144 Minimum Standard

As usual, three appeals! Votes, recommendations, and collections! Please add to your collection, please collect, please collect!

The tall, thin fellow and his friends met Yang Tang's gaze, then glanced down at the broken tennis racquet on the ground, and their once-arrogant attitude instantly shriveled significantly.

It wasn't that they wanted to back down, but the tennis racquet Yang Tang had kicked to pieces was made of the newest composite material. When they bought it, the merchant had tested another racquet of the exact same model, and even a hammer blow barely deformed it. Yet now, it had been scraped apart by a single kick from Yang Tang. Thinking about the consequences of conflicting with such a person—

"Hey kid, you kicked my racquet to pieces. If you don't pay for it, do you believe I can call people over to beat you up?" Although they were already retreating in their hearts, the fellows who picked a fight with Yang Tang and Li Chong showed not the slightest bit of cowardice on the surface; instead, they looked rather aggressive.

Unfortunately, neither Yang Tang nor Li Chong were pushovers, especially Li Chong, who was a sports-major recruit and possessed an abundance of aggressiveness. Upon hearing the threat from the guy with the broken racquet, Li Chong immediately shouted back, "What? Do you bastards think you can start a gang fight? Believe it or not, I can call my guys!" As he spoke, he looked around, his eyes suddenly lighting up. He called out to a guy dribbling a basketball and doing flashy tricks near the entrance of the basketball court not far away, "Old Tang, over here!!"

That guy had been hunched over, but upon hearing Li Chong's voice, he gathered the ball and straightened up. By Yang Tang's estimation, he seemed even taller than the 190-centimeter Li Chong. Seeing Li Chong and Yang Tang surrounded by three or four people, he didn't rush over immediately. Instead, he ran to the edge of the basketball court's isolation fence and roared, "All sports majors get over here, some guys from another department are picking a fight with us!"

Instantly, the movements of all the boys playing basketball on every court paused. They all looked toward Old Tang, who had done the shouting, and then a third of them rushed over in a flurry to gather around Old Tang.

Without a word, Old Tang led this pack of animals to form an even larger outer circle around Yang Tang and Li Chong.

Now, those tennis-playing boys couldn't quite hold their ground anymore. "It's a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding, we're from Guanghua—"

It would have been better if they hadn't said that. As soon as they said it, the sports students surrounded them even tighter. The reason was simple: Peking University's Guanghua School of Management was a major department, and an economics-oriented major at that. The students who graduated from it consciously felt superior and universally discriminated against students from other departments. Of course, this discrimination didn't exist in writing or spoken words, but rather in the daily attitude of Guanghua students. It was just like a neighbor thinking your family is poor; the neighbor might not say it out days nor write it on paper, but you could clearly feel the attitude inadvertently leaking from the other party.

"Guanghua is so amazing, huh?"

"Don't look at how many people your department has, if you've got the guts, step outside and have a fight with our sports department!"

"You Guanghua economics nerds are really something, a bunch of good-for-nothing pieces of trash."

The people Old Tang brought chimed in one after another, saying things that left the tall, thin fellow and his companions terrified and shivering in silence, fearing they would genuinely be beaten up in a group brawl, leaving them nowhere to cry.

Only the guy with the broken racquet dared to point at Yang Tang and shout, "Anyway, he has to pay for my racquet!"

Hearing this, Li Chong sneered repeatedly. "If you hadn't tried to hit Yang Tang with your racquet, would he have kicked it broken?" As soon as these words were spoken, those sports students, whose discernment was not bad at all, began buzzing among themselves in private.

"Oh wow, so fierce! What kind of guy is this fellow brought by Junior Chong?"

"Exactly! He actually kicked the newest model of tennis racquet in half!"

"Hey you, Senior Tan, isn't your family known for leg techniques? Can you do that?"

The person addressed as Senior Tan shook his head slightly. "Never tried it, no idea."

At this point, Yang Tang spoke up. "I indeed kicked the racquet to pieces, but there was a reason for it. So paying is fine, but I won't pay in full!"

Upon hearing this, the broken-racquet guy immediately tried to push his luck. "I bought this racquet for three thousand five hundred. No matter what, you have to compensate me three thousand!"

Yang Tang was not in a hurry to negotiate price with him, only saying leisurely, "If you hadn't tried to hit me with your racquet, nothing would have happened to it. Therefore, the majority of the responsibility lies with you, not me. At most, I can only compensate you for half. Coupled with the fact that you've already used this racquet several times, there's the issue of depreciation. Therefore, fifteen hundred is my limit for compensation. If you're willing, we'll write an IOU and I'll fork over the cash. If you're unwilling, you can go find the police or the court and let them judge how much I should pay!"

The broken-racquet guy was somewhat dumbfounded, but after calculating carefully, he realized that if he let the court judge, heaven knows how long he'd have to wait until the Year of the Monkey. So, gritting his teeth and stamping his foot, he had no choice but to accept Yang Tang's compensation of fifteen hundred to settle the matter.

Once he received the IOU from the other party, Yang Tang really fished out over twenty hundred-yuan Chinese banknotes from his waist pouch, counted out fifteen of them, and handed them to the broken-racquet guy. After the tall, thin fellow and the broken-racquet guy left, Yang Tang pulled out another three hundred yuan and slapped it into Li Chong's hand, saying, "I'll treat all the seniors who came to help hold down the fort today to drinks!"

Old Tang and his group instantly felt that Yang Tang was exceptionally bold and generous. After all, it was a trivial matter; they had merely helped stand around and lend momentum, yet Yang Tang was willing to shell out three hundred yuan to treat them to drinks, which felt almost like picking up money for free.

Moreover, there were only twenty-something people in their group altogether. Evenly distributed, each person would get about ten yuan's worth of drink money, whereas normally these guys could spend five dollars on drinks after an entire afternoon of outdoor activities, and that would be considered the absolute maximum.

So a group of five or six big, strong guys went off to fetch the drinks, while the rest swarmed Yang Tang back to the basketball court, retaking a full court to practice playing individually, planning to wait for the water-buyers to return before dividing into groups for a scrimmage.

Yang Tang hadn't touched a ball in over half a year, so he also went on the court and shot a dozen balls, only to keep hitting the rim with a shooting percentage of less than thirty percent.

*That's not right. Didn't I recently test out plucking flowers and picking leaves to injure people at close range? Can't I use aiming-sniper to lock onto the basketball hoop?*

He sought enlightenment for a long time without any response.

Yang Tang had no choice but to grope his way forward. After trying more than twenty times on the court, he finally discovered the conditions for activating aiming-sniper.

It was very simple: if you want the crosshairs of aiming-sniper to lock onto the basketball hoop, no problem at all. As long as the trajectory of the basketball after leaving the hand exceeds five zhang, aiming-sniper will automatically activate Tier 1 mode.

At the same time, Yang Tang also discovered that although his muscle strength far exceeded that of ordinary people—making it easy to fling a basketball along a fifteen-meter (five zhang) parabola—flinging a leaf fifteen meters away required mobilizing "qi." The standard for activating Tier 2 mode was ten zhang (see Chapter 139). As for Tier 3 mode, Yang Tang had not yet tested the minimum distance standard for activating it.

When Li Chong and the others returned with the water, since there were already enough people playing basketball, Yang Tang seized the opportunity to say his goodbyes and slipped away.

That night.

Yang Tang returned to Guangxin Jiayuan, lying down on the bed as soon as darkness fell.

Today was the Mid-Autumn Festival, and he had only been reminded of it at noon by his roommate. Therefore, as soon as midnight passed, the Mid-Autumn Festival would be over, so he had to sleep early to catch the opportunity of entering a dream.

Amidst the golden haze, enlightenment arose once more with a lengthy cliché, followed by prompting Yang Tang to choose the scenario for his ninth dream.

The scenarios available were three: *The Prince of Tennis*, Part 1 of *The Prince of Tennis*, and *Tennis Demon Boy*!

Faced with such rare tennis-related anime dreams, Yang Tang was unusually generous, spending nine hundred points of sin (see Chapter 020) to specifically select *The Prince of Tennis* scenario.

Afterwards, he spent another one hundred and eighty points of sin converted into ninety reincarnation points, entering the ninth dream.

"Hum—"

The noisy surrounding voices of men and women awakened a groggy Yang Tang, and he found himself surrounded entirely by Seigaku school uniforms.

Is—is this Seishun Academy?!

Searching tennis skills...

Search complete. Tennis skills of over ten individuals meet the requirements and will not be listed one by one!

Mission: Because the dream-walker is deeply sinful, he must defeat a specific dream character possessing tennis skills in a match using his existing abilities in order to copy the tennis skill from them.

Available copy slots: 2!

"Oh man, you want me to teach myself tennis?!"

Yang Tang felt like he was going crazy. More importantly, after making a few inquiries, he discovered he was currently in Echizen Ryoma's class. In other words, he was merely a first-year at Seigaku. If he wanted to play in a match—even a practice match—he had to perform brilliantly first! Otherwise, with the intra-team selection matches restricted to second- and third-years plus Echizen, he wouldn't even have tournament eligibility, which would be disastrous.

Fortunately, after classes let out in the afternoon, Echizen, that poker-faced boy, didn't object to Yang Tang tailing him. At the same time, Yang Tang noticed his physical strength and physique had not diminished due to the dream; only his appearance had become slightly more anime-styled.

Arriving at the tennis courts, two first-year students and Horio were being harassed by second-year students into playing a game of hitting soda cans.

Yang Tang timely chimed in, "Hey hey, senior seniors, are you looking down on your junior here? Such a fun and lucrative game, yet you didn't invite me!"

"You—you're a first-year?" The two second-year seniors—one dark-skinned, one freckled—looked at Yang Tang, who stood 181 centimeters tall, in utter disbelief.

Yang Tang used his thumb to gesture at Horio and the others, mocking, "If seniors don't believe me, you can ask them!"

"Is that true?" The freckled senior glared at Horio and the others.

"Yes, he really is a newly transferred first-year student in our class, named Xuanyuan Tang!" Horio answered weakly.

"Hmph, since that's the case, you come join in too, first-year," said the dark-skinned senior.

Next, the other two first-year students and Horio batted first. As a result, after ten balls each, apart from Horio's final ball grazing a soda can, none of them hit a single target.

Seeing this, the dark-skinned and freckled seniors exchanged a very subtle, satisfied glance, and then the freckled senior hollered at Yang Tang, "Big guy Xuanyuan, it's your turn to hit! Oh right, and that little runt over there, don't just stand around like a fool. Once Xuanyuan finishes hitting, it's your turn!"

Echizen felt extremely displeased upon hearing the title "little runt," muttering under his breath, "I don't mind, I'm just afraid you guys won't be able to cough up the money when the time comes."

Meanwhile, Yang Tang stepped onto the court empty-handed and said to Horio, who was feeling depressed on the sidelines, "Hey, lend me your racquet for a moment!"

"Ah?!"

The entire crowd was shocked.

You don't even have a racquet, and you're still going to play ball?

New week, please collect, please collect, please collect!!