Who Stood Behind Them...

Early the next morning, Ren Suo sensed something subtly wrong the moment he got out of bed.

What was wrong was that he felt comfortable.

Under normal circumstances, as a healthy, fully developed twenty-two-year-old man who had never encountered any perverted uncles as a child, Ren Suo should have woken with a suppressed urge to pee and a body that, though awake, was still trying to stay in bed and thus felt a little weak and soft.

However, the instant Ren Suo opened his eyes, he felt as though his body had awakened in a flash. Every cell in his body was urging him, Wake the hell up and get hyped! It was practically like being five again and learning that he was going to the Amusement Park in the morning.

It was as though he had not slept at all, but had become awake the moment he lay down.

Ren Suo covered his mouth and breathed into his hand. The starchy smell told him that yes, the microorganisms in his mouth had fermented after eight hours of having his mouth closed.

Ren Suo brushed his teeth and washed his face. It was already 9:04 a.m. when his phone happened to ring.

He glanced at the caller information, answered, and asked:

"Mom, why are you calling so early?"

"Huh? I came back yesterday. I'm at home."

"What? A blind date? What blind date? I'm a dignified man, seven feet tall... Besides, weren't you the ones who told me not to date in college? When I went home last time, I even saw you repeatedly lecturing my little sister..."

A few minutes later, Ren Suo put down his phone with a helpless expression.

He had not expected his mother to start urging him to go on blind dates just as he was about to graduate from college. Ideally, he would marry next year, have a child the year after, preferably one boy and one girl, and answer the nation's call for the two-child policy and better births...

What bullshit. Ren Suo remembered that throughout middle school, high school, and college, his parents had always told him not to date. As a result, he had not put any skill points into the "romance" category at all...

Well, that was Ren Suo's final shred of dignity. In truth, he had never listened to his parents' discouragement. How could dating possibly be completely forbidden?

Ren Suo had interacted with girls in his clubs and classes before, but internet cafes really were more interesting than girls. In the end, he always chose to distance himself from girls and immerse himself in studying and games...

Who would have thought his mother would be so impatient? Ren Suo repeatedly stated that he had no interest in getting to know girls at this stage. He had practically been one step away from saying, "I'm a coward," and "My experience talking to girls is at kindergarten level," yet his mother still wanted him to become friends with an old friend's daughter first...

Apparently, she was two years younger than him and only a freshman, studying at a top-tier university in Lianjiang City. She could be called a tender young junior. Generally speaking, girls that age would probably not accept blind dates, and their parents would not be this impatient either, unless she looked prematurely aged...

Still, his mother was just mentioning it. Maybe once she showed the other side his photo, the whole thing would fall through?

Thinking that, Ren Suo calmed down. But then he remembered something—he had forgotten to tell his parents about cultivators.

Someone at the intensive training base had once asked whether they could teach their cultivation techniques to others. The instructor answered readily, "The higher-ups never said that the techniques must be kept secret, but the intensive training base is highly classified. If you are discovered leaking the base's location, it will be handled as a breach of state secrets."

"However, in the foundation-building process of acquiring your qi vortices, the key is not the Breathing Method but where you are—the athletic facilities that enhance aura. The Breathing Method alone is not particularly meaningful. Even if you teach it to others, unless they possess a certain level of talent—geniuses several times more gifted than you—they will have no chance of sensing aura and cultivating."

"If you have relatives or friends like that, please introduce them to us. Even if they were once famous entrepreneurs or billionaires, the state would be willing to give them a position... and a future worthy of that talent!"

Although the instructor had said that, Ren Suo still wanted to let his family try and see whether they could sense aura. But this Breathing Method truly did not seem mystical at all; it bore traces of those scam "qigong" practices from the 1980s. Getting his family to believe that this Breathing Method could be used for cultivation... would take some effort.

Before he had cultivated a qi vortex, Ren Suo could not sense any aura while practicing the Breathing Method anywhere other than the athletic field. Only when he practiced it on the field did he feel as though his body had opened countless mouths, greedily absorbing the aura present throughout space.

Therefore, if ordinary people practiced the Breathing Method, unless they were the geniuses the instructor spoke of, they would basically feel nothing. With such a complicated breathing exercise, without positive feedback, they would have no idea whether they were doing it correctly and would easily give up.

"I'll take a day to go home and let them try cultivating. Maybe our Ren family really does have a genius... Hm?"

Ren Suo suddenly froze, then immediately sat upright on the sofa and began practicing the Breathing Method.

The next second, his expression changed dramatically—he was as delighted as if he had just seen a game he loved suddenly discounted by 99%!

In his perception, the speed at which his body absorbed aura had suddenly increased severalfold. If his body had previously been sipping aura through a straw, now it was frying, stir-frying, and cooking that aura into a steak before swallowing it in one bite—the nourishment was dozens of times greater than before.

Ren Suo recalled what he had learned in Aura Cognition Class: "...After the qi vortex begins rotating, one officially enters the accumulation and development phase. At the same time, because the Active Aura in the Inner Qi Vortex continues rotating, it constructs a network of qi vortices throughout the cultivator's physical body, allowing their aura absorption speed to reach the limit of their aptitude. Even in places without concentrated aura, cultivation will not be slow."

In other words, before the qi vortex began rotating, a cultivator was like a student endlessly doing practice problems on the same knowledge point. No matter how many they did, they merely reinforced that one point without learning anything else. But after the qi vortex began rotating, they officially started learning other knowledge points, and every lesson accumulated, continuously expanding the student's network of knowledge!

That meant Ren Suo had officially entered the ranks of cultivators!

But Ren Suo soon gave a bitter smile. "My aptitude is only 1.25, and my absorption speed is already this insane after it started rotating. How terrifying must those people with scores above 2 be..."

The time between a qi vortex taking shape and beginning to rotate varied from person to person. Although cultivation during that period could shorten it slightly, the help was limited. That was why the intensive training base had sent them back—they could already work after acquiring qi vortices. As for when their vortices would start rotating, that depended on fate.

His phone suddenly lit up, and Ren Suo realized that he had cultivated for nearly an hour. It was already 10:00—when cultivating, the pleasure of absorbing aura made it easy to lose track of time.

"Hello, Mr. Ren Suo. The Lian Province National Security Bureau hereby informs you that you have been accepted into the Anti-Special Crime Task Force of the Lianjiang City National Security Bureau. Please await further notification from your assigned unit for detailed information."

Ren Suo blinked, only then remembering that when they had been dismissed yesterday, You Jilong seemed to have said they would be notified of their position transfers within one to three business days. But what was with this message having neither beginning nor end, not even leaving a unit phone number...

Still, although he had been transferred to the National Security Bureau for no apparent reason, he was also a fourth-year college student! Even if he were to start working officially, it would have to wait another month or two. No need to panic... right?

Ren Suo thought about it and felt that the National Security Bureau had been in such a rush to train them, then had hurriedly sent them back to their respective cities once training was over. It really felt as though they were desperately short of people to do work...

"Whatever, whatever... First, I'm opening treasure chests and playing the new game!" Good things made people feel refreshed. Now that he had officially become a cultivator, Ren Suo hurried to claim the benefits he was entitled to first!

In the National Security Bureau's conference hall, the image on the screen was frozen at the moment the Seeker of the Way turned into light.

The door banged open as Yu Kuangtu walked in. Several Black Vests behind him carried stacks of documents and distributed them to everyone in the conference hall.

Li Dan opened the documents and immediately raised her brows. "Wasn't this scheduled for implementation next month..."

"Yes. As everyone can see, the National Search Plan has been moved up," Yu Kuangtu said before anyone else could.

The Black Vests exchanged glances. Someone said, "Then the supporting measures that follow..."

"All of them have been moved up as well." Yu Kuangtu saw someone about to speak and pressed his palm downward. "I know. Every plan from here on will require our involvement, and we do not have enough people right now... That is why the cultivators we originally sent back to cultivate will be recalled as soon as possible. You will form teams and begin working."

"Does it have to be this urgent?" someone asked.

"This is not the city's decision, nor is it the province's." Yu Kuangtu pointed helplessly upward, then behind him. "This video, If You're Strong, Climb 10,000 Meters, has pierced through the last layer of window paper. Now the whole world knows that this world... has changed."

"With the previous Immortal Palace Assassin, we could still say he was an exceptionally talented killer. The final scene could be explained as some kind of trick, or simply movie effects... If this video had shown flames or pillars of ice, those could have been called special effects too. So what if a True Human appeared? Since humanity knows that such things are unscientific, as long as an explanation was offered, they would remain doubtful."

"But the woman in this video clearly went five consecutive days without sleep or rest, accomplishing a challenge that was nearly inhuman. That is far more terrifying than superpowers. Superpowers can be special effects, but a person..."

Yu Kuangtu sighed. "Even if she truly has nothing to do with cultivators, it no longer matters, because ordinary people will not believe it. Things like this are happening more and more often. The higher-ups' intention is for us to seize all domestic cultivation talent as soon as possible—other countries also seem to have accelerated their cultivator training programs because of this video."

"All right, everyone, go get busy."

Yu Kuangtu turned around and watched the moment that blonde woman dispersed into light on the screen. His eyes held both longing and confusion.

His longing came from never imagining that humanity could reach such a level... What had become of that blonde woman now? Had she transformed into a higher life-form? Or had she undergone the currently popular phenomenon known as "transmigration"?

His confusion came from the feeling that this "Ren Nesser," which released videos with almost no restrictions, was practically the throat of some force.

The Immortal Palace Assassin had left no trace for the Xuan Kingdom to find even now.

And that blonde woman who climbed the Ten Thousand Meter Peak seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

Where did they come from?

What did they want?

Who... stood behind them?