Beyond the Zenith

That night, Han Qingyu was woken from a deep sleep.

The regiment lead advisor shook him gently, whispering, “Get up... It’s your turn.”

Han Qingyu realized that a good number of people had already disappeared from the large tent.

The regiment lead advisor and Regiment Commander Li walked him to the entrance of a corridor.

“You’ll need to enter on your own. Try not to get nervous, alright?” Li Wangqiang whispered, despite knowing full well that being relaxed or nervous wouldn’t make any difference either way.

After Han Qingyu disappeared into the corridor, he turned his face to the sky and prayed, “Heaven help us.”

The regiment lead advisor couldn’t help but laugh.

“Come on, let’s go,” Li Wangqiang suddenly said.

“Where?”

“You’ve got a senior from university working in research here, don’t you? Let’s go find her and pull some strings, see if we can get the results early.”

“Huh?Can’t we just wait? It won’t be that much longer—”

“No.” Regiment Commander Li dragged the regiment lead advisor away in a hurry.

Han Qingyu emerged from the corridor to find a basketball-court-sized clearing packed with unfamiliar faces. Thought I’d be the only one testing. Makes sense, though. One at a time would take forever.

“Quiet!” an officer called for silence from the crowd before climbing onto a small elevated platform.

“Shortly, you’ll enter the source energy field,” he explained, voice tired and flat, having clearly repeated this speech many times. “There’s nothing special to keep in mind. Just line up and walk forward. One thing to be aware of is that the source energy field may amplify certain emotions or painful memories. Some of you might cry, scream, or act like you’ve gone mad. That’s all normal. Just remember to keep walking forward. Alright, line up.”

Han Qingyu stood toward the back of the line with the rest of the strangers and followed along, head down, for about five minutes.

The procession started silent and dazed, but voices gradually rose in awe.

The wonder was evident not just in their exclamations, but in their eyes.

“It’s huge.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“So this is what a source energy field looks like?!”

Han Qingyu considered the structure before him. If he had to compare it to a building, the closest match would be a massive air-raid shelter.

The walls of this structure were stunning, though, unlike the dim concrete walls of an actual shelter.

It looked like one of those high-end aquariums he’d seen on television. The kind built like a glass tunnel, where people walked through while water and fish surrounded them on both sides and overhead.

Only there were no fish or water here. Instead, a thin, hazy mist seeped from deep ocean blue walls.

Even the floor was made of those blue blocks.

Han Qingyu recognized them as energy cores, though they looked slightly different from the ones he’d encountered before. Perhaps the refinement method was different, but he could only speculate.

Other staff members were waiting outside the source energy field.

“See these?” A young officer pointed at devices hanging on a wall outside the field.

“Yes!” the group called back.

Han Qingyu counted silently. Eight rows of five, making forty devices. Their shape differed from both the ones Lao Jian’s team wore and the simplified ones the veterans had used during the sparring evaluation.

“These are called source energy stress-response devices. Watch closely.”

As the officer spoke, a female officer beside him took one down and began a live demonstration.

First, a metal band was looped around the chest like a belt and fastened at the front. Then, a sealed rectangular metal case was strapped to her back. Finally, a metal strip from the case was connected to the clasp at the chest.

“Everyone got that? It’s that simple. In a moment, you’ll come forward in groups of five, put one of these on, and walk through. Remove and hand over the device to the staff on the other end when you get there. Understood?” the male officer called out.

“Understood!” the group replied.

He waved them forward. “Good. Begin.” 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

The first group walked into the source energy field.

They rounded a bend and vanished from sight. Nothing happened.

The second group was the same. Then the third.

“Ma’am, these things aren’t broken, are they? Nobody’s getting any reaction. You’d better not give me a wrong reading,” a cheeky recruit quipped from the line.

The female officer smiled encouragingly. “You would break long before this thing does.”

“I’m just worried my integration level’s too high, and I’ll blow the whole thing up,” the recruit joked.

The female officer didn’t seem to mind the banter. “If you’re strong, the field will merely consume a bit more energy. There’s no risk of conflict or collapse. Even if you were the strongest in history, it wouldn’t matter. Next!”

The line moved forward.

Han Qingyu followed along, relaxed. There were about five or six groups ahead of him.

Buzz!

Sssshhhh...

Without warning, the source energy field dimmed with a strange sound, like an engine stalling.

“Get down!” someone shouted.

The recruits yelped and hit the ground in a heap. Even the two officers dropped flat.

Everyone was reacting on pure reflex.

Everyone except Han Qingyu.

He would have cried out and dropped down even without the shout. It felt as though something akin to a heavy truck had collided with him head-on.

An unbearably violent pain tore through his insides as Han Qingyu lay face down on the ground, gritting his teeth. He quickly mobilized the remaining liquid source energy inside his body, circulating it to ease the agony.

At the same moment, inside the source energy field’s control and observation room, dozens of researchers froze.

“What happened?” the supervisor in charge asked anxiously.

“It seems like...” the scientist trailed off, searching for the right word. “A malfunction? A short circuit? With the source energy stress-response device.”

“Can it be fixed?” the supervisor asked.

After a brief diagnostic, the scientist responded. “Yes. A restart should do it.”

The supervisor let out a breath and nodded. “Run a test first.”

Outside, the source energy field lit up again.

“See, ma’am? Told you I was too powerful. You didn’t believe me, did you? Blew the whole thing up!” the thick-skinned recruit continued joking even as he strapped on his device.

The whole crowd laughed, the two slightly embarrassed officers included.

Amid the laughter, Han Qingyu took one cautious step forward.

It’s fine. It’s fine...

No heavy truck came crashing into him this time.

Group after group disappeared into the tunnel. Everything stayed calm.

“Next group!” the female officer called.

Han Qingyu walked over, put on the device, and stepped into the source energy field alongside four others. Despite projecting an outward calm, he remained on high alert.

He took one step into the tunnel.

The case on Han Qingyu’s back vibrated once, and its blue light came on, but the field didn’t collapse.

Not a single person among the groups before him had triggered a blue light within visible range. That was precisely why some had wondered if the field was broken.

But that had been normal.

This... was not.

The two officers stared, mouths open, exchanging stunned glances.

A cacophony of crashes and bangs filled the control room as over a dozen people shot to their feet at once, chairs scraping backward, tipping over, and hitting the floor.

“What now? What is it now?!” The supervisor rushed over with his mug, sloshing boiling water onto his hand in his haste. He hissed through clenched teeth, frantically patting his scalded hand dry.

Nobody spared him a glance. Even the most attentive, politically astute staff member forgot to offer help or concern.

“Source energy sensitivity level...” One scientist pointed at the screen showing the blue light at the field’s entrance and half-turned to the room with a look of complete shock. “Source energy sensitivity level... above S-rank.”

Source energy sensitivity level was a metric that the research institute used internally, typically as a supplementary reference. It was not released publicly.

The more critical figure—the integration level—was the publicly released one. The two values were correlated, though. A sensitivity reading like this was extraordinary.

“What-what did you say?” The supervisor stood frozen, cup still in hand, as though his scalded hand no longer hurt.

“Source energy sensitivity level... Above S-rank,” the staff member repeated.

“Keep watching! Keep watching!” The supervisor’s agitated movements splashed boiling water on his hand again. “Ow!”