Chapter 3 — The Summoner's OathThe first day of magic class should have been simple.
Xue Musheng stood at the front, chalk in hand, his expression as stern as legend always claimed.
"Magic has four steps," he declared. "Meditation. Control. Activation. Cultivation."Students scribbled as if the words were gold.
Xu Mang wrote them down too, but it wasn't the chalk that interested him — it was the silence between the descriptions.
Meditation.
Quiet the mind. Let the void appear. He felt the Black Tortoise Pendant beneath his uniform pulse gently, as if agreeing with the basic principle… and then disagreeing with everything that came after.
When the bell rang, the others left talking excitedly.
Xu Mang slipped out the east gate. He found shade beneath the trees. Closed his eyes.
Breathed in the silence. And the Lightning stardust appeared. Seven bright points — sharp, restless, snapping like sparks across dark water.
He learned their rhythm. How long he could hold them before dizziness came.
How to let them disperse without backlash.
But on the third evening, something else stirred.
A second cluster, hidden deeper — silent, tidal, ancient.
It pulsed once in the depths of his spiritual world like the echo of a distant drum.
He didn't reach for it.
He only watched.
And the next morning, he didn't go to class.
As Xu Mang trained quietly in the forests and along the riverbank, Bo City High moved ahead without him.
Students whispered each morning.
"Did you hear? Mo Fan awakened Lightning. Actual Lightning."
"Impossible."
"I SAW the sparks. He almost short-circuited the Awakening Stone!"
Xu Mang smiled faintly. Yes… that fit the Mo Fan he remembered.
Another voice spoke loudly outside the cafeteria:
"Lu Jun awakened Light. Teacher Tang almost dropped her chalk!"
"No shot."
"Seriously! And his pendant glowed too — maybe some special bloodline?"
Xu Mang glanced at Lu Jun from afar when he returned briefly.
Calm expression, white tiger pendant gleaming faintly — a prince waking without knowing he was royalty.
Word spread quickly:
Xu Zhaoting awakened Lightning as well.
Two lightning mages in one class sent the school into chaos.
Zhaoting shouted about becoming the next national champion. Sparks snapped along his sleeves when he got excited.
Then the teachers announced Mu Bai's results:
"Ice talent. Five stars were controlled within three days. Outstanding."
Xu Mang watched Mu Bai hold court in the hallways, surrounded by impressed classmates. His tone carried pride sharpened into arrogance — exactly as expected.
Zhang Xiaohou, meanwhile, just trained in silence behind the gym.
No one praised him.
No one mocked him.
He simply worked.
Xu Mang respected that.
Day 20 arrived.
Xu Mang returned to his meditation spot.
The lightning stars lit easily now, dancing like obedient fireflies.
But beneath them… that second constellation pulsed again.
A silver ring formed faintly — thin as a hair, trembling like the edge of a dream.
This time, he leaned closer.
The world split open.
He fell into a dimension of mist, pressure, and cold.
A sky of violet storms stretched above him — the Summoning Plane, or at least the border of it.
He could not enter fully. His current cultivation was too weak. But with the pendant guiding him, he could… touch it.
Just once.
Just enough.
He withdrew, breath shaking, the pendant warm against his skin.
The next morning, the Principal stamped his attendance slip twice in red ink.
Xu Mang folded the slip neatly and continued training.
Night after night, he chased that silver ring.
Sometimes it opened wide enough to see glimpses:
Lightning plains.
Broken earth.
Thunder beasts walking like shadows.
He drifted back each time before the strain could tear his mind apart.
The teachers muttered in the staff room:
"Such waste…"
"He awakened lightning, and he hasn't shown up in weeks…"
"A disgrace to the Mu Clan."
Xu Mang tucked their words away like stones in a pocket.
Weight meant nothing to someone who walked in storms.
The silver ring opened wider.
Wide enough for him to fall straight through.
He landed on the Lightning Plane, where the sky was bruised purple and the air tasted like electricity.
Lightning beasts fled across scorched ground.
The world trembled with a gathering catastrophe — a lightning calamity of the highest purity.
At the center stood a crystal spiral tree bearing a shell glowing with unborn divinity.
A wolf spirit sprinted toward it.
Fast. Hungry.
Xu Mang threw his will like a rope.
The wolf shook it off — but the moment of hesitation was fatal.
A colossal bolt vaporized it in a single blinding flash.
He walked toward the tree.
The shell shone brighter with every step.
Then the shadow came.
Not a cloud.
A creature.
An ancient dragon, scales cracked with lightning, wings folding and unfolding like mountains breathing.
Xu Mang grabbed the shell.
He tore it free.
The pendant screamed like a bowl struck by a hammer.
The gate behind him shrank.
He forced himself backwards—
White pain.
Lightning ripping through his limbs.
The dragon descending like a verdict.
He was thrown back into his body with the force of a falling star.
His shoulder hit a boulder.
His ribs cracked.
His skin blistered with the echo of calamity lightning.
But his left hand closed around the shell.
Alive.
Untouched.
"You're safe," he whispered before unconsciousness dragged him under.
Three months after the awakening bell first rang, Xu Mang walked back into class with a wrapped arm, a calm face, and a hidden truth.
People whispered.
Teachers frowned.
Mu Bai smirked.
Tang Yue raised a brow.
Xu Mang opened his notebook.
Listened.
Breathed.
And beneath the wooden desk, the shell pulsed faintly in time with his heartbeat.
Lightning was the mask.
Summoning was the truth.
And Xu Mang, the boy everyone thought was skipping class like a delinquent, had touched a realm none of them could even name.
The Black Tortoise Pendant lay still at his collar, but he felt its approval.
The storm had begun.