Chapter 16

A few minutes earlier.

Rui had just heard the gong, so he got himself ready and headed towards the gathering grounds. When the gong sounded, that meant that an assembly was happening.

As his day was already hectic from the start, he wasn't in the greatest of moods to begin with. Turning on a corner, he passed a duo and accidentally bumped into the female from behind.

Apologizing slightly, he continued forwards.

But who knew that things would escalate. The male started chasing after him and the female followed the male from behind. Rui apologized many times, but the youth wouldn't let him go if he didn't at least kneel on the floor to apologize.

Rui was stunned.

He used identification skill on both of them.

[Shui Long, Age 14

Cultivation stage: First light stage

Character personality path: Over-protective Sis-con

Luck: 10]

[Shui Mei, Age 14

Cultivation stage: First light stage

Character personality path: Tsundere Bro-con

Luck: 10]

Rui's pupils dilated as he escalated his pace.

'For fuck's sake, how did I bump into such a duo. Please stay away from me!'

"Come back here you! Kneel and apologize to my sister you commoner!"

"Leave me the fuck alone you lunatic! I already apologized to her multiple times!"

"That's not an apology a commoner does to a noble! Get back here!"

"Brother, stop it, you are embarrassing us! Look at all the people staring."

Rui finally found salvation, as he arrived into the gathering grounds. He's eyes darted around for people he knew, as he saw the figure of Huo Liang standing out like a skyscraper in the middle of a city. Rui didn't know how he had gained so much height in a few days, but he didn't care enough to find out and headed towards him.

He hid behind him, closed his eyes and plugged his ears. He was done hearing that lunatic shouting.

Thankfully, as soon as he saw Huo Liang, he halted his footsteps and completely stopped his pursuit of Rui.

Rui heaved a sigh of relief, as a group of people approached him, gloating over his misfortune. Huo Liang patted his shoulder in understanding, while others laughed.

Fortunately, the chatter ceased when the elder arrived for the speech.

Just like on earth, the academy had assemblies were the principal and the teachers would gather the students to inform them of certain matters. Since it was still the beginning of the academy year, the number of assemblies would be more frequent. Later down the line they would be become less frequent, since the students will stop advancing at a rapid pace.

Placing his hand's behind his back, the academy elder spoke.

"Today's gathering is a bit unexpected, even for me. There have been a few changes to the academic program due to new equipment and methods that have been developed by our research team. Thanks to this, the academy will enter an experimental stage for this year and you lot will be the so called first testers of those methods. The new program will be active after the physique testing has been concluded in two weeks."

"One of the changes that will be taking place is that the physique testing will now effect your rank in the academy. If you possess a Earthly, Heavenly, Extreme or even an Archaic physique, your rank will rise at least by one and you will be getting more resources to nurture that physique."

"Once the experimental stage begins, you will all be given special pills to assist in your cultivation. That concludes the assembly, you may now head to your classrooms."

As soon as the academy elder finished his speech, an uproar sounded in the student crowd.

All of them where excited about the new academy prospects, making more opportunities for themselves. However, there were others that had different thoughts.

Rui scoffed inside as his eyes were full of doubt. They were clearly going to be treating them as experimental subjects for their new methods, probably mostly using the low rank students and giving profit to the high ranking students. It was a scummy way to ensure the future of the empire, but at least it did give a chance to those that had low talent to begin with.

Ethically, Rui knew this wasn't a good thing, especially as someone who came from earth. Despite that, he couldn't do a thing about this matter, since they needed such experiments to progress in their power as a country. Though there was still a chance that nothing would go wrong and that the new experimental stage would bring great prosperity and no one would suffer.

Though that's a Utopian thought.

In a world such as this, where normal humans were regarded lower than others as a default. The existence of hierarchy would never disappear in a world that was ruled by strength, as humans are by nature greedy. It is engraved in their DNA to horde as much power and resources, wanting more and more, at least for certain people. Some are satisfied with what they have, but there will always be greedy and unreasonable people.

Following the ending of the assembly, all of the students headed towards the classroom.

Rui was approached by Huo Liang, Han Dong and Xiao Long and was asked what happened to him earlier, while waiting for the homeroom teacher to arrive.

Hearing his interpretation of the event, the trio burst out in laughter, not expecting such an absurd scene to unfold in the academy grounds, a place were background was irrelevant to a certain extent.

The one who laughed the hardest was Han Dong, as he knew Rui's family background, as the crown prince of the empire. It was hilarious to think that a hidden clan's member was disregarded by one of the great clan's people.

The Hidden clans had much greater power than the great clans when it came to authority, so hierarchically, the duo should be the one apologizing to Rui.

Hidden clans were important to maintaining the balance of the clans and sects inside the empire, as they acted as the eyes and claws of the royal family. Especially the Guang clan, a clan with a great lineage of assassins and intelligence officers, though they were mostly known for their swordsmanship that wasn't seen anywhere else in the empire.

Han Dong made a mental note to inform the Shui duo, since they were childhood friends.

The classroom became silent, as the homeroom teacher arrived. Everyone took their seats and waiting for the teacher to start the class.

"As you have all heard, the academy will be entering an experimental stage in the following weeks. This means a lot for you, since you are a special case in the academy, being the students with the highest value of nurture. As such, you will be given higher quality elixirs, medicinal baths and greater cultivation methods. That is your privilege of possessing talent, but everything comes at a cost."

"The Empire expects great things from those it has nurtured. Even though the academy is just a training ground for new rune masters to understand the world of rune masters, it is also the foundation that holds our empire. Why do you think that the empire has prospered for so long, being able to expand its forces with such frightening speed."

"Even though the academy doesn't tie you down to the empire, as citizens, even if you join the unique and obscure sects, you are still a part of it."

Rui frowned. His earlier assumptions were now almost confirmed. The higher one's rank was, the greater resources would be used on them, while the lower ranks will be used as experimental subjects, basically lab rats.

He didn't want to be bound by the empire in any way, but thanks to his now well known family background, he was already bound to it at a certain extent.

"Anyway, that's enough about the future, today's class isn't going to be different from yesterday. We will be focusing on the first light stage, as many of you have reached it already."

Activating the projection stone, he started explaining the fundamentals of this stage.

"All rune masters start at rank one, be it just beginners or old cultivators, unless they pass the final stage of rank one, they will never advance to rank 2."

"The first light stage is the first of three major bottlenecks all rune masters experience and possibly the hardest bottleneck to overcome. Its called a bottleneck, because similar to the neck of a bottle, the chances of passing it are slim. The liquid gets harder and harder to pass through the thicker it gets, unless the vessel, that being the bottle, is big enough to allow it to move freely. In the case of rune masters, the vessel is the body and we train it in unique ways to expand that vessel, so we don't experience any bottlenecks."

"However, the first light stage is different, as it is the first stage one must overcome to become a rune master. The difference with other stages is that it is the stage where one feels the energy, so the sense of a bottleneck is much stronger if one doesn't possess much talent. For you that possess incredible absorption rates, it is much easier, but for those that are merely percentages lower than you, it is increasingly harder to progress into it."

Rui listened with peaked interest. Just like the teacher explained, he didn't have any bottleneck at all when entering the first light stage. In fact, he succeeded in his first try, as if he was naturally attuned with the world.

The system mentioned that he had entered the state of man and earth as one. Although he didn't know what it meant, Rui felt that it was important for cultivation, so he wrote down a question on the scroll provided on each class.

Just like the first class, they would give a scroll where questions would be written about the current class and those questions would be answered and later on be added into the next years class. It was an efficient system, though if there were too many questions, the library would be the place to get most of their answers, as a book containing all the questions from previous years was placed there.

The teacher continued, continuously switching projections while showcasing each stage of cultivation.

"After achieving the first light stage, your next stage is the rune gathering stage. On this stage, cultivation is pretty straight forward. You will reach the rune gathering stage when your vessel is strong enough to absorb energy from rune stones and inscribed rune stones. The difference between inscribed and normal rune stones however is massive. If you're able to absorb inscribed rune stones in this stage, I will personally congratulate you."

"The following stage is the body refining stage. Just like the name implies, you will be focusing on refining your body. All the runic energy you absorbed will be used, along with medicinal baths, to improve your physical strength and increasing the size of your vessel. Unlike the first two stages, the body refining stage is divided into 5 different stages, depending on a quantitative leap in strength with each subsequent refinement. People blessed with divine strength have a greater advantage in this stage of cultivation, as they possess more jin of strength." (1 jin= 500 grams/ half a kilo/ 1.1 pounds)

"After completing the five stages of body refining, one will possess around 800 jin of force. As you've realized, entering the body refining stage truly differentiates you from mortals, as you'll be able to easily kill any human with a single punch."

Many of the students sucked in their breaths as they imagined the scene, Rui included. He could picture the body remnants flying around by the sheer force. This also reminded him that the runic masters that usually came to his tavern hadn't even reached the first light stage, what's more the body refining stage. The people that had tormented him for most of his childhood years were nothing but street thugs in the world of rune masters.

"Completing and advancing to the next stage, you will reach the energy gathering stage that is also divided into four stages, Dependant on the amount of energy one has absorbed into their vessel. The stages are simple, initial, middle, late and peak. Each stage makes a qualitative leap in quantity of energy one can wield and the more energy, the more cultivation methods and martial techniques one can use."

"Finally, the last stage of first rank rune masters, the rune forming stage. As the final and most important stage, one will condense all the energy they absorbed in the energy gathering stage and create a solid material, which we call the rune, thus its name: rune forming stage. The rune takes a different form for each individual and is the foundation for the next stages of cultivation, as it will change once again once they reach the peak of the second stage. I will not go into the ranks of the second rank rune masters, since for now its far in the future. You shouldn't delude yourselves due to being talented, even geniuses much greater than you have been stuck in the first rune master stage for their entire lives."

The students eyes glowed in anticipation for the future. Even though they heard their teachers warnings, they couldn't help but get their hopes up.

The class ended after four hours, as the teacher went into a more in depth analysis of each rank and the things to look out for when cultivating.

Taking the scroll over, an assistant teacher came to answer Rui's questions. Although he had several questions, the most important one was about "the man and earth as one".

The assistant teacher looked over the questions and slowly answered each of them with as much detail as he could, trying to enlighten Rui. Reaching the "The man and earth as one" question, he paused and furrowed his brows. Lifting his head, he looked at Rui with a perplexed gaze.

"Is there something wrong?"

"No, its just that I found it surprising that you know about the "man and earth as one", as it is just a myth that rune masters mention from time to time."

"Myth? Is it not real?"

The teacher laughed at his response and spoke.

"I don't know what they've told you, or what you believe, but the "man and earth as one" comes from a myth passed down from generations. The myth goes like this, the first human emperor had his seventh child and that child had such incredible talents that the heavens cried on his birth. He achieved incredible feats as soon as he awakened and he was so in tune with the world that he could control even the surrounding energy, even as a beginner in cultivation. For that sole reason, the people called him the only person to achieve the "man and earth as one", as he seemingly was in that state at all times."

Rui sucked in a deep breath. If what the teacher told him was true, then this person was incredible. Rui had only achieved the "man and earth as one" by accident and did so unconsciously, but this person was able to have it active at all times.

"Thank you for the answer, may I ask what his name was?"

"I'm here to answer questions, so no need for you to thank me. His name was Bion, you can find some records in the library if you are interested, though they are quite old and not that accurate."

Saying his thanks once again, he exited the building and was surprised by a system prompt.

[Enough information has been gathered]

[Quest has been created]

[Earth and Man as One

The meaning of man and earth as one is difficult for humanity to understand.

Meaning is just a human construct created to create itself a meaning.

Understand the world.

Quest clear conditions: Reach the perfect "Man and Earth as One"

Time Limit: 364 days 59 minutes 59 seconds.

Quest Rewards: Unknown]

Holding in his surprise, he looked around, to make sure no one was looking at him.

Taking a deep breath, he was excited but at the same time felt lost. This was a system quest after all, so the profits would be incredible, but he was stuck as to how he would accomplish it. Since he had a year of time, he would probably find a way by then.

Thinking that he had to complete the daily quest, he went ahead and started running, to complete it as fast as possible.

Rui was feeling hungry, so he along with his group headed towards the eating area. Funnily enough, his group was pretty big already, even though it was just the start of the academy year.

Han Dong, Huo Liang, Xiao Long, Ning Yinin, Xiong Liliang, Cong Mizaru, Song Liwu, Hua Dao, Zhou Huajia and even Xiao Mofa. He had no idea as to how these groups of individuals gathered around him. What was surprising to him, was that they were the people that gave him the biggest impression when he checked their statuses.

It reminded him of his college years, meeting people and making a friend group. Since they were all rune masters, they had a lot of things to exchange in terms of what each had experienced, making their group greatly beneficial.

He spent the rest of the day in group activities, hanging out with the group, while at the same time cultivating. Being surrounded by geniuses of similar scale brought them great results in their training.

They sparred, exchanged understandings of cultivation methods and even played games together. Although there were still disputes between the group.

Surprisingly, the one with the greatest prowess in fighting was Xiong Liliang, as if his body itself adapted to fighting, followed by Hua Dao and Rui. Although his body still looked malnourished to an extent, compared to before, he looked like a healthy young man, the only ominous thing about him being the glowing red Hagalaz rune on his forehead.

However no one commented on it, as they didn't believe the insanity rumors after interacting with him. Xiong Liliang was childish and ignorant, but he had a burning spirit greater than all of them. If Rui were to rank his aptitudes, than his determination would be close to a ten, though his intelligence was slightly lacking.

Huo liang had changed so much physically that he was uncomfortable inside his own body. He had gained so much height in such amount of time, that his childish features didn't match with his growing body. His hair had become more fiery red, as it seemed to be floating as if it was fire.

Similarly, Ning Yinin had changed drastically. Her skin became clearer and purer than even Rui's, resembling a gently carved white jade sculpture. Her white hair started having tints of blue on its edges and her height also increased exponentially, though not as drastic as Huo Liang's.

Each day, they continued this cycle of attending classes and exchanging understanding, resulting in greater improvement in all of them.

Like this, time passed in the blink of an eye and the day for the physique testing arrived.