Even so, humanity still faces the threat of these powerful monsters at every moment. The cities they have built can still be breached, and once that happens, hundreds of thousands, millions, or even tens of millions of people may be slaughtered. Such tragedies have occurred many times in just these past few centuries.

Jinghai City No. 13 High School is just a very ordinary high school among the dozens of secondary schools in Jinghai City.

After the Great Cataclysm, most of Earth's environment was no longer suitable for human survival. As a result, the overall residential pattern changed drastically from the highly dispersed state of the Gregorian calendar era, forming a total of ten major base cities. Each base city houses over a hundred million people, and together, there are still over a billion people remaining on Earth who have not gone to the Kunlun Realm.

This is because, in the Kunlun Realm, the monster hordes are far too powerful and simply unsuitable for ordinary people to survive. Although many creatures on Earth also mutated after the Great Cataclysm and began evolving toward monsters, the time has been short—only a few hundred years—so they are still much weaker compared to those in the Kunlun Realm.

Jinghai City is one of the satellite cities under Donghua City, which is itself one of the ten major base cities. Although it can't compare to the hundreds of millions in Donghua City's main district, it still has a population of over ten million.

But overall, humanity is far stronger than it was a few centuries ago. Back then, perhaps only a very few people had the right to cultivate, as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. Now, in order to fight these powerful monsters, the federal government has tried every means to popularize cultivation for everyone.

As instructor Eric Bennett said, cultivation is not just about talent. The right place, companions, methods, and resources are all indispensable. Especially in the process of martial arts training, it actually causes great harm to the body. If you don't replenish what you consume, it's normal to die prematurely in your thirties or forties, even though that's still considered the prime of life. In fact, the stronger you are, the faster you might die.

“For all of you right now, the source of all true energy is actually your own bioenergy. The higher your own physical cultivation level, the more true energy you can generate. Even if you have the chance to reach higher realms, physical cultivation is still the foundation of everything!” Eric Bennett stood with his hands behind his back, his whole figure as straight as a spear, as if he could pierce the sky. “As the cultivation master Lü Zu of the feudal era wrote in 'The Song of Knocking Yao,' 'To cultivate the spirit but not the body is the first illness of cultivation.' This means that only cultivating the Dao but not the body is wrong; one should cultivate both spirit and body!”

Brian Carter nodded, recalling the knowledge about cultivation he had learned before. The path of cultivation is extremely long. Ever since the discovery of the super-ancient civilization, after many years of exploration, cultivators have divided the stages of cultivation. The very first is the Physical Body Stage.

The Physical Body Stage is the necessary path to enter martial arts. On the road to the peak of martial arts, it is like crossing a boundless sea, and the body is the boat for crossing. The stronger the body, the more likely one is to reach the distant shore.

Therefore, tempering the body is the foundation of martial arts, known as the Physical Body Stage.

This Physical Body Stage is further divided into nine minor stages: muscle training, bone forging, skin training, tendon training, internal strengthening, tendon and bone resonance, blood exchange, internal observation, and energy cultivation.

Only by cultivating the Physical Body Stage to perfection can one be considered to have laid a solid foundation, because the body must be strong enough to accommodate more true energy circulating within.

When the ninth minor stage of the Physical Body Stage—energy cultivation—has accumulated enough true energy, a sea of energy will be opened up in the dantian. With this sea of energy, one can continuously store true energy, which is known as the Sea of Energy Stage.

After the Sea of Energy Stage come the Acquired and Innate stages, and so on, but Brian Carter doesn't know much about those. After all, many of the teachers at No. 13 High School are only at the Sea of Energy Stage themselves. Experts at the Innate Stage are rare even in the entire Donghai City.

“I know that most of you probably won't make it into the martial arts class in the placement exam a month from now, and will only get into the liberal arts class. But you must understand, even if you don't achieve great things in cultivation, if you want to live a long life, you still have to rely on your own cultivation!” Eric Bennett continued, his gaze sweeping over every student in the class. “In the Gregorian calendar era, the average human lifespan was only a few decades, not even a hundred years. Why? Wasn't it because their bodies were unhealthy and they were in a sub-healthy state for long periods? If such people didn't die, who would? But now, in the Kunlun calendar era, everyone is a cultivator, and the average lifespan has long surpassed a hundred years, even reaching one hundred and twenty. This is the benefit of universal martial arts practice!”

Hearing Eric Bennett talk about the martial arts and liberal arts classes, Brian Carter couldn't help but look a bit downcast.

Although everyone wants to cultivate, people's talents vary. According to the standards of No. 13 High School, those who can reach the seventh level of the Physical Body Stage before the class placement in senior year are considered quite talented and will be assigned to the martial arts class. The rest, with average aptitude, will be assigned to the liberal arts class.

Before the division, the curriculum for both liberal arts and martial arts is about half and half, fairly balanced. But after the division, the difference becomes pronounced.

The martial arts class, as the name suggests, reduces the time spent on academic studies, allowing students to devote more time to cultivation.