Even Online Classes Cost Money?

The medicinal potency surged like an overwhelming tide. Chen Zhuo broke into a drenching sweat. A long while later, dripping from head to toe and panting for breath, Chen Zhuo ceased his rhythmic breathing. A soothing warmth permeated every fiber of his being, leaving him feeling as if he had shed his mortal frame and undergone a complete rebirth. "Phew—" He exhaled a long breath. It felt wonderfully refreshing. Though he had not directly stepped into the third layer of Qi Refining, he felt an inexhaustible strength filling his fists and coursing through his limbs. His pair of iron fists felt as though they possessed the weight of thousands of jin, capable of slaying dragons above and subduing tigers below! Chen Zhuo felt that his path to immortality stretched out broad and smooth. Who dared claim cultivation was hard? At most, it was merely getting one's hem a little dusty. "Upgrading from vocational college to a bachelor's won't be hard for me at all. In the future, even passing the graduate entrance exam for civil engineering won't be an issue!" Hands clasped behind his back, Chen Zhuo gazed up at the sky, overflowing with emotion. If he could get accepted into Taiqing University for a master's degree, he felt he could already see a Golden Core admission notice beckoning to him. And if he went on to earn a doctorate, wouldn't he cultivate all the way to Nascent Soul? Just then, Chen Zhuo suddenly sensed a faint wisp of baleful aura circling about his surroundings. In an instant, the hairs on his body stood on end! "What is that?!" The second layer of Qi Refining brought not only physical prowess, but also a leap in spiritual consciousness. Extending his spiritual consciousness, Chen Zhuo immediately locked onto a tree a hundred meters away. Amidst the lush, sprawling foliage of that tree, a massive leopard was staring coldly down at him. Its tongue flicked lightly across its maw, its gaze fixed on Chen Zhuo like a predator eyeing prey. And on this leopard, there were traces of spiritual energy! Seeing that it had been spotted, the leopard leaped down from the tree and advanced with sinuous, supple strides, fixing Chen Zhuo in its gaze while emitting low, threatening growls. Yet the beast seemed somewhat wary of Chen Zhuo as well, a glint of caution flickering in its feline pupils. It could detect the violent spiritual energy raging inside him from the recent injection, along with the instability produced by the two medicinal serums. A human at the second layer of Qi Refining would normally be a delicious feast, but the aura radiating from this particular human gave it pause. Consequently, the agile beast circled slowly around Chen Zhuo, maintaining a careful distance. "Vile beast, you dare plot against me?" Chen Zhuo let out a cold laugh. "Have you never heard that Heaven always leaves a way out?!" He put on a show of calm, but his mind raced: *This leopard shows traces of spiritual energy. It's likely a low-tier demon beast, roughly equivalent to the first layer of Qi Refining. I just injected the serums and my state is unstable; if a real fight breaks out, I might get injured.* Meanwhile, the leopard remained hesitant. The spiritual energy rolling off Chen Zhuo was precisely why it kept its guard up. Nourished by natural spiritual energy, it was no ordinary wild beast, but rather a creature on the verge of transforming into a demon, barely qualifying as a 'demon beast.' The moment the leopard wavered, Chen Zhuo seized the opportunity. He mobilized the spiritual energy within his body and channeled it into the Boundary-Breaking Bead resting in his sea of consciousness! Black light enveloped Chen Zhuo in a flash. An instant later, the dark radiance snapped inward, and Chen Zhuo vanished from the spot without a trace. The leopard froze in bewilderment. It paced over to the spot where he had stood and lowered its snout to sniff at the ground, thoroughly perplexed. *** The Immortal Mansion World. With a flash of black light, Chen Zhuo returned to his cave abode. "Phew—" Chen Zhuo let out a breath, feeling an immediate pang of discomfort at the meager spiritual energy of the Immortal Mansion. Yet the surging medicinal power within him was still running its course, which struck him as a bit of a waste. Refining Qi inside the Immortal Mansion really was a squandering of potential. Even so, Chen Zhuo felt a deep surge of excitement. Ever since the establishment of the Immortal Mansion, demon beasts had nowhere left to hide. They had all been rounded up and locked into zoos for cultivators to visit with purchased tickets; wild demon beasts were entirely extinct. This was the very first time Chen Zhuo had ever encountered a demon beast, and a weak one at that. It was quite a novel experience. More importantly, the creature's appearance showed him a paved road to prosperity. "Looks like I've found a source for immortal path potential!" Chen Zhuo considered ways to earn money: *Those demon beasts haven't formed demon cores yet, but their flesh still contains spiritual energy. I could easily hunt them, butcher the meat, roast it into jerky strips, and sell them to students.* Demon beast husbandry was a popular major in the Immortal Mansion. Many carnivorous demon beasts were bred in specialized facilities by livestock companies under the Immortal Mansion specifically to produce meat jerky for convenient consumption. For many cultivators, consuming the flesh of demon beasts was a viable method to enhance physical strength. Ancient cultivators had not valued physical conditioning and raw bodily power nearly as much as modern cultivators did, so if an ancient cultivator clashed with a modern one, they could easily be overwhelmed in close-quarters combat. Under the governance of the Immortal Mansion, cultivators were expected to develop comprehensively across all fronts. Beyond learning spells, physical conditioning had to keep pace. Without a sturdy constitution, how could one hope to cultivate properly? It was said that truly formidable cultivators could even withstand flying swords with their bare flesh and walk away without a scratch! There was definitely money in this. Even better, selling dried meat on the sly was straightforward and discreet—nobody would run random inspections on simple snacks! It was practically perfect. The only remaining hurdle was how to slay such low-tier demon beasts without sustaining injuries... "Which means I still need to invest some spirit coins to buy a decent Dharma artifact or two." Chen Zhuo sighed. A mere spirit coin truly could humble a hero! Still, he put the matter aside for the moment. It was time for class. Chen Zhuo rose and glanced around his cave abode. It was compact, roughly thirty square meters in total, containing only a single bed, a plain computer desk in front of it, and a bathroom of less than eight square meters beside the entrance door. Taking a seat at the desk, Chen Zhuo looked at the jade screen set before him, reached out a hand, and channeled a wisp of spiritual consciousness into it. Of course, the official name of the contraption was the 'Divine Consciousness Computing Jade Pivot.' Chen Zhuo was more accustomed to calling it a computer, and referred to logging in as 'entering the jade.' Before long, his spiritual consciousness flared. The scenery before Chen Zhuo shifted, immediately revealing a virtual avatar. To his left and right sat two cultivators cross-legged. The one on the left looked familiar. It was Meng Yan, the cultivator at the first layer of Qi Refining who had publicly asked Si Jing earlier about what to do if one lacked funds. The cultivator on his right was a cool, aloof young woman with lustrous black hair and fair skin. She carried an air that clearly warned strangers to keep their distance. "Liang Ningwan." Her name surfaced in Chen Zhuo's mind. She had taken the exam in the same room as him—the Fifteenth Exam Hall of Taiqing City. She was also the top-ranking mortal candidate in the entire city! Chen Zhuo had come in third. *Born into an established cultivation family, with a father at the Foundation Establishment stage. Yet by an ironic twist of fate, she lacked a spiritual root and was essentially left to fend for herself. Even so, she relied on sheer grit to secure first place in the mortal division, earned the qualification for a spiritual root implant, and gained admission to the Taiqing Vocational and Technical College of Alchemy!* Recalling her background, Chen Zhuo was somewhat surprised to find she had enrolled in the same major as him: the Elixir Appraisal and Grading major. It was quite a coincidence. Chen Zhuo shook his head inwardly. For a classmate hailing from a cultivation family like Liang Ningwan, he could feel nothing but envy. Even without a spiritual root, and even though her parents likely provided few resources—after all, Foundation Establishment cultivators were granted reproductive permits allowing up to three children with innate spiritual roots, and so long as that quota was not reached, rootless mortal offspring could be had without restriction—her family's resources would naturally be reserved for children with spiritual roots. Mortal children without roots, like Liang Ningwan, were treated like weeds. If they managed to pass the exams and get an implant on their own, so be it; if not, they were left to their fate. Even so, the insights of a Foundation Establishment household far surpassed anything available to a child like Chen Zhuo, who had never even met his parents. Chen Zhuo came from an ordinary background. His parents had likely been modest Qi Refining cultivators. Under the administration of the Immortal Mansion, when cultivators at the seventh layer of Qi Refining or below had children lacking spiritual roots, the infants were uniformly handed over to the Immortal Mansion's Bureau of Custody and Upbringing. At age sixteen, they sat for a unified examination. Those who failed were relegated to the lower realm to live out their days as ordinary mortals. Those who passed, like Chen Zhuo, earned the qualification for a spiritual root implant, becoming synthetic cultivators. A harsh reality. As Chen Zhuo was sighing over this, the space before him blurred, and a virtual spiritual manifestation materialized in front of him. A scholarly-looking, middle-aged man dressed in a green scholar's robe appeared before Chen Zhuo, speaking with warm enthusiasm: "Greetings, students. I am Wang Yanqing, instructor for the Implanted Spiritual Root Class." "Hello, Instructor," Meng Yan blurted out instinctively. Liang Ningwan cast a brief glance at Meng Yan and pointed out, "This is an online class. It's a pre-recorded projection; he won't answer any of your questions." Hearing her words, Meng Yan scratched his head, looking thoroughly sheepish. Beside him, Chen Zhuo couldn't help a wry smile. The Implanted Spiritual Root Class truly received zero special treatment. Just as Liang Ningwan had said, it was nothing more than a recorded lecture. The lecturing instructor showed no reaction to the greeting, maintaining his warm smile as he continued smoothly: "The first lesson for any cultivator concerns the physical constitution. Next, I will explain the unified foundational body-refinement auxiliary method of the Immortal Mansion: the 'Fledgling Dragon Military Fist, Forty-Sixth Revised Edition'..." At those words, Chen Zhuo's interest was piqued, and he immediately pricked up his ears. This was an esoteric martial technique used to assist in tempering the physical body. It was remarkably effective for cultivators in the early stages of Qi Refining, from the first to the third layers, and offered tangible benefits in strengthening the corporeal vessel even for those in the middle and late stages! Yet just as Chen Zhuo prepared to listen intently and study the technique with utmost care, an information window popped up abruptly before his eyes. [Greetings, Fellow Daoist Chen Zhuo, first-year freshman of the Implanted Spiritual Root Class. Your free trial preview has ended. Would you like to pay 5 spirit coins to continue streaming Volume 1 of the 'Fledgling Dragon Military Fist, Forty-Sixth Revised Edition' instructional video?] Chen Zhuo: ??? What the hell? Isn't this an official school lecture?! They're charging fees for this too?!