Chapter Eight: The First Official Lesson

“Good morning!” The next day, Feng Xue, feeling refreshed, greeted Xia Mi, whose face was still bruised and swollen, and sat down at the desk next to him with the easy familiarity of an old friend. Yet, for some reason, the moment he sat, he sensed something had changed in the classroom—a subtle shift that left him feeling unsettled.

Looking around carefully, he realized that there were only seventeen desks left in the classroom, arranged haphazardly with no symmetry at all, enough to drive anyone with obsessive tendencies mad.

“Why are there three desks missing?” Feng Xue scratched his head and shot Xia Mi a puzzled look.

“They failed the trial!” Xia Mi shrugged nonchalantly. “The cultivation task from the day before was actually an assessment. If you only got the basic rating, you’d be sent down to the lower institute—the branch campuses scattered everywhere. Only those who achieved a perfect reward are considered true students of the Upper Institute.”

Still half asleep, Xia Mi stretched and continued, “Even in this single cultivation dimension, the academy tests students’ willpower, temperament, and knowledge of various narratives, and throws in some perks as well. But unfortunately, those benefits are one-time only. Like me, I’ve completed the task perfectly for nine years in a row, but I only got a Heart of the Zither in my first year.”

Feng Xue had no idea what this “Heart of the Zither” was, but since it was given as an entry benefit alongside something like Gourmet Cells, it probably wasn’t anything shabby.

Feng Xue wanted to ask more about the academy, but Teacher Wang Dazui strode into the classroom, the bell ringing right behind him.

“Hello, everyone. I’m glad to see you all again,” Wang Dazui said as soon as he entered, wearing a sly expression. “But don’t think you’ve made it just because you passed this round. In fact, only thirty percent of freshmen get to stay each year! But those who do—ninety-nine percent of them have become higher-level Travelers by now.”

As he said this, Wang Dazui shot a fierce glare at Xia Mi, as if blaming him for dragging the stats down.

“Even though you’re only at the Unusual tier, still—”

Feng Xue didn’t pay much attention to what came next; it was the usual school ceremony drivel. He was far more interested in Xia Mi, the seasoned veteran—after all, someone who’d been held back for eight years must know the academy’s tricks inside out.

“I know what you’re going to ask,” Xia Mi whispered. “Each academic year, there are about two to three world-crossings, plus one at the end-of-term exam—so, on average, once every three months. The rest of the time, we learn general skills and take electives. You know, everyone has a different major. I’m on the cultivation path, so I started with martial arts, and my electives include National Arts, Basic Swordsmanship, Basic Internal Breathing, Basic Footwork, and Basic Hidden Weapons. Plus, because of my Heart of the Zither, I have to take Basic Music Theory as well. Some people even have to learn two extra professions. And on top of that, there’s all kinds of general knowledge.”

“All basic skills? There’s nothing like advanced internal energy or anything?” Feng Xue was dumbfounded. Wasn’t this supposed to be the top academy of the Eastern race? And this is what they taught?

Xia Mi gave him a look that suggested he’d heard it all before. “Don’t underestimate those so-called basics. They’re the product of countless predecessors’ improvements. If you were in a low-martial world like ‘Smiling Proud Wanderer,’ just a set of Basic Swordsmanship could let you sweep the place. The legendary Nine Swords of Dugu in the hands of Feng Qingyang or Linghu Chong wouldn’t even compare! The academy doesn’t provide advanced techniques because those have to be created by the students themselves. No two Travelers can walk the same path—it’s only by forging your own way that you can break through to the Mythic tier.”

“Huh? I’m only at the Unusual tier and you’re talking about creating my own techniques?” Feng Xue’s face twisted into a riot of colors, like an abstract painting by a mad artist.

“Of course you have to travel to different worlds, learn their skills, and improve them. How do you think all those techniques in the academy’s Sutra Pavilion came about?” Xia Mi looked at him like he was a prehistoric relic.

“Ahem…” Feng Xue coughed awkwardly, having momentarily forgotten that part.

Before he could ask more, a huge palm slammed down from above, landing on Xia Mi’s desk. “You dare to fool around while I’m talking?”

Feng Xue stiffly turned his head—and sure enough, it was Wang Dazui!

“Well then…” Xia Mi’s voice skipped like a broken cassette.

“Well, what? Let me make it clear: today you’re going to learn Ripple Breathing. This will be your first universal technique, and the only one compatible with any path you choose. Learn it well, memorize it! Xia Mi, since you’re so capable, you’re leading this group!” With that, Wang Dazui turned and left.

Watching him leave, Xia Mi pulled a face full of mockery. “He just wants to dump the responsibility on me—been doing that for seven years, who doesn’t know his tricks by now?”

He waved to the others and led the class out of the room, heading toward the school’s main building.

“Where are we going?” asked a short boy. Feng Xue remembered him—he was the unlucky one who’d drawn the Turtle Hermit Dojo the other day. Was his name Li… Dog Egg?

“It’s Li Zhongqi!” the boy said, as if reading Feng Xue’s mind.

“We’re going to the Stone Forest,” Xia Mi announced, giving Feng Xue no chance to cover his embarrassment. “The teacher just said it—we’re starting with Ripple Breathing, or the Ripple Immortal Path. It’s a technique that accumulates power through breathing; in fact, just by breathing correctly, you can keep your body youthful. After countless improvements by our predecessors, its potential is immense. Even among the Ten Sages of Huaxia, the Fist Sage’s Wind-and-Dew Divine Art was derived from this breathing technique.”

The power of idols is truly formidable. At the mention of the Ten Sages, the students were visibly stirred, eager to seize that glory for themselves.

The so-called Ten Sages are the ten most powerful saints of the Eastern race. Whenever someone ascends to the demigod level, another Sage takes their place. Virtually everyone who has sat on the Ten Sages’ throne, unless they fall along the way, becomes a true god. Thus, the title carries immense prestige, and the Ten Sages are idolized by all Travelers below the Mythic tier.

Feng Xue had thought “Stone Forest” was the name of a teacher, or perhaps a fancy private room in a luxury restaurant. When they arrived, though, he realized how naïve he’d been.

Stone Forest was, quite literally, a forest of stone!

Not the kind with misty mountains and flowing water, but a massive array of stone pillars of varying heights and widths, sprawling so far that the boundaries were lost to sight—obviously the product of some spatial expansion technique.

Some pillars were so wide you could set a banquet table on top; others, so thin a single foot wouldn’t fit. Some soared into the clouds—Feng Xue couldn’t see their tops even with his keen eyesight, and the base markings showed some were ten thousand meters high. The shortest ones barely reached above a person’s head. At first glance, the arrangement seemed chaotic, but there was a pattern to their placement, like a giant’s plum blossom stakes. Wisps of colorful clouds drifted among them, swirling between pillars of all heights, stirring breezes that set the columns swaying at varying speeds. The sight was truly awe-inspiring.

“Why on earth do we have to train Ripple Immortal Path in a place like this…” Feng Xue grumbled, already sensing trouble. But before he could raise an objection, a bald, monk-like figure leaped down from a pillar marked thirteen thousand meters high—though it was only as thick as a pencil—running down the pillars as if on level ground. Landing before the students, he performed a bizarre bow and said, “Greetings, fellow disciples, I pay my respects…”

“Hey, hey, you’re dressed like a monk but call yourself a Daoist? Does the Buddha know about this?” Feng Xue thought to himself, but his attention was caught by the word “disciples”—was this guy their senior?

“Fake monk, who are you calling junior?” Xia Mi confronted the bald man with the air of a seasoned boss.

“Well, if it isn’t our eternal repeat student! Still leading the group this year, I see. Judging by your bruised face, you must have gotten yourself in trouble again after the trial, right?” The so-called fake monk regarded Xia Mi with playful derision—it seemed this wasn’t the first time. But he didn’t forget his task, and pulled a scroll from his robe. Only when he unfurled it did Feng Xue realize how wrong he’d been—this wasn’t a scroll at all, but a full holographic 3D projection screen!

As a half-transparent figure appeared, sitting cross-legged in midair, inhaling and exhaling, Feng Xue was stunned into silence. Was all this high-tech really necessary just to teach a breathing technique? And if it’s so advanced, why make the interface look like an antique? The minds of the ancients were impossible to fathom.

But Feng Xue soon calmed down—not because he was especially steady, but because his Gourmet Cells were particularly effective at soothing his mind.

The projected figure seemed to have a hypnotic effect. Before he knew it, Feng Xue’s consciousness was drawn in, and he found himself unconsciously matching his breathing to the figure’s rhythm.

Inhale, inhale, exhale… exhale, inhale, exhale… inhale, inhale, inhale… inhale, exhale, exhale…

The pattern seemed random—no, it took one hundred and twenty-eight exhalations to complete a full cycle. The process was so complex that the original Ripple Immortal Path never described it this way; clearly, it had been extensively modified. Without the projection’s hypnotic effect, an ordinary person would need at least ten days to memorize a single cycle.

Even with this assistance, the breathing pattern was nearly impossible to remember. Fortunately, students admitted to the Central Institute of Travelers all had excellent memories, and by rote memorization, they committed all one hundred and twenty-eight breathing beats to memory.

But memorizing was not the same as imitating. This breathing was drastically different from normal human patterns—the longer your breath, the easier it was to make mistakes.

Some students even suffered from shortness of breath due to the unfamiliar rhythm.

That’s right—Feng Xue was one of them!

It took an entire week for the students to finally maintain this breathing pattern. And even then, it was only maintenance; eating or sleeping, any distraction at all, and their rhythm would stray.

“Since you’ve all memorized it, from today onward, sit atop the pillars!” The fake monk’s real name remained unknown, and since his manner was so unlikable, the students all followed Xia Mi’s lead and called him by that nickname.

The students were stunned. The fake monk scaled the stone pillars with ease, but they were all just Unusual tier—how were they supposed to climb these slippery columns? It would take them a month!

Just then, Xia Mi stomped at the base of a pillar, summoning a colorful cloud that floated down and stopped before him. With a flourish, he stepped onto it and floated upward—so those clouds were elevators after all!

But no one envied Xia Mi’s grandstanding, since his assigned pillar was five thousand meters tall and as thick as a rolling pin.

The others were given pillars about the size of a single desk and twenty meters high, made entirely of stone. But Feng Xue knew the material wasn’t ordinary—otherwise, with all that swaying, they would have snapped long ago.