I became a martial arts saint while playing games.

How many?

Gu Yan carefully counted the string of zeros after the price tag.

Yes, I didn't miscount, it really is five million eight hundred and eighty thousand... per grain.

Damn it, why don't you just rob someone?

Oh, sorry, but robbing is nowhere as lucrative as selling medicine...

Gu Yan once again deeply realized that the path of martial arts was fraught with financial difficulties, and that without money, nothing was possible. A single capsule cost nearly six million—was this a drug that anyone could afford?

However, as he flipped through the pages further, he discovered that there wasn't just one type of medicine related to enlightenment. He casually flipped through and found others worth seven or eight million per pill...

Gu Yan thought for a moment and clicked the "Sort by Price" button. The system automatically switched the display to a descending order of price from highest to lowest.

Then he saw the one with the most expensive price tag, far ahead of the competition.

【Tianwu Shenyuan Capsules】

[Price: Starting from 1800 million per pill (out of stock)]

Gu Yan took a deep breath. Although he hadn't looked closely at the difference in efficacy, he guessed that the 1800 million capsule and the 588 million capsule must be on completely different levels.

But since he saw the most expensive one, Gu Yan simply clicked the sort button and switched to ascending price sorting.

In this way, he saw the lowest-priced item among all the enlightenment-related drugs on the screen.

【Awakening Capsules】

Price: 68 per capsule

This is currently the only Enlightenment Capsule he can afford.

Gu Yan then switched to sorting by sales volume and found that the Awakening Capsule had a precipitous lead in sales among all Enlightenment Capsules.

It seems that only a minority of the rich students in the school can afford the "luxury capsules," and the "wake-up capsules" are already the most sought-after affordable option.

Gu Yan thought to himself that although he only had one million yuan on hand, he would soon receive the follow-up income from the contract after passing the assessment in a couple of days. 68 yuan was a bit expensive, but not unaffordable. The key was that he needed to make final preparations for the decisive battle at Qingxi when he returned to the game later, and this capsule might be helpful.

So Gu Yan still generously spent 680,000 yuan to get this small "Awakening Capsule".

Half of my million-dollar savings vanished in an instant. Watching my bank card being emptied, even though I know that more money will be deposited tomorrow, it still hurts to see it all.

"I'm short of money. There's never enough money to go around. I need to earn more," Gu Yan thought to himself.

Then he naturally thought of the fact that he had just learned today that papers could earn him royalties.

Gu Yan had already started making plans when he heard about it. The technique he used to break through to the Solid Foundation Realm was the "Demon Suppression and Yuan Nourishment Technique," a unique technique of the Demon Suppression Division. As far as he knew, it was one of the top techniques for the Solid Foundation Realm in the entire "Slay Demons and Exterminate Monsters" game.

Now that he has entered the Qi Control realm and switched to cultivating the "Yin Yang Harmony Technique," the Qi Strengthening Technique is considered obsolete. But if this technique were copied into the modern world, it should be quite powerful in the Qi Strengthening Realm—which is equivalent to a first-tier cultivation method in reality, right?

Gu Yan returned to the villa and logged into the school library system using the computer provided in the villa.

During his master's studies in his previous life, the school library would uniformly purchase authorization rights for various mainstream academic databases. Major core literature platforms, comprehensive academic repositories, and so on would have access agreements with the school, making it convenient for faculty and students to download various academic materials for free.

The same principle applies to martial arts in this world. Linjiang University Library also has access portals for various institutions through unified procurement. By logging in as a martial arts student, one can access many authorized martial arts manuals from the library.

However, without paying, students can only see an overview of martial arts on the website, which includes detailed introductions of various martial arts, combat videos, comparative data, etc., but there are no actual training methods or mental techniques.

Students need to pay to download the corresponding techniques in order to obtain and practice them.

That's only natural. After all, martial arts licenses aren't cheap, and schools aren't charities. If they were to make such a massive martial arts database available for free every year, even a school with its resources would probably go bankrupt.

Even if you can't get it for free, using the library's database to search for martial arts techniques is very convenient.

Just like Gu Yanqian's academic websites, which often allow filtering by major category, and further refinement to include research directions within the same major, various tags within the same direction, etc., it can help you quickly locate the articles needed for your specific research direction.

The same was true for the library at Linjiang University. Gu Yan entered the library system, selected the realm and cultivation method categories, and then, based on his understanding of the "Demon Suppression and Yuan Nourishment Technique," he selected and located the internal cultivation method in the database that was closest to this technique, according to its masculine attributes, the acupoints opened during the initial practice, the circulation of qi, and other tags.

The system quickly filtered out the results for him.

The Foundation Establishment Formula of Zhengyuan.

Gu Yan was taken aback. He remembered that Chu Yue had just introduced it today as one of the top ten internal cultivation techniques for first-level martial artists, as recognized on the martial arts forum.

It is said that it was created by Xiao Zhiyuan, the number one master in the world, during his undergraduate studies.

Gu Yan hesitated for a moment.

When writing a paper, you need a target to shoot at. His original intention was to find a target technique that was closest to the Demon-Suppressing and Yuan-Nourishing Technique in terms of its approach, category, and research direction. In this way, he could pretend that he had optimized the Demon-Suppressing and Yuan-Nourishing Technique based on this target technique and developed the Demon-Suppressing and Yuan-Nourishing Technique mental method. This way, no one would suspect that his technique was not self-created but obtained out of thin air, and thus associate it with him having some kind of cheat code.

The matching technique, "Zheng Yuan Dian Ji Jue," is actually the top-tier internal energy cultivation method in modern times. What if the "Zhen Mo Yang Yuan Jue" he obtained in the game is not as good as the target technique he selected? Wouldn't he be unable to write his thesis?

After some hesitation, Gu Yan checked the details of the paper first.

Although the free version does not include the mental techniques and formulas, modern academic papers clearly list all the specific benefits, difficulties, advantages and disadvantages of practicing the techniques, and the advantages and disadvantages after mastering them.

Therefore, there is no need for specific practice methods; one can determine the merits or demerits of this method simply by reading the content of the paper.

Gu Yan downloaded the free portion of the paper, read it, and quickly drew his own conclusion.

It is not as good as the "Demon Suppression and Yuan Nourishment Technique" at all.

The paper mentioned some shortcomings of the cultivation method, such as stagnant qi and impure energy, and suggested using specific medicines during practice to compensate for these deficiencies. However, Gu Yan knew at a glance that if he were to cultivate the "Demon Suppression and Yuan Nourishment Technique," these flaws would be insignificant and would not require external assistance from medicines, as the cultivation method itself would naturally provide solutions.

The text mentions difficulties and obstacles encountered at certain stages of cultivation, as well as bottlenecks encountered when reaching difficult points, but the "Demon Suppressing and Nourishing Essence Technique" does not address any of these. Simply follow the steps and practice accordingly, and the difficulties mentioned in the text will resolve themselves.

Even the specific data listed at the end of the article, which outlines the benefits of each stage of the mental cultivation method and the approximate physical fitness data of the practitioner when it is perfected, seemed to Gu Yan to be inferior to the Demon Suppression and Nourishing Essence Technique at a glance.

Simply put, the two techniques are very similar in terms of attributes, methods, and schools, but in comparison, the "Zheng Yuan Foundation Technique" is like a completely low-end version of the "Demon Suppression and Yuan Nourishment Technique".

Gu Yan's heart stirred. He recalled what he had learned in his high school general education class: that various unique martial arts techniques of the old era had been lost due to a variety of factors, and that it was not until the New Martial Arts Era that an effective system for protecting the inheritance of martial arts was established. But in general, many unique martial arts techniques have ultimately been buried in the river of time.

Could it be that because of these factors, the top-tier martial arts techniques in games are naturally a level stronger than those in reality?

If that's the case, then it would be truly good news for Gu Yan.

With this in mind, Gu Yan immediately opened the document and got to work. He had already mastered the "Demon Suppression and Yuan Nourishment Technique" to perfection, and almost without thinking, he typed out all the essential points of the technique, its various advantages compared to the "Zheng Yuan Foundation Technique," and so on in one go.

It wasn't a formal paper, just a simple draft. According to the rules, when a student publishes a paper, they are the first author and must include their advisor as a second author.

Therefore, he quickly wrote a draft and then sent it to his mentor, Professor Zhong Ding's, email address.

Martial artists are naturally fast typists, and writing a draft didn't take him long. Gu Yan didn't know when the professor would check his email and reply, but he wasn't in a hurry and was quite confident in his paper.

That's for sure. After carefully comparing the advantages and disadvantages of the two techniques in reality and in the game, he was quite certain that if this article didn't work, then something absolutely strange would happen.

I wonder what Professor Zhongding's reaction will be when he sees such a comprehensive optimization and improvement.

As for now.

Gu Yan turned off his phone, got up, and went downstairs to the Juyuan Room that came with the villa.

Let's continue playing the game for a while first.