The storm had passed.
Bo City glowed under the dull sheen of morning fog, as if the heavens themselves were pretending that nothing had happened.
Xu Mang knew better.
For three nights after the Lightning Calamity, his dreams were nothing but flashes of that broken world — the crystal tree, the burning skies, the moment the dragon's shadow had swallowed him whole. Each time he woke, his pendant was warm against his chest, and the egg-like shell he had taken pulsed faintly, alive.
His body healed slower than he wanted. His bones ached where lightning had kissed them. Every spark of mana through his circuits left a dull sting behind, but the pain reminded him that he had returned with more than injuries.
He had brought back wealth.
Not coin, not paper, but essence — the condensed breath of the Lightning Plane itself.
The pendant had acted as a bridge even after the gates had closed. It would hum softly, and for brief moments, he could see through it — like staring down a tunnel of glass — into the mountain where the calamity had fallen. Most spirits had fled or died; the ground still smoked with the residue of thunder.
He began harvesting.
It was not summoning, not truly. His current level should not have allowed him to open a gate, but the pendant bent rules quietly, turning will into motion. Xu Mang could reach through cracks no other beginner would even sense. Each time, he would extend his spiritual perception, trace the shimmer of raw elemental energy, and pull.
The first to come through were soul seed fragments, small as fireflies, bright and trembling. He drew them in by the dozens until his mind throbbed. Then came complete soul seeds — heavier, denser, formed when the lightning itself solidified its essence. He sealed them inside small spirit jars he'd bought from the alchemy club under a false name.
After that came the elemental crystals — shards of solidified thunder, humming faintly in his hands. Each one was pure, stripped of impurity by the storm's own violence.
Three days. Then four. Then ten.
Every night he filled another jar, another cloth pouch, another small rune box sealed with silver thread. He was careful not to draw too much attention; he left campus before dawn and returned after curfew, blending into shadows that had already forgotten his face.
By the second week, he realized how much he had taken.
Fifteen Spirit Grade Soul Seeds, eight Soul Grade Seeds, and more than five thousand fragments, each one glowing like captive stars when gathered together. A hundred Pure Lightning Elemental Crystals — enough to feed a dozen cultivation towers for a year. Even a handful of strange minerals that refused to identify themselves under normal scanning light.
He hid everything beneath the floorboards of his dorm room, beneath a layer of mana-suppression formations carved in his own hand. The array was crude but efficient — shaped like the tortoise's shell, lines folding back upon themselves to trap every stray pulse of energy.
When the harvest was complete, he sat among his spoils in silence.
The faint blue light from the jars painted his face in ghostly tones.
For the first time since arriving in this world, he felt the true weight of what he held — enough resources to make even veteran mages bow their heads. The total value, if converted through legitimate guild prices, would exceed five point six billion yuan.
Five point six billion.
He said the number aloud once and laughed softly. "That's enough to buy a city block… or a lifetime of enemies."
The pendant vibrated, a single note of warning. It agreed.
These were not trophies. They were proof. Proof that the Summoning Plane had accepted him for a moment, and that the power of lightning recognized him as its thief or heir — he wasn't sure which yet.
He picked up one of the soul seeds between his fingers. Tiny arcs danced inside it like trapped storms. The energy was wild, unrefined — beautiful. With proper refinement, it could amplify his lightning strength a hundredfold. But he would not use them. Not yet. Power drawn too early was a grave dug early.
Instead, he fed a trickle of mana into the pendant, sealing the jars inside its inner space. The tortoise shell drank the light until it dimmed, leaving only the egg-like fruit resting in his palm.
The shell was warmer now. Cracks ran across its surface, glowing faintly like molten lines of silver.
"Still sleeping," Xu Mang murmured. "But not for long."
Outside, thunder rumbled faintly somewhere over the sea. Even here, in the safety of Bo City, the world seemed to bow when lightning spoke.
He leaned back against the wall and let the sound fill the room.
Three months had passed since the awakening ceremony. To his teachers, he was still a missing student, a disappointment with untapped potential. To the rest of the school, he was a rumor — the Mu clan dropout who'd wasted a rare lightning awakening.
They could believe whatever they wanted.
In the quiet dorm, Xu Mang smiled faintly, closing his eyes as he held the shell and felt the hum of power locked inside it — and in the darkness beneath his thoughts, the Summoning Plane pulsed again, waiting.
The storm was not over.
It had only changed shape.