The dry, choking smell of chalk dust mingled with the woody scent of old desks and chairs.
Sun Sheng jolted awake, greedily gulping down the murky yet vibrant air.
This wasn't disinfectant.
There was none of that cold, despairing smell that had lingered through the last moments of his life.
Nor was there the monotonous, death-knell "beep... beep..." of a heart monitor in his ears.
Before his eyes were faded blue curtains, gently billowing in the afternoon autumn breeze.
The window frame was mottled and peeling, revealing the dark wood beneath.
Outside the window was the familiar red brick wall of the teaching building, with a few bare Wutong trees reaching towards the grey sky.
On the blackboard, dense trigonometric function formulas looked like twisted runes.
On the podium, the math teacher, Wang Jianguo, was spitting as he lectured.
Everything was so real, yet so illusory.
Sun Sheng's head throbbed, as if two Souls were savagely colliding within his skull.
One belonged to the fighter who died with endless regret in a hospital bed in 2025.
The other belonged to this seventeen-year-old high school senior named Sun Sheng.
He looked down at the "Five Years of College Entrance Exams, Three Years of Mock Tests" on his desk, and the calendar showed: October 28, 2012.
"Damn it..."
A silent word exploded in Sun Sheng's heart.
"Sun Sheng!"
A thunderous roar instantly scattered his chaotic thoughts.
It was Teacher Wang Jianguo, his face now flushed crimson.
Fifty-odd pairs of eyes in the class swiveled to look at him.
"Can you get into Tsinghua or Peking University by staring out the window? Your Soul has flown away!"
Teacher Wang was furious, and he casually picked up the old wooden-framed blackboard eraser from the podium.
With a sharp flick of his wrist!
The blackboard eraser, with a strong whoosh, flew like a cannonball, heading straight for Sun Sheng's head!
In that instant, the world changed.
In Sun Sheng's eyes, the rapidly spinning blackboard eraser seemed to have been put into slow motion.
He could clearly see the cracks on its rough wooden frame, and the tiny chalk dust particles being flung off by its rotation.
In his ears, the sharp sound of air being cut was stretched into a long, low hum.
Time seemed to be stretched tenfold.
His body's reaction even surpassed his brain's thinking.
He didn't make any unnecessary movements; he just instinctively tilted his neck to the side with the smallest possible Amplitude.
"Swish!"
The blackboard eraser flew past, almost grazing his ear.
"Clang!"
It heavily smashed onto the desk of the student behind him, and chalk dust exploded with a "poof."
After a deathly silence, an irrepressible uproar filled the classroom.
Teacher Wang was stunned; he hadn't expected his "flying eraser" trick to miss today.
Sun Sheng himself was also bewildered; he remained stiffly in his head-tilted posture, his heart pounding wildly against his chest.
That feeling just now... it was too strange!
"You dare to dodge?!"
Teacher Wang was completely enraged by this unexpected evasion, seeing it as an open provocation to his authority.
He quickly pinched half a piece of chalk from the chalk box, his eyes sharpening.
"Look at this!"
His index and middle fingers exerted force, and his wrist gave a sharp flick!
That piece of white chalk flew like a bullet, shooting towards him again!
This time, Sun Sheng didn't even fully look at the podium.
His brain was still in a state of immense shock and confusion, but his body had already responded.
The corner of his eye caught the rapidly approaching white trajectory.
It was still very slow.
Under the astonished gazes of all his classmates, Sun Sheng barely moved his head.
His right arm simply lifted as if unconsciously, his wrist flicking lightly, the movement as casual as shooing away a mosquito on a summer night.
"Pop!"
A crisp, light sound.
The piece of chalk was precisely flicked away by his fingertip, falling onto the aisle.
The entire process was smooth and natural, so fast that almost no one saw his movements clearly.
In the classroom, this time there was complete and utter silence.
A few seconds later, suppressed laughter and whispers spread like a tide.
"Holy crap! He flicked it away! With his finger!"
Teacher Wang's face had turned from flushed to ashen, his lips trembling.
And Sun Sheng, however, felt as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning.
He slowly lowered his head, looking at his slightly slender hand; the sensation from just now clearly lingered on his fingertips.
Slow... everything around him was too slow.
No, the world hadn't slowed down.
It was me... I was too fast!
He abruptly closed his eyes, and fragments of his past life's memories surged into his mind like a broken dam.
The dazzling lights of huge fighting arenas, the cold touch of the Octagon's iron mesh, his coach's roars from the ringside... and that last match, and the endless darkness on the hospital bed.
When he opened his eyes again, he was back in 2012, back when he was seventeen.
A bead of cold sweat trickled down his temple.
He had Rebirth.
And, he had gained an incredible, superhumanly fast neural reaction speed!
This was his... Godlike Reflexes!
Ding-ding-ding-ding—
The sound of the class bell was like heavenly music.
Teacher Wang glared fiercely at Sun Sheng, announcing the end of class with a belly full of suppressed anger.
Sun Sheng ignored the various gazes from his classmates; the moment the bell rang, he sprang up like a spring, grabbed his backpack, and was the first to rush out of the classroom.
He needed a quiet place to process all of this and verify this gift.
He ran wildly through the noisy corridor, turning into a secluded old alley.
He stopped, panting heavily.
First, his vision.
He looked up, locking onto a falling withered yellow leaf.
In his sight, every detail of this leaf was infinitely magnified.
The serrated edges of the leaf, the intricate veins, the tiny flips caused by air currents.
The entire world seemed to have become a super-high frame rate slow-motion movie.
He could even predict the leaf's landing spot in advance.
Three seconds later, the leaf landed silently, not a hair's breadth off.
Next, his hearing.
Sun Sheng closed his eyes, immersing his consciousness in the world of sound.
Car horns, hawkers' cries, passersby's conversations... all sounds were no longer muddled but became distinctly layered.
He could even "focus" to clearly hear a couple arguing fifty meters away.
Then, his touch.
He reached out, his fingers lightly tracing the rough brick wall beside him.
The sensation was magnified several times, as if he could feel every tiny grain of sand beneath his fingertips.
Finally, his body's coordination.
He took a deep breath and assumed a standard fighting stance.
This seventeen-year-old body, 1.85 meters tall and weighing about sixty-something kilograms, was slender and thin.
His strength, endurance, and explosive power were all at the level of an ordinary high school student.
But... when he tried to move his feet, a miracle happened.
Slides, side steps, weaves, duck-unders... the technical movements ingrained in his bones from his past life were perfectly reproduced.
No, they were surpassed!
His body's reactions outpaced his brain; a thought flashed through his mind, and his body already glided out like a ghost.
His movements were precise, fluid, and incredibly fast!
He stood in the center of the alley, slowly closing his eyes.
In his mind, an opponent from his past life, a powerful wrestler, appeared.
He clearly remembered that guy's double-leg takedown.
And now, in the mental simulation, the opponent's movements were infinitely slowed down.
He could clearly "see" the signs of his opponent's exertion, the angle of his dive, the trajectory of his arms.
And, the fleeting weaknesses.
Dozens of optimal counter-attack routes instantly generated in his mind.
Knee-up, uppercut counter, guillotine choke... his body even produced faint conditioned reflexes.
"Hoo..."
Sun Sheng exhaled a long, turbid breath, no longer able to suppress the wild joy in his heart, his entire body trembling slightly from extreme excitement.
It's real!
Everything is real!
My reaction speed has surpassed human limits!
This is my damn Golden Finger!
The regrets of his past life, the craving for a championship, erupted like a volcano at this moment!
A crystal-clear thought was etched deep into his Soul:
"Octagon! UFC! Champion!"
"In this life, I'm going to reach the damn Peak!!!"
After the euphoria, a hint of calmness surged into his mind.
He remembered the "future" that belonged to the time after 2012.
Tencent and Maotai stocks would skyrocket.
Tesla would become a legend.
And... Bitcoin.
Financial freedom, within reach.
This thought lingered for only a second before he extinguished it.
"Money?" A self-mocking smile played on Sun Sheng's lips.
"If buying stocks and coins can solve it, is it even a problem?"
What he wanted was never these things.
What he wanted was combat! It was the impact of fist on flesh!
It was standing in the center of the Octagon after defeating one powerful enemy after another, listening to the roar of the crowd!
It was to tightly wrap that golden belt, symbolizing the world's strongest, around his waist!
Wealth was merely a stepping stone on his path back to the Peak.
Fighting was the entire meaning of his life, the ultimate destination of his Soul!