The group in front of him, whether from their outfits or their aura, gave Jie Ming a powerful sense of déjà vu — the standard template for street thugs.

Leading them was a tall, burly young man.

He wore a gaudy rivet-studded leather jacket, his hair dyed a blinding shade of green, a toothpick dangling from the corner of his mouth.

He walked with that deliberate shoulder-swaying swagger, as if he wanted the entire world to know, “I am definitely not a good person.”

Most eye-catching of all was the “weapon” casually slung over his shoulder — a double-bladed hand axe that glinted coldly, clearly well-maintained and razor-sharp.

The lackeys behind him were cut from the same cloth, eyes filled with arrogance, laughing and joking, the word “delinquent” practically tattooed across their faces.

As they strode through the dining hall, the other students hurriedly made way, fear in their eyes mixed with a hint of… resignation? As if this were simply business as usual.

Jie Ming’s pupils narrowed. His mind raced, instantly rifling through that vast sea of fabricated memories.

Nothing. Not a single record of any conflict or interaction with these people.

“Not a grudge from ‘before’…” Alarm bells blared in Jie Ming’s heart. “They’re here for me ‘now’? Have I already been discovered? Is this a probe from whoever’s pulling the strings behind the scenes?”

His body tensed slightly. Though his transcendent power was sealed, the combat instincts and techniques forged through countless battles remained.

Jie Ming quickly assessed their numbers, their weapons, and the surrounding environment. Several plans for taking down armed opponents bare-handed flashed through his mind in an instant.

With his current physical condition, he was confident he could drop all of them while paying only a minimal price.

At that moment, the green-haired bully strode right up to Jie Ming, axe still on his shoulder.

He looked Jie Ming up and down with a critical gaze, then rumbled in a thick, displeased voice, “You’re Jie Ming? The guy who got first place in this year’s entrance exam?”

His tone dripped with resentment, as if topping the exam was some kind of unforgivable sin.

Jie Ming didn’t answer. He simply regarded the bully calmly, every muscle in his body held in that subtle state of relaxed readiness, primed to explode into lethal force at any moment.

Seeing the silence only infuriated the bully further. He thumped his own chest with his free hand and began introducing himself with spittle flying: “I was the top dog at Seventh High! And then you come along and steal all the spotlight! They say you’re some kind of genius? Well, I ain’t convinced! I came here today specifically to throw down with you!”

“Throw down?” Jie Ming’s heart tightened. So it really was going to come to blows?

The corner of his eye tracked the bully’s hand tightening on the axe handle, calculating the optimal counterattack distance and angle.

Yet what happened next completely shattered every combat scenario Jie Ming had prepared.

The bully suddenly slammed his axe down onto an empty nearby table with a resounding CLANG, then took two thick stacks of test papers and two pens from one of his lackeys.

“Let’s duel!” He aggressively slapped one set of papers onto the table in front of Jie Ming, keeping the other for himself. “We’re doing this! Forty-five-minute time limit. We both take the Advanced Mathematics Logic and Spacetime Geometry Mastery Exam! Whoever wins gets to keep this axe!”

Jie Ming: “…Huh?”

He was utterly stunned. His brain momentarily failed to process this absurd information.

A duel?

With math problems?

A mathematical duel with an axe on the line?

He instinctively glanced at Amy and Victor beside him, only to find that neither they—nor any of the students watching the spectacle—found this strange in the slightest. On the contrary, every single one of them looked excited and eager, as if they were about to witness a legendary showdown.

Amy even elbowed him and whispered encouragingly, “Jie Ming, come on! Show him what the real number one can do! Crush him!”

Victor flipped through the test briefly, pushed up his glasses, and calmly commented, “Reasonable question distribution. The final problem has decent challenge. Suitable for a duel.”

Seeing Jie Ming frozen, the bully assumed he was scared and gloated even harder: “What’s wrong? Chicken out already? So this is the level of this year’s top scorer? Just admit defeat if you’re scared!”

The corner of Jie Ming’s mouth twitched.

Though the entire situation felt ludicrous, he instantly realized this might be “normal” in this world.

To avoid exposing the fact that he had awakened, he had to perfectly play the role of “new student genius Jie Ming.”

“…Fine. Let’s do it.” Suppressing the weirdness in his heart, he sat down at one end of the table under the eager gazes of the thugs and the surrounding crowd, while the bully took the opposite end.

Opening the test, Jie Ming quickly scanned through it.

The difficulty was indeed high; the mathematics and logical reasoning involved were far beyond what ordinary university freshmen would encounter.

But to someone who had once reached the level of a Tier-3 wizard, whose mind had been tempered and expanded countless times, comprehending and solving these problems was no real challenge.

“Begin!” Amy enthusiastically volunteered as referee and gave the start signal. Both of them immediately bent their heads and started writing furiously.

Jie Ming’s pen flew like it was possessed. The earlier questions required almost no thought; formulas, derivations, and answers flowed onto the page as smoothly as drifting clouds and flowing water.

Only when he reached the final comprehensive question did his pen pause.

This problem involved a specific multidimensional curvature integral transformation model that, once again, lay outside his original knowledge base!

Yet strangely, as he stared at the question, an inexplicable sense of familiarity welled up.

He immediately searched those vast fabricated memories and, sure enough, found the relevant theoretical knowledge and solution methods buried in fragments labeled “university preparatory courses”!

“This…” Jie Ming forcibly suppressed the shock surging in his heart, keeping his expression neutral.

Relying on the knowledge from those false memories, he smoothly completed the final question.

A little over ten minutes later, Jie Ming set down his pen.

The entire paper—finished.

Across from him, the bully’s forehead was now beaded with sweat as he wrestled bitterly with the second-to-last question.

When he saw Jie Ming already done, his and his lackeys’ faces instantly turned deathly pale.

A few more minutes passed before the bully barely managed to finish.

Under everyone’s watchful eyes, Amy and Victor graded the papers against the answer key.

The results came quickly.

“Perfect score! Every single question correct!” Amy announced excitedly at the top of her lungs.

Under these circumstances, the one who submitted first—Jie Ming—was naturally the victor.

“How… how is this possible…” The bully looked like his soul had left his body. He slammed his thigh and shot to his feet, snatching up the hand axe from the nearby table.

Jie Ming’s eyes sharpened, thinking the guy was about to fly into a rage and attack. His body instantly shifted back into combat readiness.

Yet all the bully did was cradle the axe in both hands, his face filled with grief and reluctance.

Finally, like offering a sacred tribute, he presented it to Jie Ming, voice cracking: “A bet’s a bet… I lost this time. Only a true strongman is worthy of wielding this axe! It… it’s yours now!”

Dazed, Jie Ming accepted the heavy, ice-cold hand axe.

It was slightly weighty in his grip, the blade gleaming with cold light—clearly a finely crafted cold weapon.

The former bully burst into tears, pointed at Jie Ming, and declared to everyone around them: “From this day forward! Jie Ming is the new school bully of first-year university!”

“No, wait, what exactly does your version of ‘school bully’ even bully? Academic dominance?!” Jie Ming felt his brain blue-screening as he roared internally.

Wiping away tears, the bully threw down a ruthless parting line: “Just you wait! I’m gonna study my ass off and win this axe back someday!”

The crowd immediately erupted into enthusiastic cheers and applause. Amy jumped up and down excitedly: “Yeah! Jie Ming, you’re the new school bully!”

Even Victor showed a rare faint smile of approval.

“…Huh?”

Holding the axe, standing in the center of the cheering crowd, watching the sobbing ex-bully stagger tragically out of the dining hall while his friends consoled him, Jie Ming was overwhelmed by an indescribable, intensely powerful sense of absurdity that nearly drowned him.

He considered himself extremely experienced—he had participated in planar wars more than once or twice—but faced with a situation like this, Jie Ming could only remain utterly bewildered.

Staring at the axe in his hand and the sorrowful figure of the departing bully, a single thought filled his mind with question marks.

…Just what the hell kind of place is this plane?!