The Dorm

"Don't touch me there!"

Ye Zuliao awoke from a terrible nightmare. In it, he saw a perverted-looking young man trying to finger him in the dantian, which weirded him out. When he awoke, he found that he was in a spacious wooden room, lying on a futon. There were some sliding doors opposite him that light spilled through, forcing him to blink a few times.

"Eek! I don't want it!"

"I do not swing in that direction!"

Finding themselves in similar situations, Ji Haogui and Cyrus awoke with odd exclamations that betrayed a traumatic dream experience. They were also lying on futons and searching the room with rapidly-blinking eyes. Cyrus' hair was now wilder and more messy than it had been- some of it was even stuck to the drool around his mouth.

Ji Haogui glanced at them sheepishly, "G-good morning, guys."

"Mmm... G'morning you..."

"Good morning... um... I'm sorry, but what was your name again? I'm Ye Zuliao."

"I'm Haogui- Ji Haogui."

"Cyrus," the groggy King-Boy raised his half-asleep arm.

"Do any of you know where we are?" Ye Zuliao asked this as he yawned and got into a meditative position, preparing to practice his breathing.

"Mm-mm, not a clue," Cyrus slapped himself in the face a few times and pulled at the corners of his eyes. Ji Haogui also said no, then got up and walked over to the sliding doors. Light was pouring in from the other side, leading him to think that it led to the outside. When he slid the door open though, he found something that shocked him greatly.

At the same time as his gasp of surprise, Ye Zuliao's eyes shot open, and he cried out, "My sweet, sweet energy! It's all gone!"

Cyrus, who was wetting his hand with saliva in order to clean his face, spun around and shot Ye Zuliao a strange look. He needed no further prompting to check his own inner energy, then yelped like a startled puppy when he found that he was completely emptied.

"I remember now!"

"That wasn't just a dream!"

Ji Haogui then turned around, clearing his throat loudly so as to bring their attention toward the outside.

Cyrus was the first to crawl his way toward the doorway, pushing past Ji Haogui's legs and taking in the sight. Ye Zuliao followed, arriving at the doorway just in time to hear Cyrus say, "It can't be real."

When Ye Zuliao looked outside, he saw things that would have eluded him even in his wildest dreams. The first and most noticeable things were the immense clouds, so thick and white that they did not even seem to be clouds. Looking at them, the boys were reminded of the tales of immortal palaces in heaven, and how they would emit such an intense glow that they could outshine the sun. Those clouds took up almost half the sky, not allowing them to see what was beyond.

Looking down from there, the boys saw a stretch of grassland that was separated by wide ridges, each of which were releasing thick amounts of a miasmic green mist. Like dew, it left behind droplets on the blades of short grass off of which was reflected that divine glow. The entire landscape seemed to be dotted with bright white glitter.

Of course, this was the more normal of the sights.

Stepping out onto the patio, the boys could see the outlines of distant mountains, more giant and majestic than almost every mountain they had ever seen. Atop those mountains, they saw what seemed to be heaven-reaching trees that pierced the skies. In those skies, where the clouds did not touch, every manner of flying beast frolicked freely. Large birds burning with sunfire, slithering sky dragons that exhaled thin clouds, giant butterflies, intelligent living feathers, fairy-like beings surrounded in glittery dust.

Prancing around on those grasslands, three-headed deer, winged reptiles of all sorts, mountain sized toads and foxes with varying numbers of tails all went about their lives. Cyrus, with wide eyes, pointed at something that was not so distant.

"What's that..."

Emerging from a burrow that seemed large enough to swallow a world, yet a bit too small for its inhabitant, was a massive turtle. It's shell was covered in forested mountains and jungles, and a thick mess of vines fell from its lower beak like a beard. Its ancient eyes surveyed the land; the thick skin seemed impenetrable. With quaking steps it carelessly observed its territory, briefly glancing in the boys' direction.

Though they could not properly utilize their divine will due to a lack of cultivation, the boys knew that this turtle was beyond cultivator they had ever met- save for the unfathomable Logean Wuji.

"Just what is this place..."

Not too far away from where the turtle was, an expansive lake was torn apart by the body of another giant. This was a river otter, it's dark-furred body covered in scars. Water fell from its body like a series of waterfalls, battering the minor characters that were at its feet. The sheer pressure of that water crushed anything that was unfortunate enough to be there, instantly causing a mass genocide of beasts.

The turtle noticed the otter and a glint of surprise flashed in its calm eyes. The otter let out a piercing cry, startled the birds that lived on the turtle's shell and causing them to scramble and scatter. The turtle turned itself around, already prepared for a fight.

Without waiting any longer, the otter pounced. Its sharp fangs were bared threateningly, however the turtle was undeterred. The otter bit down toward the turtle's head, but it quickly tucked it into its shell, then spun around and swung its tail into the otters side.

Crying out, the otter was sent rolling across the land, flattening the hills and destroying several masses of grassland. It hissed, finding its footing and lunging once more. This time, the turtle also opened its beak and emitted a low grunt. Instantly, several spheres of green energy shot out of its mouth and toward the otter, reopening a number of its more recent wounds.

The otter was sent flying backward yet again by the recoil, but this time the turtle did not let up. With a speed unlike that of any regular turtle, it moved over to the stunned otter and raised a scaly leg, the not-so-blunt claws shining in the light. Swiftly, the turtle made to drop its leg onto the otters neck, aiming to cut into its throat.

At that final moment, the earth beneath both the turtle and the otter caved in. Lying in wait, a huge mouth opened up and swallowed them both along with a huge amount of the land. Even so, this was not even a blemish to the overall environment. This world was simply too large.

The children shut the door and returned inside, seeing another door at the opposite end. They ran to it and opened it, stepping out into the hallway. At the same time, another door in the hallway was opened. Out came Ye Zhiyuan and Ji Tianshan, both of them looking worried.

"Tianshan!"

"Zhiyuan!"

Ji Haogui ran to his sister and Ye Zuliao to his fellow tribesman. Zhou Hua, Ling Jian'er, Pixie and Bi Xue stepped into the hallway, also in a hurry to leave their room behind.

"Zhiyuan, listen to me! This place is a death trap! There was this HUUGGEEE turtle, right, and it was fighting this mega otter, and they were all like: booom booshh, bang crash- ah, you had to be there."

Ji Haogui corroborated with a few quick nods, but then he saw his sister turn around and look through the open door. The girls moved aside and allowed the boys to look through, not daring to look back at that sight.

The three boys were stunned to silence by what they saw, yet again.

Out of the top of an overflowing volcano, a fiery serpent of 'mega-huge' proportions was writhing about and slamming into the mountainside. Flying in circles around it, a team of brutal, savage hawks were looking down at it with greedy eyes. Any time the serpent seemed to be dead, one of them would swoop down and strike it with their talons, probing it to see if it was still alive.

However, during once such maneuver, the serpent struck one of them on the thigh and hurried to pull it down into the magma. The hawk cried and flapped frantically, desperate to save itself. Seeing this, its companions also swooped down in an attempt to help it, but they were too late.

The snake dragged it down and disappeared from sight, securing food for quite some time. Cyrus, Ye Zuliao and Ji Haogui turned around, stepped out of the room and shut the door. In a huddled group in the hall, they refused to move.

Even Ling Jian'er was rooted to place, thinking about the terrifying might of those beasts. If that was just the tip of the iceberg, she did not want to venture beyond that hallway.

Bi Xue took a deep breath, then looked toward the end of hallway.

"Master," she knelt. This prompted the others to look toward the figure of Logean Wuji who had just walked up the stairs. They all fell to their knees and bowed toward him.

"Greetings, Master."

Logean Wuji nodded, "Good morning. I trust you all have come to terms with your crippled cultivation bases."

The girls all seemed to blink simultaneously, each of them just as clueless. They all closed their eyes and cast their sense inward. Finding nothing but the dried up wells of their dantians, the girls each had their own reactions to it all. Most calm was Pixie, who put a hand on Ye Zhiyuan's shoulder and assured her that everything would be fine.

"I guess not," Logean Wuji said. After that, he turned around and started to walk downstairs, motioning for them to follow.

He passed through the living room area, allowing them to see the kitchen and the downstairs patio, then he walked out onto the patch of grassland that the house was built on. Unlike most of the other individual masses of land, the one that the house was built on was more than 30,000 square miles in size. Logean Wuji stepped out onto the grass and stopped once he was far enough away from the house.

When his students saw him turn around and look at it, they also did the same.

"This is your dormitory. You will be living here until you advance in rank, which you can only do by completing my assignments perfectly. Anything other than a perfect score is punishable by a month of exile in the wild the first time. The second time, it increases to a year, the third time twelve years. Understand?"

The bomb dropped on them sent them into shock once more. None of them were mentally equipped to handle it, so none of them were able to respond with more than a weak and unsure nod. Logean Wuji smiled, then he went on to say, "Also, you will be required to walk from here to my school every single day. Got that?"

His students were statuesque, unable to think of anything but the monstrous horrors they had seen just in the last few minutes. In addition to that, they also had nothing in the way of cultivation. Just how were they supposed to brave the dangers of this world without the tiniest scrap of cultivation?

Pixie, her voice shaky, asked, "Every day?"

"Every. Single. Day. Are we clear?" Seeing them nod, gulp, panic and tremble, Logean Wuji smiled and laughed.

"You are not here to be brought up in mediocrity. Remember who I am, and think about who exactly you will be going forward. As my students, this kind of environment can barely be considered level one."

Many eyes widened.

"Like I mentioned earlier, your time here will be spent climbing from the bottom rank, which you have all been placed at. Upon proper completion of an assignment, your rank increases and you then receive a few days of rest before your next rank-appropriate assignment. I have given you all spatial rings, within which you will find a list explaining the ranks and a few other things that I handpicked for you."

"Now, all that remains is for me to show you where you will be required to walk to and from... every day."