8: Chapter 8 Initial Resources

At 7:00 AM the next morning, Shen Ye's communicator vibrated.

It wasn't an alarm, but a notification from the school's Resource Department: "S-rank Awakened Shen Ye, please report to the Resource Department before 8:00 AM today to collect your initial allocation."

By the time he finished washing up and left, Liu Yang was still asleep.

The Resource Department was on the first floor of the Administration Building, in a room without windows.

The walls were embedded with dense sealing patterns, far more intricate than those on the metal cabinet in the principal's office.

When Shen Ye arrived, a few people were already lining up at the door—all of them had Awakened yesterday. They held their assessment forms, their expressions a mix of excitement and dejection.

Shen Ye saw Lu Qing, the girl with the B-rank Spirit Bamboo Forest.

She saw him too; her gaze lingered on him for a fleeting moment before shifting away.

The window of the Resource Department opened.

Staff members called out names, and one by one, students went in, emerging with a standard resource bag in hand.

When it was Lu Qing's turn, Shen Ye heard the staff member read out her quota: "B-rank, five basic building blueprints, ten Faith Stones, and a cash subsidy of 200,000." Lu Qing took the resource bag, her expression unchanged.

"Shen Ye."

Shen Ye walked up to the window.

The staff member was a middle-aged woman. She glanced at him, then lowered her head to search for a moment before pulling out a black bag from under the counter that was significantly larger than the others.

"S-rank allocation. Six scrolls of elite-grade building blueprints, one hundred Faith Crystals, and twenty million in cash."

She pushed the bag toward him. "Sign here."

Shen Ye signed his name on the electronic screen.

The bag felt very heavy in his hand, even heavier than the one Principal Zhou had given him yesterday.

"Wait a moment."

The staff member called him back and took a magnetic card out of a drawer.

"Your training room access card. Third Training Ground, Room 9."

"Your exclusive mentor is waiting for you there."

The Third Training Ground was located in the deepest part of the campus, a complex of independent buildings surrounded by a secluded forest belt.

Shen Ye swiped the access card, walked down the corridor, and found Room 9. He pushed the door open.

Inside, it wasn't a meditation room, but a combat simulation room.

In the center of the room stood a Simulated Rift device, its four walls engraved with patterns of buffering laws.

A man stood with his back to the door in front of the device, adjusting the parameters.

He turned around.

He looked to be about forty, though the age of a deity could not be judged by appearance.

He was lean, with high cheekbones, deep-set eye sockets, and the eyes of a hawk.

The first thing Shen Ye noticed was his right hand—the index and middle fingers were missing. The stump was smooth; it hadn't been cut off, but erased directly by some kind of force.

"Shen Ye." His voice was low, like sandpaper grinding against wood. "I am Qin Shu. Your exclusive mentor."

Shen Ye nodded.

Qin Shu didn't bother with pleasantries; he walked straight to the observation deck in the corner of the room and picked up a data pad.

"Land of Cultivation, Kin count at max capacity of one thousand, area at max capacity of one hundred square kilometers, S-rank Double Time."

He read through Shen Ye's awakening data, then put down the data pad. "The data looks very good. But data doesn't kill."

Shen Ye didn't speak.

Qin Shu walked up to him; he was half a head shorter, yet Shen Ye felt as though he were being looked down upon.

It wasn't his height, it was his presence.

There was something about Qin Shu brought back from the battlefield—not killing intent, but something deeper, something restrained like the edge of a blade.

"How far do you think you can go?"

Shen Ye was silent for a moment. "Top fifty in the country."

"Is that the goal Principal Zhou Wenyin set for you?"

"Yes."

Qin Shu nodded without comment.

He turned and walked toward the Simulated Rift device, pressing a few buttons on the control panel.

A light screen lit up in the center of the device, projecting a wasteland—not Void Race territory, but the gray zone on the border of the human divine realm.

"My Kingdom is called 'Array Breaker'." Qin Shu said with his back to Shen Ye, his tone flat, as if he were commenting on the weather. "It's not a superior attribute, just Rare-grade."

"It only has one function—within the range of my Kingdom Projection, all formations, domains, and law enhancements are rendered ineffective."

Shen Ye's expression changed.

Rare-grade.

Not a superior attribute.

But he had never seen the function of "Array Breaker" in any textbook.

All formations, domains, and law enhancements rendered ineffective—this meant that in front of Qin Shu, any advantage gained from Kingdom attributes or building bonuses was equal to zero.

It came down solely to the pure combat power of the Kin.

"My military rank before retirement was Major General." Qin Shu finished adjusting the parameters and turned around. "Independent Pioneer Sequence, serial number 0047."

"I spent thirty-one years in the gray zone killing the Void Race, from warriors to lords, from lords to monarchs."

"I didn't retire because I couldn't fight anymore, but because of this hand."

He raised his right hand, the one missing two fingers.

"During a deep-penetration mission behind enemy lines, I encountered a Void Race monarch."

"Its Devouring Abyss domain could devour all law enhancements."

"My Array Breaker rendered its domain ineffective, and its domain rendered my Array Breaker ineffective."

"When the two domains clashed to the end, it came down to pure Kin combat power."

He lowered his hand. "I won. But before it died, it released a curse—not an attack, but a sacrifice."

"It sacrificed its own life to conceptually erase two fingers from my right hand."

"Not cut off, but erased."

"From the level of laws, it made it so those two fingers never existed."

Shen Ye looked at that hand.

There were no scars at the stump; the skin was smooth, as if those two fingers had never existed from birth.

"After I retired, Principal Zhou Wenyin found me and asked me to be a mentor at Nanjiang No. 7 High School."

"I told her I only teach one kind of student—not the ones with the highest talent, but the ones who can survive on the battlefield."

Qin Shu's gaze fell on Shen Ye. "Your data looks very good."

But data is useless on the battlefield.

"The Void Race won't spare you just because your Kin are at max capacity."

He walked up to Shen Ye.

"I'll ask again. How far do you think you can go?"

Shen Ye looked at Qin Shu's hand missing two fingers, then at those hawk-like eyes.

"To a place where I don't need anyone to cover my retreat."

Qin Shu was silent for a moment.

Then he nodded—not in satisfaction, but in confirmation—confirming that Shen Ye had understood his question.

"Today's first lesson."

He pointed to the Simulated Rift device. "Gray zone, three Void Tribe Scouts."

"Your Kin versus the Void Race."

"No restrictions on building bonuses, no restrictions on formations."

"Win, and class is dismissed."

"If you can't win, you keep fighting."

Shen Ye walked toward the Simulated Rift device.

The wasteland in the light screen was waiting for him.

The shadows of three Void Tribe Scouts flickered at the edge of the wasteland, with dark red Devouring Abyss light flowing over their bodies.

He took a deep breath and connected his consciousness to his Kingdom.

In the Land of Cultivation, the Metal Spirit Root Kin stood up from the peaks of the Five Elements Array Eye: Metal.

The Wood Spirit Root Kin put down their work in the spirit fields.

The Water Spirit Root, Fire Spirit Root, and Earth Spirit Root Kin all looked up at the sky simultaneously—looking toward the direction where Shen Ye's consciousness resided.

One thousand newborn cultivators, at the early stage of Qi Refining, their cultivation still shallow. But their eyes were bright.

Shen Ye stepped into the light screen.

The battle began.