Awakening

Waves of heat surged like fire, one after another, yet in some silent moment, the world stood still for an instant.

Lin Shuguang slowly opened his eyes as he lay slumped over his desk. Blazing sunlight passed through an old locust tree as tall as a three-story building, then through the glass beneath the half-drawn curtains, finally falling on his face. His complexion was fair and rosy, but his eyes were still bleary from sleep as he looked at everything before him. Then that bleariness turned into... confusion and disbelief.

A face he had not seen in years filled his entire field of vision the next second. "Old Lin, stop sleeping. It's almost our turn to awaken. I wonder if we'll succeed..."

"Xu... Jie?" Lin Shuguang was stunned, and for the moment, he failed to register what the other boy meant by awakening.

The person before him was unmistakably his old high school deskmate, whom he had not seen for nearly ten years since they had gone their separate ways after graduation!

Yet here he was, sporting that same bowl cut from high school, appearing before him again... Had he mistaken him for someone else? Impossible!

"Still half asleep? You're unbelievable. We're about to awaken, and I'm so nervous my palms are covered in sweat, yet you can still sleep? Do you even want to get into a martial arts school... All right, enough. Old Fu's here!" Lin Shuguang's stare gave Xu Jie the creeps, and the rest of his grumbling died away immediately as their homeroom teacher, Old Fu, was about to enter the classroom.

"Am I... dreaming?"

Lin Shuguang frowned slightly, his calm gaze sweeping around the room. One familiar face after another overlapped with faces that had long since grown hazy in his memory.

A hundred emotions welled up, and at last, he let out a long breath.

After watching everyone for a moment, Lin Shuguang felt deeply satisfied. He tapped the desk, marked by the passage of years. "All right, wake up."

A gentle breeze blew. The sunlight remained, and the rolling waves of heat churned with such reality.

He did not wake from this "dream"!

After a long silence, Lin Shuguang suddenly jolted to awareness. An absurd, terrifying possibility had occurred to him-

This was no dream!

He had been reborn!

He pinched his thigh... Hiss. It was real!

But his first reaction to being reborn in his high school years was not excitement. Instead, his face darkened. "I worked my ass off as a code monkey for seven or eight years before I finally bought a place with a mortgage, and I got fucking reborn before I could enjoy even a single day in it?!"

He forcefully exhaled his pent-up frustration, calmed down, and sank into thought.

Suddenly, his gaze froze.

Old Fu, whom Xu Jie had mentioned, had arrived. A striped, old-man-style shirt paired with black dress pants-the same style as back then. But why was his left eye covered?!

Cosplay?

The corner of Lin Shuguang's mouth twitched. He scoured his memories, but could not recall Old Fu ever dressing like this at any point in the past. Besides, he had met up with Old Fu several times before transmigrating and had never noticed this hobby of his.

A strange thought stirred in his mind. He immediately turned his head and nudged Xu Jie with his elbow.

"???" Looking baffled, Xu Jie blinked, not quite understanding what he meant.

Lin Shuguang asked, "What happened to Old Fu's eye...?"

Xu Jie sharply sucked in a breath. He cautiously glanced at Old Fu by the door, then looked at Lin Shuguang as though he were an alien and whispered, "Are you kidding me? That happened ages ago, and you're asking me now?"

"..." Lin Shuguang's heart skipped a beat. There seemed to be some discrepancy in his memories. "Cut the crap. What happened?"

"Last year, remember? A Demonic Cultivator was hurting people, and Old Fu stepped in. Who would've thought there was a martial artist among the teachers at our No. 2 High School... Still, if you ask me, Old Fu's a little stupid. Apparently, loads of organizations came to recruit him after his identity as a martial artist was exposed, but he refused and insisted on staying at school as a teacher. Now I don't even dare sleep in his class..."

Lin Shuguang did not hear a single word Xu Jie said after that. He stared blankly at Old Fu's black left eyepatch, his brain turning to mush and crashing on the spot.

"Demonic Cultivator???"

After a moment of silence, Lin Shuguang's gaze fell on the textbooks on his desk. He casually flipped through them-and among the Chinese and math textbooks, he actually found all sorts of titles such as History of Martial Arts, Martial Arts Basic Theory and Practice, and Choosing a Compatible Soul Ring. Every one of them proclaimed how extraordinary this world was.

With the evidence conclusive, Lin Shuguang was utterly speechless. His expression shifted several times.

Only after a long while did he rub his brow and sink into thought.

"By the way, Xu Jie, what was that awakening you mentioned earlier?" Lin Shuguang asked nervously. After all, this world and its timeline had departed from what he knew, so he had to be cautious.

"It's your Destined Soul," Xu Jie replied casually. "I wonder if I'll awaken... Putting on a Soul Ring and manifesting your ability is just insanely cool."

Lin Shuguang's head ached from listening. "Be more specific. What exactly is this awakening?"

Just then, Old Fu's voice rang throughout the classroom, though it was not loud. "Silence!"

In an instant, Lin Shuguang felt as though a savage beast had fixed its eyes on him. Every hair on his body stood on end instinctively, and all the words he had left to say were trapped in his throat, unable to make a sound.

He looked up, meeting Old Fu's utterly placid eye.

Lin Shuguang let out a muffled groan on the spot. His eyes felt as though needles had stabbed them, and his head spun. The next second, his head struck the desktop, drawing startled looks from those around him.

Old Fu withdrew his gaze and looked around. His weathered face betrayed no expression as he said coolly, "As for the precautions concerning awakening, both your families and I have gone over them many times, so I won't repeat them at length here-"

Lin Shuguang was about to explode.

He was probably the only person in the entire class still in the dark.

"When I call your names, come up one at a time. Those who awaken successfully will collect your basic Soul Rings on my left... Everyone else, wait where you are!" Unaware of Lin Shuguang's thoughts, Old Fu offered a few uninformative remarks, then looked at a young man who had been waiting outside the door for some time and nodded.

Taking the cue, the young man entered the classroom carrying a box patterned with metal and solemnly set it on the lectern. Under Old Fu's gaze, he began unlocking it. Whatever it held was about to be revealed.

"What's that?" Lin Shuguang turned toward Xu Jie again.

"An Awakening Stone..."

"How do you use it?"

"Put your hand on it and sense it."

"That's it?"

"Holy shit, Old Lin, are you fucking messing with me? All of this is in the books!"

"Books?"

Lin Shuguang's gaze settled on the pile of books before him.

"Cao Xin!"

Old Fu called up the first person.

A tall boy walked up nervously. Unlike the expressionless Old Fu, the young man was much friendlier. "Don't be nervous. Put your hand on it and do what you usually do during practice."

The young man's voice seemed to hold a kind of magic. Cao Xin's nerves eased considerably, and he slowly placed his hand on it.

Whoosh-

Suddenly, a dazzling white light burst from the lectern. A chill spread throughout the classroom in an instant, only to vanish completely in the next moment.

Before Lin Shuguang could raise his head in shock, Old Fu's calm voice rang out. "Cao Xin, awakened as an Ice Elementalist. Blood Energy Value: 63 cal. Go take a Soul Ring. Next, Guo Ranran!"