The bell rang just in time to interrupt Ji Zhixing's churning thoughts.
He drew a deep breath and stuffed his textbooks and notes into his slightly worn shoulder bag.
The classroom grew noisy as his classmates gathered in small groups to discuss tomorrow's gene selection, their voices mingling excitement with unease.
Senior Class 5 was a preparatory gene awakening class.
Over the past few years, everyone in the class had opened their gene apertures and passed through the unstable phase. Their apertures had fully stabilized.
Tomorrow was the day they would visit the Gene Bank to select and fuse with genes.
It was the true starting point of their journey toward the extraordinary.
"Zhixing, let's go!" His deskmate, Liu Qifan, patted his shoulder. Liu Qifan came from an ordinary family, had awakened a first-tier gene aperture, and had a fairly down-to-earth personality.
"Yeah," Ji Zhixing answered, and the two followed the crowd out of the classroom building.
The setting sun cast a dark golden glow over Rain City Base City.
Tall buildings lined both sides of the streets. Most looked sturdy and practical, with a distinctly fortress-like design-a legacy of the aesthetics and needs of the Great Cataclysm era.
Ji Zhixing and Liu Qifan both lived in an old residential complex in the west of the city called the Rain-Listening Garden. Built twenty years ago to house displaced residents, its buildings looked rather gray and drab.
The two headed home along familiar streets, chatting intermittently about tomorrow's choices.
Liu Qifan hoped to fuse with a first-order gene called the Ironclad Mountain Boar. Tough and strong, it was one of the better choices among first-order genes.
"What about you, Zhixing? You awakened a second-order gene aperture, so you've got a much wider selection. Anything you've got your eye on?" There was envy in Liu Qifan's voice.
Ji Zhixing forced a faint twitch of his lips but said nothing.
His mind was still consumed by speculation about the strange changes inside his body and anxiety over how to face his parents.
Just then, a huge advertising screen farther down the street, which had been cycling through product advertisements and Base City announcements, suddenly flickered and switched to a glaring red alert background!
A stern, synthesized female voice rang out across the entire street, far louder than usual:
"Emergency announcement!"
"Attention, all citizens of Rain City Base City. A seventh-order Glory Rank Gene Beast, the Sky Tyrant Dragon Beast, has been detected fifty li southeast of the Base City. Effective immediately, Rain City Base City is under lockdown!"
"No personnel or vehicles may leave the city!"
"Anyone outside the city must immediately seek the nearest shelter or return to the city at full speed. Citizens inside the city, please remain calm, maintain order, and trust in the Base City's defensive forces!"
The synthesized voice repeated the announcement.
At the same time, the screen switched to blurry footage that had clearly been captured from an immense distance by high-altitude, high-speed reconnaissance equipment, then magnified.
Above a vast mountain range, a shadow so enormous it made hearts tremble swept beneath the clouds.
Its silhouette resembled a Western dragon, but it was more elongated and ferocious. Its outspread wings seemed capable of blotting out a small stretch of sky. Metallic blue-black scales covered its entire body, and a row of sharp bone spurs lined its spine.
Even through the blurry footage, the screen, and more than a hundred kilometers of distance, the terrifying aura of a savage, domineering apex predator still seemed to crash over them!
"The Sky Tyrant Dragon Beast?" Liu Qifan's eyes widened, his voice trembling. "Seventh-order Glory Rank? How could something like that show up near Rain City?"
Something slipped from a nearby passerby's hand and clattered to the ground. "Glory Rank..." the passerby muttered. "In all of Rain City, isn't Garrison Commander Xiao Yuan the only seventh-order Glory Rank expert?"
"We'll be fine. Garrison Commander Xiao fused with Glory Rank genes too, and his are Seven-Colored Heaven-Swallowing Python genes, known for their outstanding combat power..."
In an instant, shock swept over everyone like a tide.
Ji Zhixing held his breath too. Looking up at the colossal beast on the screen, like a creature out of myth, he felt his heart pound uncontrollably.
Seventh-order Glory Rank... Ji Zhixing was stunned. Is this what a being at the pinnacle looks like? No, this is only a Gene Beast, yet it's already so terrifying.
An indescribably burning desire quietly took root in his heart.
Seventh order, Glory Rank!
On Blue Star, the path of Gene Cultivators was clearly divided into nine orders.
The first through third orders formed the foundation. They carried no special honorifics and involved only the accumulation of power.
But from the fourth order onward, everything changed.
Fourth-order Gene Cultivators were also known as Morning Star Rank cultivators.
At this level, a Gene Cultivator's very existence underwent a leap. Without relying on any specific gene ability, they could fly through the air through their own strength alone, escaping the earth's confines.
After Morning Star Rank came the fifth-order Brightmoon Rank and the sixth-order Blazing Sun Rank.
At Blazing Sun Rank, the gene source energy within a cultivator burned as fiercely as the sun, granting all manner of inconceivable powers. It was a summit most people could only gaze up at their entire lives.
Above that stood the seventh-order Glory Rank!
At this level, cultivators truly stood at the pinnacle of humanity. Their lifespans far surpassed those of ordinary people, and their power could influence the fate of a city, or even a nation.
Rain City Base City's Garrison Commander, Xiao Yuan, was just such a Glory Rank expert-the unshakable pillar protecting Rain City's millions of citizens.
For some cultivators who fused with ordinary angel genes, this level was also the limit of what they could achieve.
Above the seventh order lay the eighth-order Legendary Rank and the ninth-order King Rank. These were realms of legend, wielding the immense power to move mountains, fill seas, and sway the fortunes of nations. They were living legends and myths.
The Sky Tyrant Dragon Beast stood on the same level as a Glory Rank Gene Cultivator. It was an overlord among Gene Beasts, a calamity made flesh!
Power like that... As Ji Zhixing watched the terrifying dark silhouette gradually recede on the screen, his fists tightened unconsciously.
The frustration and turmoil born of his lie and his first-tier gene aperture seemed to fade a little before this staggering sight.
In their place rose an impulse more primal and far more powerful.
He wanted to see a world like that too!
He wanted to possess power like that too!
To soar through the skies, command the winds and clouds, live a long life, and control his own destiny!
The announcement still echoed through the streets. Recovering from their shock, the crowd began talking anxiously among themselves. Under the lockdown order, the atmosphere had grown noticeably more tense.
Liu Qifan tugged at Ji Zhixing, who was still somewhat lost in thought. "Stop staring. Let's get home. With the lockdown, there might be other instructions coming. Ugh, what rotten luck, running into something like this."
Ji Zhixing looked away and suppressed the turmoil in his heart. "Let's go," he said quietly.
The two quickened their pace.
When the familiar, slightly shabby entrance to the Rain-Listening Garden came into view, Ji Zhixing's heartbeat sped up uncontrollably again.
This time, though, it was no longer excitement born of longing, but the heavy dread of approaching home.
The closer he came, the heavier his steps grew.
His parents' expectant eyes, their proud boasting, their unreserved support despite scrimping and saving for the past two and a half years... Scene after scene flashed through his mind, making him wish he could crawl into a crack in the ground.
What am I supposed to do? Tell the truth? But how do I even begin? Ji Zhixing's thoughts were a tangled mess.
He could vividly imagine the light fading from his parents' eyes the instant they heard the truth, and the disappointment they would be unable to hide. That hurt him more than any beating or scolding could.
Amid his painful turmoil, he instinctively sank his consciousness back into his body and looked at the slowly changing gene furnace.
At his dantian, the Eight Trigrams pattern, previously no more than a vague outline, had actually become much clearer.
The symbols of the eight trigrams-Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Wind, Water, Fire, Mountain, and Lake-glowed faintly as they slowly revolved.
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