Chapter 330: Hot-Blooded Civil Engineering

Chapter 330: Red-Blooded Civil Engineering

Zhang Yu switched to the Boundless Qi Veins, feeling his spiritual power recover rapidly, and said casually, "It's fine, just focus on improving the quality of your spiritual power quickly."

"You should be able to feel it, right? The spiritual power inside your body is about to break through a bottleneck."

Le Mulan nodded. Recently, she had felt the spiritual power within her becoming increasingly cold and sinister. Though it did not harm her, it would occasionally leak out out of control, causing various bizarre phenomena in the outside world.

Le Mulan had a feeling in her heart that if she continued at this rate, it would only take another week or two before her spiritual power underwent some kind of qualitative transformation.

And such a rapid elevation in the quality of her spiritual power was entirely inseparable from Zhang Yu.

The enhancement of her spiritual power's quality also made her cultivation more efficient, accelerating her academic progress, which in turn caused the Le family on the second floor to invest a few more resources into her.

Thinking of this, Le Mulan looked at Zhang Yu with a faint sigh in her heart, never imagining that the wealth she had once spent on him would return to her doubled in this fashion.

Just then, Zhang Yu handed another measuring cup to Le Mulan: "Right, here is this batch of goods for you too."

Le Mulan nodded and said, "Once the spirit coins hit my account, I'll transfer them to you."

Feeling the warmth radiating from the measuring cup, Le Mulan instantly judged with her rich experience: "It must have been produced not long before I arrived, that's incredibly fast."

"Zhang Yu's production efficiency has been so high lately... is it because he's been eating too many tonic medicines?"

After recovering his spiritual power, Zhang Yu lost no time leaving the dormitory and rushed back to the construction site once again.

The renovation of the graveyard was mostly complete, and he felt an increasing urgency to seize the remaining time, striving to breathe in more spiritual essence within the graveyard site.

"It's a pity that for the rest of the time, there won't be Director Wang's company."

Walking through the familiar underground passages, Zhang Yu arrived at the work location assigned to him today.

Then, as was his custom, he activated the detection ritual within his body, sweeping his gaze across the locations of the nearby surveillance cameras.

After all, harboring no shortage of secrets, Zhang Yu had habitually checked and memorized the camera positions to avoid causing unnecessary trouble.

But this time, feeling the feedback from the ritual power within him, Zhang Yu looked at a wall on the left and suddenly frowned slightly: "There's a hidden camera here?"

"It wouldn't happen to be placed specifically to film me, would it?"

With this thought, Zhang Yu unleashed the power of the monitoring ritual inside his body, attempting to control this camera, and the next moment, he obtained the surveillance perspective of the lens.

"This is..."

Looking at the content on the monitoring screen, Zhang Yu discovered it was a multi-angle camera, capable of seeing both the active construction site and a secret passage behind a section of the wall simultaneously.

"There's a secret passage here?"

Zhang Yu controlled the surveillance camera, looking at the haphazardly excavated pit behind the wall, and thought to himself: "This doesn't look like an official project; instead, it looks like someone dug it secretly."

Zhang Yu grew curious; who exactly had dug this secret passage?

But after a moment's thought, Zhang Yu decided not to meddle with it.

Who knew what kind of secret lay within, what kind of interests it would involve, or what kind of dangers it might present?

Thus, over the next few days, Zhang Yu simply pretended not to have discovered this secret passage, continuing his work and breathing exercises as usual.

On this day, he received a message sent to everyone in the class group by Perfected Master Jiao Lei.

Perfected Master Jiao Lei: Students who wish to participate in this year's Architecture Competition can register now. Interested students can let me know.

Seeing this message, Zhang Yu's eyes shifted. He knew that with the convening of various competitions, students gained more avenues to boost their comprehensive scores.

Therefore, relying solely on one's own coursework grades made it impossible to consistently remain at the top of the school rankings.

So, Zhang Yu approached Perfected Master Jiao Lei to learn more about this Architecture Competition.

Only then did he learn that this was an annual, major competition belonging to architecture and civil engineering students, encompassing two parts: architectural design and civil engineering.

As for the arrangement of the tournament... first, a selection trial would be held within the academy of the Myriad Laws University, and then the chosen teams would be sent out to compete against representative teams from other universities.

"This year's finals are being held at the Heavenly Demon University, scheduled for the end of the year."

"But the department's internal selection trials will begin in the second half of the year."

"Even though the actual competition officially starts next term after this term's final exams end, registering and forming teams begins now. After all, once the competition team is assembled, they still need time to build chemistry."

Soon, Tu Lishan also sent a message to Zhang Yu.

Tu Lishan: You know about the Architecture Competition, right?

Tu Lishan: There's a team recruiting people, you can go give it a try.

Tu Lishan: You are only a freshman after all, don't worry about the outcome, just accumulate more experience.

Thus, under Tu Lishan's recommendation, Zhang Yu specifically carved out some time the next day to come to the construction site on the 667th floor.

Upon reaching the agreed location, he spotted a slender female student doing warm-up exercises.

Looking at her not-so-robust physique, as well as the ranking above her head, Zhang Yu thought with surprise: "Are there actually girls with this kind of build in the civil engineering department?"

Cong Na, a fourth-year Foundation Establishment student in the civil engineering department ranked fifth in her class, said indifferently: "You're Zhang Yu, right? Here's the situation..."

Through her explanation, Zhang Yu understood that this competition team had already gathered 5 students, and now they needed to recruit one more civil engineering student to be responsible for project implementation.

Cong Na twisted her hands and feet, letting out a series of crackling, popping sounds, and gave a light laugh: "As for me... I'm here to give you a test."

"Though you are a student recommended by Teacher Tu and are ranked second in your class, you are, in the end, only a freshman." Although she didn't say it bluntly, in Cong Na's view... placing a freshman in a competition team, wasn't that pure baggage? He would only be there to do odd jobs, and perhaps he was even hoping to coast along for a ranking.

Even if the opponent truly possessed decent strength, given students of identical strength, Cong Na would always lean toward choosing an upperclassman, as upperclassmen simply had more abundant construction experience.

Therefore, Cong Na's idea was very simple.

"Let him break under the pressure and back out," Cong Na thought to herself. "Make this kid realize that competitions are not something a freshman should participate in."

Zhang Yu nodded and asked, "How will we test?"

Cong Na sent the blueprint to Zhang Yu, then pointed toward a patch of scaffolding and said, "I've already sent the blueprint to you."

"Within 10 minutes, assemble the rebar in the blueprint, and you'll pass this test."

"However, just as the competition simulates a wartime environment, while you are assembling the rebar, I will attack from time to time to obstruct your work."

"Any questions?"

Zhang Yu looked at the blueprint, thinking to himself: "Damn it, using a test to make me do free labor again, are they? As expected of a team introduced by Tu Lishan, cut from the exact same cloth."

Be that as it may, Zhang Yu still nodded and said, "No problem."

Thus, accompanied by a countdown of 3, 2, 1, Zhang Yu's figure blurred, already rushing out with a surging wave of astral qi.

With a single strike of his palm, bars of rebar more than ten meters away were swept up, falling one after another onto the scaffolding.

Immediately after, he flicked his fingertips, and ripples of astral qi flashed past, causing tie wires several meters away to leap up one by one, wrapping themselves around the rebar.

Watching Zhang Yu's swift movements, Cong Na nodded slightly: "His movements aren't slow."

"Then let's add a bit more pressure..."

Cong Na took a step forward, already striking a palm toward the center of Zhang Yu's back, utilizing precisely the Tendon-Breaking Palm which could twist apart most rebar.

With the tendon-breaking palm force contained within this strike of hers, she was confident that a single hit would completely twist the rebar Zhang Yu had set up, turning his work entirely to waste.

In fact, if she managed to land a few palm strikes on Zhang Yu, Cong Na felt that his bones might very well be snapped and twisted by her.

Possessing the Three-Eyed Divine Ability, Zhang Yu had long been observing Cong Na's condition. Almost at the very first instant Cong Na moved, he similarly struck out with a palm, his astral qi bringing forth layers of spirals that surged toward her.

Amidst a booming explosion, Cong Na shattered Zhang Yu's astral qi with her palm, continuing her approach without pausing for a single moment.

She snorted coldly in her heart: "The conduction rate of the Gang Qi is too low. With this little power... you can't even slow me down. Freshmen really are unreliable."

With that cold snort, Cong Na had already arrived beside Zhang Yu, unleashing a flurry of palm shadows as she attacked him, forcing Zhang Yu to turn around and defend himself.

Zhang Yu thought to himself: "Is this competition called 'Passionate Civil Engineering'? We have to work and fight at the same time?"

But under Cong Na's interference, Zhang Yu found it increasingly difficult to continue his work.

As an outstanding senior student, her strength and speed surpassed his. Once the fight began, even if Zhang Yu employed his "Fifty-Fifty Combat Technique," mimicking her movements and clashing head-on... he could only manage to defend himself, unable to maintain his work, let alone repel her.

At this moment, Zhang Yu revealed the flaws in his combat system.

"Quite resilient," Cong Na thought to herself as she suppressed Zhang Yu. "But resilience alone won't help in a competition."

Seeing that her opponent's work had come to a complete halt under her assault, Cong Na mused: "Just a bit of hand-to-hand combat, and the project stalls? A real competition is far more treacherous than this."

Cong Na thought to herself: "You're far from ready. Shouldn't you know when to quit?"

Just as Cong Na was thinking this, a human-shaped Gang Qi flashed before her eyes, lunging fiercely toward her.

"With such a low Gang Qi conduction rate, what's the point of taking human form?"

As Cong Na prepared to casually shatter this human-shaped Gang Qi, she discovered that it was executing the exact same moves as her.

"Using Gang Qi to mimic my techniques?"

"How absurd."

With a deafening roar, Cong Na's palm collided violently with the palm of the human-shaped Gang Qi. To her surprise, not only were the techniques identical, but even the force channeled through the Gang Qi was the same—both were the Tendon-Severing Palm Force.

"Huh?"

However, after that single strike, the human-shaped Gang Qi dissipated into the air.

But the next moment, as Cong Na stepped forward, another human-shaped Gang Qi rushed toward her, blocking her path.

Boom!

As one human-shaped Gang Qi dissipated, another struck.

Under Cong Na's astonished gaze, each human-shaped Gang Qi executed the exact same techniques and palm force as her, effectively holding her at bay.

Protected by the Gang Qi, Zhang Yu turned back to his work, his hands moving with such speed that they left behind a blur of afterimages as they swept back and forth over the steel bars.

(End of Chapter)