High Martial Arts: Martial Soul Great Sage Equal to Heaven, crushing all races.

The air in Jianzhou is permeated year-round with a unique salty and fishy smell characteristic of the coastal area.

Along the wide, tree-lined path leading to Wudao Village, teams from various cities gathered in small groups, creating a tense and subtle atmosphere.

At the very front of the group, Li Changqing slowed his pace.

The usually amiable principal, who always carried a thermos, now had an unusually serious expression.

He lowered his voice and glanced at the more than thirty team members behind him: "The provincial competition is a deep pool, and there are some rules that are not written into the official regulations. For example... private sparring before the competition."

Little Fatty Jiang Lei shrank his neck and pricked up his ears.

"The authorities don't encourage it, but they tacitly approve of it!"

Li Changqing raised a finger and pointed out the core issue.

"Once you enter the martial arts village, the public areas will be covered by surveillance cameras without any blind spots. There will be special teams observing the performance of the fighters and scoring them based on their school records. This is the so-called 'hidden score' mechanism."

"The more outstanding your performance in the pre-match sparring and the stronger your defeated opponents, the higher the rating you will receive from the system."

"During individual competitions, players with high hidden MMR will be directly placed into the seed matching pool to avoid meaningless attrition battles in the early stages."

Upon hearing this, a collective gasp of astonishment rippled through the Ning City No. 1 Middle School team.

Liu Yu touched his bald scalp, his Adam's apple bobbing.

Ning City No. 1 Middle School has consistently ranked at the bottom of the class over the years.

Forget about farming other people's hidden MMR; you'd be lucky if you weren't used as a stepping stone by other strong cities.

"Therefore, my advice is that unless you are absolutely certain, everyone else should keep a low profile."

Li Changqing summarized, his gaze intentionally or unintentionally sweeping over Chu Qiulan before finally landing on Feng Mo at the edge of the group.

After hearing these "unspoken rules" that would put immense pressure on ordinary trainees, Feng Mo not only showed no fear, but instead became more energetic.

Hidden points? He doesn't care.

What he cared about was that these rules were practically a legal hunting ground tailor-made for him.

What others saw as a pre-match crisis, he saw as nothing more than a cash machine with loopholes waiting for him to fleece him.

Just then, the communicator on Li Changqing's wrist vibrated.

He glanced down at it, his brows furrowing slightly, then turned and handed Chu Qiulan a gold-embossed entry certificate.

"The organizing committee has called an emergency meeting, and my teachers and I have to go. Qiulan, you lead the team to check in."

After giving his instructions, he glanced at Feng Mo again.

"Being out in public is different from being at school, so keep a low profile."

"Don't worry, Uncle Li, I'm a very low-key person," Feng Mo replied with a smile.

After Li Changqing and the teachers left, the atmosphere visibly became somber.

Those words have caused concern among many people.

Jiang Lei and several reserve team members moved closer to Feng Mo.

Liu Yu and Shen Yue also quietly closed the distance between themselves and the vice captain.

The psychological trauma left by that previous beating has now become a strange sense of security.

The group walked through the tree-lined path, and the magnificent white jade archway of Wudao Village came into view in the distance.

The gate was completely surrounded.

Outside the crowd, medical staff carried a stretcher.

More than a dozen boys lay on stretchers, wailing incessantly.

Judging from their attire, all the participating teams came from remote prefecture-level cities.

Directly below the archway stood a red-haired boy.

He was wearing an open black martial arts uniform, his muscular chest exposed.

His blood and qi surged throughout his body, and a scorching wave of energy spread outwards.

"Bang!"

Another boy who tried to force his way in got punched in the face by the red-haired boy.

He was sent flying backwards, crashing heavily into a stone pillar three meters away, and immediately lost consciousness.

"The rules in the provincial capital state that the weak are not worthy of living in this martial arts village."

The red-haired boy flicked the blood off his wrist and surveyed the entire scene.

"If you want to get in, you'll have to step over me, Zheng Yao."

"If you can't even beat me, you still want to participate in the provincial competition? You might as well go home and suckle."

Chu Qiulan frowned slightly and stepped forward.

As a participating team, Ning City No. 1 Middle School has absolutely no reason to back down.

Before she could speak, a figure stepped out from beside her.

Feng Mo stood with his hands in his pockets, walking at a leisurely pace.

He walked straight toward the red-haired boy named Zheng Yao.

To be fair, Feng Mo had no interest in the rules and the survival of the fittest in the provincial capital.

He only saw one extremely high-quality prey.

With a cultivation level of the first stage of True Qi Realm, an arrogant personality, and a prominent position in public.

This is simply the perfect ATM to trigger a breach in defenses.

……

In the center of Wudao Village stands a huge metal stadium shaped like an inverted bowl.

This is the highest monitoring center for the provincial competition.

Thousands of holographic projection screens floated in mid-air.

They captured every movement in every corner of the competition area without any blind spots.

Deng Ming, the director of the Jian'an Provincial Martial Arts Department, was bowing and smiling broadly as he followed the group of three.

As a fourth-order Soul Fusion Realm martial artist and the head of the education department of Jian'an Province, his demeanor would surely shock outsiders.

But he was self-aware in front of these three people.

The person in the center was a plump and beautiful woman dressed in a fitted purple ancient robe.

Yun Wanrou, a distinguished professor at Shanghai Martial Arts University.

They must be at least a fifth-tier or higher powerhouse.

The elderly man in the green robe on the left, Yang Wu, comes from Jianzhou Martial Arts University.

The elderly man in the red robe on the right, Zhou Zheng, comes from Shacheng Martial Arts University.

Both of them are experts of the fourth rank or above, with extremely deep experience.

Backed by the Martial Arts University, his status is in no way inferior to Deng Ming's.

Yun Wanrou's gaze swept coldly across the densely packed screen.

Competitions in small towns rarely catch her eye.

The meeting room door opened, and the team leaders from each school filed in.

Her gaze was fixed on Li Changqing, who was mixed in with the crowd and carrying a thermos.

Her calm gaze suddenly became complicated.

It was mixed with resentment, regret, and an obsession that was hard to let go of.

"Li Changqing," Yun Wanrou said coldly.

The volume wasn't loud, but it precisely drowned out the noise inside the venue.

Let's talk in private.

Li Changqing paused slightly, looked at that face, and sighed.

He tightened the lid of the thermos and slowly followed.

The two walked out of the venue one after the other.

Yang Wu and Zhou Zheng, who remained where they were, watched Li Changqing's slightly overweight figure from behind and talked in hushed tones.

"Is it really him? How did the unruly Lei Jun of yesteryear become like this?" Yang Wu stroked his gray beard, sighing deeply.

Zhou Zheng snorted coldly and lowered his voice.

"In the battle against the demonic calamity in the East Sea, the Xia family deliberately delayed their support by half an hour, causing him to burn his martial spirit and shatter his foundation."

"Anyone else would have been crippled long ago. It's a miracle that he managed to keep his life and some of his strength."

"It's a pity that such a brilliant talent ultimately fell at the hands of his own people."

Deng Ming, who was half a step behind, had a buzzing sound in his ears.

Thunder Lord? A calamity from the East Sea?

The words in these top-secret files left him dizzy and disoriented.

He was the principal of Ning City, who governed the city for over a decade and was always a kind-hearted man with a smile at every meeting.

A middle-aged, overweight man who would argue for ages over a little bit of education funding.

It turns out to be the peerless killing god who single-handedly slaughtered demons on the East China Sea defense line a hundred years ago.

Cold sweat soaked through Deng Ming's uniform lining.

He swallowed hard and began to desperately try to remember.

Over the past ten years or so, have I ever withheld any funds from Ningbo No. 1 Middle School?