Socially anxious people transmigrate to another world; living in seclusion is too difficult.

Taking advantage of the remaining time, Su Yang hurriedly entered the Spirit Tree world to check his current elemental rank. The notice board read:

Name: Su Yang

Age: 24

Elemental Powers: Cloud, Air, Light, Earth; Development Progress: 96.42%

Special element: Fog; Development progress: 100%

Permanent Skills: Detection Radar, Cloud Barrier, Hazy Aura, Perception Impairment

Spirit Beast: Sky-Splitting Tiger (Status: Healthy)

Compared to last time, the development progress has increased significantly. Su Yang did the calculations and found that the earth element's rank has increased by one level, indicating that the knowledge he learned at Qingfeng Academy was indeed useful. This made Su Yang exclaim, "Knowledge really does change destiny!"

He discovered that many principles of modern science could be applied to the elemental forces of this world, even leading to faster growth than mechanical training. As long as the principles were the same, Su Yang could understand the application of elemental forces more quickly and gain a deeper understanding of them. He felt fortunate that he had studied hard in the past, which gave him absolute talent upon transmigrating.

Soon, a series of knocks sounded outside the stone door, accompanied by a man's voice: "The time has come." As the knocking began, Lin Anlan and Tang Wan next door also stopped cultivating. The three of them pushed open the stone door and walked out of the private room. Su Yang was still in an excited state, while Lin Anlan and Tang Wan seemed a little tired.

"What's wrong with you? You all look so tired."

Lin Anlan glanced at Su Yang and saw his relaxed, even somewhat excited expression. She felt even more discouraged and waved her hand helplessly, saying, "You're a freak. I even doubt whether you've been practicing at all."

"Of course, my earth..." Su Yang realized Tang Wan was still there, so he changed his words and said, "My elemental power has also increased quite a bit."

Upon hearing this, Tang Wan asked wearily and suspiciously, "Brother Yang, how exactly do you practice? How come you're not tired at all, and you're even so excited?"

"Hehehe, well... let's keep this a secret for now." Su Yang was a little embarrassed, but he couldn't tell them the truth. It was too obscure and difficult to understand. Given the common sense of this world, it would be hard for them to comprehend the theories of modern science.

Therefore, he could only change the subject: "Let's go, let's go and see other places."

"No, no, we're not going." The two girls shook their heads in unison, refusing the offer.

Lin Anlan said, "Can't you see how tired we are? We don't have the energy to go sightseeing anymore. I just want to go back to the inn and get a good night's sleep."

“Me too,” Tang Wan echoed.

"Alright, let's go back then." Su Yang had no choice but to agree. Without the two of them by his side, he wouldn't dare to wander around the streets alone.

The three returned to the inn. Lin Anlan and Tang Wan went straight to their rooms to rest without saying a word. Su Yang also returned to his room, opened the window, and stared blankly out the window, thinking about what he had discovered in the practice room earlier.

Just as I was lost in thought, a loud gong sounded near a notice board on the street outside the window. After the gong sounded, people gathered around, and soon two well-dressed people came to the notice board, took out a lot of paper, spread it out and pasted it on the notice board, and then shouted: "The news briefs for the past week have been released!" and then left.

This caught Su Yang's attention. Judging from what the two people were saying, they seemed to be staff members of a news media organization. Before he could investigate further, the onlookers around the notice board started chattering. Su Yang also wanted to go and see if there was any breaking news, but in the end he gave up and could only lean against the window to see if he could hear some information from someone with a loud voice.

After listening intently through the window for a long time, Su Yang only heard noise and didn't get a single useful piece of information. He had no choice but to give up and decide to go check it out with Lin Anlan later that evening.

Time flies, and soon night fell. Lin Anlan and Tang Wan woke up from their sleep, not because they had slept enough, but because they were hungry. The two of them knocked on Su Yang's door together, and then the three of them went downstairs and found the restaurant where they had eaten lunch.

After they finished eating, Su Yang mentioned the news that someone had posted that afternoon and invited the two of them to go and take a look. The two of them readily agreed, so the three of them went to the notice board and began to look at it by the dim light.

Perhaps due to reading habits, Su Yang was having some difficulty reading, while Tang Wan had finished reading all the messages much earlier. Her puzzled voice piqued Su Yang's curiosity, and he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Most of the news is just ordinary little things. I know that the capital is going to hold an academy martial arts competition, but why are the troops being mobilized so frequently?" Tang Wan asked, stroking her chin in confusion.

"There's going to be a war, huh?" Lin Anlan replied immediately, hands behind her head.

"But who are we going to fight? The war on the outlying islands just ended last year, and there hasn't been any war on the Dragon Continent for a long time. Who is the Empire going to fight? The Duchy of Paisen in the south has always remained neutral, and Slivia in the east is not very warlike either. It doesn't have a direct border with the Kingdom of Delin, so there's no conflict of interest. Are we going to start a war with the Beast Kingdom? There's no reason for that."

Tang Wan's words impressed Su Yang. He hadn't expected this girl to be so interested in politics and war. However, he didn't care about the troop movements at all. What piqued his interest, though, was the academy's martial arts competition.

"Academy martial arts competition? What kind of event is this?" Su Yang asked.

"The academy martial arts competition is a gathering of five students selected by academies across the country in the capital. They compete in two aspects: literary and martial arts. The literary competition is not very interesting, as it is just a test of etiquette. The martial arts competition is more interesting. Each academy must send five students who are at the third, fourth, and fifth ranks, with one student at the third rank, three at the fourth rank, and one at the fifth rank. There are no gender restrictions."

Tang Wan paused for a moment, then continued, "The martial arts competition will last for five days. The first three days will be individual competitions among students of each grade, selecting the top three from each grade. The fourth day will be a team competition, and the last day will be a mixed competition. The biggest highlight is this mixed competition, where five students can freely pair up to form no more than three teams. The competition will be between different academies, with a best-of-three format, eliminating teams one by one. It will greatly test the students' cooperation and teamwork, as well as the team composition of the academies."

"This mixed doubles competition is quite novel." Su Yang had never heard of this kind of competition before. He had only heard of singles, doubles, and mixed doubles before, but he had never heard of a competition in which five people teamed up. This kind of competition was full of randomness and uncertainty.

If we follow the strategy of Tian Ji's horse racing, the optimal solution would be to sacrifice the third-tier team member and let him fight alone. If he encounters a team with two or more third-tier members or a team with more than one third-tier member, then the remaining three fourth-tier and one fifth-tier students would have a high chance of winning no matter how they are paired up.