Auntie

Li Ming was still beside him, chattering away in an effort to comfort him. "S-rank is still S-rank," he said, and "You can draw a better one and replace it later," along with other things like that.

As Su Mu listened, the corners of his mouth rose slightly without his realizing it.

First, there was his core card, the spirit stone.

Sun Wukong had yet to be born.

According to the original story, the stone had spent who knew how many years atop Flower-Fruit Mountain absorbing the pure essence of heaven and the splendor of earth, the essence of the sun and the radiance of the moon, before it finally gave birth to the Lingming Stone Monkey.

If he simply waited for things to take their course, there was no telling how long the step from the Stone Left Over from Mending Heaven to the Lingming Stone Monkey alone would take.

But now he had Years Like a Blade.

Each use would catalyze one year.

Ten uses would mean ten years.

A hundred uses would mean a hundred years.

At its core, the Stone Left Over from Mending Heaven was a spirit stone born of heaven and earth.

For others, time meant aging and depletion. For it, time meant accumulation, nourishment, and the gradual buildup of cultivation.

Each use of the skill was equivalent to it absorbing another year's worth of essence from heaven and earth.

The same principle held true for most monsters under the Journey to the West theme.

Other people's creature cards were already in their prime when they obtained them. Each use of the skill would cost them ten days of that prime.

His monsters, when he obtained them, were minor monsters who had only just set foot on the path of cultivation. Each use would give them ten more days of cultivation.

The concepts were complete opposites.

In someone else's hands, this skill was a burden.

In his hands, it was good fortune itself.

"Brother Mu? Brother Mu?" Seeing that he had been silent all this time, Li Ming thought he was quietly upset about drawing a skill of little use. He quickly patted him again. "Don't dwell on it. You'll get a better one later. Besides, look, the skill can at least make you look good. It's S-rank! I haven't even gotten my hands on a B-rank yet."

Su Mu came back to his senses and smiled at him. "You're right. S-rank is better than F-rank, at least."

Only then did Li Ming breathe a sigh of relief. "Of course it is! Come on, let's head home first."

Su Mu nodded in agreement and offered no further explanation.

The two parted ways at an intersection.

Li Ming lived in an old residential complex in the west of the city, in the opposite direction from Su Mu's home.

Before leaving, he remembered to turn back and shout, "See you at the trial grounds tomorrow morning! Don't oversleep!" Su Mu waved to him.

Su Mu walked along the sidewalk for about twenty minutes before turning into a densely packed high-rise residential district.

The buildings stood side by side, packed together like chopsticks stuck in the ground.

The gaps between them were extremely narrow, and some residents on the lower floors never saw sunlight all year round. The complex where Su Mu lived was called Peaceful Residence Garden. The name sounded cozy, but it was actually Rongcheng's earliest post-disaster resettlement housing, and the buildings were older than he was.

He walked up to Building Seven and looked up.

The nearly hundred-story building rose straight into the night sky. Its exterior paint had peeled away in patches, exposing broad expanses of gray-black concrete.

Most of the sound-activated lights in the stairwell were broken; only a few scattered floors still glowed with dim yellow light.

The area in front of the elevators was packed with people.

Students in school uniforms, women carrying groceries, and middle-aged men smoking formed a dense crowd, all jammed into the narrow elevator lobby.

The numbers on the elevator display ticked along slowly, descending from somewhere in the eighties and stopping on every floor.

Su Mu shook his head.

Ever since the cataclysm, humanity's living space had continued to shrink. Although the Alliance had established a firm foothold over the past few hundred years, the area fit for habitation was still extremely limited.

In a third-tier city like Rongcheng, most lower-class residents could only squeeze into super-high-rise tenement buildings like this one. More than a hundred households shared three elevators, and a single wait took over ten minutes.

He turned, pushed open the stairwell's fire door, and went inside.

The stairwell was narrow, the light deathly white, and the air thick with the smell of damp cement.

Su Mu looked up at the stairs spiraling overhead. Without hesitation, he started running up.

Two steps at a time.

After the cataclysm in this world, people's physical fitness was generally better than it had been in the previous era.

Dungeon Masters who had awakened Soul Power grew even stronger physically as their levels increased.

Su Mu was level six now. Although he couldn't compare with a body-cultivator awakener of the same level, climbing dozens of flights of stairs was no longer much of a challenge.

His footsteps echoed through the empty stairwell. Su Mu maintained an even pace, his breathing steady. All he could hear was his own heartbeat and the wail of the night wind pouring in through the vents.

By the time he reached the sixty-seventh floor, he was neither flushed nor out of breath. Only a thin sheen of sweat had appeared at his temples.

He took out his key and opened the door.

The moment the door opened a crack, the aroma of food wafted out.

"Xiao Mu, you're home?"

His aunt's voice came from the kitchen, followed by the clatter of a spatula stir-frying food.

Su Mu changed his shoes and walked in. Three dishes and a soup were already on the dining table, all covered with food covers, and a plate of cut fruit sat beside them.

"Go wash your hands. Once I stir-fry some greens, we can eat." His aunt poked her head out of the kitchen and smiled at him.

She was in her early forties, her hair simply tied back. Her face bore a trace of weariness from years of hard work, but her smile was gentle.

Su Mu acknowledged her, washed his hands, and sat down at the table.

His aunt soon brought out the last dish, took off her apron, and sat down across from him. She didn't pick up her chopsticks, just looked at him.

"So, you must be worn out today, right? How did the awakening ceremony go?"

Su Mu paused as he reached for food with his chopsticks.

He looked up and met his aunt's concerned eyes.

"My core card is F-rank, a stone card. The theme is a special type, Journey to the West," he said, keeping his voice as calm as he could.

His aunt's chopsticks stopped in midair, and her expression stiffened for an instant.

Even though she wasn't a professional, she knew all too well what F-rank meant, having spent more than a decade immersed in Rongcheng's "dungeons for all" environment.

What was more, the word "special" came with it, which meant Su Mu would have no textbook to follow and no ready-made path to take in the future.

"F-rank..." she repeated softly, her voice carrying the faintest trace of regret.

But she quickly put that trace of regret away.

"It's all right." His aunt placed a piece of pork rib in Su Mu's bowl, her voice gentle and sure. "So what if the rank is low? It's not as if you don't have a chance. Growing up, when have you ever made me worry? I didn't have to worry about your studies or your school entrance exams, and now that you're a Dungeon Master, I won't have to worry about you in the future either. I believe in you. You'll definitely surprise me."

Su Mu lowered his head and looked at the rib in his bowl, his throat tightening a little.

"Mm," he answered.

His aunt put down her chopsticks, took a card from her pocket, and gently pushed it in front of Su Mu.

"This is for you. A hundred thousand yuan, to buy some things you'll need to build dungeons."

Su Mu looked up.

"Auntie..."

"Don't be so quick to refuse." His aunt cut him off. "Listen to me. When your cousin got into Jinghua last year, I gave her a card. You awakened this year, so this card is yours. Whatever your cousin has, you get too."

Su Mu's lips moved.

He knew his aunt's financial situation.

His uncle had died years ago on a cleanup mission in the wild, and his aunt had raised his cousin and him on her own.

She worked at the Alliance logistics department during the day and took odd jobs mending armor at night. Her hands were covered in calluses. He didn't know how long she had saved to put together this hundred thousand yuan.