Dawn of a New Era

Chapter 32: Improvement At A Tremendous Rate

Translator: Lordbluefire Editor: Lordbluefire
There seemed to be an intense emotion that filled up Chen Shouyi’s heart.

Zhang Shaoyue’s small hand was soft, smooth, and also moistened from sweat.

There wasn’t just his sweat, but also hers as well.

The conversation was suddenly cut off and they turned quiet. Neither of them spoke, but everything was as if there was more exchange between them than ever before.

Zhang Shaoyue felt as if her head was spinning and that her entire body was burning up. She had no idea how long she had walked for, nor where she was heading to. At this moment, who would care about that? She only hoped that there would never be an end to their walk.

It was until she heard Chen Shouyi’s voice that she was dragged back to her consciousness. “Oh right, I haven’t asked how I do for my monthly tests.”

“You’re still concerned about the monthly tests? Aren’t you preparing to quit school?” Zhang Shaoyue’s heart that was beating profusely started to calm down slowly.

“I did take the tests after all. It’s the results after I put in one month of hard work.”

“It’s alright. You’re ranked 28th!” Zhang Shaoyue smiled and said, “I went to look for the teacher-in-charge to check last year’s year-end results. You’ve improved by one ranking in the class, and eight places in the year.”

Chen Shouyi felt a little embarrassed.

He felt that he had put in a lot more effort compared to before, but yet he had only improved by one ranking.

It made sense if he were to think about it. He was working hard, but other people weren’t slacking either. Furthermore, after entering year three in high school, everyone undoubtedly started to feel some pressure.

He decided not to continue this topic.

He looked at the young lady’s face that was as beautiful as porcelain, as well as her lips that were like flower petals. They seemed close within his grasp, and his heart skipped a beat for some reason.

“I suddenly thought of your earlier question.”

“What question?” Zhang Shaoyue turned her head.

Chen Shouyi’s heart beat intensely. “Didn’t you ask in the phone earlier how I wish for you to be kind?”

“Isn’t this enough? What more do you want?” She gripped Chen Shouyi’s hand lightly, expressing her dissatisfaction.

Chen Shouyi stopped in his footsteps, turned, and stood facing her. She seemed to have sensed something, and her heart beat very quickly. She lowered her head slightly in embarrassment, then looked up with her pair of big, glistening eyes. She looked at Chen Shouyi, seemingly shy yet also brave.

“Not enough!” After saying that, he inched his head closer.

The young lady’s lashes fluttered with unease and her breathing quickened, but she didn’t turn away. There was a hint of warmth from her lips, scorching yet gentle and soft. Her slender body trembled slightly.

The two of them were very inexperienced. After a short while, they parted.

“You bit me!” Zhang Shaoyue complained, feeling embarrassed.

“Oh, sorry, sorry!” Chen Shouyi was overwhelmed from joy that he appeared a little foolish, no longer as composed as he was previously.

He was merely a 17-year-old young man, and it was unavoidable to feel a little loss at his first kiss.

“Are you satisfied now?” Zhang Shaoyue chided coyly.

Chen Shouyi nodded. He was going to burst with joy.

“Then will you bully me in the future?” Zhang Shaoyue looked up and asked.

“I won’t! Why would I do that?” Chen Shouyi quickly assured her.

…

The young man and lady were immersed in the joy of their first love, not noticing that time was slipping away.

It was until Zhang Shaoyue’s mother had called her to urge her to go home that the two of them got back to their senses.

Chen Shouyi sent Zhang Shaoyue back to her district.

When he headed back, he was light on his feet. His heart was filled with passion, and he couldn’t help but want to shout out loud, announcing to the whole world.

When Chen Shouyi returned to the motel, he opened his briefcase, wanting to take out the shell girl. However, he realized that she was already asleep.

She seemed to be dreaming, her face breaking into a smile and she would mumble occasionally.

He took her out gently, placing her on the bed. However, he had just removed the ropes when she was shocked awake. She opened her eyes sleepily and saw that she had returned to the familiar environment.

She quickly tore off the tape on her mouth, sat up, and slapped onto the blankets. She was feeling energized and was asking to watch animated films.

“Beiqi! Beiqi! Beiqi!”

Chen Shouyi was in a good mood and didn’t make a fuss. He picked up the remote control and switched on the television.

He then continued to learn the common language while replying to Zhang Shaoyue’s messages.

…

In the morning, he opened up his attributes panel out of habit.

His other attributes didn’t go through any changes, but his willpower increased by 0.2 points, reaching 11.6 points.

This was clearly tied to the incident yesterday.

He wasn’t really feeling that happy. Willpower seemed to be the most useless out of all the attributes. Other than making his psychological state better, allowing him to handle some extreme situations better, there weren’t many other effects.

In comparison, he valued his other attributes more. He could assess his strength directly through them.

It was a pity that ever since his body had been modified by the Book of Knowledge, other than his senses, the attributes for other parts of his body never rose again. The effects of practicing the Thirty-six Stances of Body Training were insignificant.

…

There were 40 hours every day in the Otherworld. Right now, it was still the dangerous nighttime, and he didn’t wish to go over and take any risks.

He brought along his briefcase that the shell girl was in, and once again arrived at the Archery Dojo.

Once inside, he searched for the experts and analyzed their moves in his mind.

Next, he collected the battle bow and continued to shoot the arrows.

The moment he practiced, he immediately felt that things were different from the last time. Not only had he not grown rusty, but his accuracy had become even better. Every time he was about to fire the arrow, he would have the faint feeling that gave him the prediction to see if he could hit the target.

He couldn’t help but recall the experience some archery experts had shared on the Internet. They wouldn’t aim for the target too deliberately when they shot their arrows. They would just draw their bows and shoot out. They relied on their senses and intuition.

He went deep into thought.

This “feeling” should be his senses, right?

It was almost exactly the same as what he was feeling right now.

He immediately changed the way he fired the arrows. It might be that he had been too rigid at the beginning, so this feeling was hard to capture at the start.

Out of ten arrows, there were six to seven that missed. The results were worse than before.

However, he eventually found the trick to it slowly.

He threw away the distractions in his heart, gradually becoming calm as he emptied his thoughts.

“Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!”

The arrows hit the target, being as fast as lightning as they released stifled sounds.

“Swoosh!”

Finally, there was an arrow that hit the bullseye.

Then there was a second, third…

The speed at which the arrows shot out became increasingly faster. All the actions—holding the arrow, lodging it onto the bow, drawing the bow, and shooting out the arrows—appeared extremely smooth.

After a while, when he reached for the arrow quivers that hung at his waist, he realized that all three quivers were empty.

He looked at the target and saw that it was now densely packed with arrows, like a porcupine. There were a small portion of them that struck bullseye and were basically the ones that had been fired toward the end.

“Young lad, your archery isn’t bad.”

Chen Shouyi heard a voice and turned his head. He realized that people were watching him from behind.

This was a treatment only experts could receive. However, he was receiving it now as well.

Although there were only three people and couldn’t be compared with true experts, he had received some sort of recognition.

Chen Shouyi was overjoyed. He acted humble and didn’t say much.

He collected the arrows and then fired them at a 30-meter distance once again. After a round, he changed the distance to 50-meters, then continued his practice.

When the distance was further, the difficulty increased and the accuracy of his shots plummeted.

In the beginning, there were only one to two arrows that hit the bullseye out of ten.

However, as he shot more, the feeling from earlier returned. After practicing for two hours, he was able to hit the target every single time.

At the same time, the number of people crowding around to watch him slowly increased from three to five, and then to ten.

Chen Shouyi didn’t care that people were watching him. This was what the atmosphere here was like. The more people crowded around, the more glorious it was.

…

During his break, he had buffet lunch in the Archery Dojo’s restaurant. He then rested for a while before starting to practice on moving targets.

This was the first time he was practicing with moving targets.

Chen Shouyi had initially thought that the practice would be very hard. After all, the difficulty of the moving targets had no sense of rationality compared to fixed targets.

However, when he started practicing, he realized that things weren’t that much different.

There wasn’t a need for him to intentionally calculate the routes of the moving targets. He merely prepared the bow and arrows and then followed his heart to shoot naturally. In just a few tries, he managed to hit the bullseye. His high sensory abilities allowed him to perform excellently in archery.

By the time he wanted to leave the Archery Dojo in the evening, there were already over 30 people crowding behind him.

…

Chen Shouyi opened up his attributes panel while in the cab.

He saw that his archery that was at (Elementary: 10) had changed to proficient grade.

Chen Shouyi clenched his fists in the rear passenger seat. He now finally had the confidence to take part in the Martial Apprentice Test.