In reality, he was completely unwilling to spend too much energy and time competing for points with other kids.

He had had enough of that kind of life in his previous life.

“Review materials? No need, I already have plenty here, thank you, Charlie.” William Clark replied.

“All right then.” Charles Clark was happy to take it easy. “By the way, next week, your Sister Olivia is having a birthday. We’re planning to go out and have some fun together. Want to join us?”

“No, I won’t go. Time is too tight right now.” William Clark had absolutely no time to deal with this guy. He was completely focused on his own dreams.

“Actually, you should get involved in some bigger circles. You’re already in your third year of high school, you should have your own plans. What do you want your future to look like, what direction do you want to take, what path? You should have a clear understanding.”

Charles Clark spoke with a hint of superiority, pretending to be casual.

“Don’t just focus all your attention on game consoles and reading miscellaneous books. When you go out into the world, you’ll have to take responsibility for your own future.”

This speech made Second Uncle look proud, and Edward Clark also looked a bit helpless.

Chapter 11

William Clark was a bit speechless. He didn’t even want to provoke the other party, but this guy still wanted to feel superior to him.

“I know exactly what I’m doing and what I plan to do in the future. Charlie, you should worry more about yourself. I heard from classmates that someone saw you with a girl paying at the city’s People’s Hospital. I wonder if that’s true?”

Charles Clark’s expression froze, then slowly stiffened.

He thought he’d handled this matter very discreetly, but he didn’t expect William Clark to know about it—and to bring it up in front of his own father.

“Don’t talk nonsense!” He got a bit flustered. After all, he was just a nineteen-year-old young man, not very shrewd. As soon as he said this, Second Uncle and Edward Clark immediately got the idea.

William Clark shook his head inwardly. Taking advantage of the two elders’ changing expressions as they began to question Charles Clark, he quickly revealed everything he knew—including the girl’s appearance and how she dressed.

To put it bluntly, he hadn’t just heard about it—he’d seen it with his own eyes at the hospital.

Leaving his cousin Charles Clark in chaos, William Clark got up and left the living room, quickly going to wash up.

He didn’t have time to waste. Both college entrance exam review materials and studying the ancient Gruen script required a huge amount of time and energy.

Very few things could fascinate William Clark this much.

……

……

Soon, as time passed, a month went by.

William Clark had been researching almost non-stop, and finally managed to translate the most important few pages of that book.

To save time, William Clark mainly selected a few consecutive pages with illustrations.

And these sections weren’t chosen at random; he carefully screened them according to the markings below the illustrations.

Each illustration depicted a posture—a person holding a longsword, striking a pose.

The corresponding text was mostly explanations of the illustrations.

After a long period of deciphering, William Clark determined that most of the rest of the book was narrative, and only the pages with illustrations contained formal instructional text.

That was why he focused on translating these pages.

Rustle.

The notebook filled with all kinds of Chinese characters was gently flipped through by William Clark.

He sat at his desk, brows tightly furrowed, still immersed in the translation.

“I’ve finished translating a total of five pages. They’re all illustrated pages, not much text, so the translation went much faster… I used Chinese characters from my previous life to record it, so there’s absolutely no risk of a leak. That’s safe, but the content…”

William Clark felt a bit hesitant.

The translated illustrations were clearly a method for practicing swordsmanship.

He stared at the simple diagrams he’d copied.

The style and the accompanying text all described vital points and one-hit kills. It was obvious at a glance that this wasn’t just for show, but a real combat killing technique.

“Swordsmanship from a book in my dreams… could it really be real? If I practice and something goes wrong with my body, that would be bad.”

In the first illustration, a person held a longsword, thrusting forward with one hand. There were many arrows and textual notes around the body.

It looked simple, but the key was in those surrounding annotations.

“More importantly, in today’s society, although firearms aren’t as advanced as in my previous life, guns are everywhere. Cold weapons are only good for exercise; otherwise, they’re pretty much useless.”

William Clark frowned, then thought again.

“But maybe this swordsmanship from my dreams has something special. And there’s the ranking system that’s mentioned repeatedly in the book.”

From the later translations, William Clark also learned a little about the ranking system described by the book’s author, Lowell the Swordsman.

The book occasionally mentioned that Lowell had encountered high-level warriors on the battlefield.

Those high-level warriors possessed superhuman physiques, terrifying strength and speed, and wore massive, heavy armor—practically walking war machines.

The descriptions of those battles instantly overturned William Clark’s previous assumptions.

Originally, he’d thought the battlefield in the book was just an ordinary cold weapon era. But the appearance of those exaggerated high-level warriors made him realize the truth all at once.