Awakening Day
In the year 452 of the New Calendar, in Great Banyan City, Southern Military Region, Xia Country, Blue Star Federation.
The June sun blazed like fire. Hot wind swept across the spherical sports field again and again, carrying the rustle of leaves and waves of cicada song.
On the sports field of Darong City No. 1 Comprehensive High School, nearly ten thousand boys and girls in navy-blue school uniforms sat cross-legged on the scorching ground. The smell of sweat and sunscreen mingled in the air with the restlessness of youth.
At the front of the field stood a towering platform of black iron. A group of middle-aged men with varied demeanors stood atop it, most in suits and dress shoes. Several others wore immaculate military uniforms, their backs straight and their bodies like spears, their bearing extraordinary.
Today was Awakening Day for the senior class.
For the people of this world, it was their one and only chance in life to knock on the door of the extraordinary.
A slightly plump middle-aged man stepped out of the crowd and approached the microphone at the center of the platform. He composed himself and smiled.
"Good afternoon, respected teachers and students. I'm Xu Lei, the principal of Darong City No. 1 Comprehensive High School."
"Today is your senior-year Awakening Day. You've all learned the rules, so I won't go over them. I'll just say one thing—"
"Awakening is only the beginning of life, not its entirety. Whether you succeed or not, don't disappoint the Federation."
"Now, let the awakening begin."
With that, he promptly stepped to the side of the platform, and thunderous applause erupted below. In an age when efficiency mattered above all else, no one wanted to waste time on formalities.
The staff, who had long been waiting, swiftly removed the sound equipment. Another group carried a waist-high machine onto the platform.
The machine was silver-white all over, with a circular recess in its center. It looked like a base designed to hold something, and a dense array of testing cables of various sizes ran from its sides.
The staff tested it repeatedly, then exchanged a few quiet words with a middle-aged man in military uniform.
The soldier nodded and walked up to the base. He held out a hand—and a transparent, six-sided crystal emitting a fluorescent glow appeared out of thin air in his palm. It was the Awakening Crystal.
He flipped his hand over and pressed the crystal into the recess.
In an instant, the intricate lines on the base lit up in unison. A multicolored light spread out, sweeping in alternating passes over the nearly ten thousand students below. Cries of surprise immediately rose across the field.
In the formation of Senior Year Class 4, Chen Chuan sat shoulder to shoulder with Zhao Tie.
Sitting cross-legged, the 1.9-meter-tall Zhao Tie looked like a small mountain, his navy uniform stretched tight over his frame. He wiped the sweat from his face and elbowed Chen Chuan.
"Chuan'er, I went to Western Chan Temple with my family yesterday to burn incense and pray for blessings. Do you think I'll awaken later?" He lowered his voice, though it still came out muffled and booming.
"How much did you spend on incense? A few bucks? And you made a wish that big? I never saw you go there before. Going now, even if they grant your wish, you'll have to wait in line." Chen Chuan shot him a sidelong glance.
"Come on, what do you mean, a few bucks? It was a whole 100! You know what? I can feel it. Today I'm going to bring glory to my ancestors." Zhao Tie rubbed his hands, his big eyes filled with unmistakable anticipation. "Besides, look at my build. If I don't awaken the Physique Branch, who will? When the time comes, I'll change classes to a knight, contract a wyvern for a mount, and soar into the sky. I'll take you flying with me. Believe it?"
"Sure, sure, sure..."
Chen Chuan's face was the picture of a halfhearted response.
Although it had never been explicitly stated that the focus of an awakening had something to do with appearance and physique, it had never been denied either.
Zhao Tie grinned. Though he knew Chen Chuan was humoring him, he still loved the feeling of being trusted.
He had no idea that his childhood friend had actually lived an entire life in another world.
In his previous life, Chen Chuan had been a lung cancer patient who died before he was even twenty.
When he opened his eyes again, he had transmigrated into this world as a fetus. After more than a decade of adjusting, he found it much like his previous world, except for one thing: Awakening Day.
This was the only path to the extraordinary in this world. Miss this chance, and one could only settle down and live as an ordinary person.
"What about you? Don't you want to awaken at all?" Zhao Tie elbowed him again.
"Me? I'm just a salted fish. I'll leave it to fate." Chen Chuan's eyes were half closed. The sun made him feel warm all over, and he was a little sleepy.
Zhao Tie protested, "Come on, cut it out. You leave me in the dust on the academic subjects in every mock exam. Your brain works faster than anyone's. If even you can't awaken, that would be a real waste."
Chen Chuan smiled without answering. He wanted this chance more than anyone, but he had looked through all the information he could find, and only one thing was certain: awakening depended solely on talent. Without talent, everything was in vain. But that could only be determined during the test on Awakening Day, so he wasn't anxious. Getting to live another life was already wonderful, and he didn't ask for too much. Still, awakening would naturally be better.
On the platform, the scanning beam swept across the field round after round.
The multicolored light passed over the field with increasing frequency.
At first, each sweep took about half a minute. Gradually, it dropped to twenty seconds, then ten, and now it swept past every five seconds.
Chen Chuan had a faint feeling that the light was no ordinary light, but some kind of "energy" emitted by the transparent Awakening Crystal.
It moved through the crowd, probing, like someone sifting through sand to pick out the grains of gold hidden within.
Suddenly, a commotion erupted in a formation nearby.
"Someone awakened! That's the awakening light of the Physique Branch!"
Chen Chuan looked up. It was coming from Senior Year Class 7.
A male student was enveloped in a faint red glow, his face wild with joy as he laughed and danced about.
He shouted, "I did it! I, Wei Zheng, did it! Hahahaha!"
The students around him looked on with envy and jealousy. A few of his close friends had already gathered around to flatter him.
Most were still too embarrassed to go over and flatter him. On the one hand, they couldn't bring themselves to lose face; on the other, the awakening wasn't over yet, and who knew whether they might awaken themselves?
Chen Chuan was still marveling at how lucky the student was when another burst of screams erupted from a formation on the other side, in the middle of the entire student body.
"It's Class 55! A girl awakened! It's green—the Agility Branch!"
"The Agility Branch! I want to be an Agility Branch awakener too. Assassins are my favorite—backstabbing like crazy."
"Damn it, so what if you awakened? Believe it or not, I'll bully you."
"You don't know jack. Of course it's a big deal. Based on the data from previous years, out of the nearly ten thousand people in our year, a dozen or so lighting up would be the absolute limit. That's a one-in-a-thousand chance."
"Huh? Then why am I still not glowing... Damn light, hurry up and shine!"
The field gradually grew noisy.
Chen Chuan watched the figures emitting red and green light. Though his face remained calm, he couldn't hide the flicker of envy in his eyes.
Time passed bit by bit. In just ten minutes, seven more students awakened one after another, red and green awakening lights flaring up in turn.
Zhao Tie was one of them.
The instant the red light rose from his sturdy frame, the 1.9-meter-tall young man froze. Then he grabbed Chen Chuan's arm, squeezing so hard he nearly broke it.
"Chuan'er! I'm glowing! I'm fucking glowing! Red! Physique Branch! I told you that 100 was money well spent! Hahaha!"
He shouted in excitement, his eyes instantly reddening.
"Nice one, Tiezi. Looks like you really are going to take me flying. But my arm's about to break, so let go!" Chen Chuan laughed and bared his teeth, unable to resist giving Zhao Tie a kick.
Only then did Zhao Tie sheepishly let go, though he couldn't stop himself from grinning foolishly.
"Hehe... You bet. Just wait. Once I successfully change classes to a knight, get ready to live it up with me!"
Chen Chuan smiled and nodded, but he was growing inexplicably nervous himself, more nervous than anyone. According to the data from previous years, the awakening lasted only about fifteen minutes. After that, the Awakening Crystal's energy would be exhausted.
Up on the platform stood a burly middle-aged man in military uniform, with pine branches and a gold star on his epaulettes.
As he watched the awakeners glowing red and green below, a trace of disappointment flashed in his eyes.
Ever since obtaining this awakening method from the Valot Intermediate Plane, they had known that only a few people could awaken. But there were far too few this year; even now, there were only seven.
But this was not something that could be forced. At that thought, the burly middle-aged man sighed softly and continued to watch the students below in silence.
In the formation of Senior Year Class 4,
Chen Chuan, who was still looking around, suddenly felt a warm current slowly seeping into his body.
Immediately afterward, a series of strange sounds rang out in his mind without warning.
"Ding—extraordinary energy received for the first time..."
"Matching the rules of the dimensional universe in which the host resides..."
"Distributing the Transmigrator Starter Gift Pack."
"The Transmigrator Starter Gift Pack has been opened automatically."
"You have obtained the [Crimson System Panel] (standard edition)."
"You have obtained the talent: [Light of Wisdom]."
[Light of Wisdom] 1. Source of Spirit: grants a tenfold boost to current Spirit. (Can grow) 2. All-Spell Analysis: can analyze the spells and specialties of any target and "compile" them for personal use. [Analysis slots: 0/3] 3. Clear Mind: grants immunity to all negative mental effects.
Chen Chuan's expression stiffened slightly as a pale-red panel suddenly appeared before his eyes.
He instinctively glanced around. Beside him, Zhao Tie was animatedly showing off the red glow on his body to others.
The students in the front row were also whispering among themselves, but not one of them looked at the panel. Apparently, only he could see it.
Having confirmed this, Chen Chuan had just begun to relax when his heart started pounding again.
The effects of [Light of Wisdom] roared into operation within him.
At that moment, his Spirit surged, increasing by a full hundred percent from its original level.
The warm energy that had been drifting through his body seemed to be drawn by an invisible vortex. It rushed toward his brain in competing streams, every last strand and current absorbed by him.
As his Spirit continued to climb, a faint blue light gradually appeared around Chen Chuan's body.
Zhao Tie, who was closest to him, noticed first. The pride on his face instantly froze. "Chuan'er, why... why are you glowing blue?"
At the same time, the students of Senior Year Class 4 also noticed something unusual about Chen Chuan, and the area around him immediately grew noisy.
"Huh? Why is Chen Chuan glowing too?"
"Why is it blue? Aren't there only two kinds of awakening light, red and green...?"
"Does that mean he's awakened too?"
"That can't be right. The textbook never mentioned blue light. There are only two kinds of awakening light, red and green. Red is the Physique Branch, and green is the Agility Branch—what's this blue thing he has?"
"Come on, don't let him fool you. He probably bought some fluorescent powder and sprinkled it on himself to get attention. What blue light?"
Chen Chuan was also bewildered by the blue glow surrounding him.
He suppressed his churning thoughts and looked again at the panel only he could see. His data was slowly appearing.
Crimson System · Host [Chen Chuan] Class: none Physique: 1.2 Agility: 1.1 Spirit: 19.8 (+18) Tier: 0 Techniques: none Spells: none Talent/active: Light of Wisdom P.S. A normal person's stats are 1.
Chen Chuan studied the data on the panel. When he saw the figure in the Spirit field, he immediately understood: it was probably the Spirit Branch.
But no book or person had ever explained what the Spirit Branch was.
By now, the Awakening Crystal had only two minutes of effect remaining. The scanning beam grew brighter and swept faster.
On the platform, several soldiers who had been standing with their hands behind their backs straightened almost at the same instant.
Suddenly, the commotion caused by the blue light around Chen Chuan grew louder and louder, drawing the attention of the people on the platform.
The burly man in uniform, his epaulettes adorned with pine branches and a gold star, turned his gaze toward Senior Year Class 4.
He heard that the uproar was spreading from a point at its center, right there.