Total Concentration: Sun Breathing—Sixth Form: Solar Heat Haze
Lin Chen struck. The long blade in his hand traced a flame slash over a meter long, carving deep wounds across the monster's body.
However, the white monster wasn't affected much. It roared and moved with extreme speed, sharp claws reaching for Lin Chen's face.
Sun Breathing—Fifth Form: Raging Sun
Blade following the body, Lin Chen jumped up. While dodging the white monster's attack, his blade tip traced a circle of light.
The sharp blade sliced through the monster's arm, the wound deep enough to see bones.
Huff, huff.
Lin Chen gasped for breath.
But he didn't dare relax even slightly.
His lungs were already somewhat overloaded from breathing at full capacity, yet Lin Chen still forced himself to push massive amounts of air throughout his flesh and blood.
The white monster had no intelligence—only the bloodthirsty instinct to hunt prey.
Even though it already had numerous wounds on its body, it still lunged at Lin Chen, not giving him a moment's respite.
Because of too many wounds and excessive blood loss, the monster's movements had already slowed considerably from the start.
Sun Breathing—Seventh Form: Sunflower Thrust
Lin Chen gripped the blade with both hands. The instant the monster lunged, he flashed past like a flaming shadow.
The two crossed paths. The monster had already begun dissipating in midair, completely scattering into fragments of light upon landing.
In that single instant—
Lin Chen borrowed the monster's forward momentum, combined with his two-handed thrust, and precisely pierced through the monster's neck.
Combined with the bleeding from previous wounds, he'd directly drained its last bit of life force.
As the white monster vanished—
The combat level in the sky increased further, changing to 9.9.Combat amplification also became 3.
That's right.
Level 9.9—already three times Lin Chen's level.
Also, the limit of the First Energy Level. One more step forward would be the Second Energy Level physical qualities.
Last time Jotaro's physique test was at this level.
"The gap's really pretty big."
Lin Chen thought to himself.
At full power right now, this was his level.
Jotaro could casually perform, not even using breathing techniques, and purely crush him with his body alone.
Not to mention, he was a fighting expert himself with extremely high talent in combat.
What he practiced was also Stone Breathing—a breathing technique extremely compatible with those with superior physical talent.
Jotaro's body alone was basically equivalent to another Stone Pillar.
If he awakened Star Platinum in the future, that'd really be skyrocketing.
Both stats and mechanics.
This type of anime character definitely wasn't rare in the high-martial world.
Already having mechanics, plus the high-martial world's training to make up for stats—that was absolutely monstrous among monsters.
Lin Chen had a cheat, but if he didn't work hard, it really wasn't certain he could catch up to people like that.
"Next level: Second Energy Level, physique level ten."
The trial tower's mechanical voice reminded Lin Chen.
The trial tower's combat level test each time selected monster level based on the state you displayed in the previous round.
For example, Lin Chen's first time matched his body level.
Because he instant-killed it, the second time directly doubled.
Instant-killed again, increased to level 9.9.
This time he'd shown some difficulty, approaching his limit, so this time it only added one point.
Of course, only adding one point was also because it had already reached Second Energy Level.
Second Energy Level was considerably stronger than First Energy Level's limit.
Not because of so-called realm breakthrough, power multiplication, or other messy stuff.
But because the high-martial world's energy level determination judged that level ten's strength was considerably stronger than level 9.9.
Second Energy Level's single-digit values couldn't be equated with First Energy Level's single-digit values.
First Energy Level was colloquially called Stone-Crushing. Second Energy Level was colloquially called House-Busting, some also called it Building-Busting.
People at this level were already humanoid monsters.
Sure enough—
Lin Chen persisted for a while. After his stamina was completely drained through ability consumption, carrying injuries all over his body, he was directly instant-killed by that white monster.
After being instant-killed, his consciousness directly exited the virtual space.
There were no extra levels between 9.9 and ten.
So his assessment directly ended.
"That really hurt."
Exiting the virtual world, Lin Chen subconsciously touched his arm.
As if the wound from being clawed by the white monster was still there.
As for the pain of death, the virtual world had directly blocked it.
Retaining the pain from injuries was to simulate a real combat environment. The strong will to resist pain from injuries was also part of combat.
The pain from death was blocked because the assessment was conducted multiple times.
Too many deaths would greatly affect assessment results and could also cause psychological trauma to examinees.
"Not bad, kid."
When Lin Chen opened his eyes, he saw Fang Shi's ordinary middle-aged uncle face looking at him with surprise.
"Combat level 9.9, combat amplification multiplier of 3. Pretty damn impressive."
Everyone in Exam Hall 14 was basically average students. The only one Fang Shi needed to pay special attention to was Lin Chen.
And Lin Chen had indeed surprised him again.
Physique level for a student with his average family circumstances was already quite good.
In combat, he could even be called a genius.
Combat amplification multiplier of three times—even considering breathing technique characteristics, that was somewhat too shocking.
Breathing techniques had a very special trait: at lower body level stages, their amplification on the body was quite high.
Breathing techniques themselves were a training system focused on burst power.
Emphasized rapid strength improvement.
At low body levels with high breathing technique proficiency, they could even provide close to double body amplification.
But the prerequisite for that was extremely high breathing technique proficiency.
For Lin Chen to achieve three times combat amplification—
His breathing technique was at least at the third stage, able to execute Total Concentration Breathing at will.
Otherwise, in such a high-level cross-tier combat, one interruption would result in instant death.
His swordsmanship should also be quite good. Otherwise, purely relying on Total Concentration Breathing, he couldn't achieve three times amplification.
"You hid it deep enough before."
Fang Shi looked at Lin Chen teasingly. "By the way, which class are you in?"
"Class 2."
Lin Chen answered honestly.
"Old Pompeii's class, huh."
Fang Shi clearly respected Pompeii quite a bit. Hearing Lin Chen was from Class 2, his expression became even gentler.
"Kid, don't hide it like this in the future. With your results, you should've been up front getting school rewards long ago."
Hearing this, Lin Chen's expression shifted.
"Teacher Fang, what do you think my results could rank this time?"
"Hard to say."
Fang Shi rubbed his chin. "Every year around this time, results change quite a bit."
"Some don't want to hide anymore, others are close to college entrance exams and use random resources to make one final push on body level."
"But based on my experience, you'd be at least at the top twenty material."
"That high?"
Lin Chen was somewhat surprised.