"Ring-ring~"
The harsh ringing abruptly snapped Yang Wenqing out of his deep sleep. With the help of the dim light filtering through the window, he saw the mottled ceiling.
After a moment of dazing, Yang Wenqing reached out to switch off the mechanical alarm clock beside his pillow. The chilly spring breeze seized the opportunity to sneak under the blanket, giving him a patch of goosebumps all over and waking him up thoroughly.
Getting out of bed, he routinely stretched his waist, then instinctively surveyed his surroundings. The room he occupied was tiny; a bed claimed the majority of the space, and a wooden table by the window held various daily necessities.
In the corner to the left of the wooden table stood a few wooden buckets, and near the left side of the window sat a small tea table outfitted with a mini boiler. Underneath the tea table lay haphazardly piled bowls and chopsticks. These, along with the dilapidated wardrobe by the door, constituted all of Yang Wenqing's worldly possessions.
After a brief stretch of his limbs in front of the bed, Yang Wenqing walked over to the wooden table by the window, picked up his toiletries and half a pack of tissue paper, and habitually looked at the half-moon hanging in the sky outside. The moon emitted a pale-blue halo, and beneath the starry sky behind it, an even larger full moon loomed faintly.
"Hah~"
Exhaling a breath of stale air, Yang Wenqing cleared the stray thoughts surfacing in his mind, picked up his toiletries and keys, and stepped out of the door. Outside lay a quiet corridor lined with dense rows of doors on both sides—unmistakably the hallway of some dormitory.
Pulling the door shut behind him, he walked to the right-hand end. Because he had risen far too early, the public washbasins and restrooms here were completely empty. He washed and used the restroom with utmost speed, returned to his room to stow away his toiletries, and took out a square wooden box he carried with him.
"Open!"
After placing the wooden box on the wooden table, Yang Wenqing formed a spell gesture with his left hand, unlocked the preservation array on the surface of the box, took out the remaining small fragment of White Dragon Ginseng inside, and expertly sliced off a tiny piece to drop into a glass.
"Splash~"
As boiling water from the thermos was poured into the glass, the sliced piece of White Dragon Ginseng immediately melted at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Yang Wenqing closed the wooden box and reactivated the preservation array on its surface. Quietly waiting for the White Dragon Ginseng to finish dissolving, he picked up the glass and drained the medicinal broth in one gulp, then rushed back to the bed at top speed to sit cross-legged in meditation.
As his mind sank inward, a streak of golden light suddenly appeared in his mind—that was a Golden Core converging within his spiritual altar. When his consciousness entered the Golden Core, he beheld a space a hundred meters across, and right in the center of this space sat an illusory figure in cross-legged meditation.
This was precisely Yang Wenqing's projection. Here, his body seemed both illusory and real, and the spirit veins within his body were clear enough to reveal the flow of spiritual qi within them. At this moment, the lower Dantian where his spirit veins converged was rapidly generating spiritual qi, and a streak of white light kept spinning at the center of his Qi Sea; that was the power of the Golden Core digesting the energy of the White Dragon Ginseng.
When all the power of the White Dragon Ginseng had transformed into the spiritual qi of the lower Dantian's Qi Sea, Yang Wenqing followed the techniques of the Basic Qi Refining, circulating the spiritual qi within his body through the spirit veins, expanding the spirit veins while absorbing the external spiritual qi of heaven and earth.
Time slipped away unawares. After the spiritual qi completed three Greater Celestial Circuits within Yang Wenqing's body, the spiritual qi gathered by the White Dragon Ginseng was already exhausted. Regrettably, the spiritual qi inside him still failed to form a cyclical circuit, yet a vague sense of Qi remained, allowing him to retain the Qi Sea in his lower Dantian.
The spirit veins are damaged again!
Yang Wenqing sighed inwardly. Based on the illusory figure within the Golden Core world, he easily detected the minute damage the spirit veins had sustained during his recent cultivation, and hastily mobilized the small portion of successfully refined spiritual qi within his body to repair it.
His condition, according to common parlance, meant he lacked aptitude. To truly cultivate to the Qi Refining Stage would require at least thirty years of painstaking effort, with zero possibility of advancing any further.
Yet his Sea of Consciousness possessed a Golden Core, which not only allowed him to ignore aptitude, but also purged all toxicity from herbs and medicinal pills within his body. He could take a dose of White Dragon Ginseng daily, causing his cultivation to grow day by day, and he had currently succeeded in dredging the spirit veins in his body.
It was just that his spirit veins were overly narrow, unable to let the spiritual qi of the Qi Sea circulate autonomously; they required daily guidance, or else his cultivation would regress instead of advancing, and as time passed the spirit veins would slowly seal shut.
This Golden Core in Yang Wenqing's Sea of Consciousness had suddenly formed when he turned five and gained sentience. At the same time, when this Golden Core formed, a stretch of memories appeared in his mind—much like memories from a past life. He had forgotten most of those memories, but they bestowed upon him the innate talent of being born with knowledge, and also caused him to grow up overnight.
When he snapped out of his meditation, mottled sunlight was already streaming through the window. Yang Wenqing rose, walked over to the window, and formed a spell gesture with his hands. A line of white runes instantly materialized before him—this was the incantation for the "Immobilization Spell".
With the help of the Golden Core world, he only needed to conjure the incantation patterns of this spell in his mind to cast it effortlessly, executing spells several times faster than ordinary cultivators. It was just that currently he could cast it at most twice a day before the spiritual qi in his Qi Sea was declared depleted.
Fortunately, rune technology was quite advanced in this realm. He was seen casting the spell while taking out a piece of black talisman paper recorded with incantations; after imprinting the magic onto it, he tucked it away with utmost care. It could be sold for money, or hurled out during magical duels.
Confirming that the spell imprinted on the talisman paper had no flaws, Yang Wenqing pocketed the wooden box containing the White Dragon Ginseng, walked over to the wardrobe by the door, and pushed open the cabinet doors to reveal four sets of summer clothes inside, two of which were pale-blue uniforms.
That year when he turned five, the moment Yang Wenqing gained sentience, he ran straight to the clan's school to audit classes. In the span of a single year, he mastered most of the commonly used characters in this world and read through all the books the clan had made open to view, learning that this was a civilization where Daoist magic and technology coexisted, and moreover, the technology was predominantly rune-based.
After pondering for a period, Yang Wenqing decisively made the decision to join the City Defense System of the nation he resided in. Because this was a realm of order, and maintaining that order relied upon the City Defense Bureau, this was also the only place where common folk could acquire secret cultivation techniques.
After putting on his uniform, Yang Wenqing pinned his work badge to his left chest, picked up a mechanical watch to check the time, walked over to the boiler, picked up a hard rice cake from the pot to bite in his mouth, casually lifted the water kettle off the wall, and expertly filled it with boiled water before heading out the door with it in hand.
By now, the hallway outside had grown bustling. Most of the occupants here were teachers from nearby schools, and all of them hauled families along with them. Seeing Yang Wenqing, they greeted him courteously, and Yang Wenqing responded with equal courtesy.
Yang Wenqing was only temporarily accommodated in this place, but if he lived his life out in mediocrity, this place might well prove to be his final destination.
Stepping out of the dormitory building, there was a vast courtyard outside. Leaving the small courtyard led to a flagstone path, upon which mostly workers hurried toward the nearby factories to punch in for work.
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