"Ryan, seven points."
When the professor put the marked paper on his desk, Ryan looked at the number written across the top of the page for a moment, and then leaned back in his chair helplessly.
"Seven? Bro, you're screwed!" Liam, who was sitting beside him, leaned closer, while Noah on his other side burst out laughing.
"Ashford, this is your final year, you cannot keep turning in results like this, if this continues, you may have to extend your degree for another year!" The professor sighed and walked away.
Ryan couldn't argue.
In his early years at university, his grades had been reasonable, but recently, because he worked the night shift at a 24-hour supermarket from ten in the evening until six in the morning, he missed lectures, handed in late assignments and fell asleep in class, and now, in the final year of his master's degree, even finishing the program had become a question.
"Don't worry, I'll send you the material you missed." Liam waved his hand when Ryan apologetically asked him for help, and the three of them exchanged another round of insults before splitting up on campus.
By the time Ryan got home, exhaustion had already caught up with him.
He set an alarm, pulled the curtains closed, and collapsed onto the bed, intending only to rest for a while before going to the supermarket, but barely a few minutes after closing his eyes, he fell into a deep sleep, his last ever sleep in that world.
...
Another world.
Bang!
Ryan, who had been asleep, suddenly jolted awake and fell heavily onto the wooden floor, his head hitting the floor first.
"Ah—damn it, damn it, what exactly is going on?"
Clutching his head with both hands, Ryan let out a pig-like groan of pain, and only after a long while did the pain finally begin to lessen.
He looked around suspiciously, an old wooden floor, a bed covered with a blanket, walls built of brick and stone, all-wood windows, a desk with a few books and sheets of paper on it, and a lamp.
Ryan's chaotic thoughts slowly cleared, and memories that did not belong to him surfaced one after another, merging with his own.
"So I crossed over!" Ryan smiled bitterly.
This body was not his original body, but that of a young man who shared the same name as him, Ryan. He came from the year 2026, but according to the memories of this body, the year in this world was 2173, and this was not the Earth he knew at all, but a completely different world, an era known as the Age of Talent.
Ryan slowly digested the information in his mind about the history of this world.
Many years ago, spatial cracks appeared across the world, and countless fierce beasts poured out of them, and humanity fell from the top of the food chain almost overnight and was forced to struggle for survival under the ferocity of the beasts.
Faced with the fierce beasts, humans initially tried to destroy them with thermal weapons, but at the same time, a mysterious substance appeared throughout the world, which later generations called Essence Qi.
Essence Qi interfered with the structure and operation of thermal weapons, preventing them from exerting their proper power, and even nuclear weapons, once humanity's ultimate weapons, eventually became little more than useless scrap. Humanity suddenly entered an era dominated by cold weapons.
But how could ordinary humans with cold weapons be the opponents of fierce beasts?
Fortunately, the fierce beasts that first entered the world were all relatively low-level, which gave humanity a chance to survive
After years of research, scientists discovered that the mysterious Essence Qi could also be absorbed and used by humans, and thus, a new profession emerged.
Blood Warriors!
By tempering the body, absorbing Essence Qi, and continuously breaking through the limits of the human physique, humans could embark upon the path of the Blood Warrior.
At the same time, humanity's talents began to awaken. A small number of people possessed special talents, and the most common and most important among them was Cultivation Talent, which largely determined how far a person could ultimately go on the path of cultivation. Besides Cultivation Talent, there were also other kinds of talent, such as Martial Art Talent, Flame Talent, Ice Talent, and many others.
Relying on their talents and cultivation, humans gradually gained the ability to contend with fierce beasts, but even so, the vast majority of the world remained occupied by fierce beasts, and humanity controlled only a small portion of the land, establishing one survival city after another to protect its remaining population.
It is worth mentioning that the world of this era was many times larger than the Earth Ryan remembered, with vast territories stretching between the regions occupied by humanity.
"Essence Qi, talents, fierce beasts, what a wonderful world!"
Ryan took a deep breath and smiled, perhaps coming to this world wasn't such a bad thing.
After sorting through the memories of his previous life and this world, Ryan slowly examined his current body.
This body was fifteen years old, and in the Age of Talent, fifteen was generally considered the age at which cultivation could properly begin. Before the age of fifteen, the body had not developed enough and was unsuitable for cultivation, unless someone came from a powerful family that could use precious resources to accelerate the body's development, otherwise cultivating too early would do more harm than good.
It can be said that fifteen was the golden age for beginning cultivation, and once someone reached the age of twenty without starting, even if their talent was exceptionally high, their future achievements would be greatly limited.
"Fortunately, it's not an old man's body, otherwise I would have been miserable... No!"
Ryan's expression suddenly changed, because he finally remembered something from the body's memories.
The talent of this body was very low, extremely low, Weak Cultivation Talent!
In this era, the most important talent was Cultivation Talent, and from low to high, the known grades were Weak, Inferior, Primary, Medium, and Advanced. It was said that even greater talents existed above Advanced, but such information was not something the current Ryan had access to.
Once someone reached the age of fifteen, they could buy a Talent Stone to examine their Cultivation Talent, but an ordinary Talent Stone could only detect Cultivation Talent, and other kinds of talent required specialized Talent Stones that could detect particular attributes.
The previous owner of this body had just turned fifteen, and filled with excitement, he bought a Talent Stone and tested himself in his room, but the result was devastating.
Weak Cultivation Talent.
"Damn, Weak Talent, this is the most rubbish Cultivation Talent, and there's no hope of even becoming a Blood Warrior!" Ryan was also desperate.
Blood Warrior Apprentices and Blood Warriors represented the beginning of the cultivation path. Strictly speaking, Blood Warrior Apprentice was only a preparatory stage rather than a true cultivation rank, and only after an apprentice tempered their body to the required level and successfully broke through could they become a Rank 1 Blood Warrior.
But talent placed a harsh limit on what a person could achieve. To have a realistic possibility of becoming a Rank 1 Blood Warrior, one needed at least Inferior Cultivation Talent, and Inferior Talent was only one level above Weak Talent, even then, a person's lifetime achievements would usually be limited, and at best, they might barely step into Rank 1.
Even so, Inferior Talent at least offered hope, after all, once someone became a genuine Blood Warrior, even if they had only just entered Rank 1, their position was already far above that of ordinary people.
Weak Cultivation Talent was different, even if Ryan cultivated for his entire life, he would most likely remain nothing more than a Blood Warrior Apprentice, this was the limitation imposed by talent.
"If only I could change my talent!"