Chapter 1: Cultivation Summer Camp

The morning mist gradually receded as a faint streak of dawn appeared on the horizon.

Soon, radiant morning light broke out, illuminating three small buildings nestled in the mountains.

In front of the buildings hung a red banner bearing a line of large yellow characters:

“Jiangcheng No. 1 High School Cultivation Summer Camp.”

The freshman summer camp was a tradition at No. 1 High School, serving as their placement exam. On the first day of the semester, students would be sorted into classes from A to D based on the scores they earned during camp.

This year’s freshman training was only in its third week, yet this bunch of students had already snuck out for some test of courage, dead set on catching a glimpse of the Stone Gourd inside the mountain cave.

At this early hour, the sky was barely brightening, but the infirmary building was brightly lit. A row of disheveled, ash-covered students stood out in the hallway.

“We… we just wanted to see if there really was a gourd…”

Rumor had it that a Stone Gourd was hidden inside a cave at the top of the mountain.

Every full moon, a single beam of moonlight would shine through a fissure in the rock into the cave, and only then could it be seen.

Any student lucky enough to see the Stone Gourd in the karst cave before school started would receive its blessing, and their cultivation would soar.

That was why freshmen snuck up the mountain every year, hoping to catch a bit of good fortune.

Dean of Students Chen Dahai’s face was flushed with fury. The school had teachers on night patrol, but these brats had actually split into two teams to pull off a diversion.

One group made a commotion in the dorms to lure the teachers away, while the other slipped quietly up the mountain.

“Teacher Chen, the two of them really went in together,” one of the bolder students argued in defense to the dean. “We all tried to talk them out of it, but neither of them would listen no matter what.”

The moment they reached the mouth of the cave, they had regretted it.

The entrance was extremely narrow, seemingly barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through. The inside was pitch-black. Far from seeing any “beam of moonlight,” rumbling sounds echoed out from within from time to time.

The moment they stood there, every single one of them got cold feet.

Yet Ding Ling had asked, “Do you dare go in?”

Ye Yibai hesitated. Seeing his fear, Ding Ling sneered coldly, “Coward.”

Seeing that even a girl like Ding Ling was not afraid, Ye Yibai braced himself, mustered his courage, and stepped inside first.

“How did the two of them get in?” Chen Dahai’s brow furrowed tight enough to crush a passing fly. He gestured with his hand, “…Just… just walked right in like that?”

The students exchanged glances. Well, yes, they just walked in like that.

In the end, that bold student whispered in response, “They just walked in.” He really was not trying to be a smart aleck; they had literally just walked in!

The issue was that it was impossible for them to “walk in.”

Chen Dahai questioned them for a long time, but they only went in circles with the exact same lines. No one knew what happened after the two of them “walked” into the cave.

Every student said the same thing.

With so much at stake, Director Chen naturally would not take a few greenhorn students at their word. He formed a hand seal with his left hand and tapped his fingertips in front of his eyes. A flash of white light glinted across his rectangular lenses.

A bunch of kids who had not even officially started school had never seen anything like this before. Their calves trembled with fright.

A moment later, Director Chen nodded. They were telling the truth after all.

That karst cave had existed in the mountains for countless years, guarded by an array formation at its mouth. There were many such ancient mystic realms left behind across the Four Polar Continents.

Before the spiritual qi revival^[1], people called these inaccessible places “ghost walls^[2].”

After the spiritual qi revived, these places became mystic realms.

Most of the known mystic realms were placed under state protection, surveyed by expert teams, and classified from Grade A to D. There were also civilian treasure hunters who ventured into desolate regions to discover mystic realms and unearth treasures.

Some struck it rich overnight, while others never returned.

Humankind still knew far too little about that ancient world.

Ever since this cave was discovered, its safety rating had consistently been set to Grade A, which meant “no known danger detected, relatively safe due to being inaccessible.”

The array formation at the entrance was impenetrable; everyone who tried to breach it felt as though a gentle, flower-pinching Buddhist hand had swept them back out.

No. 1 High School had used this place as a training base for decades, and nothing had ever gone wrong in all those years.

Even expert teams could not enter, so how had the two of them gotten inside?

Just before dawn, thunder suddenly cracked across the mountains. Half the cave collapsed. The teachers had rushed over to conduct a rescue, digging these kids out of the dirt.

And now they were saying those two had just walked right into a Grade A mystic realm?

Director Chen’s face flushed red, then turned dark. He turned and stepped into the ward.

Of the two lying on the beds, one was a child of the Ye family, possessing Grade A bloodline and aptitude, a prime seed for cultivation.

The other was a student Chen Dahai had personally recruited from the South Polar Continent, a phoenix egg^[3] unearthed from a remote mountain gully. In all his years of recruiting, he had never seen such a pure spiritual root.

Now, both the prime seed and the phoenix egg were lying in infirmary beds. Director Chen felt on the verge of a heart attack.

If anything happened to the Ye family kid, he was definitely finished.

And if the phoenix egg were “cracked”…

Director Chen took a deep breath and asked tentatively, “Professor Song, how is it?”

“The boy is mostly fine, but the girl…” She trailed off. Instead, she lifted a corner of the bedsheet, letting Chen Dahai see for himself.

Ye Yibai carried a protective magical treasure given by the Ye family, so the heavenly lightning of unknown origin inside the cave had failed to harm him.

Ding Ling had not been so lucky.

Chen Dahai looked at the protective treasure hanging around Ye Yibai’s neck; it was already shattered.

Calling it a protective talisman was less accurate than calling it a “misfortune redirection talisman.” Whenever Ye Yibai was in danger, it would transfer the damage onto the person closest to him.

The only person closest to him had been Ding Ling.

Her wounds had already been treated and were no longer bleeding.

She had taken the lightning strike head-on. The moment the lightning hit, all of her hair and eyebrows had burned away, and her once fair, delicate skin was tinged with an iron-black hue.

Professor Song said, “She tried to save herself back then.”

Somehow, she had managed to concentrate all the damage onto a single arm. Her entire right arm was charred black, the flesh stripped down to the bone.

Professor Song had cast healing spells, and now the injured arm was covered in a hard, black crust, as though encased in a thick cocoon. A lingering smell of charred flesh permeated the room.

Director Chen’s heart had seized up at first, but hearing this, he breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness. As long as it’s only charred, it’s manageable.

Skin, flesh, and hair could all regrow; it just cost a bit of money.

Even though the girl had neither family nor money, the school would foot the bill. No matter what, they had to preserve this phoenix egg of a talent.

Director Chen had barely let out his breath of relief when he saw Dr. Song hesitating. His heart, which had just settled, leaped right back into his throat. He swallowed hard and asked, “What else?”

“Her spiritual root is ruined.”

Dr. Song spoke very softly, but the people outside still heard it.

A wave of sobbing broke out outside the infirmary. Those students finally realized just how big a disaster they had caused.

Professor Song had retired from a top-tier city hospital and was meant to be rehired there, but No. 1 High School had paid a fortune to recruit her as their school doctor. As one of the top medical cultivators in Jiangcheng and across the entire Central Continent, her diagnosis could not be wrong.

Especially a diagnosis so simple, yet so fatal.

When Chen Dahai heard that her spiritual root was ruined, his pitch spiked, his voice cracking. “Can… can it still be cured?”

Dr. Song gave Director Chen a look. What a question. Ever since the revival of spiritual energy in this world, no one had ever heard of a ruined spiritual root being repaired.

Before Chen Dahai could come up with a solution, people from the Ye family arrived.

From the moment Ye Yibai’s protective talisman shattered, the Ye family knew he was in danger and immediately dispatched people to the summer camp. They were already at the door.

Ding Ling was just a poor, neglected girl with no one to care for her, while the other was the Ye family’s young master, born with a golden spoon in his mouth. The Ye family swiftly sent the boy off for thorough examinations, not forgetting to pressure the principal in the midst of the chaos.

Chen Dahai turned around and received a call from Principal Li, his temples throbbing violently.

Glancing at the little girl whose arm was half-charred from the blast, he admitted his fault first. “Yes, it was an oversight on my part. I can’t escape the blame. Principal, what should we do about Ding Ling?”

Principal Li sighed. “Compensation is a given, and the school will try to find a way to help her. Her spiritual root is ruined, after all…” With a ruined spiritual root, she could no longer cultivate.

“Once she recovers, we’ll find a way to transfer her.” A child still needed an education. Principal Li thought for a moment. “I’ll figure something out and transfer her to the neighboring No. 1 High School.”

The neighboring No. 1 High School was a key school^[4] among ordinary, non-cultivation institutions.

“The most urgent matter right now is how to report this to the city. How did a cave with a Class-A safety rating suddenly collapse? There are also reporters and TV stations. Prepare a statement. When I arrive, we’ll organize a group to head up the mountain and take a look.”

Chen Dahai agreed repeatedly. This had truly blown up into major news. How had they gotten into that cave in the first place? Why had it suddenly collapsed?

While everyone in the room was in a flurry of panic, Ding Ling, lying on the sickbed, slowly regained consciousness.

She vaguely remembered taking heavenly lightning head-on. Had her divine soul truly survived?

Hovering between life and death, she heard voices, though indistinct.

She only caught two phrases: “charred” and “ruined.”

She fluttered her eyelids open to look. Well, indeed, charred.

But she was still alive.