“Thank you, Professor. I’ll be going now.”
“Mm, go ahead. Get some rest. If you can forget about those things, then forget them.”
The counselor looked at Shen Biqian’s pale, exhausted face and couldn’t help but offer some advice.
“I understand.”
After saying goodbye to the counselor who had escorted her back, Shen Biqian walked into the campus alone.
Compared to the dazzling nightlife outside, the campus was much darker.
It felt more like true midnight.
As a result, the green specks appeared even brighter.
Expressionlessly, Shen Biqian watched the green lights eagerly rush into her body one after another.
Things had already reached this point.
How much worse could they get?
She felt as though she had already adopted a “whatever happens, happens” attitude.
Bang!
A loud crash suddenly rang out.
Something fell directly in front of her.
Startled, Shen Biqian looked around, but there wasn’t a single person nearby.
She crouched down and picked up the object.
It was a book.
The lighting was too dim for her to read any words on it.
Although it was strange that a book had seemingly fallen from nowhere, she couldn’t find its owner and couldn’t exactly throw it back where it came from.
So she took it back to her dormitory.
When she returned, An Qiaoke and the others were still awake, waiting for her.
The moment they saw her, they crowded around.
“How did it go? Did you explain everything to the police?”
Seeing their usual concern—and noticing that none of them had distanced themselves from her despite her involvement in a death investigation—Shen Biqian felt her heart ache.
Still, she smiled.
“Yeah. I explained everything.”
“That’s good.”
After hesitating for a moment, she asked:
“Have any of you noticed that there seems to be something extra in the air lately?”
“Something extra?”
Chu Fei shook her head.
“Did you guys notice anything?”
“No.”
An Qiaoke patted her shoulder.
“Too much has happened these past few days. You’re probably exhausted. Go wash up and get some sleep.”
“Mm.”
Shen Biqian casually tossed the book onto her desk and headed for the bathroom.
After washing up, she was about to climb into bed when she noticed the book she had thrown aside.
Curiosity stirred.
She picked it up and brought it with her to bed, planning to take a look.
The book looked extremely strange.
Its cover was dark gold, made from some unknown material.
Even stranger, the cover was completely blank.
Not a single word was written on it.
Shen Biqian became even more interested.
This was the first nameless book she had ever seen.
The moment she opened it—
Before she could read a single word, a blinding flash erupted from the pages.
Something seemed to shoot straight into the center of her forehead.
Before she could react, a piercing pain exploded inside her head.
She couldn’t even resist.
Her vision went black.
She fainted instantly.
Sure enough…
You really shouldn’t pick up random things.
I didn’t die in the jaws of apocalyptic beasts.
I didn’t die from those life-draining green specks.
Instead, I ended up dying because of a random book I picked up off the ground.
When Shen Biqian opened her eyes again, she discovered that she was floating in a vast starry sky.
Beside her was a blue planet that looked remarkably like Earth.
Farther away floated countless spherical celestial bodies.
It seemed as though she were drifting somewhere within the Milky Way.
Shen Biqian froze.
Am I dead?
Did my soul drift all the way into the galaxy?
“Welcome to my… uh… wait. What’s this place called again?”
Just as she stood there in confusion, an extremely arrogant voice suddenly rang out beside her.
“Who’s there?!”
Shen Biqian jumped in fright and quickly looked around.
Aside from planets and stars, there wasn’t a single person in sight.
“Stop looking. I don’t have a body yet.”
The voice paused.
When it spoke again, it was filled with disdain and complaint.
“It’s because your cultivation is far too weak. You’ve only just guided spiritual energy into your body. You haven’t even reached the first level of Qi Condensation.”
“Seriously… why did I have to choose a host like this?”
“It feels like there was a reason… What was it again?”
“Why can’t I remember?”
The voice muttered to itself, apparently troubled by its own memory loss.
“Wait.”
Shen Biqian interrupted.
“What do you mean by residing inside my body? And what’s the first level of Qi Condensation? What does guiding spiritual energy into the body mean?”
“You don’t even know that?”
The voice sounded horrified.
“My heavens. Even stupidity should have limits!”
Shen Biqian nearly exploded.
She might not be a genius, but no one had ever called her stupid before.
“Forget it.”
The voice sighed.
“Since I’m living inside your body, I’ll give you a basic lesson. Listen carefully. If you ask me again later, I might not remember.”
The voice rambled on endlessly.
After sorting through all the information, Shen Biqian realized she had just learned about an entirely different world—one she had always believed existed only in fiction.
The world of cultivation.
According to the voice, the cultivation realms were:
Qi Condensation → Foundation Establishment → Core Formation → Nascent Soul → Spirit Transformation → Soul Transformation → Ascendant (Wending).
Upon reaching the Ascendant Realm, one could ascend to immortality and completely transcend mortal existence.
As for Shen Biqian, she had merely absorbed spiritual energy into her body.
At best, she had only just stepped onto the path of cultivation.
“I’ll pass a cultivation technique on to you.”
The voice sounded smug.
“Practice according to this from now on. I guarantee you’ll reach a realm beyond anything you can imagine.”
As it spoke, a massive flood of information poured directly into Shen Biqian’s mind.
A sharp pain accompanied it.
She endured the discomfort until it gradually faded.
The technique’s name appeared in her consciousness:
Five Elements Art.
Examining the information carefully, she learned that it was a cultivation method based on absorbing the five elemental spiritual energies—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
The practitioner would eventually condense five elemental pearls.
These pearls would generate and suppress one another according to the principles of the Five Elements, ultimately forming a perfect Five Elements Formation inside the body.
Once completed, the formation would generate spiritual energy on its own.
At that point, the Five Elements Art would be considered fully mastered.
However, after studying it for a long time, Shen Biqian still couldn’t find any connection between the technique and the cultivation realms the voice had described earlier.
“So after mastering the Five Elements Art, what cultivation realm will I reach?”
“What realm?”
The voice sounded stunned.
“Hold on, let me think…”
A long silence followed.
“What realm was it again?”
More silence.
Then the voice suddenly shouted in frustration:
“I can’t remember! I really can’t remember!”
“Who cares what realm it reaches?”
“It’s ridiculously powerful anyway!”
Shen Biqian listened to him and immediately felt a headache coming on.
After only a short conversation with this mysterious voice, she had already developed a profound understanding of just how unreliable it was.
So much so that many years later, whenever a certain extraordinarily handsome man recalled their less-than-perfect first meeting, he would still beat his chest in regret.
“Fine,” Shen Biqian said. “One more question. What exactly are those green specks floating around in the air?”
Although she already had some guesses, she still wanted confirmation.
“The green specks?”
The voice paused.
“Oh, those are Wood Elements. Don’t tell me you didn’t even know that.”
“Then why do some people die after absorbing them? Their life force gets drained until they die.”
“That’s because they don’t possess an affinity for the Wood Element,” the voice replied matter-of-factly.
“If they absorb it anyway, they’re simply courting death.”
“What about me?”
Shen Biqian asked cautiously.
“Do I have that affinity?”
“You?”
The voice hesitated.
“Let me take a look.”
A long silence followed.
Then suddenly—
“AAAAAHHHHH!”
A miserable howl echoed through the starry space.
“I have to say, your talent is absolutely terrible!”
“You only have affinity for two elements!”
“How are you supposed to cultivate the Five Elements Art with talent that bad?!”
The voice wailed dramatically.
“Ahhh! Why did I have to end up residing inside such a lousy body?!”