I arrived in Winter Arrival City early that morning. Even with all the chaos in between—shopping, riding in an unlicensed car, fighting Rui Feng, getting caught with my... well, you know—only a few hours had passed. It was lunchtime now.
I pulled my hooded trench coat back on and went to eat. Lunch was at the Winter Arrival Hotel, whose restaurant was so lavish it practically dripped with luxury. I was gradually growing numb to it, though. What surprised me was that Si Nan Ying hadn't insisted on eating with me. Instead, she sat with a stern-looking old man, who glared and muttered reproaches at her while she sat beside him looking dejected, without saying a word. That must be Elder Hong. If he could scold the second young lady into silence like that, he must hold a very high position in the family.
I'd expected the food here to be a mix of Chinese and Western cuisine, but it was classic Chinese food, delicious and fragrant, a little like Fujian cuisine. Since I didn't have to pay, I didn't hold back and ate until I was full. The past few days had taught me that absorbing spiritual energy could restore my vitality and strengthen my body, but it couldn't get rid of hunger—not even lessen it. Apparently, I couldn't just shut myself away to cultivate without eating or drinking, like the protagonists in cultivation novels. I wondered if fasting cultivation was a thing in this world. Usually, cultivators in novels reached a certain level and could survive by absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth without eating or drinking. Could people do that here, too? Come to think of it, I didn't even know what cultivation systems this world had...
"I'm sorry! My reaction was incredibly rude!"
I'd been hoping to find a chance to properly apologize to Si Nan Ying, but she came to me first, adding a deep bow to her apology. I couldn't help admiring the Si Nan Family a little more. Their young lady could apologize so sincerely.
"It's all my fault for not knocking before I c—"
Ah, I bit my tongue.
Watching her cover her mouth with a miserable look on her face melted my heart. The awkwardness from earlier had long since vanished. I crossed my arms, pretending to be angry, and asked, "You really know you were wrong?" She nodded frantically. I gave her an evil grin. "Then how are you going to show me you mean it...?" "Show you... I mean it?"
She stared blankly for a moment, then suddenly clutched her chest with both hands as though she'd run into a lecher.
"E-even if I'm apologizing, I'm not going to sell my body!"
"Who asked for that? I'm going to the library and wanted to ask you for directions!"
"This is it, the biggest library in Winter Arrival City. Well, it's the biggest in this industrial city, anyway. If you really like books, you should go to the Imperial Capital Grand Library. Now that's a place with a lot of books!"
I looked at the rows of bookshelves in front of me. This library really wasn't very big—not even half the size of the library at my university—but it would be more than enough to learn about this world.
"Well, I'll be off. I'm not like my older sister. I can't stand being somewhere full of books where I'm not allowed to talk loudly! See you~"
I watched the slender figure with violet hair disappear into the distance. Si Nan Ying, that innocent and kindhearted girl, had helped me so much. Someday, I'd repay her... if I ever got the chance.
All right, time to get down to business!
This world had planets and a universe, just like my old one. The people here called the planet beneath their feet the "Spirit Star." Like Earth, the Spirit Star was a planet in a large star system, though they didn't know much about the system itself. Perhaps astronomy on the Spirit Star wasn't very advanced.
The Spirit Star had three moons—the same three I'd seen when I woke up. They were named after their colors: the Gold Moon, the Silver Moon, and the Orange Moon. The Gold Moon was the largest, the Silver Moon came next, and the Orange Moon was the smallest. A simple calculation put the Spirit Star's surface area at roughly four times that of Earth, with oceans covering about sixty percent of it. According to incomplete statistics, its total population was around eight billion, with a much lower population density than Earth's.
The fact that information like the proportion of oceans and total population was available suggested that the people of the Spirit Star had surveyed their planet quite thoroughly and had some awareness of population management. Not bad.
The human settlements on the Spirit Star were divided into five major regions: the East Emperor Continent, West Saint Continent, South Spirit Continent, North Realm Continent, and Central Sea Islands, spread across the east, west, south, north, and center. Of course, there were plenty of smaller settlements outside those five regions. Each region had many powerful nations. I was currently in Tianyuan Kingdom, on the East Emperor Continent. Tianyuan Kingdom was one of the greatest powers on the entire East Emperor Continent, with vast territory and a huge population.
Tianyuan Kingdom had a complicated history. A thousand years ago, it had been two great nations, and their war had lasted for centuries. By the end, the two nations had somehow miraculously merged, becoming one without distinction between them. A thousand years ago, they officially announced their union, and Tianyuan Kingdom was born.
Today, two super-powerful families controlled Tianyuan Kingdom's military and political affairs: the Si Nan Family and the Cleon Family. Their ancestors had been the royal families of the two nations a thousand years ago. Now, Tianyuan Kingdom's emperor and prime minister were chosen from those two families. The emperor wasn't hereditary; the emperor and the prime minister, who both supported and restrained the emperor, were appointed from among the most prestigious members of the two families. But for a thousand years, the Cleon Family had always been on the back foot in its struggle against the Si Nan Family. Most emperors throughout history had come from the Si Nan Family, largely because of their power of perception.
The weapon that had killed the most people in the world wasn't the nuclear bomb or the AK-47. It was intelligence: know it, and you survive; don't, and you die. The Si Nan Family's extraordinary powers of perception had made them the largest intelligence organization on the East Emperor Continent. By controlling information, they could summon vast resources at any time and learn of their enemies' movements in advance! They said that the strongest patriarch in Si Nan Family history had been able to extend his field of perception across the entire Tianyuan Kingdom! By that measure, Si Nan Ying, the family's second young lady, was quite the outlier for having no power of perception at all.
Now that I'd finished looking into the general situation in Tianyuan Kingdom, it was time to learn about the powers I was most interested in.
There were countless people with special abilities on the Spirit Star, from the imperial palaces and sacred mansions to the streets and alleys. People with special abilities were everywhere. Spiritual energy existed on the Spirit Star, and those with special abilities could absorb it from nature and use it in some form. That "form" was the manifestation of each person's special ability. It was like how different kinds of trees produced different fruits despite absorbing the same nutrients. Even though everyone used the same fuel—spiritual energy—their special abilities manifested in different ways. The Spirit Star still had no accurate system for classifying special abilities, because there were simply too many kinds. Some people even had mixed abilities, making a perfect classification almost impossible.
What surprised me was that the Spirit Star had no clear system of cultivation. Or rather, people here didn't have different stages of power. There was no Supreme Realm, no Magic Emperor Realm, no Battle Venerable or Battle Saint. People with special abilities didn't have any "barriers between realms," nor did they talk about opening this or that meridian or acupoint. Their abilities naturally grew stronger with use. There were no cultivation manuals for absorbing spiritual energy, either. The only way to speed up the process was to practice over and over.
There were three factors that determined the strength of someone with a special ability. The first was the ability itself. There might not be any absolute measure of how strong an ability was, but controlling the weather was definitely a lot cooler than controlling the length of your nose hairs.
The second was training. Hard, effective training was the simplest way to get stronger. People with special abilities grew stronger through repeated practice, whether they trained their bodies or their abilities.
The third was talent. An ability and training determined a person's strength in the early stages, but the further they progressed, the more important talent became, because talent determined how far they could go. Some people could summon a bolt of lightning from birth, and forty or fifty years later, they could still summon only that one bolt. Others could barely move a boulder at first, but forty or fifty years later, they could push an entire mountain. Talent was bestowed by heaven, not something people could choose for themselves. In other words, almost everyone with a special ability had a limit to how strong they could become. Once they reached it, making further progress was difficult. That was the cruel part.
Generally speaking, there was no pattern to who got what kind of special ability. But in some cases, abilities were inherited through bloodlines. The Si Nan Family was one such case: every patriarch in its history had possessed extraordinary powers of perception. Once an ability awakened, it stayed with its owner for life. A powerful ability was a blessing that lasted a lifetime. On the other hand, if you were unlucky enough to get some ridiculous ability that made your leg hair grow a meter longer every morning, you'd be stuck with it for life.
Although there were no cultivation levels, people with special abilities were ranked for convenience, much like professional titles. The entire Spirit Star used a common testing system to assess and evaluate their strength. This test was called the "Universal Test," and everyone with a special ability had to take it. Just like in so many web novels, the Spirit Star had many academies for people with special abilities. Most had substantial financial and material resources, as well as extensive connections. The most famous of all was Central United Academy in the Central Sea Islands, founded jointly by several nations there. It had the largest number of students and the strongest faculty.