Chapter 42: Basic Perception

Xiao Lin overheard the phone call between the student union president and year leader Chen Yu that night. The president seemed to have said that both Dawn Academy and the dean owed Department Head Song a huge favor.

It was completely different from what was being reported in the article. Xiao Lin did not know who to trust, but when his eyes landed on the end of the report, he was stunned.

Dawn Academy had a Propaganda Department, but these reports were crowdsourced from staff and students. It was an honor to be able to have one’s name as a byline, but this article attacking Department Head Song was written by an anonymous person. Xiao Lin’s imagination ran wild again.

Xiao Lin did not care whether Song Junlang was a fitting department head. He was bothered that this article was even published at this point in time; it was as if the article wanted everyone in the academy to remember that man again. How big was this person’s grudge against Song Junlang?

Xiao Lin touched his nose and thought about how embarrassed Chen Yu was two days ago. He also thought that it had something to do with himself, but that was him making the worst assumption about Chen Yu. Maybe Chen Yu was not as petty as he thought?

It was break time, and other students began arriving at the common room. After afternoon classes, most people liked resting here to drink tea and read the paper before dinner.

“Ayo! If it isn’t Class Monitor Xiao? I heard you’ve skipped class for two days. Were you sick?”

Xiao Lin looked up and frowned. The sarcastic tone came from someone he knew: Wang Dalin.

Wang Dalin was clad in his training uniform and had his novice blade strapped to his back. He said sarcastically, “Does being as weak as you are make you terrified of the courses here? You should quit the academy with your basics being as horrible as they are. Just because dumb birds can still fly, some don’t even know how to flap their wings!”

“You remembered that I’m the class monitor?”

“Haha, don’t get me wrong! Acting Class Monitor Xiao!” Wang Dalin stressed the word ‘acting’.

“I was going to let you off after your silence period ended, but it looks like I’ll have to extend your silence period to a month.” Xiao Lin used his authority without mercy.

“Do you think I care!” Wang Dalin was pissed, but he could not do anything about Xiao Lin’s authority. He scoffed, “Go on, be arrogant! In three months, you better watch your back!”

Xiao Lin did not bother much about the incident. Many people were envious of his position; Wang Dalin was just another one of them. Xiao Lin was more concerned about getting into Basic Meditation as soon as possible.

Eating anything that had to do with Intelligence or Meditation from Department Head Song would be a good idea, but there was too much uncertainty with the effects of food therapy. It could complement, but it would not help much.

Before going to Department Head Song’s that night, Xiao Lin had already come up with a solution: the SS-grade Academic Genius talent’s automatic skill replication!

The Replication skill could allow him to use any F-grade skills for three minutes, but the replicated skill would be forgotten completely after the time frame.

He had a thought the other day while speaking to the sophomore senior Zhang Tingting. Xiao Lin had been mistaken before this; he thought that Replication would allow him to replicate proactive skills, but there was no such description for it. Therefore, it was possible that it could replicate passive skills too.

This possibility intrigued Xiao Lin. If his assumption was right, this talent could give him more than he could imagine.

...

The next day, Xiao Lin was back on track with his classes. Freshmen had three days of classes a week, and there would be one compulsory class and one elective class each day to fill up all three days. Nonetheless, double majors like Xiao Lin were an exception; they had six class days a week. This meant that Xiao Lin had classes like these twice a week.

Xiao Lin went for two days of class this week and missed another two days. He only had two days of classes left this week. Today’s classes were the Common Language of Planet Norma and Basic Fitness. He also had Basic Perception at the same time as the Basic Fitness class.

Common Language was not as interesting; to Xiao Lin, language classes were boring as usual. Since he was at the introductory stage of the class, everything was about grammar. The tough pronunciations tortured many students. After the class ended, Xiao Lin’s Common Language Mastery EXP was at LV1: 20/50.

In his elective class in the afternoon, Xiao Lin roughly understood the Basic Fitness class. This was just a course to increase his fitness; moreover, due to Department Head Song’s iron comb chicken, his Physique had increased by 2 points, and his Basic Fitness increased by one level. Therefore, he did not need much from the Basic Fitness course.

One thing worth mentioning was that, although the Basic Fitness class could help improve one’s fitness by improving their fitness, the person’s physique would not be exactly the same as his fitness. This was mentioned in the first lesson; Basic Fitness was mainly meant for providing one’s body with enough strength to perform skills. Everyone understood this as a mage’s magic points.

That was why Xiao Lin chose the Basic Perception class. Although he missed the first lesson, he was not worried about missing a lot since the attentive Gu Xiaoyue was in the class.

Basic Perception was mainly to cultivate students’ perceptive exploration ability, as well as their hit rates for various spells. For most people, the latter was more practical in use.

The admissions test made many people who yearned for magic realize what it really was. While hit rate was not an issue for close combat, people who wanted to become mages had to face embarrassing issues with their hit rate beforehand.

After all, it was not a game where you could just use the mouse to select your target to cast a spell. In the real world, once the spell went out of the mage’s hands, it would be like a broken kite–no one could anticipate where it would go. It could even hit an ally.

The teacher who taught the class was a middle-aged woman. To ensure that everyone was aware of the importance of the course, she cited many examples of accidental injuries inflicted by teammates. Just casting spells did not make one a mage; only those who can accurately cast spells on the enemy were!

Targeting a spell was different from using long-range weapons such as bows and arrows. Bows and crossbows relied on one’s eyes, so recruits who chose bows would often take elective courses such as Observation. Mages relied more on Perception and mental power to lock their enemies down.

The teacher was very abstract about it. After all, those whose Basic Meditation was still at LV0 could not even feel the Four Elements, let alone talking about mental power.

Xiao Lin asked Gu Xiaoyue about it quietly.

The girl subconsciously pushed her glasses before giving her answer. “Have you ever heard of laser guidance? The principle of spell aiming is similar: mental power would be your laser, and the spell is your missile.”

Xiao Lin had to admire how the girl always managed to use her own thinking to transform abstract and complex magical knowledge into familiar analogies that could be better understood.

No matter what, Gu Xiaoyue’s words really helped Xiao Lin a lot. After the class, he gained an extra skill and more XP in Basic Perception LV0: 20/50.