The special recruitment exam concluded, and the results were announced the same day.
Mist Lord had no trouble passing and was accepted into Old Day Academy, becoming a transfer student in Feng Qi's class.
The next morning, Mist Lord resigned from his job at the slaughterhouse and moved into Old Day Academy.
Through Feng Qi's application, Mist Lord's dormitory room was assigned right next door to his, just a wall apart.
With Mist Lord by his side, Feng Qi only needed to focus on studying and wait for the Psionic Tribe to make an appearance.
However, there was one problem that needed to be addressed.
To attract the Psionic Tribe, Mist Lord had to expose himself as much as possible to draw their attention.
But with Mist Lord's personality, he was always one to lay low.
He had no intention of standing out, nor would he do anything foolish to draw attention or make a show of himself at the academy.
He had agreed to join Old Day Academy simply to fulfill his promise to Feng Qi and accompany him through his academy life. Deep down, he had no real thoughts about the academy.
Once Mist Lord joined Old Day Academy, he was likely to adopt a mindset similar to that of a monk.
Even if he couldn't resist "the temptations of the flesh," his life at the academy would probably revolve around eating and waiting for death.
This was definitely not the outcome Feng Qi was hoping for.
He wanted Mist Lord to showcase his talents at Old Day Academy as much as possible to attract the Psionic Tribe's attention, which would eventually reveal his true identity as a Mist Tribe member.
As for how to solve this problem, Feng Qi already had a plan in mind.
Since Mist Lord didn't want to be high-profile, Feng Qi would make him high-profile.
For the rest of his academy life, Feng Qi started dragging Mist Lord into various academy activities, especially those that attracted a lot of attention.
For example, the competition for the title of Strongest Freshman, and the Domain Studies Brainpower Competition, among others.
Mist Lord clearly had a resistance to these activities, thinking that such attention-seeking behavior was not appropriate and would be detrimental to hiding his identity.
However, there were also temptations involved.
For example, each activity offered spiritual materials as rewards, even cash rewards.
The spiritual materials would help Mist Lord recover faster, and the cash could be used to buy fresh flesh to aid in his recovery.
To ease Mist Lord's concerns, Feng Qi assured him that this current identity was temporary. When the time came, Mist Lord could switch bodies and start fresh. His current fame would not affect his future identity concealment.
This argument undoubtedly moved Mist Lord.
For him, since his injuries were not fully healed and he was stuck in human society where he couldn't freely hunt to absorb life energy, the prospect of using activities to recover quickly was an appealing shortcut.
At the very least, it was far easier than being a cabbage for the rich.
Even though there were potential risks, he could always run away later and switch identities.
After this thought process, Mist Lord decided to follow Feng Qi's suggestion and start participating in every academy event to stock up on rewards.
That day, the final of the Domain Studies Brainpower Competition began.
This competition was primarily for Domain Studies students, but students from other disciplines were also welcome to participate.
The format was simple—test memory and comprehension from various angles.
A total of three students made it to the finals.
Besides Mist Lord, there was one male and one female freshman.
The female student, named Fan Duoduo, had been recognized as the strongest brain in Domain Studies before Mist Lord arrived.
Her flawless performance in class, where she could recite everything she had studied, had made her famous.
At that moment, the classroom for the Domain Studies competition was packed with students, and there were even many more watching through live video streams outside the academy.
Feng Qi sat below, watching as the teacher in charge of the event read out the competition rules and points of attention.
Nearby, the three finalists were seated, with Mist Lord among them.
As for Feng Qi, he had already been eliminated in the third round.
After the teacher finished explaining, he took out a thick book from a blue bag and smiled as he spoke:
"The first round will begin. You'll have one hour to memorize as much as you can. The person with the most memory will get three points, second place will get two, and third place will get one."
With that, he began distributing the books.
After giving out the books, the teacher took out a timer, said "Start," and pressed the button.
At the same time, Mist Lord and another male contestant immediately began flipping through their books.
Only Fan Duoduo remained still, scanning Mist Lord and the other male contestant with a calm gaze before looking at the students watching the competition from the sidelines.
At that moment, she exuded a strong sense of confidence, as though victory was already in her hands.
Around ten minutes passed before she picked up the book and began quickly flipping through it.
Feng Qi, watching from below, couldn't help but feel embarrassed.
The gap between people was suffocating.
An hour passed quickly.
The teacher in charge called a stop to the three contestants still flipping through pages, and two other teachers went up to the contestants. The teacher responsible for the event went to Fan Duoduo.
Next, Mist Lord and the other two contestants began recounting the contents of the books they had memorized in the last hour.
The first to finish reciting was the other male contestant, who took 20 minutes to recite the content he had memorized.
After that, the long wait began.
The time reached 1 hour and 49 minutes.
Fan Duoduo finished her recitation and looked with surprise at Mist Lord, who was still reciting, clearly not believing what she was seeing.
However, at this moment, she was still full of confidence in her memory.
She just felt that the transfer student's speed was too slow, which was why his recitation took longer than hers.
But as the time reached 2 hours and 20 minutes, watching Mist Lord continue to speak without stopping, Fan Duoduo's confidence in her judgment began to waver.
By the time the third hour arrived, Mist Lord finally stopped his recitation.
The next part was to announce the results. After the teacher in charge and the other two teachers discussed among themselves, they entered the scores of the three contestants into the tablets they were holding.
Soon, the results were displayed on the big screen.
First place: Wang Dongfeng (100%)
Second place: Fan Duoduo (69.88%)
Third place: Hao Zhixin (21.7%)
...
When the results were announced, there was an uproar in the room.
But Feng Qi sitting below, couldn't help but smile in a way that suggested it was only natural.
Mist Lord had kept a low profile all along, as long as he passed the earlier rounds, that was enough.
So he hadn't attracted too much attention.
However, the finals meant that the prize money was about to be distributed, and he clearly wasn't going to stay low-profile anymore. He wouldn't hold back from showing off, especially not to Fan Duoduo.
Upon seeing the results, Mist Lord turned to look at Fan Duoduo, whose face showed disbelief, and smiled faintly.
At that moment, Mist Lord could almost say it outright: "Don't act tough when you can't back it up, otherwise, getting slapped in the face will hurt."
The first round of the final was over, and after a short break, the second round began.
The second round of the competition involved a computer randomly selecting 50,000 characters, and the contestants had to memorize as many as possible in the shortest time.
This round seemed to have fewer words, but in fact, the difficulty was significantly higher.
For memorizing articles or mathematical formulas, there's logic to follow, but memorizing random things relies purely on brainpower, with no logical structure to piece them together.
In this round, Fan Duoduo seemed very focused.
When the teacher announced the start of the round, she immediately focused her attention on the big screen and began memorizing quickly.
However, just as she finished scanning through the content, she saw Mist Lord smiling and raising his hand in the distance.
Without any surprise, Mist Lord once again emerged victorious in the contest, much to the disbelief of Fan Duoduo.
The same result occurred in the following rounds.
Fan Duoduo's proud memory was no match for Mist Lord.
Even Feng Qi was astonished by Mist Lord's memory.
But he knew full well that this kind of memory was not the same as Infinite Memory.
Mist Lord's memorization method was called the "Trajectory Memory Method," also known as the "Memory Palace."
It involved remembering the route markers along a path (which had to be in the correct order), and then associating everything to be remembered with those markers. This way, recalling the markers would help him recall what he needed to remember.
In addition, it also had to do with Mist Lord's incredible brainpower.
However, relying on memory alone, things would inevitably get slightly distorted over time.
On the other hand, the Infinite Memory described by the narrator was different.
The principle behind Infinite Memory was more like recording things onto a hard drive—files, images, videos, which could be accessed at any time.
Compared to biological memory, this method would not fade, even after a long time.
As for memorizing content, it was much simpler and more convenient.
For example, during the second round, when the 50,000 small words appeared on the big screen, Mist Lord only needed a glance to memorize it completely.
The principle was like taking a photo, capturing everything seen with the eyes, and saving it permanently.
As for where to find such a miraculous Infinite Memory ability, Feng Qi still had no clue.
It could be a special life form with infinite memory, or perhaps a miraculous item that granted this ability.
At this moment, Feng Qi suddenly thought of a miraculous item.
This item seemed to perfectly fit some functions of Infinite Memory, and in certain ways, it was even more perfect than the memory ability itself.
That item was the Psionic Tribe's Sacred Spirit Consciousness Vault.
This miraculous item could even upload and save the memories and knowledge of the Psionic Tribe's ancestors, passing them down to future generations.
Compared to the Infinite Memory described by the narrator, the only downside of the Sacred Spirit Consciousness Vault was the sense of immersion in the memory.
After the Domain Studies Brainpower Competition ended, Mist Lord won first place with overwhelming strength, surpassing Fan Duoduo, the previously recognized strongest freshman in Domain Studies.
As for Fan Duoduo's emotions, Mist Lord clearly didn't care at all.
What he cared about was when the prize money for winning the Strongest Brain Competition would be handed out.
During the award ceremony, when facing Fan Duoduo's slightly begrudging congratulations, Mist Lord's response was so dismissive that even his tone of acknowledgment seemed uninterested. He quickly turned his gaze to Feng Qi, who was watching, and flashed a smile.
At that moment, Feng Qi also smiled widely and gave a thumbs-up to Mist Lord.
The more Mist Lord shone with brilliance, the faster he would attract the attention of the Psionic Tribe.
Feng Qi was genuinely happy for Mist Lord's outstanding performance.
At that moment, Mist Lord seemed like a fresh, tempting piece of meat hanging in a trap, with the scent drawing in potential prey.
In the following days, Feng Qi took Mist Lord to sign up for the Freshman Championship Qualifiers.
This time, it was Mist Lord who brought it up first.
He figured that since he would eventually lose this identity, he might as well earn as much money for healing as he could before that happened.
Feng Qi fully agreed with him.
The rewards for the top ranks in the Freshman Championship at Old Day Academy were far higher than what Feng Qi had experienced when he participated in the same competition at Star City Academy. The prize for first place reached 12 million.
The reason was simple. Old Day Academy rarely placed in the top three in the Freshman Championship.
Normally, they just entered to make up the numbers.
For Mist Lord, it wasn't difficult to participate in this year's Freshman Championship, provided he could win the battles against the other combat class students who qualified for the preliminaries.
After all, it was the combat class members who were the main competitors in the Freshman Championship.
For Mist Lord, this was extremely easy.
Even though his injuries hadn't fully healed, Mist Lord's physical strength was far beyond that of these new students, most of whom had only just begun their cultivation journey.
After a series of challenges, Mist Lord's reputation gradually grew inside Old Day Academy.
There were already whispers calling him the "strongest freshman of this year."
The higher-ups of Old Day Academy began to consider letting Mist Lord join the team for the upcoming Freshman Championship.
They even considered transferring Mist Lord to the combat class instead of letting him continue studying Domain Studies.
Recently, Mist Lord reminded Feng Qi of Lu Yue from years ago.
Lu Yue had also been called the strongest freshman back then.
He became the undisputed top freshman at the school, and even defeated an instructor during military training, which became a hot topic on the Star City Academy forum for a while.
In comparison, Mist Lord was even more dazzling now.
Strongest Brain Champion, Most Powerful Freshman, Champion of the Magic Logic Competition… In addition to the recent activities he participated in, Mist Lord had signed up for many upcoming events.
He was like a rising star, shining brightly across Old Day Academy.
As his fame spread, Mist Lord earned large amounts of prize money, all of which went toward purchasing spiritual materials for healing. Over time, his injuries gradually healed.
However, his growing fame also brought about many unwanted troubles.
For example, some girls began to approach him, wanting to start a relationship.
Naturally, Mist Lord couldn't accept that.
But on the surface, he always remained polite and courteous.
However, Mist Lord's patience had its limits. One day, unable to hold back any longer, he gave a girl who had come to confess a thorough beating, leaving her with a bruised face.
As a result, Mist Lord became famous again.
But this time, it was for all the wrong reasons.
Only Feng Qi understood that Mist Lord did this mainly to set an example, using violence to completely shut down the group of human women who were trying to have cross-species relationships.
With Mist Lord's rising fame, he began to think about something.
Should he change identities and return to Old Day Academy with a new human identity?
Otherwise, with his current level of influence, it could cause unnecessary trouble.
At this point, Mist Lord wasn't sure if there were a lot of Domain-lurking beings in human society, but even so, he still felt that being so high-profile was a bad idea.
Naturally, Feng Qi was strongly opposed to this, offering various seemingly reasonable arguments to ensure that Mist Lord's fame continued to grow.
...
Finally, five months later.
Just before the midterm exams, a new transfer student arrived in Feng Qi's Domain Studies class.
In the teacher's introduction, the new student walked into the classroom from outside.
He was about 1.75 meters tall, with short golden hair, clear and bright eyes, and a sunny smile on his face.
Following the teacher's instructions, the new student walked up to the podium and, looking down at the class, spoke with a smile:
"Hello, everyone, I am the new transfer student. My name is Hei Xuan."
As he spoke, Hei Xuan's gaze landed on Mist Lord, who was sitting in the back.