All-out: Starting with the Awakening Special Operations Unit, search, attack, and withdrawal.

"Xiaoxin, how did the secret realm assessment go? It's been several days, you should have received your acceptance letter by now, right?"

Luo Yi's figure appeared in the picture.

His slightly sallow complexion and tired, bloodshot eyes caused Luo Xin another pang of pain in her heart. Her brother's current appearance was unbearable, even if she met his classmates and friends from the Dragon Roar Holy Academy.

I doubt they would even recognize me now.

She forced a smile and nodded, suppressing the stinging sensation in her nose.

"Got it, bro. You know my abilities. Even though for some reason, a lot of teams that blocked the evacuation points appeared later in the assessment dungeon [Primitive Valley No. 1], I was able to successfully evacuate every time using the smoke grenade technique you taught me."

As she spoke, she sent the admission notice she had received from Dragon Roar Academy to Luo Yi's communicator.

When he saw that his younger sister had actually been admitted to the Dragon Roar Academy.

A hint of relaxation and joy immediately appeared in Luo Yi's tired eyes.

"Alright, alright, you can listen to your brother then. Choose the Secret Realm Research Academy. There's no danger there. With your initial skills and the red-quality [Forbidden Item], you'll definitely receive special training..."

Luo Yi looked at the familiar Dragon Roar Holy Academy emblem and the format of the admission notice on the communicator. After so many years, it hadn't changed at all.

A look of disbelief flashed across his eyes.

He still remembers how excited he, his sister, and their parents were when they received their university acceptance letters.

however.

"Cough cough cough..."

A sharp pain shot through Luo Yi's body and lungs, causing his eyes to bulge. Despite his efforts to suppress it, he ultimately couldn't help but cough violently in front of his sister.

"Brother! Brother! Take your medicine quickly! Did you take your medicine on time today?" Luo Xin's expression changed drastically as she looked at her brother, Luo Yi, who was hunched over and whose hands, pressed against the table, were throbbing with veins from coughing so violently.

Tears of worry finally broke free and streamed down her face...

"No, it's nothing, uh, cough cough cough!"

On the other end of the communicator, Luo Yi's face was as pale as paper. A chubby green rat on the table next to him hurriedly grabbed a tube of medicine, about the thickness of a finger, containing a grayish-brown solution.

However, Luo Yi waved his hand and refused.

"Cough cough cough—!"

After a while, when Luo Yi's cough gradually subsided and he looked up again, he saw his sister on the communicator screen, who was already crying her eyes out.

While feeling guilty, I couldn't help but feel heartbroken.

He gave a bitter smile: "Don't worry, your brother can still handle it. This is just the backlash from the shattering of the source core. In the coming days, try to go into the secret realms as much as possible to practice your sword skills. Don't go to anything too dangerous, just go to the classified ones. It will be beneficial for your second awakening after you enter the academy..."

He talked on and on, earnestly giving his younger sister advice as someone who had been through it all.

"I can take care of myself, so you don't need to worry about me..." Luo Yi said, then seemed to suddenly remember something.

"By the way, has He Zhenshan stopped bothering you lately?"

Luo Xin immediately shook her head: "No, everything is fine on my end."

Luo Yi nodded, then smiled with relief and gave a few more instructions before hanging up the communicator.

The moment he shut down the communicator, he could no longer hold back and collapsed in front of the table, his whole body convulsing and twitching. Cold sweat, like mud, poured from his body.

"Squeak squeak squeak!"

The green-haired rat let out a sharp cry of anxiety. It picked up the grayish-brown potion again and held it up, intending to pour it into Luo Yi's mouth.

However, Luo Yi gritted his teeth and refused firmly.

"Bear with it, bear with it for a while, it'll pass..."

The intense pain made Luo Yi almost grind his teeth to pieces as he spoke. The power that had tormented him for seven or eight years was completely gone, even though there wasn't a trace of source energy left in his body.

Still frantically, at the cost of draining his life force, they frantically seize source energy.

Every bone and flesh seemed to be being squeezed and torn apart, causing Luo Yi's face to contort and his already weak aura to rapidly wither away.

"Squeak squeak squeak..."

The green-haired rat brought over another blue potion, a [Cellular Activity Potion (Purple)] produced in the Secret Realm of Supernatural Abilities, which also restores source energy.

This time, Luo Yi did not refuse.

As the medicine entered his body, a surge of energy began to rapidly recover.

Then, this source energy was quickly seized by that force and disappeared.

Luo Yi's pain was immediately relieved.

He gasped for breath and collapsed to the ground, his dazed eyes seeming to return to the betrayal he encountered in the secret realm seven or eight years ago.

He was once one of the top geniuses at the Dragon Roar Holy Academy's Fierce Dragon Academy.

With the initial skill [Biological Analysis] and the secondary skill [Continuous Extraction], you can start your journey.

Not only does it allow him to instantly identify the weaknesses of various monsters and bosses in the secret realm, but it also grants him an extra 100% duration when using medicine-type items compared to other pioneers during combat.

This gave him a huge early-game advantage as he grew stronger in the secret realm and obtained various red-quality collectibles.

However......

"Research into forbidden substances must be accelerated..."

After an unknown amount of time, Luo Yi regained his mobility and forced himself to stand up, walking deep into the hideout, which seemed to be located in an underground pipe area.

It was a dimly lit space, containing several important pieces of equipment and several large nutrient tanks, resembling a laboratory.

Luo Yi approached.

The gaze was fixed on the huge solution tank in the center of the laboratory, where a humanoid monster, more than two meters tall and nearly three meters long, wearing a wide, jet-black robe and a bird-beak mask, stood silently.

Luo Yi's expression was complicated. If it weren't for this guy, he would have died long ago from the betrayal in that secret realm.

But now, he also looks like neither a human nor a ghost.

Those who betrayed him back then would never have imagined that he was still alive, and Luo Yi eight years ago would never have imagined that he, the proud son of the Dragon Roar Holy Academy, would one day be treated like a stinking rat in a gutter.

They huddled and hid underground.

The tedious, forbidden research, unknown to anyone, begins once again in this secret underground tunnel hideout.

The beeping of the instruments was accompanied by Luo Yi's faint cough.

No one noticed that the bird-beaked monster, which had been lifeless and submerged in the solution tank, suddenly had a flash of red light in its eyes.

......

"Both of you performed very well today. Wang Suming even improved by one level, reaching the fifth level of the Origin Realm. If you come again tomorrow, Song Jiao'er should also be able to improve by one level, reaching the sixth level of the Origin Realm."

The helicopter landed on the helipad in the city lord's mansion.

Jiang Xingdong led Chu Hong and the others off the plane.

He spoke with satisfaction the whole way.

He first led the group to the city lord's mansion restaurant, where food had already been prepared.

"You two stay a little later. Song Jiao'er and Wang Suming, you two can stay too. Although it's a bit too early for you to advance to the Energy Gathering Realm, it won't hurt to know, so you can have some mental preparation."

Jiang Xingdong is very serious and responsible.

Even though he wasn't Chu Hong's teacher, and even though he would soon be stepping down as the city lord.

But he still did his best to help Chu Hong and the others.

Especially Chu Hong...

After the meal, Jiang Xingdong led the group into a training room. The room was a large open space surrounded by various weapon racks, as well as various training dummies that were probably collectibles.

Jiang Xingdong sat down cross-legged and gestured for the others to sit down as well.

Even Lan Yujing did not choose to leave, but knelt down beside the group.

"Although energy source is a comprehensive concept, energy source did not exist on Earth before the cataclysm... This basic concept should have been taught to you by your teachers when you were in school."

"The source energy comes from the secret realm! The monster tide caused by the shattering of the secret realm has also given the wilderness of Blue Star a trace amount of source energy. Therefore, the pioneers living in the real world can recover their source energy on their own after consuming it outside the secret realm, but the speed is far from comparable to that in the secret realm."

Chu Hong and the others listened quietly.

"However, this situation only applies to pioneers who have just come into contact with source energy, that is, those in the Origin Realm... The Energy Gathering Realm above the Origin Realm, although the source energy recovery speed outside the secret realm is still not as fast as inside the secret realm, is much stronger than that of the Origin Realm."

"Xiao Hong, you've already reached the ninth level of the Origin Realm. I suppose you noticed something was amiss when you came out of the secret realm today?"

Chu Hong nodded seriously: "The source energy no longer increases instantly after leaving the secret realm as it did before; in fact, it hasn't increased at all!"

Jiang Xingdong nodded.

"The breakthrough from the ninth stage of the Origin Realm to the Energy Gathering Realm cannot be completed in reality; it can only be achieved in a secret realm!"