"Skull Monster, Red King."
Seeing the monster card in Lu Bai's hand, Ye Feng's mind inexplicably flashed to the image of that giant, corn-on-the-cob-looking simpleton who liked to pick up big rocks only to accidentally drop them on its own feet.
Thinking that Lu Bai would transform into that specific creature, Ye Feng's gaze toward him became quite strange. Logically speaking, the monsters or aliens one awakened were influenced by the awakener's personality to a certain degree. This was the first time he realized that Lu Bai, despite his sharp, monkey-like face, was actually a bit of a knucklehead at heart!
"Hey, Ye Feng! Isn't your look a bit disrespectful?"
Lu Bai couldn't help it; Ye Feng's gaze was far too judgmental, as if he had just discovered some hidden secret, making Lu Bai very uncomfortable.
"Ahem, it's nothing. I just thought of something funny." It was impossible not to feel a bit awkward after being caught making fun of someone in his head, but it didn't matter—as long as he kept a thick skin, he'd be fine.
"Whatever. Anyway, I've shown mine; what did you awaken?" Lu Bai felt something was off, but he didn't dwell on it. Instead, he withdrew his card and asked back.
"My card is quite special. It's a first-of-its-kind appearance." Ye Feng gave them a quick heads-up before visualizing the light in his mind.
Instantly, a glow of intermingled red and blue condensed before him, and the card appeared.
"Huh? Why is your summoning process different from ours?" Lin Fei didn't look at the card immediately; instead, he was intrigued by the unique way Ye Feng manifested it.
The others had similar reactions. Lin Fei, being a man of action, immediately called forth his own card. Dark purple lightning appeared out of thin air, and as the card materialized, Lin Fei himself seemed to radiate a heavy, oppressive aura until the process was complete.
Brutal Monster, Astrons.
This was the monster card Lin Fei had awakened. Usually, when someone summoned a card, the atmosphere felt heavy and suffocating—something everyone was well accustomed to.
But when Ye Feng's card appeared, they were stunned. The light he released wasn't oppressive at all; on the contrary, it felt exceptionally warm—a phenomenon that had never occurred before!
"I say, Ye Feng, what's the name of your card? Looking at the image, it seems to be an alien, right?" Lu Bai carefully examined Ye Feng's humanoid card. Usually, such cards depicted aliens, but he truly didn't recognize the name or the appearance.
The text on the cards was actually the Universal Language, which everyone had studied in high school. However, the text on Ye Feng's card didn't seem to be the standard Universal script, making it quite distinct.
Regardless of which country an awakener was from, their cards were always inscribed with the Universal Language. So, what was written on Ye Feng's card?
"That alien's appearance... have I seen it somewhere before?" One of Qin Yuxin's female roommates, Xiao Ling, looked at Cosmos' azure body, and images began to flicker in her mind.
"Xiao Ling, do you recognize Ye Feng's card?"
"It's not that I recognize it exactly, but I feel like I've seen it... Right! This is it!" Prompted by her roommate, Xiao Ling remembered something. She took out her phone and searched for a news report. After a quick comparison, she hurriedly showed it to the group. "Look, it's this."
Ye Feng couldn't help but look as well. It was a news article titled: "Chaos Header Appears in Downtown Hangzhou; Mysterious Alien Surfaces to Repel Seven Monsters Single-handedly!"
The headline was certainly clickbait-worthy.
"Holy crap!"
Lu Bai yelled so loudly that everyone in the canteen turned to stare. Fortunately, Lin Fei quickly pushed his friend down and apologized to the other students, smoothing the incident over.
"Ahem, sorry, got a bit excited." After a sheepish explanation, Lu Bai urgently asked, "Ye Feng, that can't be you, can it? If I remember correctly, you and Qin Yuxin are both from Hangzhou, right?"
Except for Qin Yuxin, whose face looked a bit sour, the other three girls were looking at him expectantly. Ye Feng could practically see little stars in their pupils. As for Qin Yuxin... well, that was a truly unforgettable memory for her.
He shot a lingering, wary glance at Qin Yuxin. Seeing that she was ignoring him, Ye Feng finally spoke: "Isn't it obvious?"
Once he admitted it, Lu Bai and Lin Fei couldn't sit still, and Qin Yuxin's three roommates looked at him as if they wanted to devour him.
The weight of Ye Feng's admission was massive. First of all, being able to transform into a giant on Awakening Day was incredible, let alone becoming an alien that had never been seen before. To top it off, he had fought seven against one and won—was that really a performance a first-time awakener should be capable of?
The group didn't yet know the full extent of the Chaos Header's influence, or they would have been even more shocked. Regardless, Ye Feng didn't know how he finally made it out of there. The whole way back, he was bombarded with questions: "Did you take some kind of drug?" "How did you beat seven monsters alone?" "Weren't you scared the first time you transformed?" "What does it feel like to face a monster face-to-face?" The chatter was endless.
When they finally split up, Lu Bai realized that the monster Qin Yuxin had awakened was the monster Lithra—one of the seven monsters Ye Feng had defeated. The result was... well, let's just say Qin Yuxin's eyes looked like they belonged to a demon.
It was now 1:00 PM. Ye Feng was alone in his four-person dorm; his roommates were apparently out. Sitting at his desk, he took out the Cosmos card and stared at it blankly.
"Starting tomorrow, I'll have to fight again."
Since that transformation a year ago, Ye Feng hadn't transformed once. His original transformation ring had been taken back with the simple excuse that it was a temporary emergency authorization. However, Ye Feng suspected his ring was different, and they had taken it for research.
"Sigh, when will I be able to ditch the cards and transform on my own?"
Ye Feng found it a bit ridiculous. He was Cosmos; why did he need a ring to transform? Although he knew the light within him hadn't fully released and he still needed the ring as a medium, it still rankled him.
Over the past year, the light had grown, but the progress was slow. He hadn't even met the conditions to use Corona Mode, which made him feel a bit deflated. Was he doing something wrong?
His energy level had been tested at Class A. According to calculations, he might need to reach Class S to transform unaided. As for his current light energy... it likely hadn't touched the threshold of Class S yet, though its growth rate wasn't slow.
According to the higher-ups, it usually took a TPC trainee a full year of training with TPC resources to go from awakening to a successful giant transformation. That is, moving from the lowest Class E energy to the transformable Class B energy took a year. This was why the TPC only issued Monster Rings and held giant combat exams after the first year.
Moving from Class B to Class A normally took three years of refinement—essentially the duration until graduation. According to his instructor's guess, given Ye Feng's unique constitution, it would take him at least two years to grow from Class A to Class S.
The thought of waiting another year made him feel lazy, so he decided to stop overthinking and just took a nap on his bed.
In the Principal's office of the Imperial Academy, a mysterious visitor was being received. This person was known to almost everyone in the world: Lin Jing, the Director of TPC Asia.
"Director Lin, having you here truly brings honor to my humble office." The Principal, a man in his fifties, brewed a pot of Longjing tea and began, "I assume you're here about the Tengger Desert incident?"
"More or less. Mainly, since this is the first real-combat test, I'm a bit uneasy and wanted to see for myself," Lin Jing explained, his tone laced with genuine concern. This plan had been a last-minute decision, and he wasn't entirely confident in it.
"Indeed. Letting first-year trainees face real monsters so many years early is a first in decades," Principal Jiang admitted, a hint of trepidation in his heart.
In previous years, trainees only encountered detained aliens during their third-year internships. Only after graduating in their fourth year would they gradually encounter monsters under the guidance of TPC veterans, becoming official monster combatants three years after that. This seven-year adaptation period was designed to ensure their safety.
However, the monsters appearing in the Tengger Desert were relatively weak. Besides the danger, it would serve as a clear demonstration of a monster's true power to the students. Of course, while the freshmen were involved, the sophomores, juniors, and seniors would all be participating in different capacities.
Thinking of something, Principal Jiang remarked, "Speaking of which, you must be under a lot of pressure, Director Lin. We haven't given the public an explanation for a while, and the people's reaction must be quite intense."
"It's fine. I went through much worse back in '80." This issue was minor compared to the global pressure he had faced decades ago.
Principal Jiang nodded and said no more. It was hard to imagine the crushing weight a twenty-year-old Lin Jing must have carried to establish the TPC. Even though sixty-two years had passed, thanks to breakthroughs in genetic technology, Lin Jing's theoretical lifespan was now two hundred years. This was why, at eighty-two, he still looked like a man in his forties. Unfortunately, those treatments were rare and the materials scarce; they were reserved for TPC leaders like Lin Jing who couldn't transform into monsters themselves.
"By the way, I have a special ring here. Arrange for it to be handed to a student named Ye Feng during the distribution," Lin Jing said, pulling a ring shimmering with the power of light from his briefcase.
"Ye Feng? Isn't he the one who provided the method to disperse the Chaos virus a year ago?" Principal Jiang had seen this ring before and recalled the events of the previous year.
"Yes. But overall, he probably doesn't even know he's the one who provided the method."
Truth be told, Lin Jing had taken the ring for research, but months of study yielded nothing. It wasn't until "that" alien intervened and somehow extracted energy from the ring that the TPC was able to develop a vaccine for the Chaos virus. Unlike Ye Feng's power, which could be used on monsters, the vaccine only worked on humans, but it was still a major breakthrough.
"I see." Principal Jiang's expression was momentarily strange, but he quickly pushed the thought aside and took the ring. "Don't worry. I'll make sure he gets it."