May 8, 2024, Sakurato High School, sunny.
A week had passed since the First Wave fully arrived—a week incredibly short for many, yet unimaginably long for others.
The concentration of spiritual energy between heaven and earth kept rising, reaching its peak three days after the Wave arrived.
According to the average of measurements taken by the Special Affairs Division in various locations, the current concentration of spiritual energy had risen to and stabilized at 11.8 times its pre-Wave level.
A spiritual-energy concentration 11.8 times higher brought far more than 11.8 times the cultivation speed... The Supernatural Phenomena passed down by word of mouth revived one after another, while demons found it even easier to hide.
More importantly, in the current environment, cultivation—in other words, coming into contact with and crossing the threshold of the supernatural—had become much easier. Many ancient texts and methods had been made available by the Special Affairs Division, and a golden age of universal cultivation was about to arrive.
That morning, in the gymnasium of Sakurato High School in Arakawa Ward, Tokyo.
The basketball hoops that had originally stood there had been removed. Rows of second-year students from the entire school sat across the nearly thousand-square-meter polished wooden floor.
This was their first "demon class," which Nanjō Emi had mentioned earlier. More accurately, it was one major branch of demon studies—the Onmyōjutsu class.
The Onmyoji dispatched by the Special Affairs Division to teach Onmyōjutsu stood in the very center of the gymnasium, his hair slicked back.
At the Onmyoji's feet, Uesugi Tetsu, Ririko, and Kitano Runa sat in a row, listening to him explain something called the Basic Spirit Absorption Method.
Basic knowledge about ordinary demons and cultivation had already been popularized long ago. This full-grade lesson was meant to test everyone's cultivation talent and potential.