Half a year passed in the blink of an eye. When Lin Yun was six and a half, Hogg summoned the two brothers to the Ancestral Hall.
At last, Hogg told the two boys about the Baruch Clan's former glory. As one of the Four Ultimate Warriors, the Dragonblood Warrior Clan had produced one Peak Warrior after another throughout its history.
Lin Yun already knew all this, of course, but Linley was different. When he learned that his family was one of the clans of the Ultimate Warriors, pride and excitement surged through him, making his blood race.
But his happiness didn't last long. After his father brought out the Dragonblood Needle to test them, they discovered that neither brother's bloodline concentration met the requirements. Seeing the disappointment in his father's eyes, Linley couldn't help bursting into tears. Lin Yun didn't cry, but he was disappointed too. After all, the Dragon Transformation was extremely powerful in the early stages.
That night, Linley tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
He kept thinking about what had happened during the day. His bloodline concentration was too low, so he couldn't undergo Dragon Transformation. The result weighed on his heart like a stone.
He turned to look at the bed across from his. Lin Yun lay with his eyes closed, breathing evenly, apparently already asleep.
"Lin Yun?" he called softly.
There was no answer.
"Lin Yun, are you asleep?"
Still no answer.
Linley sighed and rolled over to face the wall. He thought his younger brother had fallen asleep, but Lin Yun's consciousness had already shifted to another world.
Morning in Yangzhou City arrived beneath a damp veil of mist.
Lin Yun sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. He had spent all day practicing the Qi Cultivation Style in the Coiling Dragon World the previous night, then tested his bloodline concentration. By the time he switched over to this world, it was already late at night. But that was the advantage of having two bodies that could function independently: while one rested, the other could keep going.
"Yun'er, are you up?" His grandfather Lin Guodong's voice came from the next room.
"I'm up, Grandpa." Lin Yun got dressed and left his room.
Lin Guodong pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his coat and carefully unfolded it, laying it on the table.
It was an enrollment notice.
In large print, it read, "Yi'an District Public Elementary School Enrollment Notice." Beneath that, in smaller characters, was a line: "Children between the ages of six and twelve may enroll. Tuition is free."
Lin Yun froze.
"Grandpa, what's this...?"
"Yun'er, you're six and a half now." Lin Guodong put down his chopsticks, his cloudy old eyes full of affection. "That boy Luo Feng started school last year. You can't stay home forever, either. Your grandpa doesn't have the means to send you to a good school, but we can afford this public elementary school."
"Grandpa, I don't want to go to school." The words slipped out before Lin Yun could stop them.
He really didn't want to go. To him, school meant spending hours sitting in a classroom—time he could otherwise use to train. Time was especially precious in the Swallowed Star World. Every minute and every second there could decide whether he lived or died in the future.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Lin Guodong's voice suddenly grew stern. "What are you going to do when you grow up if you don't go to school? Pick scrap metal like your grandpa? Or go outside the city to feed the monsters?"
"I could join the Limit Dojo—"
"The Limit Dojo?" Lin Guodong cut him off, bitterness in his voice. "Yun'er, joining the Limit Dojo may be free, but hiring a coach costs money. Just one month of coaching fees would be enough to feed the two of us for half a year."
Lin Yun fell silent.
He knew his grandfather was telling the truth. Warriors stood at the very top of this world, but the road to becoming one was paved with money. Nutritional supplements, training equipment, combat instruction—which of those came free?
"If you want me to go, Grandpa, then I'll go." In the end, Lin Yun nodded.
He didn't want to disappoint his grandfather. The old man had raised him alone through the apocalypse and had already sacrificed so much for him.
A smile spread across Lin Guodong's face, bunching up the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. "That's my good grandson! I'll take you to enroll tomorrow. Luo Feng goes there too, so you'll have a friend."
Early the next morning, Lin Guodong took Lin Yun to the Yi'an District Public Elementary School.
The school wasn't far from the low-rent housing district, about a twenty-minute walk. It was called a school, but it was really just a courtyard enclosed by several reinforced old buildings. Gravel covered the playground, and a few flagpoles leaned at crooked angles. The national flags at their tops had faded in the wind.
Enrollment was being handled in the first-floor hall of the teaching building, where a long line had formed. Lin Yun glanced around. Most of the children there came from ordinary families. They wore coarse clothes, and some were even barefoot. A few were dressed a little better, with adults beside them; they were clearly from the families of small business owners in the base city.
"Lin Yun! Over here!"
A familiar voice came from near the front of the line. Lin Yun looked up and saw Luo Feng waving to him. A graceful-looking woman stood beside him: his mother, Gong Xinlan.
"Hello, Aunt Lan." Lin Yun greeted her politely. He had grown up alongside Luo Feng, and since they were close in age, he had often cadged milk from him. For that reason, he had always held Gong Xinlan in the highest regard.
"Good, good." Gong Xinlan smiled and nodded. "You and Xiao Feng can go to school together and look out for each other. Xiao Feng, make sure you take care of Lin Yun at school, all right?"
"I will, Mom." Luo Feng answered, then pulled Lin Yun toward the front of the line. "Come on, line up. It'll be our turn soon."
The enrollment process was simple: they registered their names, ages, and addresses, then had a basic physical examination. That was all. The exam covered height, weight, eyesight, and hearing.
After they finished, Lin Guodong and Gong Xinlan went home, leaving Lin Yun and Luo Feng to look around the school.
"Which class are you in?" Luo Feng asked.
"First grade, Class Three."
"I'm in Class One." Luo Feng looked a little disappointed. "We're not in the same class, but that's okay. We can still hang out after class."
Lin Yun nodded without saying anything.
They walked around the playground once, then sat beneath a crooked tree.
"Lin Yun, you don't like school, do you?" Luo Feng asked suddenly.
Lin Yun glanced at him. "How did you know?"
"Just a feeling," Luo Feng said. "You always seem uninterested in everything. Classes, homework, exams... None of it seems important to you."
Lin Yun was a little surprised. Luo Feng was much more perceptive than he had expected.
"I just think," Lin Yun said, choosing his words carefully, "there are more important things in this world than school."
"You mean becoming a warrior?"
Lin Yun didn't deny it.
Luo Feng was silent for a while, then said, "I want to become a warrior too. Dad says the only way our family can turn things around is if I make it. But becoming a warrior isn't easy. You need money, someone to teach you, and talent. Our family doesn't have any of those things."
His tone was calm, as if he were talking about someone else.
But Lin Yun heard the bitterness beneath it.
"Luo Feng," Lin Yun said, looking him in the eye, "you'll definitely become a warrior. And you'll become the strongest warrior in the world."
Luo Feng stared at him for a moment, then smiled. "How do you know?"
"Because you're Luo Feng," Lin Yun said.
It was exactly what he had once said to Linley.
Luo Feng didn't press him. He just shook his head with a smile. "You always say the strangest things."
The two boys sat beneath the crooked tree. Above them stretched a gray sky. In the distance stood the ruins of a crumbling city, and beyond that, a wilderness that seemed to go on forever.
This world was ruined and cruel, where the strong preyed on the weak.
But they were still young. They still had time to change everything.
Back in the Coiling Dragon World.
After the bloodline test, Linley became even quieter.
He no longer smiled and joked like before. Every day, he got up before dawn to practice the Qi Cultivation Style, training until dark. He was always the first to finish the exercises Hillman assigned, and he always did more than required. Even when the other children rested, he kept practicing.
Lin Yun watched and knew his brother was trying to prove himself.
The result had hit Linley harder than he let on. His bloodline concentration was too low, so he couldn't undergo Dragon Transformation. As the eldest son of the Baruch Clan, he had considered becoming a Dragonblood Warrior his duty. Now that duty seemed impossibly far away.
"Linley," Lin Yun said one day after training, "don't you think you're pushing yourself too hard?"
Linley wiped the sweat from his forehead and shook his head. "It's not enough. My bloodline concentration is too low. If I don't train three or five times harder than everyone else, how will I catch up?"
"Catch up to whom?"
Linley paused, but didn't answer.
Lin Yun sighed. "Are you trying to catch up to those Dragonblood Warrior descendants who were born with high bloodline concentrations? Or to the first-generation ancestor?"
"I..." Linley opened his mouth, but couldn't find the words.
"Linley, the strength of a Dragonblood Warrior doesn't come from bloodline alone," Lin Yun said earnestly. "There are so many powerful people in this world who don't have Dragonblood Warrior blood. Bloodline gives you an advantage, but it isn't everything."
Linley was silent for a long time.
"What about you?" he suddenly asked. "Aren't you disappointed?"
Lin Yun smiled. "I told you before. I'll find my own path."
Looking at his younger brother, Linley suddenly felt that sometimes he seemed even more mature than their father.
"I understand." Linley nodded. "I'll keep training, but not because I'm angry. It's because I want to become stronger."
"That's the eldest son of the Baruch Clan."
The brothers looked at each other and smiled.
When Linley was seven and a half, a chance encounter changed the course of his life.
Hogg sold some of the family's stone sculptures for gold coins, which inspired Linley to take up sculpting. But his father punished him by sending him to clean the Ancestral Hall. There, Linley found the thing that would change his life forever!
The Coiling Dragon Ring!
Lin Yun knew where the ring came from. It housed the soul of a Saint Realm mage, Doehring Cowart. The ring would change Linley's life—and his own.
"It looks like an old relic," Lin Yun said, feigning calm. "Maybe one of our ancestors left it behind. You should keep it."
Linley nodded. Since the ring was too small to wear on his finger, he threaded it onto a string and wore it around his neck.
"It's a little cold." Linley touched the black ring.
Lin Yun didn't say anything more.
He knew Doehring Cowart's soul was still asleep inside the ring. It would take some time for him to wake, so for now Lin Yun only needed to wait patiently.
That night, Linley lay in bed, turning the ring he had found that day over in his hands.
Moonlight streamed through the window and fell on the ring's blue gemstone, which gleamed with a faint, mysterious light. Linley stared at it for a long time. Somehow, it brought him an unusual sense of peace.
"Linley, are you asleep?" Lin Yun asked from the bed across from his.
"No."
"Keep that ring safe," Lin Yun said into the darkness. "It might bring you a surprise."
Linley was puzzled. "What kind of surprise?"
"I don't know." Lin Yun smiled. "Just a feeling."
Linley didn't ask anything else. He tucked the ring back against his chest and closed his eyes.
Lin Yun closed his eyes and shifted his consciousness to the Swallowed Star World.
In his room in Yangzhou City, his other body lay in bed, breathing steadily.
The two worlds ran in parallel, and everything was moving along the path he had envisioned.
In the Coiling Dragon World, Linley had obtained the Coiling Dragon Ring. It was only a matter of time before Doehring woke up. In the Swallowed Star World, he and Luo Feng were about to start school. It wasn't what Lin Yun wanted, but at least it would give his grandfather some peace of mind.
As for Lin Yun himself, over the past two years, he had mastered the Qi Cultivation Style. His physical abilities had finally reached the level of a first-level warrior. His body in the Swallowed Star World had also progressed rapidly, and was much stronger than the one in the Coiling Dragon World. Lin Yun even suspected he had reached the level of a Warrior, but without any testing equipment, he couldn't be sure.
More importantly, he had grown increasingly adept at controlling the Small Cauldron. He could now switch between the two worlds whenever he wished.
The road ahead was long, but he already knew which way to go.
The two worlds ran in parallel, nurturing and strengthening each other.
Lin Yun opened his eyes and looked at the moonlight outside the window. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
He was eight. Everything was only just beginning.
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