The next morning, Ren Suo felt something subtly amiss as soon as he woke up.
It was amiss because he felt extremely comfortable.
Normally, for a healthy 22-year-old man who had never encountered any perverted uncles in childhood, Ren Suo should wake up with an unvoiced urge to pee and a body that, although awake, would still feel a bit floppy as he tried to laze in bed.
However, the moment Ren Suo opened his eyes, he felt his body instantly snap to alertness, every cell urging him to stop f***ing sleeping and get excited, almost like a five-year-old upon learning that he was going to an amusement park.
It was as if he hadn't been asleep but had just laid down and immediately became alert.
Ren Suo covered his mouth and breathed out, the taste that was like boiled starch telling him that indeed, due to not opening his mouth for eight hours, the microorganisms inside had fermented.
Ren Suo went to brush his teeth and wash his face, only to see it was already 9:04 in the morning when his phone rang.
Glancing at the caller ID, he answered:
"Mom, what's up so early?"
"Hm? I came back yesterday, I'm at home."
"What? A blind date? What blind date, I, as a grown man... Besides, didn't you guys tell me not to date in college? Last time I was home, I saw you cautioning my younger sister over and over..."
A few minutes later, Ren Suo put down his phone with a helpless look on his face.
He couldn't believe his mother was urging him to go on a blind date as he was nearing college graduation, with the hope that he'd get married next year, have a child the year after, and preferably have both a boy and a girl, in support of the national policy on having a second child for better genealogy...
Dammit, Ren Suo still remembered his parents had always told him not to date in middle school, high school, and university, so he basically didn't acquire any 'skills' in the 'dating' department...
Well, that's Ren Suo's last shred of shame talking. In reality, he never took his parents' advice—how could that possibly be completely forbidden?
Ren Suo had interacted with girls in clubs and classes, but alas, internet cafes were really more interesting than girls. In the end, he chose to distance himself from girls and immersed himself in studies and gaming...
Who knew his mom would be in such a hurry; Ren Suo had repeatedly made it clear that he had no interest in meeting girls at this stage. He was on the verge of admitting that 'he was a coward' and 'lacked experience communicating with girls since kindergarten,' yet his mom insisted that he should at least be friends with the daughter of an old friend...
Supposedly, the girl was two years younger than him, only a freshman at a university in Lianjiang City, virtually a sweet, tender underclassman. Generally, girls her age wouldn't agree to a blind date, and their parents wouldn't be so eager unless—well—unless she had a reason to be in a hurry...
Nevertheless, his mother was probably just talking. Maybe when she shows the girl his photo, the whole thing will fall through, right?
With this thought, Ren Suo relaxed but then suddenly remembered something—he had forgotten to tell his parents about the cultivators.
At the training base, someone had asked if it was possible to pass on their cultivation techniques to others. The instructor had responded briskly, "There is no mention from above that the techniques must be kept secret, but the training base is highly confidential. If you're found leaking its location, you'll be prosecuted for espionage."
"However, the key to your foundation establishment process in obtaining the qi cyclone is not the Breathing Technique but the location where you are—the sportsgrounds infused with spiritual energy. Pure Breathing Techniques are largely meaningless; even if you teach them to others, unless they have the talent, which is to say, they must be many times stronger than you, they have a chance to perceive spiritual energy and cultivate."
"If you have such relatives or friends, please introduce them to us. Even if they were previously well-known businessmen or billionaires, the country is willing to offer them a position that matches their talent... and a future!"
Although the instructor had put it that way, Ren Suo still wanted his family to try and see if they could sense spiritual energy. Yet, this Breathing Technique truly wasn't anything magical, bearing traces of the 'Qi Gong' scams of the 1980s, making it quite a chore to convince family members that this technique could lead to cultivation.
Before he had cultivated his internal cyclone, Ren Suo couldn't feel any spiritual energy when practicing the Breathing Technique outside the sports grounds. Only by practicing within the grounds could he feel as though his body had opened countless mouths, greedily absorbing spiritual energy from every corner of space.
Therefore, for ordinary people practicing the Breathing Technique, unless they were the geniuses the instructor mentioned, they likely wouldn't feel anything. With such a complex breathing exercise and absent any positive feedback, they would have no clue if they were doing it correctly and would easily give up.
"I'll take a day off to go home and let them try cultivating. Maybe our Ren family really has a genius... Hm?"
Suddenly, Ren Suo blinked, immediately sat up straight on the sofa, and began to practice the Breathing Technique.
The next second, his expression changed dramatically—as if he saw his favorite game suddenly marked down by 99%!
He felt the speed at which his body absorbed spiritual energy suddenly increase several times over. If previously his body was like sipping spiritual energy through a straw, now it was as if he had pan-fried and stir-fried the spiritual energy into a steak and gobbled it up—providing nutrition several dozen times that of before.
Ren Suo recalled knowledge from the Spiritual Energy Recognition Class: "Once the qi cyclone has been formed, one officially enters the accumulation and development period. At the same time, the active spiritual energy within the internal cyclone, due to its continuous rotation, will create a qi cyclone network throughout the cultivator's fundamental body, allowing the speed of spiritual energy absorption to reach the limit of their talent, and even in places without a concentration of spiritual energy, their cultivation pace will not slow."
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In other words, before the formation of the Qi Cyclone, cultivators are like students who keep practicing the same knowledge point over and over again, no matter how much they practice, they just consolidate the same point without learning anything new; whereas once the Qi Cyclone starts rotating, they officially begin learning other knowledge points, each study session accumulating knowledge, constantly expanding the student's knowledge network!
That is to say, Ren Suo has officially stepped into the ranks of cultivators!
However, Ren Suo soon smiled wryly, "My talent is only 1.25, and the absorption rate after the cyclone has formed is already so impressive, those people with over 2 points must be terrifying..."
After the formation of the Qi Cyclone, the time it takes to reach rotation varies from person to person. Although this period of cultivation may be slightly shortened, the help is limited, which is why all the training bases sent them back—those with a Qi Cyclone could already work, as for when they could achieve rotation, that was up to their fate.
Suddenly, his phone lit up, and Ren Suo realized that he had been cultivating for nearly an hour, and it was already 10 o'clock—cultivation, with its pleasant sensation of absorbing Spirit Qi, could easily make one lose track of time.
"Hello, Mr. Suo, this is a notice from the Lian Province National Security Bureau. Congratulations, you have been accepted into the Lianjiang City National Security Bureau's Counter-Special Crime Bureau. Please wait for further notice with detailed information from your assigned unit," came a message.
Ren Suo blinked, only then remembering that yesterday, when they disbanded, You Jilong seemed to have mentioned that they would be notified about job reassignments within one to three business days. However, the message was abrupt, without even a contact number for the unit... what was going on?
But although he was abruptly reassigned to the National Security Bureau, he was still a senior in college! He would have to wait another month or two before starting formal work, so there was no rush... right?
Ren Suo pondered and felt that the National Security Bureau had been so eager to train them and then quickly send them back to their cities; it seemed as if they were short on staff to handle matters...
"Forget it, forget it... First, I'll open the Treasure Box and play the new game!" People tend to feel spirited when something delightful happens, and now that Ren Suo had officially become a cultivator, he eagerly claimed the benefits due to him!
————
In the National Security Bureau's meeting room, the screen on the curtain froze at the moment the Truth Seeker turned into light.
There was a clanging sound at the door as Yu Kuangtu walked in, followed by several Black Body Armors carrying stacks of files, which they distributed to everyone in the meeting room.
Li Dan opened a file and immediately raised his eyebrows, "Isn't this supposed to be implemented next month..."
"Yes, as everyone can see, the national talent search plan must be moved up," Yu Kuangtu said before anyone else.
The Black Body Armors looked at each other, and someone said, "Then the subsequent supporting..."
"It's all been moved up as well," Yu Kuangtu said as he saw someone about to speak and pressed down with his hand. "I know, all of us will be involved in each upcoming plan, and currently, we are short on people... Thus, the cultivators who were originally sent back to continue their training will be summoned back as soon as possible, and you'll form teams to begin working."
"Is there such urgency?" someone asked.
"This is not the city's idea, nor the province's idea," Yu Kuangtu said reluctantly, pointing upwards and then backwards, "This video 'If You Are Strong, Climb Ten Thousand Meters' has broken through the final layer of paper. Now the whole world knows that this world... has changed."
"The last Fairy Palace Assassin could be explained away as an exceptionally gifted assassin, and the final scene could be attributed to some technique, or simply movie special effects... If sparks or ice pillars appeared in the video, we could also claim it was special effects. What if a True Human appeared? Since people know it's not scientifically possible, as long as there is an explanation, they will remain skeptical."
"But the female in this video, who has clearly gone five days and nights without sleep, performing a challenge almost non-human, is far more terrifying than special abilities. Special abilities could be visual effects, but humans..."
Yu Kuangtu sighed, "Even if she truly has nothing to do with cultivators, it doesn't matter anymore, because ordinary people won't believe it. As these incidents are becoming more frequent, the higher-ups want us to quickly round up all domestic talent in cultivation—other countries, too, seem to have accelerated their cultivator training programs because of this video."
"Alright, everyone go busy themselves," he said.
Yu Kuangtu turned his head to look at the screen showing the moment when the blonde female turned into light and vanished, his eyes filled with both desire and confusion.
Desire, because he hadn't imagined that humans could achieve such a feat... where was the blonde woman now? Had she become a higher life form? Or was this an instance of the popular phenomenon of 'transmigration'?
Confusion, because Yu Kuangtu felt that 'Ren Naiser', who published the video without major restrictions, seemed like the mouthpiece of certain forces.
The Fairy Palace Assassin, of whom the Mysterious Country has yet to find a trace.
And the blonde woman who climbed ten thousand meters, who seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Where did they come from?
What exactly are they trying to do?
Who is standing behind them?
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