Transcending Evolution Chapter 1

Chapter 1: To Transform a Millennium

Note: So, replacing Virtual Evolution for Wednesday’s release, is Transcending Evolution! Please Welcome it to the team. I’ll make an official announcement, but Virtual Evolution was way too hard to translate. Even my TL advisers were like, the author has such bad grammar.

Anyway, this novel took me 6 hours to TL and 3 hours to edit and TLC. Yeah. Long! Which is why the bonus chapters are $50 per release.

I hope you guys like this novel. I didn’t really like Virtual Evolution, but this one shows great promise!

I also would like to than our TL-adviser, SnowTime.

December 20, 2020; mysterious cosmic rays affected the Earth.

Purple rays of light invaded every city and bathed every creature. The polar magnetic fields of the earth became chaotic, manic even; a terrible disaster had stuck.

Volcanic eruptions, frequent earthquakes, storms, and tide surges. It was like h.e.l.l had been opened, an endless stream of disasters sweeping the earth, leaving the entire human race ensued in chaos.

Seven days later, those purple rays of light vanished, and the chaos gradually subsided. Those who survived were devastated, many even brought to tears. From this near apocalyptic event, the global mortality rate had increased by more than 30%, and nearly 3 billion of the world’s population was gone. This left the human race to lapse in grief.

Ever since then, the color purple had become the most hated color of mankind, and those painful seven days became known as the Purple Flare Catastrophe- forever regarded as the end of a beginning of a new era.

Such a cataclysm changed the Earth’s environment, leaving the air contaminated with magical energy, an imperceptible substance that changed everything on Earth. It was found that their  strength, speed, cell activity, the toughness of their skin, and more, have improved two or three times. Just an ordinary person, compared to one before the disaster, could break the world record from the Olympic Games.

People with these magical capabilities were known to have something called Source Energy.

In sorrow, and yet, pleased at their survival, the human race began to rebuild, but this time, they found that the earth they once knew became not only strange and unfamiliar, but dangerous.

Affected by the Source Energy around them were not just humans, but as well as a number of more adaptable animals and plants. Compared to the more ‘pampered’ human race, they had followed the laws of nature, and their evolution was much more shocking. This even resulted in the birth of a few terrifying existences whose intelligence were of no less than a human’s own.

Some evolved into monsters, beasts; and ordinary weapons were useless. And for the most powerful of those creatures, even the use of nuclear bombs could barely kill them. Against these creatures, the human forces could do little.

Man was no longer the master of earth.

All the outbreaks, clashes against beasts and beast hordes, combined, began to impact cities. But often, in this conflict, what prevailed wasn’t the high-tech human race.

One after another, cities were destroyed, and countless human beings were hunted, becoming food for these beasts.  In just three years, of the more than two hundred countries around the world, more than half were destroyed in beast attacks. The human race was on the brink.

But from this crisis, really strong human beings emerged. They abandoned their high-tech weapons, and by the virtue of their own strength, they could contend with the toughest of these creatures, and even kill them. In times of distress, they have rescued large numbers of civilians.

But it was also because of the emergence of these strong individuals, humans discovered that there were once a dazzling cultivation society on earth. Due to the changes in the environment in the past, cultivating went into a decline for a period of time, but after the appearance of the abundant Source Energy in the air, after the catastrophe, cultivating once again reappeared and blossomed, releasing it’s splendor.

Cultivation had become an indispensable part of every person’s life in the new millennium.

260 years into the new era, Moonlight City’s Seventh Middle School.

“The new era of cultivation or evolution, in the final a.n.a.lysis, is the absorption and application of source energy. In fact, source energy is precisely the ancient cultivation of Ling Qi (Spiritual Qi) in the eyes of the world. It possess strange capabilities as a whole.

“Before the cataclysm, the concentration of source energy was faint; so, the more profound the cultivation exercises, the less value they ended up having. It was because of these harsh conditions of cultivation that it was simply unsuccessful. Only some low-level health exercises showed any trace of results.”

It was of a summer afternoon, the hot sun baked the land, and the students in the cla.s.sroom were sweating profusely – dying to sleep. They were third years of junior middle school’s fifth cla.s.s, and yet, among them, all the male student’s eyes were opened wide to see the female teacher on stage.

The teacher had porcelain-like skin, and dressed in a long, white dress – both elegant and plain like a tianshan snow lotus in full bloom. Her eyes were as deep as the sea, and yet seemed to s.h.i.+ne as bright as any star. Her voice was clear and harmonious, like spring – extremely sweet.

This was fifth cla.s.s’s teacher, Lin Haixin. Regardless of whether it was her appearance or  temperament, she was an otherworldly woman, said to have taught Morning Star Academy students. It was unknown why she actually came to Seventh Middle school to teach at an ordinary junior high students.

That was Morning Star Academy. In the minds of ’s numerous people, it was like the Holy Land. But every year, the enrollment of new students did not exceed one hundred. Any student coming from that college were elite, and were quickly grabbed by major forces.

It was only a week since summer break had ended, and these teenagers had just ascended to being third grade students. Even so, they had quite the course load, and Rune a.n.a.lysis was one of them. But no matter what it was, for fifth cla.s.s, to have Lin Haixin, it was definitely a good thing.

“Put it like this for runes, without source energy to power it, even the most exquisite rune would result in a useless array. As such, those rune masters from long ago became swindlers who only know how to live with their mouth in the eyes of many, swindling people all day, becoming the disdain of many.

“This was only until after the great disaster, where there was a substantial change in earth’s environment, and the source energy in the air became very abundant. Only then did the use of arrays boomed. Now, up to the present, skills with runes are on the same level as refining pills, becoming essential to our society.

“If arrays are regarded as a second language, then the runes are the words (TL-actually translation is strokes). Only, to master these words, you need not only to write them, but arrange them accordingly.  Every rune contains it’s own unique strength, and is not easy to master. “

Lin Haixin’s pale hand moved quickly, her slender fingers directing to form a gentle hook as rays of light appeared out of nowhere, and condensed, never scattering, forming mysterious symbols that lingered in the air.

“This is the basic rune for wind. To stimulate the strength of the rune, it will..”she was just standing, seemingly without having taken any further action, and yet, suddenly the runes brightened, and bang! The s.p.a.ce fragmented.

Suddenly, like the opening of Aeolus’s mythological bag of winds 1, the cla.s.sroom was suddenly wrapped up in strong, howling winds that threated to wipe away everything. Students could hardly keep their eyes open, and that hot, arid, summer air, was swept away.

That is, except for the students sitting cross-legged inside the cla.s.sroom, and once it was gone, everything was left in a mess

“It’s just a basic rune!” Someone said.

“Nonsense, looking at the source energy from inside this void rune, Teacher Lin was not even drawing it, she used just a finger, and yet it holds such power.”

“Hah! Such rune talent! Inside any Cultivation School, compared to Teacher Lin, there may only be a few; but depicting the fundamentals of runes to such a level, even if we searched the entire school, there is only Teacher Lin.”

The third-year students were around sixteen-years old, their faces a touch immature, and their eyes filled with deep admiration and love towards Lin Haixin. Lin was the embodiment of a G.o.ddess – immaculate.

In the back of the cla.s.sroom, a teenager’s mind had already began to wander. He was handsome, not very handsome, but he had a smooth and delicate complexion. He had eyes filled with indescribable sadness though. Only when the void rune released it’s power did they reveal a hint of longing and yearning.

“Winds speeds approaching fifteen meters per second, wind level seven. Usually winds that are based along the wind rune should have speeds between three to five meters per second. That’s an increase of more than three times! En! – indeed worthy of being an offical Array Master.”

This teenager’s name was Gu Yue, second level of the refinement stage, and in the cla.s.s as a whole, was at the very bottom. However, he had a strong interest in runes, and by teaching himself, he learned a lot.

“Hey! Don’t bother studying, no matter how thorough you are in your research, without the support of source energy, it’s nothing more than military tactics on paper. Like us learning slag. Even if we bitterly learned for our entire lives, whether or not we can become a genuine martial artist is unknown. So to us, lessons on runes, are completely useless.

Gu Yue’s deskmate, similarly with the same thin build as him, was a decadent young man. He sat lazily down on the ground, his gaze drifting to Teacher Lin Haixin’s body. Even for such a profound rune course, he was not interested in the slightest.

Gue Yue was silent. In a new era, students learned more than than just culture and basic knowledge; martial arts practice was the focus of what they were taught. But Gue Yue’s gifts were ordinary, and more importantly, he was too poor.

There was a saying, ‘The poor can read books, the rich do martial arts’. Martial arts practice needed to be supported by wealth. Refining a warrior’s body every day, polis.h.i.+ng their physique, temper themselves, and  expending a lot of energy… Without enough nutritional supplements, the light effects would just affect a person’s cultivation pace, but the more serious effects would be the wearing and tearing of their const.i.tution, leaving behind an internal injury that would be hard to make up.

Without money, Gu Yue coldn’t afford to buy the essential supplements, and could not even sustain day-to-day practice, much less talking of martial arts. His teachers already a.s.serted that, in his case, even if he were mixed with the second school graduates, at most, they are at the third refinement stage, far above him. His source energy capabilities were really too poor.

And it’s not that he does not work. Gu Yue had never been lackadaisical. In terms of effort alone, he could be considered as the top three in the cla.s.s. When it comes to practicing martial arts, it’s not always that your effort leads to success; sometimes if you push too far, the effect could be the opposite of what you desired.

This is the reality. In fact, among the various schools, students like Gu Yue were plenty, and some of them even had good martial talent; but such talent was lost out to lack of wealth. The leading members of the student body have always been the more affluent students. Truly being able to rise in school and society for the ‘ordinary’ was exceedingly rare.

“This is just basic runes, now recognized as the foundation of an array. There are more than three hundred different kinds, but on the basis of variations derived from these runes, the possibilities are endless.”

Lin Haixin continued to explain things about runes, her profound, esoteric speech in both a simple and straightforward tone, allowing the students to fully grasp the origin and development of runes.

She looked absolutely gorgeous, and with her vivid lectures, where she personally demonstrated the results of these runes, she was popular with the students. Unfortunately, among a cla.s.s with only forty students, among them, there were very few who were interested in learning, much less, could understand it.

But in the end, Lin Haixin was not that very concerned. The new era of education is more like sifting sand from gold, where at the very end, you’d truly find someone with talent.

Students in the third year, although they were able to access a variety of courses, but these courses were not credited to the final examination results. This made this course one that was completely voluntary. If it wasn’t for Lin Haixin’s charm, not many students would have been interested in coming to this Rune Cla.s.s.