Chapter 67: Skill Book

He opened the first skill book, and a flash of gray light passed by.

“Regrettably, you have not acquired any skill.”

What?

Regret? Who needs your regret? What I need is a skill! Thinking about it, he might as well have gotten himself a plate of egg fried rice!

Next, he opened the second skill book.

“Regrettably, you have not acquired any skill.”

With a wry smile, he realized the system hadn’t lied—there really was only a 10% chance of gaining a skill.

Then the third, the fourth, and the fifth book—each time, only that gray glow, not a single skill drawn.

Was this probability for real?! Had he used up all his luck? He simply didn’t believe he could go through ten skill books and not get a single one!

Open, open, open—all of them!

In frustration, Chen Mo opened the last five books at once. Gray light flickered back and forth, as if lacking only background music—ah, such a painful realization.

Buzz—

A streak of blue light flashed. At last, the final skill book radiated blue.

“Congratulations, you have acquired a D-rank skill—Concentration Burst.”

[Concentration Burst]

“Gather energy around you; for each additional second you focus, spell power increases by 100%, up to a maximum of 10 seconds, for a total damage of 1000%. Each second consumes 100 mana points.”

Oh? Chen Mo’s eyes lit up. This skill was rather interesting, even a little broken. Gathering for ten seconds would yield tenfold power!

Ten times!

If he used the Demon King’s stats, concentrating for ten seconds would deal damage up to 2000! He could even instantly kill a warrior!

Of course, the only drawback was the time needed to gather energy. The enemy wasn’t stupid—they wouldn’t just stand there and wait to be hit. They could flee or use interrupting skills to stop him.

Chen Mo categorized this as a spellcaster assassin skill.

He could secretly hide somewhere, gather energy for ten seconds, then launch a sudden strike at full power!

Just as Chen Mo was about to study further ways to enhance the Prince character, Instructor Moonfox’s familiar voice sounded nearby.

“Chen Mo, it’s your turn. Open your permissions—I need to check your data!”

Chen Mo quickly closed the shop and shut off all other data from his other IDs, including their storage spaces, leaving only the Prince ID accessible.

After double-checking that nothing was amiss, he grinned and said, “Alright, Instructor, I’m opening permissions now!”

He enabled access, making his data public.

Chen Mo could see Instructor Moonfox’s Firefly module emit a faint glow, linking to his Prince module.

With this, Instructor Moonfox could instantly copy all of Chen Mo’s data into her own module.

Hmm?!

Instructor Moonfox was slightly surprised. “Not bad, Chen Mo. You’ve advanced to Mage and even awakened Explosive Flame—this greatly boosts your combat power. Huh? What’s this? The little guy has another surprise—Concentration Burst—wait, this skill seems pretty powerful!!”

Her eyes gleamed with excitement. With her combat experience, Instructor Moonfox immediately recognized the real-world value of Concentration Burst.

“Excellent! Very good! Chen Mo, you’ve truly impressed me. This afternoon is the class ranking tournament—work hard! By my estimate, you’ll definitely make it to at least Class D!”

Class D? You underestimate me.

Chen Mo put on an earnest, grateful face. “Thank you, Instructor! I won’t let you down!”

Soon, Moonfox finished inspecting all the students in Class F.

Afterwards, she fell into deep silence. Impossible—she had checked each one, and not a single student had A-rank equipment. A few had B-rank items at most. Could the pink flash that day have been a system error, or caused by some other special factor?

She could only hope there had been some anomaly in the instance hall. Otherwise, if there was someone among the students who could hide their identity and conceal A-rank equipment, that would be truly terrifying.

Free time ended, and everyone was transported out of the instance hall.

In front of the Evolution Sphere at the stadium, Instructor Moonfox regained her usual allure, her voice melodious. “Well done, everyone. After my inspection, I can confirm that yesterday’s pink light was simply a result of a glitch with the Evolution Sphere. There’s nothing to worry about. You can go have lunch and get some rest. At two o’clock sharp, everyone gather at the gymnasium—we’ll hold the first class ranking tournament!”

“Yay! I’m so happy, I’ve been waiting for this day!”

“I want to make it to Class A—I want the pink uniform!”

“Class F will never be slaves! Go, Class F!”

After a month of training and evolution, everyone was confident in their strength and believed they could advance. After all, most had come to Evolution School prepared to face death—no one was there to idle away their days.

The students were flushed and energized, as if injected with adrenaline—impatient to start a fight right now.

Ding Yan, equally excited, rushed up to Chen Mo. “Mo! Mo! Our chance has come! Let’s aim for Class C—no, let’s shoot for Class B!”

Ning Xuan sighed in boredom. “Ugh, I’m so bored. There’s no one left to challenge.”

Ding Yan rolled his eyes. “Ning Xuan! That’s too much! You’re just crushing my spirit!”

Ye Zhiyan set her own goal—just reaching Class D would satisfy her.

Chen Mo reached out his hand. “Come on, everyone, let’s do our best!”

Ye Zhiyan shyly placed her hand on top of his, Ding Yan put his hand on hers.

Ning Xuan, on tiptoe and pouting, complained, “You’re all bullying me—I can’t reach!”

“Haha!” Chen Mo laughed and quickly crouched down.

Ye Zhiyan and Ding Yan cooperated by squatting too, so Ning Xuan could place her hand on the pile.

All four stacked their hands, chanting in unison, “Let’s do it!”

After feasting at lunch, the four returned to their dorms to rest.

When Chen Mo got back, he found his roommate Shangguan Chaoyue wide awake, doing sit-ups over and over, sweat soaking her body, her chest—conspicuously prominent.

It seemed that wrapping her chest in white cloth was uncomfortable for Shangguan Chaoyue, so as soon as she returned, she took it off.

Uh.

Even though Chen Mo had “accidentally” seen Shangguan Chaoyue’s chest many times, he still couldn’t handle the temptation. He quickly turned away, swallowing hard. “Shangguan Chaoyue, aren’t you going to rest? The ranking tournament starts this afternoon!”

Shangguan Chaoyue smiled mysteriously while doing sit-ups. “Rest? Not a chance. Precisely because of the tournament, I need to warm up now, get my body into peak form. If I rest, I’ll wake up groggy and how could I challenge anyone then? Also, Chen Mo, as I’ve said before, with your strength you’ll definitely make it to Class D, maybe even Class C if you really push. But if you challenge me, you’d be like a moth to a flame. Don’t do anything foolish—we’re not on the same level. My goal is to be number one in the whole school!”

Chen Mo really wanted to say, “You won’t get the chance.”

But there was no point arguing. Shangguan Chaoyue’s pride and self-esteem were too strong—only the outcome would bring her back to reality.

He didn’t answer. Instead, Chen Mo leapt up, perfectly mimicking her movement, flipped onto his upper bunk, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.