At a sharp gesture from Teacher Shu, the laughter stopped. The students scrambled into orderly rows, their spines straightening under his heavy gaze. He stood before them, his posture unusually rigid as he addressed them with an air of finality.
"Listen well! This is the final day you will endure this old man's lectures at this pre-school. As you all know, the Great Entrance Exam for the city's higher institutes will begin in exactly one month."
Reaching into the weathered leather satchel at his hip, Teacher Shu withdrew a thick stack of parchment. With a casual flick of his wrist, a ripple of translucent energy surged forth, catching the papers and guiding them through the air. They fluttered toward the students like a flock of white birds, landing perfectly in each pair of waiting hands.
"These are your official application forms. Take them to the City Hall to register for the sect or school of your choosing. Once submitted, an officer will guide you through the exam."
His gaze sharpened with the warning of a man who had seen the cost of overreaching.
"Remember! This month is not for rest; it is for tempering your resolve. Choose a path you actually have the strength to walk. Do not let pride blind you to your limits, or you'll be back in my rows next year. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Teacher Shu!" the students roared in unison.
For a moment, the discipline wavered. A few students wiped at their eyes, the weight of their teacher's departure finally hitting them.
"Class dismissed!" he barked, though his voice held a faint, gravelly softness. Without looking back, he turned and began his slow, rhythmic trek toward his quarters, his walking stick clicking against the stone.
The students dispersed in excited groups, clutching their application forms. Luotian's circle remained, though Ying Lizhua had already vanished, likely seeking a solitary place to train.
Yue'er broke the silence, her voice steady and resolute. "I'll handle your application, Luotian. I'm certain my father won't have any objections."
Luotian immediately shook his head, the movement sharp and final. "Yue'er, you can't. Your father's school is the most prestigious in the city. Everyone wants to get in. If word gets out that a cripple was admitted through the back door, it'll tarnish his reputation. I won't drag him down."
His voice was firm, though the rejection tasted like ash in his mouth.
Yue'er frowned, refusing to accept his answer. "That's nonsense! Everyone knows who your father was. This city doesn't just respect him—it survives because of him. The people owe him a debt that can never be repaid. They wouldn't dare whisper against you, let alone my father's school."
Her words carried the heavy truth of history.
Decades ago, Luotian's father had brought Divine Bird City unprecedented fame and security. A cultivator of such profound power that he walked the Ancestral Cloud Continent as a peerless sovereign, he had once stood atop the city walls and made a decree that still echoed through the ages:
Should anyone dare to lay a hand upon this city, they shall face my wrath upon touching it.
From that moment on, Divine Bird City became a sanctuary, an island of peace in a sea of continental chaos. Even after he departed for higher realms—seeking a divinity beyond the stars—his legacy remained. The statues of the man the people simply called [God] watched over every plaza. The warrior statue Luotian had stood before earlier was only one of a thousand tributes to him.
To Yue'er, Luotian wasn't an "obstacle" to a school's reputation; he was the living blood of the city's savior.
Sun Wuji chimed in, his tone heavy with support. "I'm with Sister Mei on this. But… it would be best if you could just trigger that awakening before the exam begins. If you do that, the critics won't have a leg to stand on."
Luotian shook his head again, this time with a sharp, iron-willed finality. "No. My mind is made up. If I cannot ascend to the rank of a One Fang Fighter before the exam, I won't submit an application to any academy. I'll accept my lot and live as a commoner rather than play at being a Theríon Cultivator on someone else's charity."
His steady voice left no room for argument. This was a vow, and he meant to keep it.
I have to stand on my own, he thought, his heart tightening. I cannot spend my entire life hiding behind a legend who has already outpaced the world. If my blood won't wake, I'll carve a different path.
At the heart of every living soul in this universe lay a primal force known as Theríon.
It was a unique power woven into the very strands of one's bloodline. Commoners possessed this essence too, but it remained dormant within them. Cultivators, however, held the key to awakening their blood, unlocking singular abilities that transformed them into beings of unparalleled strength.
In essence, Theríon was the measurement of a bloodline's purity and potential. To ignite this power for the first time was to step onto the foundational rank of cultivation: the One Fang stage. Those who reached it were granted the title of [Fighter], becoming the bedrock of the martial world.
For the vast majority, this awakening was a natural rite of passage that occurred by the age of thirteen. To pass that threshold without a spark meant a life bound to the mundane—a fate as a commoner.
In fact, being a commoner carried no inherent shame. They were the gears that kept society turning, providing the essential support that allowed the martial world to thrive. Most cultivators viewed them with a quiet, grounded respect.
But for Feng Luotian, the rules of society did not apply.
As the son of the man revered as a [God], Luotian did not carry a name; he carried a legacy. From the moment his father ascended beyond the stars, the citizens of Divine Bird City had projected their own desperate hopes onto the boy. They didn't just want a protector; they wanted a second God.
As the years passed without an awakening, that hope turned to bitter disappointment. While many still offered him the hollow courtesy of his father's name, the narrow-minded saw only a broken lineage. To them, he was a tragedy wrapped in a slur: [God's Crippled Son].
Seeing the immovable resolve in Luotian's eyes, Sun Wuji let out a long, heavy sigh. "Brother Feng…"
Yue'er remained silent, her emerald eyes shimmering with unshed tears. She watched him with a painful mixture of admiration for his pride and sorrow for the burden he carried alone.
Sensing the mood dipping into gloom, Luotian forced a bright, infectious smile onto his face. "Enough about me. You two need to sharpen your focus for the exam. I've heard whispers that the top three scorers will be hand-picked as personal disciples by the school's elders. That's a life-changing opportunity for you, Wuji."
He turned to Yue'er, his gaze softening but his voice remaining steady. "And Yue'er, even though your father is the Headmaster, imagine the look on his face if you take the top rank on your own merit. I know he'd be incredibly proud."
The clouds vanished from Wuji's expression, replaced by a spark of competitive fire. "If that's the prize, then the path is clear! We just need to get stronger, right, Brother Feng? Let's head to the Warland Thicket and push our limits!"
Yue'er quickly brushed away her tears, her voice catching a wave of his excitement. "Yes! Come with us, Luotian! Who knows? The Thicket is full of mysteries—you might even find a fortunate encounter hidden in the brush."
Caught in the current of their eagerness, Luotian found his own spirits lifting. He couldn't find it in his heart to refuse them.
"Alright," he said, his smile turning warm and genuine. "Let's go."
* * *
Warland Thicket
BOOOM!
A deafening crack detonated through the emerald canopy as a massive, two-meter-thick trunk shattered into a cloud of sharp splinters.
Sun Wuji stood behind the destruction. His upper body had transformed: grey granite covered his skin, and his muscles bulged beneath it. Theríon coursed through his veins, giving him the strength to smash the thick trunks apart.
This outermost ring of the Warland Thicket was no ordinary woodland. The trees here were packed so tightly they seemed to choke the sunlight, their roots drinking from a soil saturated with raw, primal energies. It was a land of hyper-growth: for every ancient pillar that was felled, a fresh sapling would claw its way out of the mulch within minutes, hungry for the space above.
Standing among the smoking splinters, Wuji threw his head back and laughed.
"Hahaha! At this rate, I'll break through to the Six Fangs stage before the first exam bell rings! Next time I see Ying Lizhua, I'm going to bury that arrogant smirk six feet under!"
Suddenly, a ripple in the air manifested behind Wuji. Mei Yue'er appeared as if woven from the wind itself, her feet touching the grass with a silence that bordered on the supernatural. She had just finished her displacement drills, her breathing as calm as a still lake.
"Stop dreaming, Wuji," she said, her voice laced with dry amusement. "That bastard is already at the peak of the Six Fangs stage—barely a half-step away from the Seventh. By the time the exam bells ring, he'll have climbed even higher. Exactly which part of him are you planning to crush?"
Wuji froze, his triumphant grin wilting. He shot her an exaggerated roll of his eyes.
"Sister Mei, have a heart. Why ruin a perfectly good victory lap? Even if I can't bridge the gap, you certainly will. You're already a Six Fangs, just like him. Maybe he has a lead now, but with your talent? You'll hit Seven—maybe even Eight—before the month is out."
Despite his grumbling, Wuji threw his arms wide in a mock gesture of surrender, his irritation never quite reaching his eyes.
Yue'er offered a faint, fleeting smirk. "I'll try."
Her gaze drifted past him, settling on a silhouette in the distance. High atop a weathered, towering crag, Feng Luotian sat cross-legged. He was a statue of perfect stillness, his eyes closed in deep meditation. Hundreds of meters separated him from the chaos of their training, as if he existed in a different world entirely.
Without a word, Yue'er ignited her Theríon. Vivid streaks of emerald light arced from her body, anchoring to a point in space directly behind Luotian.
Peng.
The air fractured with the sharp, crystalline sound of shattering glass. In a heartbeat, Yue'er vanished.
She materialized behind Luotian, landing lightly on the crag.
"Any luck this time, Luotian?" Yue'er spoke softly in the quiet of the crag. She watched the back of his head, concerned by his stillness.
Luotian's shoulders slumped. He let out a long, hollow breath. "No. Nothing."
It's always the same, his mind hissed with a sudden bitterness. No matter the method, no matter the cost... the void remains.
He gestured vaguely toward the small mountain of monster cores piled before him. They were beautiful gems of varying hues, each one humming with its own distinct, elemental frequency.
"I feel like a thief," Luotian admitted, his voice dropping an octave. "Everyone has poured so much into me. Your father... he's sacrificed a fortune in resources. He even gave me a Ten Fangs Core. Do you have any idea how many geniuses that one stone could have nurtured? And yet, I swallowed it whole, and it did... nothing. I can't even look him in the eye. He gives me all that, and I have nothing to show for it."
He clenched his jaw, his frustration finally boiling to the surface. "Where does it go, Yue'er? All that energy... where does it vanish to?"
Yue'er remained silent, her brow furrowed as she searched for words that wouldn't sound like hollow pity.
THUD.
Sun Wuji landed on the rock beside them, the impact vibrating through the stone. His face was a mask of pure bewilderment. "I watched him refine that Ten Fangs stone myself," Wuji grunted, scratching his head. "His aura didn't even flicker. It was like dropping a pebble into a bottomless well."
He paused, then brightened with a reckless idea. "Maybe the dose was too low? Next time, we should aim for a Talon Core."
Luotian's head snapped toward him, his eyes wide with disbelief. "Are you insane, Wuji? A Ten Fangs core is worth enough to sustain an entire commoner family for a decade! A Talon core is a king's ransom—it's the crux of a beast above the Fang Realm! You're suggesting I throw away a treasure like that too?"
Wuji shrugged, looking sheepish but unbothered. "I'm just saying... if the well is deep, you need a bigger bucket."
Monster cores were the lifeblood of cultivation, harvested from the primal fonts of a beast's power—the heart, the fangs, or the obsidian claws. Their potency mirrored the creature's lethality: a Ten Fangs Core was ripped from a predator equal to a peak-rank Fighter, the absolute zenith of the Fang Realm.
But Talon Cores belonged to a different world. Harvested from monsters that had ascended into the Talon Realm, they were rare, volatile, and stained with the blood of the hunters who failed to claim them.
Sensing the darkening clouds in Luotian's expression, Yue'er stepped closer, her resolve catching the light. "Luotian, when I break through, I will hunt a Talon-class beast myself. I'll bring you its core."
A wave of genuine warmth washed over Luotian's chest. He offered her a small, grateful smile. "Thank you, Yue'er. Truly."
Yet, behind the smile, his heart remained a cold stone. More energy won't fix this, he thought bitterly. Every doctor in Divine Bird City had pressed their fingers to his pulse and delivered the same verdict: Incurable. The issue wasn't merely a lack of energy—it was something far deeper.
Suddenly, a strange unease pricked at the base of Luotian's neck. The air grew heavy, turning still and silent, as if the forest itself were drawing a panicked breath.
Oblivious to the shift, Wuji let out a boisterous, chest-thumping laugh that echoed too loudly through the trees. "You know what, Brother Feng? If a Talon beast shows its face today, I'll wrestle the core right out of its chest for you! Hahaha!"
Mei Yue'er couldn't let such a reckless boast stand. "Wuji! Don't be ridiculous!" she snapped, her voice sharp with logic. "How exactly is a Five Fangs Fighter supposed to bring down a Talon-class monster? You'd be shredded in seconds!"
She crossed her arms, her emerald eyes narrowing into slits. "And second, you won't find a single Talon beast this far out in the Thicket's fringe. Even if you—"
RUMBLE!!
A suffocating pressure descended on the crag, as though a mountain had fallen upon them.
The atmosphere grew heavy, turning as thick as swamp water, pinning their limbs and stealing the breath from their lungs. Fear seized them so deeply that their joints seemed to lock in place.
Moving as if through stone, they slowly turned toward the source of the crushing weight. And what they saw sent a jolt of pure ice through their veins.
Emerging from the shifting shadows of the dense trees a few hundred meters away, a massive, ashen-gray wolf materialized. Its towering frame radiated a suffocating aura of dominance, its fur matted with a ghostly, silver mist. Its eyes—intelligent, cold, and dripping with ancient malice—locked onto them.
Yue'er's voice was a terrified whisper. "A Wight Wolf… and that aura… it's a One Talon monster?!"