Era of Mist

Just as he finished the entire practice quiz, a cartoonish little star suddenly popped out of thin air above the problems. The little star WHOOSHED from the tip of his pen toward the progress bar in the top-left corner, hitting it with a POP before exploding. A "+1" icon floated upward.

The progress bar had indeed grown by a sliver, and its color had turned slightly redder, as if being heated.

A small placard popped up beside the progress bar with the words, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!" The placard swayed back and forth like a cat’s paw before retracting.

Shi Tiexin was stunned. His eyes widened as he stared blankly at the progress bar that had grown just a tiny bit.

He had no idea who designed this interface, this system, or these special effects, or where any of it came from, but he thought it was all absolutely awesome.

The sense of feedback was just so distinct!

Just look at that star, that explosion, those lighting effects! And then there’s that flashy placard. Even though the handwriting on it was genuinely terrible—looking exactly like his own—it still had a powerful, positive motivational effect.

Just looking at this system interface was enough to make him fired up with the urge to burn the midnight oil studying, not to mention the mountain of buffs. It made him loath to waste even a single second.

’Huh?’

’Why is the progress bar slowly turning blue again, like it’s cooling down? Does this thing have a combo mechanic? No, I can’t let it cool down. Strike while the iron’s hot! Go, go, go!’

Shi Tiexin raced against time, flipping to the second practice quiz. He grabbed his pen and immediately started on the problems again. On the right side of his vision, the progress bar for the Secret Manual for Minor Studies was displayed. A small, Scroll-shaped icon appeared there, outlined with a glowing highlight, but empty inside.

As Shi Tiexin worked through the problems, the empty icon began to fill up, bit by bit, from the bottom. The filling substance shimmered gently, like glowing ripples of water. It looked awesome.

Throughout the entire break between classes, Shi Tiexin sat motionless in his seat, pen flying across the paper. He turned a deaf ear to the clamor and chatter of the other students, focused only on solving one problem after another. DRING! The bell for the next class rang, and at that exact moment, Shi Tiexin’s pen wrote the final number, completing the practice quiz for Chapter Two.

But the little star he was expecting didn’t appear.

’Huh? What happened?’

Shi Tiexin was taken aback. He quickly checked the answer key and discovered he’d made mistakes in his haste, getting three problems wrong. He flushed with embarrassment. ’I actually messed up elementary school math?’ He quickly corrected his work. Only after he had corrected every mistake did a star fly out and hit the progress bar with a POP.

The progress bar, which had started to cool, reddened once more. A placard rose up flashily—"One cannot appreciate the flowers from a galloping horse!"—and swayed a bit before retracting.

Shi Tiexin had an epiphany. ’So that’s how it is. Rushing through the problems without paying attention doesn’t count as training at all. I have to solve them carefully and correctly to actually improve.’

’That’s a principle that holds true even without a system. It never changes.’

’So, taking that a step further... if I don’t look at the answer key, and manage to solve a tough problem or fix my own mistakes all on my own, would I get more stars?’

No sooner said than done. Shi Tiexin immediately flipped to the next practice quiz and resumed his Mind Art cultivation.

This time, Shi Tiexin didn’t rush ahead, his pen flying recklessly. Instead, he calmed himself and faced the problems with cool-headed focus. The moment he did, he re-entered that peculiar mental state, a state of being half-aware and half-enlightened. It was as if two voices appeared in his mind: one was a pro gamer executing a flawless run, and the other was a slacker on the sidelines shouting, "Awesome!"

The effect of this peculiar mental state was miraculous. It directly and massively boosted the efficiency of his first-level math cultivation. The tip of his pen glided across the page. One after another, the sections—"Practice Quizzes," "Fun Puzzles," "Brain Teasers," "Q&A"—were all rapidly solved amidst Shi Tiexin’s focused calculations and thoughts.

It was as if the system’s interface knew not to disturb him. The various badges and progress bars faded and turned transparent. All Shi Tiexin could see was the seemingly endless stream of problems. But in his focused state, these dull, tedious problems transformed into a staircase. With every problem he solved, he felt as if he were climbing another step, ascending from a deep abyss toward the heavens.

The climb was arduous, but a person truly focused doesn’t notice the passage of time.

By the time Shi Tiexin snapped out of it, the dismissal bell was ringing.

"Brother Shi, Brother Shi!" Zhou Nan edged closer cautiously. In the sycophantic tone of a court eunuch addressing the emperor, he said, "Brother Shi, class is over. If we don’t leave soon, they’re going to turn off the lights."

Shi Tiexin looked up, dazed, only to find the classroom was nearly empty. He glanced down at his desk. It was as if he’d had divine help this class period; he had managed to complete the practice quizzes for a full four of his six math textbooks.

Shi Tiexin was astonished. ’Was I really that efficient? Looks like I was truly in the zone. Of course, that strange mental state was the biggest help. Without that feeling of being carried by a pro, there’s no way I could have finished four whole practice quizzes in such a short time.’

’So, what were the results?’

With a mere thought, the hidden interface reappeared. At first, it looked just as it had before vanishing, with the progress bar still less than half full. But before Shi Tiexin could wonder about it, the interface seemed to cash in all his ’AFK experience’ at once. A massive chain of stars suddenly cascaded up from the bottom of the screen with a RUSH.

There were so many stars that Shi Tiexin was left completely dumbfounded!

POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! Like a meteor shower, the string of stars slammed into the progress bar in a rapid-fire crackle. The nearby "Enlightenment" badge erupted in a stunning glow. For every nine stars, a mote of light would also shoot out from the badge and strike the progress bar.

This, it seemed, was the visual representation of the ’Increases cultivation speed by 10% before reaching Excellent’ buff.

The progress bar flared with an intense red light, looking like a steel rod heated cherry-red, so hot that it even had a special effect of roaring flames. The bar shot forward with a CRACKLE, while the placard at the side repeatedly popped out to sway back and forth.

It started with "Keep it up!", "Nice one!", and "Keep going!", but later it changed to "Invincible!", "Badass!", and "Holy shit, you can do that?!" By the very end, the placard was even bigger, and the font was bold, enlarged, and decorated with special effects—though the handwriting itself was still terrible.

"Meteoric Rise!"

"Oh my god!"

"Killing Spree!"

"Pro, let me get in on this!"