Study Monster Cultivation System

Chapter 96 - 096 Are you afraid of a sneak attack?

Li Zheng’s leg had already fully recovered, and at this time, he was sitting upright in his seat, eyes closed, cultivating his spirit.

Early in the morning, there wasn’t actually much to cultivate; he was mainly assessing his learning state.

[Chinese: 108][Mathematics: 129]

[English: 161][Physics: 120]

[Chemistry: 194][Biology: 104]

With his current level, it was even sufficient for the college entrance exam.

Perform a bit better, and he could unexpectedly beat Lin Yujing by a hand.

It was just this Chemistry...

He had spent more than a week cramming "Organic Chemistry," "Inorganic Chemistry," "Comprehensive Principles," "Elemental Chemistry," yet the improvement had been limited.

Now, every little improvement required a tremendous amount of energy and a lot of practice problems.

To become an Earth Demon, one indeed needed to delve deeper.

Of course, if he just wanted to raise his score, he could study content beyond the test syllabus, such as "Analytical Chemistry," "Physical Chemistry," and the like.

But those were national finals topics and wouldn’t boost his preliminary contest scores.

Li Zheng wasn’t intending to go that far yet; he preferred to consolidate his knowledge base for the preliminary round and fight the battle before him.

Therefore, even though only the last 6 points remained, he stayed humble and cautious, steadfastly making progress.

Having finished his reflections, Li Zheng sneakily squinted through his lashes, spying on Lin Yujing.

Lin Yujing was dozing off.

Speaking of which, her napping time had been getting longer lately.

It seemed that the Chemistry sprint had taken a heavy toll on her too.

Hmph.

Li Zheng chuckled silently.

I am different.

During the Chemistry sprint, I secretly improved my Physics as well.

Lin Yujing probably didn’t have the energy to do the same and must have fallen behind a lot.

With points gained here and lost there, who knows what the outcome might be?

Are you scared of my strategy of attacking Chemistry openly, but improving Physics on the sly?

Li Zheng did not know that not far in front of him to the left, a boy harboured the same wild ambitions.

Jiang Qinghua’s eyes bulged round with focus.

Are you scared of my strategy?

The only person whose eyes could bulge rounder than his was Zhang Xiaoke.

It wasn’t just her eyes that had become rounder; even her body had rounded out.

She had studied so hard these past two weeks, barely moving from her seat.

She had gained 5 pounds.

Almost on the verge of sporting a muffin top.

She wanted to die.

No, not yet.

She’d consider it after the midterm exams.

After waiting nearly a month, the day had finally arrived.

All of you are doggies!

Except for my master.

He’s a big wolf dog.

...

5 minutes later, the Chinese exam began.

Li Zheng simply used a regular pace throughout, with plenty of time to spare.

Especially when it came to writing the essay, he was extremely careful.

By ten-something o’clock, the exam was over.

This time, Lin Yujing had not handed in her paper early either.

It seemed she regarded it with considerable importance.

During the lunch break, everyone joked and laughed, seemingly carefree, but underneath, their laughter hid blades.

Zhang Xiaoke was undoubtedly a standout among them, running around as if desperate to tell every classmate how miserable she was.

"Oh no, I didn’t do well on the exam."

"I forgot all the ancient texts I had memorized!"

"And I had no idea what to write for the essay, completely botched it."

Strangely enough, she started chatting with Chen Jinyu as if they had never had any disagreements, looking quite friendly.

Li Zheng was unaware that they were exchanging information, albeit all of it being false reports.

After the lunch break, the Physics exam began.

Li Zheng performed normally and managed to solve all the questions without noticing any mistakes.

However, under most circumstances, that is an illusion; there are always some mistakes.

That night, to covertly improve by leaps and bounds, he secretly spent over 30 hours of vitality value and completed the "Gao Miao" mathematics book as well.

As a direct consequence, the next day’s math exam was incredibly comfortable, except for the last major question, he managed to solve everything and didn’t notice any mistakes.

Hopefully, this wasn’t an illusion either.

In the afternoon, it was time for the chemistry exam.

For Li Zheng, this paper was as easy as elementary school problems, downright idiotic.

He realized that once you start participating in competitions, you’ll entirely detach from the masses.

Speaking solely about chemistry, he’s now reached a point where he can no longer even hold a conversation with anyone but Lin Yujing.

This time while answering, he really couldn’t hold back and handed in his paper in less than half an hour.

After submitting his exam, he discovered that Lin Yujing had already gone home early.

This guy seemed to be on a whole different level than himself…

And so, that night, Li Zheng fiercely went through another round of intense studying. He practiced four hours’ worth of listening questions for the National Intermediate Translator Qualification Exam, spent over ten hours memorizing and writing for the Specialized English 8 writing section, and casually finished five or six sets of biology questions.

This last-minute cramming session lasted for dozens of hours.

The more Li Zheng studied, the more he felt that outperforming Lin Yujing this time was within reach.

…

November 2nd, Friday.

The last day of midterms, with English in the morning.

It was practically a giveaway.

Especially the listening part.

For Li Zheng, who had almost reached national intermediate translation level, listening to these kindergarten conversations was simply a waste of life.

Regarding the essay, the English teacher always said to use high-end vocabulary as much as possible.

High-end vocabulary refers to less common, level-showcasing words.

Take Chinese essay writing, for example. If someone wrote the following sentence—

"There is a bird; its name is Peng. Its back is like a huge mountain, and its spread wings are especially large."

This is a typical use of common vocabulary; it’s not wrong, but it’s not high-end and won’t score high.

So, in order to demonstrate a higher level and score well, you must write it like this—

"There exists a bird, known as Peng, with a back akin to Mount Tai, wings stretching to the heavens like clouds."

Now that’s level.

In essence, the goal is to write sentences that are noble, elegant, cultured, avoiding plain language where possible, and making it as difficult to understand as can be.

Of course, the prerequisite is to ensure no mistakes are made.

For those who lack a solid foundation, playing this game can end disastrously for themselves.

When Li Zheng began to write, his pen had to be as steady as Mount Tai.

For instance, if he wanted to write the following sentence—

"According to archaeological findings, the earliest human drainage systems originated 9000 years ago and became widespread 6000 years ago."

The actual English sentence he would write down might go something like this—

"Archaeological excavations uncovered complex systems of drainage ditches dating back to 9000 years ago and becoming extensive by 6000 years age."

Yes, not only is it filled with arcane vocabulary, but there isn’t a single comma either.

Zhao Yinghua, I’ll thrill you to death.

If you can read it in one breath, you win.

Make sure you have your blood pressure medication ready when marking these papers.

The only problem that troubled Li Zheng during the entire English exam was this.

Why is the exam time so long?

…

In the afternoon, the last subject, biology.

While solving the problems, Li Zheng was somewhat distressed.

There was no helping it; this was now his weakest area.

After mastering chemistry and accumulating a vocabulary of over 40,000 words in English, biology became the only subject purely based on memorization, and he had invested almost no time into it apart from last night.

Do the best you can, anyway Lin Yujing surely didn’t have time to memorize either.

…

Four o’clock, the bell rang, and it was time to collect the papers.

With that, the midterm exams were concluded.

No sooner had Liu Xin’s exam been collected than he began to rip his books in a liberating frenzy: "Freedom, la la la la!"

"You calm down," Jiang Qinghua hastily intervened, "this isn’t the college entrance exam, it’s just midterms."

"But I feel like I was competing even harder than I would for the college entrance exam," Liu Xin was somewhat deranged, perhaps his brain couldn’t handle that much knowledge.