4 Chapter 4 Return to City_1

"What should I say when I call for help? Transported here by a turtle shell? Kidnapped? Or lost?"

After Chen Mobai anxiously called the Immortal Enforcement Department, something shocking happened.

His phone had no signal!

The call couldn't go through!

Even at the bottom of the sea, thousands of meters deep on Terrestrial Planet, there's coverage from the Stars of Immortality.

Chen Mobai had even heard a Rank-5 Array Master boast on television that even during the war that opened the world two thousand years ago, the Immortal cultivator who plunged into the abyss could receive the signal from Terrestrial Planet, ensuring communication among all cultivators.

Where in the world was he?

Chen Mobai was utterly baffled!

He racked his brains to glean from his knowledge reserve, even patting every single accessible spot in the entire Water Mansion, including each piece of bricks on the floor.

However, in the end, all Chen Mobai could do was sit helplessly on the floor in the main hall.

He could not find any clues to leave.

Just as he was preparing to resign himself to meditating and practicing cultivation, a silver light suddenly illuminated his phone screen, catching his attention.

"Huh?"

He noticed that a new app icon, which he had not downloaded, had suddenly appeared on his phone.

The icon was of a small dark-green turtle.

The name of the app below it read:

[Turtle Treasure]!

What the hell was this?

Chen Mobai instinctively moved his finger to the app icon, intending to uninstall it. He didn't like it when there were apps on his phone that he didn't know about.

Then, a pop-up appeared on the screen with red font saying [Cannot Uninstall].

What was going on?

This phone seemed to have taken on a mind of its own!

Chen Mobai, growing furious, was about to reboot his phone when a light bulb suddenly went off in his mind.

This Turtle Treasure...could it be...the turtle shell?!

He quickly tapped the app open.

No glitches occurred, and the app opened smoothly.

The home page was simple, with only three function buttons - [Teleportation], [Return Home], [Agency].

Chen Mobai was both shocked and excited, but still felt uneasy. He closed and reopened the Turtle Treasure app to make sure there were no instructions, then according to his understanding, he tremblingly tapped on [Return Home].

[This process requires an 8-second guiding period during which you should not be disturbed. Please find a quiet place.].

The moment he pressed on the Return Home button, this sentence appeared abruptly on his phone screen.

While Chen Mobai was still puzzling over what disturbance would entail, a flash of silver light suddenly appeared, enveloping him entirely, twisted into a spiral, tore open the void, and took him away, disappearing from within the Water Mansion.

"Am I back already?"

After the silver light faded, Chen Mobai found himself back in his room, his hand just touching the turtle shell.

With a 'whoosh'.

He quickly retracted his hand, then backed away onto the bed, unhooking from the wall a sword that his father had bought him from the Cave Heaven Scenic Area when he was a child.

The sword gleamed brightly, but it was a children's model, only thirty centimeters long - purely a toy.

Everything fell silent in the room for about two minutes.

Chen Mobai kept his eyes on the turtle shell. Just as he was wondering how to handle it, he heard the sound of the front door opening downstairs.

His mother was back.

Recognizing the familiar sound of the front door opening and closing, Chen Mobai knew right away who it was.

Since there was a "Cultivating" sign hanging on his bedroom door, his mom didn't come upstairs to disturb him, but he still heard her familiar mutterings.

"This kid, I told him to practice breathing exercises in the cultivation room by the spirit vein, but he still prefers to hole up in his own room..."

Chen Mobai hesitated for a moment but ultimately decided not to go downstairs.

He gently sheathed his Child Model Demon Subduing Sword, then again using the lightness technique, returned to examine the turtle shell in front of him carefully.

...

The next day.

Chen Mobai dragged himself downstairs with a weary spirit, ate the carefully prepared breakfast amid his mother's nagging, then hurried off on the bus with his backpack.

After morning self-study, a modestly-dressed old man entered the classroom punctually.

"Good morning, Mr. Ding!"

After the students greeted him by standing up, Old man Ding nodded and composedly said,

"Today, we continue with the consolidation of defensive forms in spellcraft..."

The Immortal Curriculum divides everything a cultivator needs to learn into four subjects.

These are [Technqiue, Pill, Instrument, Array]!

After further subdivision, these four subjects break down into dozens of topics and specializations, prompting high school seniors to select one as their main focus, thereby determining their future path of study.

This is equivalent to the art-and-science stream selection in the high schools on the Terrestrial Planet before entering the Immortal Civilization.

The only difference now is that for Immortal Cultivation, there are four subjects to choose from.

After all, to get admitted to those prestigious Daoist Academies, besides the basic scores and cultivation realm in the college entrance examination, the most crucial factor is the academy's own test.

Chen Mobai and his classmates all chose [Techniques Law] as their prime subject.

While Chen Mobai wasn't clear about why others chose it, his choice of Techniques Law was purely because it was the most economical.

Whether it's the Pill Course, Instrument Course, or even the Array Course, practice and improvement in each of these require certain resources and Good Deed Points.

Techniques Law, on the other hand, is pretty straightforward.

There's only one word: Practice!

Moreover, Techniques Law allows one to choose becoming a Talisman Master as a career path. In the later stage, it's one of the most profitable careers in the Hundred Arts of Cultivation Immortal.

Chen Mobai had always dreamed of becoming a talisman master.

He had the right background; his mother worked at a talisman paper factory. Immersed in this environment since he was a child, he had some insights that would save him some time in his future learning and allow more time for cultivation.

The old man, known as Ding Jinglue, was a renowned cultivator in Red Sandstone City.

When he was young, his qualifications were decent, possessing a three-attribute True Spirit Root, which was a tad better than Chen Mobai's.

His score in the college entrance examination was mediocre, barely securing him a place in the local Cinnabarite Institute. However, his tenacious character led him to put in twenty years of hard study there, finally clearing the Immortal ascension exam conducted by the top ten academies and getting accepted.

However, he was too slow in developing his abilities.

Despite gaining the admission in the Pure Yang Academy and cultivating Qi to Perfection before the sixty-year limit, he also got access to the secret Foundation Establishment technique, but still fell short of success.

When he finished his one chance to establish his foundation at the Pure Yang Academy, Ding Jinglue had to endure for another twenty years before he cultivated Qi back to Perfection, and, powered by his strong determination, tried to break into the Foundation Establishment Realm once more.

Sadly, fate seemed to have forsaken him, and Ding Jinglue failed again.

Two attempts later, with all his potential exhausted, Ding Jinglue returned to his birthplace, Red Sandstone City, to became a teacher.

Before the foundation was established, he was utterly absorbed in cultivation. After he returned to his roots, he ended up having some spare time to study the Hundred Arts of Cultivation Immortal.

Among those, he was profoundly accomplished in the Path of Spellcraft, because it didn't require any capital. However, his teaching skills were mediocre at best, making most of his students feel bored and sleepy.

Normally, Chen Mobai wouldn't take him seriously either, but today was different.