Chapter 344: Enduring the Bitterest of Bitterness, Only Then to Become the Cat Above Cats

October has arrived.

Ling'an Academy, girls' Dormitory.

Zhang Suannai was sitting at her desk for a rare change, facing her computer with the document editor open, yet one hand rested on the keyboard without moving, while the elbow of her other arm propped up on the desk, her thumb raised and bitten by her teeth, her eyes staring blankly at the computer.

The screen's light cast her face in a snowy white, and her eyes were bright and glistening.

At this moment, she was wearing a pair of rainbow-colored shorts, revealing a pair of fair, long legs, and on her upper body, she wore only a white tank top, solid-colored with no patterns, faintly revealing the outlines of the straps and shoulder straps underneath, which were also white.

Today's Zhang Suannai is Academic Zhang Suannai.

Yesterday, she had consulted her little sister-friends about matters related to her thesis, but she was met with their ruthless mockery, which made her feel very indignant—she swore to produce a shocking thesis that would stun all the advisors, judges, and classmates at the defense, then shock the entire school, preferably cause a sensation nationwide, and finally slap the faces of her little sister-friends and everyone in that silly group who looked down on her, slapping their faces until they were swollen.

The first step begins with choosing a thesis topic.

Currently, there are roughly four types of theses she can choose from—

Status survey research, teaching experiments, technical and tactical statistical analysis, and theoretical analysis.

The first type is super simple and basically lacks technical content; one only needs to conduct some surveys and then compile the statistics, so naturally, it has no real value, making it suitable for those with low standards to scrape by for graduation, such as titles like "A Survey on the Operational Status of Traditional Sword Cultivator Clubs in Yujing City" or "A Survey on the Proportion and Tendencies of Students Electing Traditional Sword Cultivator Courses at Ling'an Talent Academy."

Aside from not being eligible for excellence awards, this type of thesis basically has no drawbacks.

The second type requires a certain level of technical content and must be supported by experimental data, carrying higher value, but it also has higher requirements for one's own level.

The disadvantage of choosing this type of thesis is that experiments and data are relatively difficult to handle; for example, if you want to write "The Practical Impact of Spiritual Sense Training on Traditional Sword Cultivators," first you must have access to high-level Sword Cultivators, and second, you must conduct experiments, which must be professional and credible, otherwise the advisors and judges might not believe you and might think you just fabricated an experiment that you didn't actually perform.

For Zhang Suannai, the difficulty of this is zero.

High-level Traditional Sword Cultivator? Hahahaha, if I may be so bold! I am exactly one such high-level Traditional Sword Cultivator!

Even if she wasn't good enough, the Sword Sect has plenty of them.

However, there are other difficulties, such as the need to conduct detailed experimental analysis, to see the essence through the phenomena, and the need to possess rich theoretical knowledge and cite others' viewpoints to support one's own inferences, but Zhang Suannai has always been a practitioner, not a theorist.

It also requires the use of some professional statistical software and knowledge related to statistics.

This is even more impossible.

"Set aside for now."

Zhang Suannai furrowed her brows and looked at the next one.

The third type, technical and tactical analysis, has the highest value and is easy to get an excellence award; if written well, it is most likely to achieve the effect of stunning the audience.

However, its difficulty is also the highest.

For example, one could write "A Study on the Fighting Style of Traditional Sword Cultivators Against Spirit Cultivators" or "An Analysis of the Offensive and Defensive Techniques of the Sword Sect First Disciple in the 'Tianshan Sword Discussion'"; obviously, this requires one to have an extremely high level of professional understanding, and Zhang Suannai is not lacking in this, yet the problem is the same as the previous one: she is not a theorist and might be unable to organize persuasive language; relying solely on "I feel" or "I think" is not enough; it requires data, a large amount of data.

Suppose a Sixth Stage Sword Cultivator fights a Spirit Cultivator—

How many units of Spirit Power does a Spirit Cultivator's Tracer Technique require? What is the conversion rate of Spirit Power? How fast is the explosion? How high is the temperature? How wide is the range? What is the Spirit Power consumption ratio for a Sword Cultivator's defense? How fast are flight and evasion speeds? Is it more profitable to charge directly or to dodge? What is the geometric cost of a Sword Cultivator's attack? What is the most correct way to respond?

Et cetera, et cetera...

Furthermore, these data must be able to calculate a result that matches the conclusion; if even one calculation in the middle is wrong, everything must be recalculated.

At the same time, what she says herself is not enough; she also needs to cite a large amount of analytical data from authoritative figures.

However, in her eyes, those damn authoritative figures are all trash.

Zhang Suannai scratched her head and looked at the last one.

The final type, theoretical analysis.

Hahahaha, the Sword Sect has no theorists; everyone relies on feeling, everyone relies on Spiritual Sense; people of the Sword Sect never believe in theory, nor do they believe in data...

"Tsk..."

Zhang Suannai bared her teeth.

Suddenly she felt...

Not stunning the audience seems fine too, right?

An advisor leads so many students, how many theses do judges have to read in a day, how much scolding from students do they have to endure, students write theses until they are half-dead, maybe they've revised them countless times before the defense, everyone is very tired, so there's no need to shock them again, right?

When people get along, they should consider each other.

Zhang Suannai thought as much.

At this moment, a figure appeared at the door.

Zhang Suannai instantly turned her head to look—

The little girl was wearing bear pajamas, holding a glass of water, and looking at her expressionlessly: "Sister Suannai, why do you never close the bedroom door?"

"Why close the door?"

"Privacy."

"I don't have privacy."

"..."

The little girl was silent for a moment, then suddenly tilted her head to look at her: "What are you doing now?"

"Oh! I'm writing my thesis!"

As Zhang Suannai said this, she hurriedly placed her hands on the keyboard, and while maintaining the posture of turning her head to stare at the little girl, she typed randomly on the keyboard.

For a moment, the clacking sound filled the air.

The little girl was silent for another few seconds, then actually walked in holding the water glass.

"?"

Zhang Suannai was stunned for a moment.

A few seconds later.

The little girl stood behind her holding the water glass, looking at the pile of garbled text on her screen, her expression calm.

"Just kidding with you..."

Zhang Suannai giggled, selected all and deleted it, and said to her: "I'm still thinking about the topic, I'll have it figured out soon."

The little girl didn't say anything, lifted the water glass to take a sip, and then silently turned and left.

He even closed the bedroom door for her.

"Hoo..."

Zhang Suannai let out a breath.

She picked up the kettle on the table that looked like a child's head, poured pale yellow tea from its two nostrils, and after finishing a cup of Wisdom Tea, she felt her thinking become agile in an instant due to the psychological effect; she was determined to think of the simplest topic to muddle through this graduation.

A true powerhouse does not need a graduation thesis or a graduation defense to prove themselves.

Zhang Suannai was undoubtedly a true powerhouse.

"Tap tap tap..."

The sound of the keyboard rang out once more.

A line of large text appeared on the document editing software: "An Investigation and Research on the True Level of Traditional Sword Training Classes in Yujing City."

This was a perfect topic.

It could both allow her to easily muddle through the graduation defense and reveal to everyone how deep the waters of the sword training classes in Yujing City were; perhaps in the process of investigating, she would even have conflicts with some unscrupulous training classes—killing three birds with one stone.

Come to think of it, no other classmate had dared to write this kind of investigative thesis before, right?

Only I, Zhang Suannai, dare.

"Hmph hmph..."

Zhang Suannai picked up the teapot again, finished a cup of Snot Tea, and replied to her mentor with her thesis topic.

Then, the mentor's message immediately came through in the group chat.

Zhang Ping: How many times have I said it! You are not allowed to choose status-quo investigation type theses! And yet there are still students who don't listen! This kind of thesis is too watery and lacks substance; it might be okay for ordinary schools to choose, but you are all top students at Ling'an Academy. Choosing this kind of thesis, I don't know what you are thinking; it's truly shameful!

Zhang Ping: @Zhang Suannai

Zhang Ping: And this student, the topic you chose makes me very suspicious that you are a Sword Sect Disciple.

Zhang Ping: Just give it a rest. The sword training industry in Yujing was long ago tidied up very cleanly by you Sword Sect Disciples. I'll say it straight: this kind of topic might pass with other mentors, but it absolutely will not with me.

Zhang Suannai looked at the message and was stunned.

The perfect topic, dead on arrival.

The path of the powerhouse, collapsed midway.

"Clack!"

Zhang Suannai threw the keyboard aside.

Write, write, write, write my ass.

The second of October.

The temperature in Yujing plummeted.

Chen Shu and the young girl were each holding a bowl of snail rice noodles, sitting at the stone table in the courtyard eating; a white cat was also squatting on the table, eating a deep-fried egg, and as it ate, it raised its head to glance at them, revealing an expression of incomprehension.

"Slurp..."

The young girl slurped a mouthful of noodles, used her chopsticks to press the deep-fried egg into the soup, and then said, "Brother-in-law, once Sister returns, I'm going to attempt the Fourth Stage."

"Impressive."

Chen Shu praised her without reservation.

The young girl had only opened her Spirit Sea some time after starting university; now she was only in the first semester of her junior year, and she had been formally cultivating for less than two years. Reaching the Fourth Stage in two years was undoubtedly the standard for a genius, and she was expected to advance to the Fifth Stage before graduating from university.

"When that time comes, while you're unconscious, I'll grab Sister and shave your head into a buzz cut."

"Mm!! ~"

The young girl made a sound of refusal.

"Slurp~"

Chen Shu slurped another large mouthful of noodles, and the tail of a rice noodle whipped around, splashing a drop of soup onto Taozi's face.

"Woof woof ow!!"

Taozi was immediately not okay, subconsciously yelping; anyone who didn't know better would have thought Chen Shu had poured a ladle of hot oil on it.

"What's wrong?"

Chen Shu stared at it strangely, suspecting this little thing was cursing him, so he thought for a moment and said, "This is food, not some dirty thing. Why are you reacting so strongly? You wouldn't happen to be unable to tell the difference, would you?"

"!"

Taozi calmed down immediately.

It had almost exposed the fact that it was not a higher-order organism.

Taozi watched them quietly.

Seeing that both the big and small humans were staring at it, it hesitated for a moment, then licked its paw, washed its face, and then licked its paw clean again, indicating that it possessed the same taste aesthetic as humans and that it could eat this kind of thing too.

"Good job!"

Chen Shu praised it.

Then he used his chopsticks to separate a fingernail-sized piece of the soup-soaked deep-fried egg from his bowl and placed it into Taozi's bowl: "Look, the one you're eating has no flavor. Eat mine; mine is delicious."

"..."

Taozi was silent for a long while, but eventually lowered its head, held its breath, and ate it.

"Delicious, right?"

"Woof!"

"Say thank you to me."

"Ah~"

"You're welcome."

"An~"

Taozi revealed a look of melancholy.

Only now did it understand that, despite how glamorous higher lifeforms appear on the surface, no one knows the bitterness and suffering they endure in secret.

Being a higher lifeform is so hard.