POV: Zhang Xiaohou
I woke up the next morning feeling completely reborn.
The ten hours of uninterrupted, dreamless sleep had washed away the tension of the awakening ceremony.
I stretched my arms over my head, feeling the satisfying pop of my joints, and looked over at the other bed in our small dormitory room.
Mo Fan was sprawled face down on his mattress, his blanket tangled entirely around his legs.
He looked like he had fought a brutal war in his sleep, his face was squished against the pillow, and he was lightly drooling.
I knew exactly why he looked so exhausted.
He had stayed up half the night stubbornly trying to catch his first Fire star, fighting against the natural, crushing spiritual fatigue that plagued all magical beginners.
I grabbed my spare pillow and chucked it directly at his head.
“Ugh, what?” Mo Fan grumbled, slowly peeling himself off the mattress.
He blinked at me, his eyes bloodshot and heavy.
“Is it morning already?
I swear I just closed my eyes five minutes ago.”
“It’s morning, Fan-ge.
Get up,” I said, tossing my uniform onto my bed.
“If we’re late for Mr.
Xue’s first official class, he’s going to make us run laps around the training field.”
We quickly completed our morning necessities.
The communal bathrooms in the dorm were already crowded with other bleary eyed freshmen.
We washed up, threw on our blue Tianlan Magic High tracksuits, which were surprisingly comfortable, and headed down to the cafeteria.
Breakfast was a rushed affair.
We ate simple steamed buns and hot soy milk, surrounded by the chaotic chatter of hundreds of students who were still buzzing from yesterday’s ceremony.
The main topic of conversation, naturally, was Xu Zhaoting’s Lightning awakening, followed closely by Mo Fan’s “pure” Fire awakening, and my own powerful Lightning element, which had required Mr.
Xue to cast a shield with his Light magic.
When we finally arrived at the Class 8 homeroom, the atmosphere was a bizarre mix of residual excitement and visible exhaustion.
Most of the students were yawning.
Mu Bai, sitting near the front, looked immaculate, though even he had a faint tightness around his eyes.
Mr.
Xue Mingsheng walked in as the bell rang.
He set his thick textbook on the podium, adjusted his glasses, and looked over the classroom with a knowing, slightly amused smile.
“Good morning, class,” Mr.
Xue began, his voice projecting clearly to the back of the room.
“Let me ask a simple question before we begin.
How many of you attempted to meditate and enter your spiritual world last night?”
Almost every single hand in the room shot up.
“Good.
The drive is there,” Mr.
Xue nodded.
“Now, keep your hands raised only if you actually managed to sense your stardust and actively tried to control a star.”
About eighty percent of the hands dropped instantly.
Most students hadn’t even been able to calm their minds enough to see their own magical energy.
Only a few students, including myself, Mo Fan, Mu Bai, and Zhou Min, kept our hands in the air.
“Excellent.
But I want the rest of you to look around,” Mr.
Xue said, his tone turning serious as he paced in front of the chalkboard.
“Notice how tired some of your classmates look?
Those of you who tried to force it, who tried to grab a star before your mind was ready, probably woke up with a splitting headache this morning.
This brings us to the most important rule of early magical cultivation: spiritual fatigue.”
He picked up a piece of chalk and drew a simple diagram on the board, a circle representing the mind, and a smaller, erratic dot representing a star.
“Your spiritual world is exactly like a physical muscle,” Mr.
Xue explained.
“If you try to run a marathon without any prior training, your legs will collapse.
If you try to control the erratic, wild stars in your stardust for too long, your spiritual muscle will tear.
Continuous, unstoppable meditation is a myth for beginners.
If you push beyond your limit, you will suffer severe migraines, fainting, or, in the worst case scenario, permanent damage to your spiritual world.”
He tapped the board with the chalk for emphasis.
“For most of you, the absolute limit right now is one hour of meditation per day.
No more.”
I kept my face perfectly neutral, resting my chin on my hand.
One hour was the limit for normal people.
With my Level 3 Spiritual Strength, that rule simply didn’t apply to my reality.
I was playing an entirely different game.
“Now,” Mr.
Xue continued, walking back to the podium.
“I will teach you the proper breathing techniques to maximize your focus and minimize that fatigue.
We will do a guided meditation session right now.
I want all of you to sit up straight, place your hands on your knees, and close your eyes.”
The classroom fell silent as everyone adjusted their posture.
“Breathe in through your nose,” Mr.
Xue’s voice grew softer, more rhythmic.
“Hold it.
Now exhale slowly through your mouth.
Do not chase the stars.
Let the stars come to you.
Observe them.”
I closed my eyes.
For the next hour and a half, the classroom was completely silent, save for the collective, deep breathing of forty students.
I slipped into my spiritual world instantly, completely bypassing the struggle the others were facing.
The void of my mind was dark and vast, but in the center, my purple Lightning stardust spun rapidly.
Three stars were already securely under my control from last night’s session, glowing steadily in the dark.
I spent the next ninety minutes carefully corralling my fourth star.
I didn’t rush.
I didn’t exert aggressive force.
I let my [Meditation: Lv.
21] Skill guide my spiritual will, treating the star like a frightened animal.
I slowly boxed it in, wrapped my consciousness around it, and gently anchored it in place.
I successfully locked down the fourth star right as Mr.
Xue called time.
“Open your eyes,” the teacher instructed.
Most of the students gasped, blinking against the harsh classroom lights and aggressively rubbing their temples.
Several students groaned, complaining of sudden headaches.
Mo Fan let out a long, heavy breath, looking deeply frustrated but otherwise unhurt.
“That is enough cultivation for today,” Mr.
Xue announced, pulling down a large projector screen over the chalkboard.
“For the rest of the period, we are switching to magical beast theory.
You cannot fight what you do not understand.
Knowing how to cast a spell is useless if you don’t know where to aim it.”
He clicked a button on a remote, and an image flashed onto the screen.
A collective gasp echoed through the room.
Even I narrowed my eyes.
It was a high resolution photograph of a terrifying, muscular beast.
It had matted, wire like gray fur, razor sharp claws that looked like they could tear through steel, and a single, massive eye glowing with savage, bloodthirsty intent.
“The One Eyed Magic Wolf,” Mr.
Xue lectured, pointing a red laser at the beast’s anatomy on the screen.
“This is one of the most common Servant class monsters found outside the safe zones, and unfortunately, it is the creature you are most likely to encounter if a breach ever occurs.”
He moved the laser to the beast’s ribcage.
“Their bone density is three times that of a standard human.
A low level blunt impact will not even stagger them.
Their primary weak points are the eye, the soft tissue directly under the jaw, and the joints of the hind legs.
If you hit the eye with a Fire Burst or a Lightning Strike, you have a high probability of a lethal blow.”
Mr.
Xue clicked to the next slide, showing a diagram of the wolf’s sensory organs.
“Do not try to hide from them in the dark.
They hunt using a highly developed sense of smell and thermal tracking.
If you are bleeding, or if you are sweating heavily from fear, they will find you.”
I paid extremely close attention, actively cross referencing Mr.
Xue’s academic anatomy lesson with the practical survival tactics Lao Chen had beaten into me in the mud pit.
It was a perfect combination of theory and application.
Lao Chen had taught me how to mask my scent and hide my thermal signature by regulating my body temperature.
Now I knew exactly why that was so crucial against these specific predators.
When classes finally ended for the day, Mo Fan and I immediately retreated to our dorm room.
Over the next few days, the massive online orders I had placed on the mage association portal arrived discreetly.
I had arranged for them to be dropped at a secure proxy locker in the commercial district, sneaking out during the evening to retrieve them using my [Parkour] and [Stealth] skills to avoid the dorm wardens.
I also placed a new order for a weapon: a specialized sword to kill monsters faster, which cost another 17 million RMB.
After that, I pick up Xinxia from her school to her aunt’s house, sometimes my mom picks her up.
When I finally handed Mo Fan the standard Stardust Magic Tool I had bought for him, he looked at me like I had grown a second head.
“Monkey…
what is this?” he asked, staring at the glowing artifact in my hand.
“It’s a Stardust Magic Tool,” I said, keeping my face perfectly earnest.
“I used my savings account to buy it on the market.
It’s supposed to help you recover spiritual energy faster so you can cultivate longer.
I know you’re struggling to balance both elements, Fan-ge.
I figured since we’re in this together, I need you to be strong so you can protect me.”
Mo Fan looked like he was about to cry.
He carefully took the tool, gripping my shoulder tightly.
“Xiaohou…
I swear to you, when I become a famous Hunter, I am going to pay you back tenfold.
I’ll buy you a mansion.”
“Just focus on your stars first,” I laughed, waving him off.
Just as I expected, the very next evening, Mo Fan panicked.
He locked the door, pulled the curtains shut, and confessed that his weird Little Loach pendant had literally “eaten” the expensive tool.
He was hyperventilating, apologizing profusely for destroying my investment.
I played the part of the shocked, slightly devastated, but ultimately forgiving best friend to perfection.
I told him it was fine and that we would figure it out.
“Give me your pendant,” I asked, extending my hand.
“Here,” he replied, handing over his cheat artifact.
After observing it for a few minutes, I returned his pendant to him.
Then, I picked up the dead Stardust Magic Tool and inspected it in front of him.
“Fan-ge, try to meditate now,” I instructed.
“Why now?” he asked, confused.
“I want to test a theory,” I replied.
“Okay.”
He knew I was the top scholar of the school and figured I must have discovered something, so he sat down and tried to meditate without asking any further questions.
After one hour and thirty six minutes, he opened his eyes and looked toward me for answers.
I didn’t make him wait in suspense.
“Fan-ge, your pendant seems to be an artifact that grows by absorbing souls.
A Stardust Magic Tool has a soul essence inside it, which was absorbed by your pendant, causing the tool to stop working.
The magic tool is physically fine, but the soul inside it is gone.
If I had to guess, the absorbed soul is still inside your pendant and is currently helping you improve your cultivation duration.”
“What the f***?
So the story that old man told me is true…
this is a magical artifact!” Mo Fan exclaimed, his eyes wide.
“I don’t know who this old man is, but you have incredible luck to get this artifact.
It looks like a bound artifact that won’t work for anyone else.
But you need to be careful.
If someone finds out about it, they will kill you to take it, especially since it’s a growth artifact that scales with the user,” I continued, making sure to impress the danger upon him.
“Monkey…
Thank you for your help.
If it were anyone else, I don’t know what they would do to me,” Mo Fan replied earnestly.
“Don’t worry about it.
Go to sleep.
We’ll find out more about it in the future when the time comes,” I reassured him.
Then he went to his bed to sleep.
‘Plan perfectly executed,’ I thought.
He now felt indebted to me, which was perfect for our future soul farming partnership.
He would never question my motives when I eventually asked him to use that pendant for my benefit.
Meanwhile, I equipped my own investment: the Spirit-grade Stardust Magic Tool.
It was a sleek, dark ring made of an unknown, cold metal that pulsed with a soothing, calming energy.
The moment I slipped it onto my finger, I felt a wave of clarity wash over my mind.
My meditation efficiency skyrocketed.
The next week was a blur of relentless, hyper focused cultivation.
While normal geniuses like Mu Bai were still trying to focus on meditation, I was operating on an entirely different plane of existence.
On the second day of the week, with the help of the Spirit grade tool, I locked down my fifth star.
On the fourth day, the sixth star fell seamlessly into place.
And on the seventh night, it finally happened.
I was sitting cross legged on my bed, the dorm room dark and silent except for the rhythmic sound of Mo Fan’s quiet snoring across the room.
In my spiritual void, six purple stars were glowing in a perfect, stable sequence.
The seventh and final star was darting around the edge of the stardust like a panicked firefly, erratic and wild.
I extended my spiritual will, moving with the cold and calculated precision of my Level 23 Meditation.
I didn’t chase the star.
I anticipated its trajectory.
I cornered the seventh star, wrapped my consciousness around it like a net, and dragged it forcefully into position.
Click.
A brilliant, blinding flash of violet light illuminated my entire spiritual world.
The seven stars linked together, forming a perfect, crackling line of pure elemental energy.
The Star Path was complete.
I opened my eyes in the dark room.
Small, jagged arcs of purple electricity were actively dancing across my knuckles, illuminating my hands with an eerie, beautiful glow.
The air in the room smelled faintly of ozone.
I clenched my fist, and the sparks vanished, receding back into my spiritual world.
I had successfully formed a Lightning Star Path in just one week, a process that usually took the most talented geniuses in the country at least three months.
Normally, beginners need to practice deep meditation for at least a month before they even start attempting to take control of the stars.
But I could skip the deep meditation phase entirely because of my [Meditation] skill.
I skipped directly to taking control of the stars.
I let out a long, quiet breath, feeling a profound sense of accomplishment.
Now that I could connect the stars, I needed to practice actually releasing the magic into the physical world.
I couldn’t exactly cast a Lightning Strike in this small dorm room, I’d blow a hole through the wall and alert the entire school.
I couldn’t practice on the school grounds either, not without exposing my terrifying, impossible progress to the teachers and the Mu family spies who were undoubtedly watching the student body.
I stood up and walked over to the small window, looking out toward the distant, towering lights of the Bo City commercial center.
Tomorrow is Sunday, our only free day of the week.
It was time to pay a visit to the Bo City Mage Association’s private training grounds.
It would cost a fortune to rent a reinforced, soundproof room, but thanks to ‘Derpy Griffin’, money was the one thing I had in absolute abundance.
I also planned to release my new game, ‘Ruin Runner,’ later this month to increase my revenue streams.
I smiled into the darkness, thinking about the damage my lightning could cause, and wondering just how little time it would require for me to cast a spell.
To be continued…