194: Chapter 194 Luo Yi, the Fallen Genius!

"Xiaoxin, how did the secret realm assessment go? It's been a few days, you should have received your admission letter by now, right?"

Luo Yi's figure appeared in the video feed.

His slightly sallow complexion and eyes full of exhaustion and bloodshot veins made Luo Xin's heart wrench in pain once more. In her brother's current state, even if he ran into his classmates and friends from back then at Longming Sacred Academy...

...they probably wouldn't even recognize him anymore, right?

She forced back the stinging sensation in her nose, mustered up a smile, and nodded.

"I received it, Brother. You know my ability; even though I don't know why a lot of teams blocking the extraction points suddenly popped up behind the assessment secret realm, Primitive Valley No. 1, I was able to successfully extract every time using the smoke grenade usage you taught me."

As she spoke, she sent the Longming Sacred Academy admission letter she had received to Luo Yi's communicator over there.

When he saw that his younger sister had truly been accepted by Longming Sacred Academy...

A trace of relief and joy suddenly appeared in Luo Yi's weary eyes.

"Good, good. When the time comes, listen to your brother and choose the Secret Realm Research Academy. There's little danger there. With your initial skill, plus the red-quality forbidden object, you'll definitely receive priority cultivation..."

Luo Yi looked at the familiar Longming Sacred Academy school badge and the format of the admission letter on the communicator. After so many years, it still hadn't changed at all.

A dazed look flashed through his eyes.

He still remembered how excited he, his sister, and his parents had been when he received his own admission letter back then.

However...

"Cough, cough, cough..."

A sharp pain coming from deep within his lungs made Luo Yi's eyes bulge. Despite suppressing it, he ultimately failed to hold it back in front of his sister and began coughing violently.

"Brother! Brother! Take your medicine quickly! Did you take your medicine on time today?!"

Luo Xin's expression changed drastically as she looked at her brother Luo Yi, whose body was hunched over. Because the coughing was too violent, the veins on the back of his hand pressed against the table were bulging.

The tears of worry finally could no longer be held back and streamed down...

"I'm, I'm fine, cough, cough, cough!"

On the other end of the communicator, Luo Yi's face was as pale as paper. The chubby green-haired rat on the table next to him hurriedly grabbed a finger-thick medicine vial containing a grayish-brown solution from the desk and brought it over.

However, Luo Yi waved his hand and chose to refuse it.

"Cough, cough, cough—!"

After a while, when Luo Yi's cough gradually subsided and he raised his head again, he saw that his sister on the communicator screen had long since cried into a sobbing mess.

While feeling guilty in his heart, he inevitably felt deeply heartbroken as well.

With a bitter smile, he said, "Rest assured, your brother can still hold on. This is just the backlash from the shattering of the source core object. Recently, try to enter secret realms to scavenge more often. Don't go to places that are too dangerous; Confidential-grade will be enough. It will be beneficial for your secondary awakening after entering school..."

He rambled on, earnestly instructing his sister from the perspective of someone who had been through it.

"Your brother can take care of himself here, you don't need to worry about me..."

Luo Yi said, as if suddenly thinking of something.

"Right, that guy He Zhenshan hasn't been pestering you lately, has he?"

Luo Xin shook her head immediately, "No, everything is good on my end."

Luo Yi nodded, and only then did he feel relieved. With a smile, after giving a few more instructions, he hung up the communicator.

The moment he turned off the communicator, no longer able to hold it back, his entire body finally convulsed and spasmed as he collapsed in front of the desk. Cold sweat poured out of his body like mud.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak!"

The green-haired rat anxiously let out a sharp cry. It grabbed the grayish-brown medicine vial again, holding it up and trying to pour it into Luo Yi's mouth.

But Luo Yi clenched his teeth tightly, stubbornly refusing it.

"Hold on, hold on for a bit, it will pass in a moment..."

The intense pain made Luo Yi's teeth almost shatter as he spoke these words. The force inside his body that had tormented him for seven or eight years—even though there wasn't a single shred of source energy left in his body—

—was still crazily, at the cost of extracting his vitality, frantically seizing source energy.

Every inch of his bones and flesh seemed to feel the pain of being squeezed and torn, twisting Luo Yi's expression, and his already weak aura withered rapidly.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak..."

The green-haired rat brought over another blue vial. This was a [Cell Activity Potion (Purple)] produced from an ability-side secret realm, and its effect was also used to restore source energy.

This time, Luo Yi did not refuse.

As the potion entered his mouth, a surge of source energy inside his body began to recover rapidly.

Then, this source energy quickly disappeared under the seizure of that force.

Luo Yi's pain was immediately alleviated.

He panted, collapsing onto the ground. In his dazed eyes, it was as if he had returned to the betrayal he encountered in that secret realm seven or eight years ago.

He used to be one of the top geniuses of the Fierce Dragon Academy in Longming Sacred Academy.

Relying on his initial skill [Biological Analysis] and secondary skill [Continuous Extraction]...

...it not only allowed him to instantly identify the weaknesses of various monsters and bosses when facing them in secret realms, but also allowed him to gain an extra 100% duration when using medicinal props during combat compared to other Pioneers.

This created a huge early-game advantage for him to grow stronger in secret realms and obtain various red-quality collectibles.

However...

"Research on forbidden objects must be accelerated..."

I don't know how long had passed, but Luo Yi's body regained mobility. He forced himself to stand up and walked deep into this hideout, which seemed to have been established in an underground pipe area.

In a laboratory-like space with dim lighting, several important pieces of equipment, and a few huge nutrient tanks...

Luo Yi walked closer.

His gaze locked onto the huge solution tank in the center of the laboratory at this moment. A humanoid monster, standing over two meters and close to three meters tall, wearing a large, pitch-black, full-coverage robe and a bird-beak mask, stood quietly inside.

Luo Yi's expression was complex. If not for this guy back then, he would have long since died from the betrayal in that secret realm.

But his current self was also in a neither-human-nor-ghost appearance.

Those people who betrayed him back then would definitely never have imagined that he hadn't died, and the Luo Yi of eight years ago would also never have imagined that he, a proud son of heaven from Longming Sacred Academy, would one day end up like a stinky rat in a gutter...

...curled up and hiding underground.

The dull, tedious, and unknown forbidden research began once more in this secret underground pipe hideout.

The beeping sounds of instruments accompanied Luo Yi's faint coughing.

No one noticed that the eyes of the bird-beak freak, which had originally been dead and soaked in the solution tank, suddenly flashed with a trace of red light.

...

"Both of your performances were very good today. Wang Suming even advanced by one stage, reaching Origin Realm Stage Five. With one more day tomorrow, Song Jiaojiao should also be able to advance by one stage, reaching Origin Realm Stage Six."

The helicopter landed on the helipad in the City Lord's Mansion.

Jiang Xingdong led Chu Hong and the others down from the aircraft.

He spoke all the way with satisfaction.

He first brought them to the City Lord's Mansion restaurant, where meals had already been prepared by someone.

"You guys leave a bit later in a while. Song Jiaojiao and Wang Suming, you two stay behind as well. Although the matter of advancing to the Energy Gathering Realm is a bit too early for you right now, it doesn't hurt to know about it in advance so you can have a psychological expectation."

Jiang Xingdong was very serious and very responsible.

Even though he wasn't Chu Hong and the others' teacher, and even though he, the City Lord, would soon step down from office.

Yet he still did everything in his power to provide help to Chu Hong and the others.

Especially Chu Hong...

When the meal ended, Jiang Xingdong led the group into a practice room. A huge open space was surrounded by various weapon racks, as well as various martial arts dummies that should be collectibles.

Jiang Xingdong sat cross-legged and motioned for the others to sit nearby as well.

Even Lan Yujing didn't choose to leave; she knelt and sat beside the others.

"Although source energy itself is an overarching concept, before the Great Cataclysm on Blue Star, source energy did not exist... Your teachers should have already told you this basic concept when you were at school."

"Source energy comes from secret realms! Furthermore, the monster tides triggered by the shattering of secret realms cause the wilderness of Blue Star to also possess trace amounts of source energy. Therefore, Pioneers living in reality can recover on their own after consuming source energy outside of secret realms, but the speed is far incomparable to that inside secret realms."

Chu Hong and the others listened quietly.

"However, this situation is limited to Pioneers who have just come into contact with source energy, which is the Qiyuan Realm... The Energy Gathering Realm above the Qiyuan Realm—although its source energy recovery speed outside secret realms is still inferior to that inside secret realms, it is far stronger than the Qiyuan Realm."

"Xiaohong has now reached Ninth Stage of Qiyuan Realm. Presumably, when you came out of the secret realm today, you already noticed something was amiss, right?"

Chu Hong nodded earnestly, "Source energy didn't suddenly increase by a notch after coming out of the secret realm like before; it didn't even increase by a single bit!"

Jiang Xingdong nodded.

"Breaking through from Ninth Stage of Qiyuan Realm to the Energy Gathering Realm cannot be completed in reality; the advancement can only be completed inside a secret realm!"