No Money to Cultivate Immortality?

Zhang Yu thought to himself, ”The High School Saint Body gives me a stronger drug metabolism than him.”

”If he tries to stockpile too many drug toxins, his body might break down and his performance could be affected.”

”But I won’t have that problem.”

”By accumulating drug toxins with the High School Saint Body, then triggering them with the Endless Spring and Autumn Meditation, and finally unleashing the Martial Saint Embryo’s burst... that’s when I’ll be going all out.”

At the same time, Ye Lingxiao could feel the battle aura radiating from Zhang Yu and silently mused, ”This guy’s really strong.”

”At his level... well, even if he had competed last time... now that he’s here, he really is formidable.”

”If I want to defeat him completely, I’ll have to go all out too, push past my own limits again.”

While Zhang Yu and Ye Lingxiao both weighed their options and planned their next moves, Huang Zichou began instructing them to remove their Battle-Grade Spirit Roots in preparation for the next exam.

Just then, a flash of light lit up before Huang Zichou’s eyes, revealing a reel of footage showing Foundation Establishment cultivators wielding Battle-Grade Spirit Roots.

”After all, the two of you are still in the Qi Refining Realm, and can only activate the most basic 100% output of the Battle-Grade Spirit Root.””But if a Foundation Establishment cultivator were to infuse enough mana into it, the power would be more than ten times greater.”

Zhang Yu watched the screen, where a hundred-meter-long fire dragon roared and a tornado howled, and couldn’t help but lick his lips.

”This is definitely an ad, right?”

He glanced at the audience seats. ”Is this whole thing just a promo for the universities?”

Reluctantly, Zhang Yu retracted his mana from the combat suit. As the fire dragon behind him and the whirlwind beneath his feet faded, and the surrounding Battle-Grade Armor dispersed, he sighed inwardly, ”When will I ever have one of these Divine Spirit Roots?”

Even though he’d only experienced it in test mode without actually wielding the Battle-Grade Spirit Root, Zhang Yu could already feel its immense power.

”The combat prowess granted by this spirit root is leagues above a Heavenly Spiritual Root.”

”And this is with my current strength holding me back. If I could use the Battle-Grade Spirit Root to form my Foundation, wouldn’t I be absurdly strong?”

”No, no, this root is built for combat. My goal is higher than Foundation—at the very least, I’m aiming for Gold Core, even Nascent Soul. I need a spirit root tailored for cultivation…” ℞АＮỌꞖËS̩

Then Zhang Yu snapped back to reality, realizing he was fantasizing again. He couldn’t even afford a Heavenly Spiritual Root, let alone a Divine one.

After reclaiming the Divine Spirit Roots, Huang Zichou began explaining the next part of the exam.

”As you all know, once mana reaches 100 units, you can equip a Law Husk.”

”And the higher your mana, the more Law Husk parts your body can bear and synchronize with.”

”So, the higher one’s cultivation realm—and the wealthier the cultivator—the more Law Husk pieces they’ll typically carry.”

”This next section tests how well your bodies can adapt to Law Husks, and who among you does it better.”

As he spoke, divine power rippled out from Huang Zichou, and a series of devices floated over and arranged themselves around Zhang Yu and Ye Lingxiao, turning the scene into a mock operating theater.

”For this exam, I’ll be using sigils from the Health Ministry to temporarily sever your connection to your physical bodies and reroute your neural signals into the Law Husk.”

”This isn’t full implantation—you won’t need to power the Law Husk with your own mana—it’s just a simulation to help you feel what it’s like to have your body replaced.”

”You’ll be fitted with three different Law Husks, and your final synchronization rate with each will determine your score for this section.”

As Huang Zichou explained, the synchronization rate represented the user’s control over the Law Husk.

The higher the synchronization, the more powerfully the Law Husk could be used.

If the sync was too low, not only would the Law Husk underperform, but it could also go haywire and cause backlash, leading to possession or inner deviation.

As he spoke, Zhang Yu and Ye Lingxiao each lay down on their surgical platforms, surrounded by wires, patches, sensors...

In the stands, Huskyhead observed and commented, ”This is a well-designed phase.”

”Zhang Yu and Ye Lingxiao both have extremely strong bodies. That kind of physique only comes from brutal training and heavy drug regimens.”

”They’ve relied on those bodies to get through hellish trials, forging an intense mind-body connection. That’s exactly what makes them prone to overvaluing their physical forms.”

”Many college freshmen fail this section because their original bodies were too strong and too tightly bound to their minds—they struggle to adapt to Law Husks.”

”The path of physical cultivation requires one to both grasp and let go. You must constantly strengthen your body while staying ready to accept newer, stronger Law Husks. That is the proper Immortal Dao...”

Cathead didn’t respond to Huskyhead’s musings. It wasn’t until Huang Zichou took out the first Law Husk that Cathead finally spoke up.

”Is that an ocular Law Husk from Sky Eye Corporation?”

”Tch. This is just more advertising aimed at us.”

”Trying to get a few more colleges to buy their training-level ocular Law Husks?”

At the same time, two crystal-clear eyeballs floated in front of Huang Zichou, gleaming like gemstones.

He introduced them: ”This is Sky Eye Corporation’s latest ocular Law Husk—FarSight.”

Hearing this, Zhang Yu learned that Law Husks come in levels: training-level, professional-grade, and enterprise-grade.

Above enterprise-grade were military-grade and Immortal Sect-grade, akin to high-level artifacts and techniques.

The one Huang Zichou held now was a training-level ocular Law Husk.

Once implanted, it not only allowed visual data retrieval, but its artifact spirit also offered basic intelligent recognition, searching, tagging, and more.

But beyond those basics, its most crucial function was to connect to the network and observe the Spiritual Realm.

”In day-to-day university life,” Huang Zichou explained, ”using an ocular Law Husk to connect to the internet for payments, calls, research, and more is commonplace.”

”And the Spiritual Realm is even more prevalent in universities. Without an ocular Law Husk, you’re essentially blind.”

At the same time, Huang Zichou thought to himself, ”That’s exactly why all students are issued one upon entering university—otherwise they couldn’t function.”

”The universities bulk-purchase these Husk units and then charge the students.”

”Students either pay in installments or temporarily pawn their real eyes.”

”Although ocular Law Husks aren’t that expensive, most people can pay them off before graduation. But unless you stay on the second floor, they’re useless back on the first. Most graduates end up selling theirs and regaining their real eyes to recover some cash.”

Still, Huang Zichou knew that while individual units were cheap, bulk orders made the market enormous.

Sky Eye Corporation clearly had its sights on this lucrative segment, which is why they’d sponsored this showcase.

Looking around at the university reps in the audience, Huang Zichou thought to himself, ”We definitely undercharged for this ad slot.”

As he finished his explanation, a sigil from the Health Ministry activated, and Zhang Yu felt a searing divine power pierce his eyes.

In the next moment, everything went dark—he lost all vision.

It wasn’t just that he couldn’t see—Zhang Yu, who had exceptional control over his body, couldn’t even feel his eyeballs anymore, as if that blazing light had gouged them out.

The sensation was deeply unsettling, and an inexplicable nervousness crept in.

Then Huang Zichou’s voice rang out, ”No need to panic. We’ve only severed your neural connection to your eyes—they’re still perfectly intact.”

”Now I’m going to reroute your signals to the Sky Eye FarSight ocular Law Husk.”

”This is an entry-level ocular Law Husk that any Qi Refinement student with 100 mana units can use. The process is simple and low-burden—no need to be nervous.”

Before he finished, Zhang Yu felt a sharp pain in his eyes. The next moment, he began to see blurry shapes and shifting lights.

”FarSight will automatically calibrate to your visual system. Things might be fuzzy at first, but it’ll stabilize soon.”

Just like a camera focusing, Zhang Yu’s vision began heavily pixelated, like everything was covered in mosaic.

Then he felt his new eyes zoom in and out, until everything became sharper and clearer.

But what he saw now was nothing like the exam hall from before.

”What is this...”

Looking up, he saw an endless azure sky without a single cloud.

Looking down, a vast, boundless sea stretched like an endless sheet of blue silk.

Then Huang Zichou’s voice returned. ”We’ve temporarily overlaid a layer of the Spiritual Realm in the exam hall. You should all be able to see it now.”

With a wave of his divine power, the ocean and sky vanished.

But the formerly barren exam room now glittered with Spiritual Roots and Law Husk ads, promotional videos, discounts, and special offers—visible only through the FarSight Husk.

Zhang Yu blinked in surprise.

”So this... is how the second-floor university reps see the exam hall?”

”Information that can only be seen with an ocular Law Husk?”

A thought stirred in Zhang Yu’s mind: ”If the Spiritual Realm entered via the mask is a virtual world...”

”Then the Spiritual Realm as seen here is more like AR—an augmented reality layer fused with the real world. One that only an ocular Law Husk can reveal.”

”No Husk... and you’re not even qualified to see the ads?”