Evolution by Adding Points

He glanced at his newly printed schedule. The next class was [Zoology and Lab] for Biological Sciences majors in the morning, followed by [Human Anatomy] for Clinical Medicine and [Sports Training] for Physical Education in the afternoon.

After looking up the locations of the academic buildings and classrooms, Chen Jue dug out the textbooks and notebook for the three classes, packed them into a small bag, and left the apartment. He loitered for a moment at his end of the wall.

Once the crowd of people thinned out, he pushed off the wall with one leg, hooked his hands on top to support himself, and smoothly vaulted over.

Seeing the [Climbing Skill Level +5] notification pop up on his panel, Chen Jue chuckled to himself. ’If I just climb back and forth like this a few times every day, combined with pull-up training, the Level of this Climbing Skill should increase pretty quickly.’

After landing on the other side of the wall, he glanced at the time. There were still 20 minutes before his next class, so Chen Jue picked up his pace, reaching the Biological Sciences building at a near-jog.

’It’s a huge lecture?’

Chen Jue peeked inside the classroom. It was a large, semi-circular, tiered lecture hall with several hundred seats. The professor was at the lectern at the very front, fiddling with his presentation slides. The first-year freshmen all looked rather green as they filed into the tiered seating.

Since his nearsightedness hadn’t fully recovered yet, Chen Jue chose a seat near the front to hear better.

The classroom was originally abuzz with the sounds of students chatting privately and moving about.

But the moment the electronic bell rang to signal the start of class, the entire room fell silent.

The middle-aged male teacher on the stage then tapped the podium and began to speak, ”Alright class, today we’ll continue with our previous topic: why we humans are also considered animals. We will also cover a section on theories of human origin.”

”If you want to master the course of biological science and explore other life forms, you must first understand yourselves!”

The moment the teacher started speaking, Chen Jue’s attention was captured. He quickly flipped his textbook to the Chapter on human origins, following the page number the professor mentioned.

’Thank goodness! The new semester has just started, so I can still catch up.’ Chen Jue quickly skimmed the preceding textbook pages before lifting his head to focus on the slides projected on the screen.

”Human is a general term. In the terminology of our biological sciences discipline, we—that is, modern humans—should be called late Homo sapiens, or modern man.”

”Homo sapiens are divided into early and late Homo sapiens. They are the only extant species of the genus Homo. In the animal kingdom, they are classified as animals of the order Primates, family Hominidae, and genus Homo, belonging to the same Hominidae family of primates as modern-day chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, gibbons, and siamangs.”

”In other words, we humans are actually close relatives of many apes and monkeys. We simply diverged at a certain point in evolution.”

”I’m sure when you were young, you often heard your parents say that we humans evolved from monkeys.”

”This statement is actually somewhat misleading!”

The middle-aged teacher paused, clicking through the presentation to a data comparison chart.

The chart showed that the genomic similarity between humans and monkeys was 98%, while the genetic similarity with chimpanzees was even higher, at 98.7%.

But then, a comparison between human and fish genes abruptly appeared below it. The similarity was a shocking 70%!

The moment this comparison chart appeared, a commotion erupted among the freshmen below.

”Holy crap! We actually evolved from fish?”

”Then I must be pickled fish—sour, pathetic, and pointless.”

”I’m chili fish!”

”I’m grilled fish!”

”I bet I’m a mudskipper (crying with laughter emoji).”

Chen Jue looked at the real-time comments on the presentation slides, impressed by how this top-tier university was keeping up with the times. They were even using live comment interactions in class.

It was clearly meant to make the course more interesting and, indirectly, improve the students’ focus during lectures.

The middle-aged teacher on stage chuckled when he saw the comments. ”Specifically, both apes and fish are our ancestors. If we stretch out this 500-million-year history of evolution, we will find that, compared to apes, fish are our much earlier ancestors.”

”In simple terms, fish are our ancient ancestors, apes are our great-grandfathers, ape-men are our grandfathers, Homo erectus is our father, and then comes our generation, Homo sapiens. There are gaps in the family tree, and there may be other undiscovered species in between. That’s a mystery for the scientific and archaeological communities to slowly uncover.”

With that, the middle-aged teacher clicked the slide again, moving to the next page.

This slide displayed some of the high degrees of similarity between humans and fish, providing some of the so-called evidence for the evolution from fish to humans.

Besides the high genetic similarity, human arms and fingers share similar bone structures with fish fins.

During embryonic development, humans exhibit gill-like slits, webbing between the fingers, and a regressed fishtail—all residual traces from our evolutionary history.

’We evolved from fish?’

’Interesting!’

Chen Jue listened intently. Besides taking notes, the pen in his hand was also spinning nimbly between his fingers.

Because his [Hidden Weapon Throwing] had reached the Master Level of Lv5, his control over long, slender objects like this had reached a point of effortless mastery.

The pen danced in his hand, sometimes flipping, sometimes fanning out like a flower, sometimes launching a dozen centimeters into the air before he caught it again. His ten fingers moved as nimbly and rhythmically as if they were dancing on piano keys.

This scene caused several freshmen in the neighboring seats to crane their necks and glance over, their attention immediately captivated by his pen-spinning tricks.

”Damn! Look at that pen-spinning god!”

”Which class is this guy from? How have I never seen him before!”

”He looks like an auditing upperclassman. He seems a bit older than us, a bit more mature-looking.”

”That pen spinning... I hereby dub him the best among the freshmen!”

”He’s a true pen-spinning immortal!”

Several nearby freshmen began to whisper among themselves.

Chen Jue didn’t notice the discussion around him. Instead, his expression froze for a moment.

Because just as he had tossed the pen from his hand and caught it, a notification had unexpectedly popped up on his Attribute panel:

——————

[Ding~]

[Completed one qualifying finger dexterity training session. Your Hidden Weapon Technique is becoming more adept.]

[Hidden Weapon Throwing Skill Level +5]

——————

”Huh?”

’Pen spinning can increase Skill Level too?’ Chen Jue was a bit stunned. He had tried so many things—Darts, Flying Cards, Stone Skimming, flying Nails, and flicking toothpicks—to finally figure out a method to raise his [Hidden Weapon Throwing] Skill Level.

He never expected to accidentally discover a new training method just by auditing his first class.

If pen spinning could also grind Skill Level, then Chen Jue could multitask and continue training during his future audited classes.

However, his pen-spinning movements were a bit too exaggerated. The tossed pen was flying almost higher than the heads of the students in the row ahead.

Even the middle-aged teacher at the front saw it. He tapped the lectern and coughed lightly, offering a well-intentioned reminder, ”Hey, the student spinning his pen! If you’re going to practice acrobatics, please move to the back so you don’t disturb the other students!”

As soon as he said that, the entire lecture hall burst into laughter.

There was nothing to be done. He had indeed gotten a bit carried away and was being too conspicuous.

”Okay, Professor!”

Chen Jue’s face flushed red. Clutching his textbook and pen, he scurried to the back row under the watchful eyes of all the freshmen.

He had always been a back-rower since high school anyway. The view in the large lecture hall was unobstructed, and the projector screen was as conspicuous as a giant cinema screen. Even standing by the main doors at the very back wouldn’t hinder his ability to attend the class.

But since he had already slipped to the back row where he wouldn’t affect the students who were paying attention...

Chen Jue decided not to hide it anymore. He continued to listen to the lecture while spinning his pen to grind his [Hidden Weapon Throwing] Skill Level. At the same time, he shamelessly took out his hand gripper and placed it on the desk.

Putting both his left and right hands to work, he could listen to the lecture and do his grip training without one interfering with the other. As he multitasked three things at once, his true nature as a veteran slacker was on full display!