[Ding! Random item draw complete! Congratulations, host, you have obtained the "Conch Spirit Returning Ring"!] [Conch Spirit Returning Ring: Forged by an ancient supreme expert using a star core and a deep-sea spirit conch. It can instantly absorb free-floating energy from the void and replenish the host's depleted spiritual energy. (The amount of spiritual power depends on the host's cultivation realm.) Cooldown: 12 shichen (24 hours).] [Item bound to the host's soul. Activate it with Spiritual Sense!]
The instant the notification sounded, a strangely shaped ring appeared out of thin air on Ling Yun's left index finger.
The entire ring was a warm, lustrous white, as though starlight lay within it. The ring face was not a gemstone, but a miniature, spiral-shaped pattern resembling a strange seashell, with an extremely faint energy fluctuation slowly circulating through it.
"Instantly replenish spiritual energy? With a twenty-four-hour cooldown?"
Ling Yun's eyes lit up. "Isn't this just the 'big blue potion' from games? An instant-cast, no-channeling, god-tier blue potion with a relatively long cooldown!"
Although he knew perfectly well that his body contained no spiritual energy, his intense curiosity still drove him to test the ring's miraculous effect—what if it worked?
"Only one way to find out!" Ling Yun's mind stirred, and his Spiritual Sense wound around the warm Conch Spirit Returning Ring like a thread.
Bzzzt—!
The instant his Spiritual Sense touched the ring, a sudden change occurred!
There was no earth-shaking spectacle, yet an indescribably vast and mighty force, as ancient as the primordial universe, burst forth from the ring!
This force did not pour into him violently. Instead, through a method profound beyond measure, it instantly connected with every cell and every meridian in Ling Yun's body!
It was as if his dried-up "Dantian" was not a container at all, but a coordinate leading to an unknown void!
The Conch Spirit Returning Ring suddenly brightened. The spiral pattern on its face seemed to come alive and began spinning rapidly!
In the blink of an eye, some pure source energy drifting between heaven and earth—or perhaps in a far more distant void—was frantically drawn in, transformed, and refined!
A cool, immense, pure "gas" suddenly surged into his body from nowhere, carrying the vastness of the stars and the unfathomable depth of the ocean!
It was like an underground river that had lain silent for billions of years suddenly bursting through a dam. A surging "flood of spiritual energy" thundered through him, instantly filling his limbs, organs, extraordinary meridians, and eight extraordinary vessels!
The force came with such ferocity, yet it was also so gentle and controllable, as though it had always been a part of Ling Yun's body!
"Hiss—!"
Ling Yun sucked in a cold breath. Every pore across his body opened, and every cell seemed to be cheering!
The sensation of this power... was too familiar, yet too strange! It was denser than air and more agile than flowing water, containing unimaginable vitality and destructive power!
"This... this is spiritual energy?! Real spiritual energy?!"
Ling Yun was utterly shocked as he felt the unceasing power surging through his body.
"But according to my deduction, spiritual energy shouldn't be generated until the late Qi Cultivation Realm, should it?"
[From the moment a cultivator steps onto the Immortal Path, they must draw energy into their body, circulate their cultivation art, and refine and store the spiritual energy of heaven and earth within themselves. It is used to cast techniques, temper the body, and raise one's cultivation realm. Spiritual energy is the foundation of the Immortal Path.]
"What about me?!"
Ling Yun pressed urgently, "I've reached the Mid Qi Cultivation Realm, yet I don't have even a trace of spiritual energy in my body! Then what is this thing the ring just gave me?"
[...]
The system was rarely silent for a moment before its cold electronic voice sounded again.
[The host's physical condition is abnormal. Unable to draw energy into the body independently, the host can only forcibly raise his cultivation realm through external objects (pills)... This phenomenon violates the basic laws of the Cultivation World and cannot be logically analyzed. No matching case exists in the system database.]
Seeing the system's response, Ling Yun formed a rough guess.
The reason he had failed to cultivate spiritual energy might be that this world simply had no spiritual energy. As a result, his body had been unable to store any.
The main reason he had reached the Mid Qi Cultivation Realm was that he had relied on the Qi Refining Pills provided by the system. He had only needed to eat them to break through, without any cultivation at all.
That was why he could break through realms without needing spiritual energy.
But the system was an idiot. It assumed that, after Ling Yun had reached the Mid Qi Cultivation Realm in the Cultivation World, he had still been unable to absorb spiritual energy and store it in his body. That was why it could not answer his question.
After finishing his guesswork, Ling Yun began testing how to use spiritual energy.
Test One: Spirit Shield Defense!
With a thought, his mental power guided the spiritual energy surging through his body, causing it to instantly condense before him!
A translucent energy shield, flowing with faint starlight and ocean-wave patterns, appeared out of thin air!
The shield looked thin, but it radiated an aura of toughness and stability.
Ling Yun took a deep breath and summoned the terrifying physical strength granted by his perfected God-Demon Body Refining Art before smashing his fist hard into the shield!
"Bang!" A muffled boom rang out! The shield shook violently, starlight and wave patterns churning madly, but... it firmly received a punch containing eighty percent of his strength! It remained completely intact!
"What incredible defense!" Ling Yun estimated. "It should easily block bullets from small firearms! Ordinary knives would be nothing more than a tickle!"
Test Two: Spiritual Power Infusion (Ranged)!
His gaze swept across the lectern, and he picked up an ordinary white piece of chalk.
His mental power concentrated intensely as he controlled a stream of pure "pseudo-spiritual energy" to flow evenly over the chalk's surface, wrapping it tightly. The chalk instantly became crystal-clear, like a work of art.
He flicked it with one finger!
Whoosh—!
A nearly imperceptible streak of white light flashed past! It was so fast that the naked eye could barely catch it!
Several dozen meters outside the window, a tree with a trunk as thick as a bowl suddenly shuddered at its base. Wood chips flew everywhere!
Ling Yun walked over and took a look. A deep hole the size of a fist had been blasted into the tree's roots!
The piece of chalk had long since been reduced to powder by the impact of its tremendous kinetic energy and spiritual energy, mixing with the wood chips!
"This power... it's comparable to an armor-piercing round from an assault rifle!" Ling Yun clicked his tongue.
Then a bold—and highly illegal—idea popped into his head. "If I used ice instead, infused it with spiritual power, and shot it at a target, the ice would melt and disappear after impact... Tsk, tsk, the perfect tool for a perfect crime!"
He hurriedly shook his head and suppressed the dangerous thought. "Stay calm, stay calm! This is a harmonious society, and I'm a law-abiding young man!"
Test Three: Spiritual Power Infusion (Close Combat/Enhancement)!
He guided the spiritual energy through his entire body. In an instant, an indescribable sense of power and lightness filled him!
His muscles seemed to have been injected with high-pressure gas, his bones gave off a faint hum, and his five senses became extraordinarily sharp!
He tried making a gentle jump in place, but his body floated upward like a feather, and he easily touched the ceiling nearly three meters above!
"Strength, speed, reactions, defense... everything has increased by at least twofold!"
Ling Yun felt the surging power within him and was overjoyed. "And this is only the basic use of spiritual energy! If I learned actual spells..."
After a round of testing, the immense spiritual energy within his body had been mostly depleted. Ling Yun contentedly checked the time. It was five-thirty in the afternoon, nearly time for school to end.
He returned to the classroom, which was already packed with exhausted yet excited students who had finished training.
"Brother Yun! Went off to enjoy yourself this afternoon? I'm so jealous!" Zhou Da came over as soon as he saw him, his face full of gossip.
"Enjoy myself, my ass." Ling Yun rolled his eyes and complained with half-truthful indignation. "Old Liu forced me into free labor. I spent the whole afternoon as a 'porter.' I was a pure-bred workhorse!"
The envy on Zhou Da's face instantly turned into a sympathetic "my condolences" expression. He patted Ling Yun on the shoulder.
"Brother Yun," Zhou Da lowered his voice, a flattering smile spreading across his face. "Um... could I trouble you with one more thing? Could you charge this for me?"
He secretly pulled a heavy power bank from his schoolbag.
Looking at the familiar request and the heavy power bank, Ling Yun smiled knowingly and readily agreed. "Sure. Put it in my bag."
The scene instantly stirred memories of his legendary high-school days in his previous life—days when he had been known as the "godfather of the underground campus economy"...
During high school, the conflict between boarding students and their phones and power banks had been an eternal refrain.
Only being able to return home once every three weeks? The little charge in a power bank was utterly inadequate for those restless nights of youth!
Thus, as a day student, Ling Yun had keenly sensed a business opportunity thanks to his unique advantage of commuting.
At first, he had merely helped a few close friends charge their devices while he was at it, collecting a yuan or two as a "service fee"—after all, electricity cost money too.
Before long, word spread, and the "Ling Yun Charging Station" business became a sensation!
At its peak, he could stuff more than twenty power banks into his schoolbag, then fill an entire wall of outlets when he got home. The sight had been spectacular.
Every month, he could easily pocket several hundred yuan in "electricity subsidies."
But that had only been small-time stuff. What had truly made him rich was his "secondhand phone" business!
Parents guarded against phones with all their might, terrified that they would affect their children's studies.
But how could the social needs and desire for entertainment of teenagers be completely suppressed?
Many boarding students pinched pennies and scraped together their living expenses just to own a "secret weapon" of their own.
Ling Yun saw a massive gap in the market!
Using his weekend trips home, he visited every major secondhand phone shop in Ning City and trained a pair of "Fiery Eyes."
Under the pretense of "buying on behalf of his classmates," he bought secondhand smartphones in decent condition with fully functioning features at low prices. Then he returned to school and sold them for an extra fifty to one hundred yuan each, calling it a "delivery fee, service fee, and confidentiality fee."
No receipt? No need! Money in one hand, goods in the other—fair to young and old alike!
With his sharp mind, reliable reputation—at least back then—and steadily expanding connections, Ling Yun's "secondhand phone empire" rose rapidly. Later, he even reached a long-term agreement with one shop, receiving an additional fifty-yuan discount on every phone.
By his first year of high school, nearly half of the boarding students carried "secret weapons" bearing the invisible label "Made by Ling Yun." At his peak, he could make over a hundred yuan in profit on a single phone. By the end of one semester, he had actually saved nearly ten thousand yuan—a "huge fortune"!
In the eyes of high-school students at the time, that sum was nothing short of astronomical.
However, what rose to its peak was bound to decline. More and more students became addicted to mobile games and stayed up late binge-watching shows, turning the daytime classroom into a massive "scene of unconsciousness." The school authorities were furious, and a "thunderous sweep" targeting phones engulfed the entire school!
Surprise inspections, overturning boxes and cabinets, metal detectors... countless "comrades-in-arms" sadly "fell," their phones confiscated without mercy.
Fortunately, the students who were caught all showed plenty of "loyalty"—or perhaps they simply knew that revealing the source would get them ostracized by the entire grade.
They all sang the same tune: "I bought it from a phone shop outside during the holidays!"
Ling Yun, the towering pillar of the "underground economy," miraculously remained standing through the storm.
But the incident had also left him shaken. He decisively washed his hands of the business—money was nice, but the risk of expulsion was even greater! He didn't want his high-school career to end right there.
Those days of "holding the purse strings and strategizing from behind the scenes" became the sole touch of legendary color in his ordinary high-school life.
Whenever he thought of them, he felt a trace of the thrill and wistfulness that came after an adventure.
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