Ren closed the system screen and took a deep breath.
His heart was still beating faster than usual, and the memory of those two giant snakes rushing through the tunnels had not faded even a little. Even now, if he closed his eyes, he could still picture the cave shaking, the stone breaking, and the way the black and white bodies had torn through the mountain like it was made of dirt.
He stood still for a few more seconds and forced himself to calm down.
After steadying his breathing, Ren started walking toward the exit of the return area.
There were several machines there, along with Explorer Guild staff handling the people who had just come back from the Secret Realm. The process moved quickly. No one was asking where people had gone, what they found, or whether they had succeeded or failed. That part was their own business.
The staff and machines only cared about one thing.
Whether anyone had come back carrying something inside them.
Parasites.
Possession.
Hidden contamination.
Abnormal spiritual residue.
Anything dangerous enough to spread from a Secret Realm into the outside world.
Ren stepped into line without saying a word.
He was in no mood to talk to anyone.
Not after what had just happened.
When his turn came, he stepped into the scanning area. Thin lights moved over his body once, then twice. One of the staff members glanced at the screen, nodded, and waved him through.
That was it.
Ren left the return section and walked back through the market.
This time, he barely looked at anything around him.
When he had first arrived here, the place had seemed lively and interesting. There had been stalls, adventurers, strange materials, weapons, maps, odd beasts in cages, and all kinds of things that would normally catch his eye.
Now he didn't care.
He was tired.
Not physically alone.
Mentally too.
His body had already begun coming down from the pressure and danger, and once that happened, the exhaustion underneath it became more obvious.
So he didn't stop.
He walked straight through the market, entered the Explorer Guild branch outpost again, and from there used the transport system to return to the main branch in the city.
The whole process felt blurry.
He only remembered stepping onto the platform, the cold pull of teleportation, the familiar shift from frontier outpost to clean guild infrastructure. But his thoughts were somewhere else.
Mostly on the Rare Substance.
And on the Spatial Storage Space.
That new system function still felt unreal.
By the time he stepped out of the guild building and called a hover taxi, the city had already started settling into evening. The lights outside were brighter now, and the roads in the air carried long streams of moving vehicles.
Ren got into the taxi and gave his address.
Then he leaned back and stayed quiet during the whole ride.
When he finally reached home, he paid, stepped out, and went inside.
The moment the door closed behind him, he felt the last bit of tension in his shoulders loosen.
He was home.
Safe.
Ren did not do anything dramatic after that.
He didn't immediately sit down and start studying the Rare Substance.
He didn't start checking any message.
He didn't even try cultivating.
First, he went straight to the washroom and cleaned himself properly.
By the time he finished washing away the dirt, sweat, and stale smell of the forest, his mind felt much clearer. He changed clothes, dried his hair, and returned to his room.
Only then did he sit down and open his status screen again.
The familiar panel appeared in front of him.
____________________________
NAME: Ren Valis
Age: 18
Talent: Bloodline Plant Lord
Lifeform Tier: 1
Evolution Pathway Level: Germination Stage
Skills: Basic Fist Technique (Expert), Basic Foot Technique (Expert), Basic Evasion Technique (Expert)
____________________________
Ren blinked once.
Then a small smile appeared on his face.
"Nice."
That was genuinely good.
He had expected improvement, especially after the repeated fights inside the Secret Realm. Real combat always gave more than practice alone. But even so, seeing both the Basic Fist Technique and Basic Foot Technique reach Expert, and even the Basic Evasion Technique catch up to the same level, still felt satisfying.
That meant all three of his current basic combat skills had reached the point where he could properly display around 75% of what they were capable of.
Not Master.
But already far beyond what a newly awakened beginner should normally have.
The realm trip had been dangerous.
Too dangerous, honestly.
But it had not been a waste.
Ren closed the status screen.
His mood improved a little after that.
Not enough to start smiling around like an idiot, but enough to let him relax.
For tonight, that was enough.
He lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds.
Then, without any ceremony, he went to sleep.
A real sleep this time.
Not meditation.
And he fell asleep almost immediatelyas soon as his face touched his pillow.
____________________________
Orien School
The same day, while Ren was in the Secret Realm, a meeting was already taking place at Orien School.
It was being held on the top floor of the main school building, inside a large conference room reserved for important internal matters.
At the moment, the room was noisy.
Very noisy.
Teachers were sitting on both sides of a long table, but instead of discussing things calmly like proper staff members, many of them were talking over one another. Some were trying to argue a point. Some were trying to interrupt someone else's point.
The only person not participating in the chaos was the one sitting in the main seat at the front.
The principal.
His name was Caelan Veyr.
At first glance, Caelan looked like a man in his twenties.
His appearance was almost unfair. He had an extremely handsome face, black hair, and a calm, refined bearing that made him look more like the elegant young master of some ancient noble family than the principal of a school. His face carried a natural kindness that, to someone who didn't know him, could even seem harmless.
But that illusion only lasted until they looked into his eyes.
There was a sharpness there.
A kind of quiet majesty.
Not the kind that demanded attention by force.
But the kind that made it instantly clear he was not someone to challenge casually, ignore lightly, or mistake for a pushover.
And that was without even considering the fact that he was a Peak Stage 5 Plant Pathway expert.
At the moment, Caelan was simply sitting there, watching the teachers argue.
One teacher at the left side of the table was insisting that this year's awakened students should immediately be separated into more specialized classes.
Another on the opposite side was arguing that they should wait until the schools above them finalized the preliminary student pathway reports.
A third had begun dragging in budget concerns.
Someone else was talking about combat instructor allocation.
One teacher was trying to be reasonable.
No one was listening to him.
Caelan watched it for a while.
Then he gave a small sigh and tapped the table once.
"Silence."
Not a single teacher stopped.
The argument continued like his voice had been background decoration.
Caelan's expression did not change at first.
Then, very slowly, a small smile appeared on his face.
It was a nice smile.
Unfortunately, everyone in that room knew from experience that this was exactly what made it terrifying.
Caelan leaned back slightly and spoke again, this time a little louder.
"If even one person is still talking and not sitting properly in the next three seconds," he said pleasantly, "then they can come play Caelan's Special Bungee Jumping Game with me."
The effect was immediate.
The entire room froze.
Voices died.
Chairs straightened.
Spines snapped upright.
In less than two seconds, every single teacher was seated properly and facing forward like the most disciplined staff in the country.
If a stranger had walked in right then, they might have thought this room had always been perfectly calm.
Seeing the sudden order, Caelan's smile widened a little. Then he put on an innocent, almost sad expression.
"Ara" he said softly. "I really thought someone would want to play with me today."
He rested one cheek lightly on his hand and sighed.
"Poor me. Every year I prepare such a fun school activity, and every year all of you cruelly reject my kindness."
Not a single teacher answered.
But several lips twitched.
Because every single one of them was thinking the same thing.
Poor him my foot.
This shameless old fox really had no shame at all.
Did he not remember what happened the last time someone got fooled by that innocent-looking face and thought he could ignore his authority?
That poor teacher—newly transferred, still not knowing what kind of principal Caelan really was—had underestimated him once.
Just once.
Caelan had invited him to "play a little game."
Afterward, the man had been hospitalized for months.
Months.
And even after recovering, he still had nightmares, had gone to therapy, and eventually requested a transfer to a different city and a different school.
No one in this room was stupid enough to repeat that mistake.
Seeing that no one was responding, Caelan let the fake sadness vanish from his face. His expression turned calm again, though the corners of his mouth still held a trace of amusement.
"Good," he said. "Now that all of you have remembered how to behave like teachers, let's continue."
He looked over the table once.
"Everyone has seen this year's awakening files, right?"
This time, nobody interrupted.
Several teachers nodded.
One answered, "Yes, Principal."
Caelan folded his hands on the table.
"This year, sixty-three percent of our students awakened successfully."
That number alone caused a slight stir in the room.
Just visible surprise.
Because that was high.
Very high.
Even in a good year, fifty percent was already standard. Anything noticeably above that was enough to get the attention of higher-level educational authorities.
Caelan continued calmly.
"Out of that sixty-three percent, the majority fell into expected ranges. Plant Pathway. Bloodline Pathway. A normal distribution both of these talents."
He paused.
Then his eyes moved slowly across the room.
"But"