an hour later, Ge Tai finally put his hand down and said:

"Personal improvement is a gradual process; this temporary [ability formula] cannot assist in the calculation. If you want to continue improving yourself, you should quickly build your own [ability formula]..."

Ron nodded: "Thank you, teacher. I understand."

After he finished speaking, feeling the passage of time and the gradual improvement in his personal reality, he couldn't help but feel a sense of emotion.

Ge Tai is such a good teacher!

With teachers like these, how could Moen University possibly worry about not being able to produce good students, develop good technologies, or produce good superhumans?
Beside him, the chubby, dark-skinned boy who had met Ron once before and had taken out a three-million-dollar student loan for his entrance interview saw that Getty had finally finished instructing Ron and hurriedly asked Getty:
"Teacher, I've been looking at this passage in the textbook for a long time but I still don't understand what it means. I have some questions I'd like to ask you..."

Ge Tai glanced at him, immediately gleaned his personal information, and remained silent to himself:
"The students in Zone D still owe millions in student loans... Are you here to teach this class?"
"Instead of working hard to pay off your debts and applying for assistant jobs in other labs, you're here taking classes... You're really aiming too high!"

He said calmly, "Observe more, think more, and understand more... Augmented reality is a skill that takes time to develop. You can practice slowly first. I'll take a break and give you more guidance later."

After finishing his sentence, Ge Tai immediately walked away, but soon saw another student dressed in glittering jewelry and immediately went over to him...

……

Time passes slowly.

During the past two weeks, Ron attended classes while secretly researching various aspects of "faster-than-light" travel, trying to find a way to complete Prometheus's "experiment of knowledge" without relying on the spirit world.

Unfortunately, even with his computing power, he couldn't come up with any way to achieve this other than spirit world jump, and he was certain that he could only rely on spirit world jump to complete the [FTL technology] in the future.

However, Ron's days weren't exactly smooth sailing either—

"This time he didn't even manage to stay in seventh place, he only got eighth place..."

The students in the experimental class couldn't help but whisper among themselves as they watched Ron's performance:
"There's no point in hiding your abilities in the computing tests during the computing class. Ron has consistently scored this high. Is he hiding his true abilities, or is this the only score he can achieve?"

"Yeah, if things continue like this, forget about competing with Yu'an for first place, we probably won't even be able to hold onto a top-ten spot..."

Yu'an was quite pleased and would intentionally or unintentionally make a few sarcastic remarks about Ron, saying that his calculation skills were weak and that with only a week left until the monthly exam, he probably wouldn't even be able to get into the top twenty in the grade...

However, Ron didn't care at all.

Although his calculation ability is indeed not as good as theirs at this time... who can say that he will not be as good as them in the monthly exam?

Are you suggesting we let them have their telekinesis? Do you really think Ron only has telekinesis?

However... it really is time.

Looking at the marked monthly exam dates, Ron couldn't help but sigh.

After learning the [Consolidation Ritual] and constructing the [Ability Formula] in the "Potion Era," it will take time to become accustomed to the power of the formula...

The monthly exam is less than a week away... we can't delay any longer.

Inside the room, Ron closed the doors and windows, drew the curtains, and carefully opened his wardrobe, pulling out the small safe that had been buried deep beneath the tangled clothes.

He opened the safe and took out the "Growth-Inducing Tree Fruit" and "Introduction to Mysticism" contained in the metal box, as well as the magic circle model from the [Solidification Ritual] that he had prepared a few days ago and painstakingly copied stroke by stroke onto paper...

With two more flashbang grenades and a nanomedical spray—standard equipment for disciplinary patrols—in his pocket, Ron finally nodded in satisfaction.

Although this magic was difficult for Ron, it was still just magic, and it shouldn't be too difficult for President Elvis or even Idrila.

However, this time, returning to the "Potion Era" requires more than just constructing a temporary formula. It would be best to wait for that knight from the church's high command and explore whether there's a way to deal with Father Sue ahead of time...

We should still be cautious at that time.

With everything ready, Ron checked his equipment to make sure nothing was missing, then opened the Dimensional Update Manual and selected "Add to World Save".

[World save file "Potion Era" selected, joined the world...]

His vision went dark for a moment, and then he was back in the Cervis Bookstore in Evening Bell City, back in Idrila's room.

The door was tightly shut, and Idrila's steady breathing could be heard from outside.

Just like when she left last time, she was guarding the door for Ron outside, afraid that someone would hinder Ron's promotion.

Although Ron had already advanced to Sequence Seven, in order not to startle Idrila and to hide his special abilities, Ron still muttered to himself, talking incoherently about things he didn't even know he was saying.

But to Idrila outside the door, this sounded perfectly normal... This was a classic situation when praying to the gods!
Ron is about to pray to "that person" for a blessing so he can advance to Sequence Seven...

As Idrila thought to herself, her eyes suddenly sharpened. She sat in front of the door, carefully scanning her surroundings, afraid that someone might disturb Ron's promotion.

Little did he know that after muttering those words a few times, Ron simply lay down on the bed and fell asleep peacefully, only waking up softly the next morning.

He changed into the [Potion Sequence], opened the door, and looked at Idrila, who was sitting by the door with her head tilted to one side, dozing off. He put on a pleased expression:

"Idrila, I've successfully advanced to Sequence Seven!"

"oh oh!"

Idrila was startled awake. She stood up and, seeing Ron's energetic and spirited appearance, nodded approvingly, thinking to herself:

"As expected of 'that person's' favored one, advancing to the next level is a piece of cake..."

She was thinking about it, but she didn't forget something important, so she tentatively asked:
"Mr. Ron, now that you've advanced to Sequence Seven, what about your trial...?"

Ron nodded enigmatically. "That lord did indeed pass on a new trial to me."

"He desires that I may end the most heinous acts of blasphemy in the City of Evening Bells, and has granted me new assistance in this endeavor..."

Blasphemous acts... Could it be that "that person" also has objections to the fire-chasing ceremony in Evening Bell City...?

Idrila felt a surge of joy, but then she saw Ron take out a piece of paper recording a complex ritual and a fist-sized fruit, saying:

"He told me that this ritual magic could solidify and imprint the power of this material onto my body, and unleash my own abilities—"

"But I know nothing about occultism and ritual magic. I wonder if anyone can help me and teach me this magic?"

Ritual magic?

Idrila looked at the paper containing the ritual magic, her expression suddenly froze, and she said:
"This, this isn't..."

"Isn't this the latest [Solidification Ritual] developed by a ritual magic master that was recently disseminated by the school?"

(End of this chapter)