Return to the City

"When I call the police, what am I supposed to say? That a Turtle Shell brought me here? That I was kidnapped? Or that I got lost?"

Just after Chen Mobai nervously dialed the Immortal Sect Enforcement Department, something happened that shocked him.

His phone actually had no signal! The call would not go through!

On Earth Origin Star, even at the bottom of the deep sea thousands of meters down, the Immortal Sect's Heavenly Star coverage reached there.

Chen Mobai had even heard a Fifth Order Formation Master say proudly on television that even two thousand years ago, during the war of World Opening, the Immortal Sect cultivators who fought their way into Earth Abyss could still find Earth Origin Star's signal and keep every cultivator's communications smooth.

Where on earth was he? Chen Mobai looked utterly lost!

He thought through every scrap of knowledge in his head, and even searched every safe part of this Water Mansion. He even knocked on every single brick laid across the floor.

But in the end, Chen Mobai could only sit down helplessly on the floor of the front hall.

He could not find any Clue for leaving at all.

Just as he was about to accept his fate and sit down to cultivate, a Silver Light suddenly lit up on his phone screen and drew his attention.

"Huh?"

He discovered that an app icon he had never downloaded had suddenly appeared on his phone.

The icon was a little dark-green turtle.

Under it was the app name: Turtle Treasure! What the heck was this?

Chen Mobai subconsciously moved his finger onto the app icon, wanting to uninstall it. He did not allow any app he knew nothing about to appear on his phone.

Then, red text popped up on the screen, saying it could not be uninstalled.

What was going on? Had this phone gone completely lawless?

Chen Mobai was so angry that he was about to shut it down and restart it, when a flash of inspiration suddenly crossed his mind.

This Turtle Treasure... could it be... that Turtle Shell!? He hurriedly tapped it and opened the app.

Nothing strange happened with that action. It opened very smoothly.

It was a very simple home page, with only three function buttons on it—Teleport, Return to City, Proxy.

Chen Mobai was both shocked and delighted, but his heart was still uneasy. He closed the Turtle Treasure app and reopened it, confirming that there were no instructions, then according to his own understanding, his finger trembling slightly, he tapped Return to City.

This process requires an eight-second channeling period. During the channeling time, you must not be disturbed. Host, please find a quiet place.

The moment he pressed the Return to City button, this line of text suddenly appeared on the phone screen.

Just as Chen Mobai was still thinking about what counted as being disturbed, a burst of Silver Light suddenly flickered up, enveloping him completely. Then, like a spiral, it opened a hole in the void and vanished with him from the Water Mansion.

"I'm back just like that?"

After the silver light finished shining, Chen Mobai found that he was standing in his room again, his hand just happening to be touching that Turtle Shell.

With a "whoosh."

He pulled his hand back at the fastest speed, then retreated back onto the bed and drew a sword hanging on the wall, one his dad had bought for him when he was little at a Cave Heaven scenic area.

The sword was gleaming, but it was a child's model, only thirty centimeters long, a complete prop.

The room stayed quiet for about two minutes.

Chen Mobai stared at the Turtle Shell. Just as he was thinking about how to deal with this thing, the sound of the front door opening came from the first floor.

His mom was back.

The familiar sounds of the door opening and closing let Chen Mobai know who had come.

Because a sign saying "cultivating" was hanging on Chen Mobai's bedroom door, his mom did not come upstairs to disturb him, but he still heard her familiar muttering.

"This child. I already told him to breathe and refine in the Cultivation Room at the Spirit Vein opening, so why does he still like curling up in his own room..."

Chen Mobai hesitated for a moment, but in the end he still did not go downstairs.

He gently sheathed the child-model Demon-Subduing Sword in his hand, then used the Light Body Art to land in front of the Turtle Shell and examined it carefully.

The next day.

Chen Mobai went downstairs dispirited. Amid his mom's nagging, he ate the breakfast she had carefully prepared, then hurriedly carried his schoolbag and caught the bus.

After morning self-study, an plainly dressed old man stepped into the classroom right on time.

"Good morning, Teacher Ding!"

After the students stood and greeted him, Old Man Ding nodded calmly.

"Today, we will continue explaining the solidification of defensive forms in spells..."

Immortal Sect textbooks divided all the content cultivators needed to learn into four disciplines.

They were Arts, Pills, Artifacts, Formations! After these four great disciplines were subdivided, there were dozens of courses and specializations. For third-year high school students, they already needed to select one discipline as their main course and establish the direction of their future studies.

It was equivalent to the division between liberal arts and sciences in high school before Earth Origin Star entered cultivation civilization.

Only now, cultivation had four disciplines to choose from.

After all, if one wanted to test into those Great Dao Academies, aside from the College Entrance Exam's basic score and one's Cultivation Realm, there was also the final and most crucial part: the academy's own assessment.

And Chen Mobai's class had all selected the Arts Discipline as their main course.

Chen Mobai did not know why other people chose this, but the reason he chose the Arts Discipline was entirely because it saved the most money.

For the others, whether it was the Pill Discipline, the Artifact Discipline, or even the Formation Discipline, if one wanted to practice or improve, they all required a certain amount of resources and Merit Points.

The Arts Discipline was the simplest and most straightforward.

Just one word: practice!

Moreover, the Arts Discipline allowed one to choose talisman master as an advanced route. In the later stages, it was also a profession among the Hundred Arts of Cultivation with very broad money-making prospects.

Chen Mobai had aspired since childhood to become a Talisman Mage.

He had a family foundation. His mom worked at a Talisman Paper production factory, and having heard and seen it since childhood, he had gained some small insights. When he started in the future, he could shorten the time somewhat and have more time left to cultivate.

Old Man Ding's name was Ding Jinglue, and he was considered a somewhat famous cultivator in Vermilion Cloud City.

When he was young, his aptitude had also been all right. He had a three-attribute True Spirit Root, slightly better than Chen Mobai's.

His College Entrance Exam results were average, and he barely entered the local Vermillion Cinnabar Academy. But his personality was tenacious, and after studying bitterly for twenty years in Vermillion Cinnabar Academy, he passed the Ascension Examination of the Ten Great Academies and was specially admitted.

But his results still came too late.

Even after entering Pure Yang Academy, cultivating to Qi Cultivation Perfection before the sixty-year cycle of the Sixty-Year Limit, and obtaining a Foundation Establishment Secret Method, he still fell short at the last step.

After using up Pure Yang Academy's one Foundation Establishment opportunity, Ding Jinglue endured another twenty bitter years, cultivated back to Qi Cultivation Perfection again, and once more used great perseverance to attack the Foundation Establishment realm.

Unfortunately, heaven did not show favor, and Ding Jinglue still failed.

After two attempts, all his potential was exhausted. Ding Jinglue returned to Vermilion Cloud City, where he had been born, and became a teacher.

Before Foundation Establishment, he had devoted his whole mind to cultivation. But after returning like fallen leaves to their roots, he instead had extra time to study the Hundred Arts of Cultivation.

Among them, since the way of spell arts did not require capital, Ding Jinglue's attainments were extremely deep. However, his level of lecturing was average, and most people listened until they were drowsy.

Usually, Chen Mobai was not very attentive either, but today was different.