Chapter 2: Glory Tier, Sky Tyrant Dragon Beast

Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Glory Tier, Sky Tyrant Dragon Beast

The dismissal bell rang at the perfect moment, interrupting Ji Zhixing’s churning thoughts. He took a deep breath and stuffed his textbooks and notes into his slightly worn shoulder bag.

The classroom quickly grew noisy. Students clustered in twos and threes, discussing tomorrow’s gene selection with a mixture of excitement and anxiety in their voices. Class Five of the senior year was a preparatory gene awakening class. Over the past few years, every student in the class had successfully opened their genetic acupoints. They had already passed the unstable phase, and their genetic acupoints were completely stabilized. Tomorrow was the day they would head to the gene bank to select and fuse with a gene. It was the true starting point of their path to the transcendent.

"Zhixing, let’s go!" His desk-mate, Liu Qifan, patted his shoulder. Coming from an ordinary family, Liu Qifan had only awakened a Tier One Genetic Acupoint, but he had a grounded and steady personality.

"Yeah," Ji Zhixing replied. The two boys joined the crowd flowing out of the academic building.

The setting sun cast a dark golden halo over Yu City Base City. Towering buildings lined both sides of the street. Most looked sturdy and practical, featuring a distinct fortress-like style—a remnant of the aesthetic and utilitarian needs from the Great Cataclysm era.

Both Ji Zhixing and Liu Qifan lived in the west of the city in an old neighborhood named Tingyu Garden. Built twenty years ago as a relocation settlement, the apartment buildings looked rather drab and dusty.

The two boys walked home along the familiar streets, casually chatting about their upcoming choices. Liu Qifan hoped to fuse with a Tier One gene from an Iron-Clad Mountain Boar. With its tough hide and sturdy build, it offered decent strength, making it one of the better choices among Tier One genes.

"What about you, Zhixing? You awakened a Tier Two Genetic Acupoint, so your options are much broader. Do you have a specific target in mind?" Liu Qifan asked, a hint of envy in his voice.

Ji Zhixing forced a slight twitch of his lips, offering no response. His mind was still sinking into anxious speculation about the bizarre changes within his own body, and the dread of how he would face his parents.

Just then, a massive advertising screen down the street—which had been scrolling through product information and base city announcements—suddenly flickered. The screen shifted to a glaring, blood-red alert background! A stern, synthesized female voice blared across the entire street at a deafening volume:

"Emergency Broadcast!

"Attention, all citizens of Yu City Base City. A Tier Seven Glory Level gene beast, the Sky Tyrant Dragon Beast, has been detected fifty miles southeast of the base city. Effective immediately, Yu City Base City is under martial law!

"All personnel and vehicles are strictly prohibited from leaving the city!

"Personnel outside the city must immediately seek the nearest shelter or return to the city at full speed. Citizens inside the city, please remain calm, maintain order, and trust in the base city’s defense forces!"

The synthesized voice repeated the broadcast. Simultaneously, the screen shifted to a blurry video. It was clearly captured from an extreme distance by high-altitude, high-speed reconnaissance equipment and heavily magnified.

Above a vast, desolate mountain range, a terrifyingly massive shadow swept beneath the clouds. It possessed a silhouette similar to a Western dragon, yet it was more elongated and vicious. Its unfurled wings seemed wide enough to blot out a patch of the sky. Its entire body was covered in metallic, dark cyan scale armor, with a row of sharp bone spikes running down its spine. Even through the blurry footage, spanning over a hundred kilometers and a digital screen, the terrifying aura of an ancient, domineering apex predator still radiated outward!

"A Sky Tyrant Dragon Beast?" Liu Qifan’s eyes widened, his voice trembling. "A Tier Seven Glory Level? Why would something like that appear near our Yu City?"

Nearby, a pedestrian dropped whatever they were holding with a loud CLATTER. They muttered, "Glory Level... In all of Yu City, only Guardian Envoy Xiao Yuan is at the Tier Seven Glory Level, right?"

"We’ll be fine. Xiao Guardian Envoy also fused with a Glory Level gene, and it’s the incredibly combat-capable Seven-Colored Heaven-Swallowing Python gene..."

In an instant, shock washed over everyone like a tidal wave. Ji Zhixing held his breath as well. He stared up at the screen at the shadow of the mythic behemoth, his heart pounding uncontrollably.

He felt deeply shaken, thinking, "Tier Seven Glory Level... Is this what it means to be a powerhouse standing at the very peak? No, this is merely a gene beast, yet it’s already this terrifying."

An indescribable, burning desire quietly took root in the depths of his heart.

Tier Seven, Glory Level!

On Blue Star, the path of a Genetic Cultivator was clearly divided into nine tiers. Tiers One through Three were the foundation. They had no special honorifics and solely represented the accumulation of power. But from the fourth tier onward, things were entirely different.

A Tier Four Gene Cultivator was also known as a Morning Star Cultivator. At this level, a Genetic Cultivator’s lifeform underwent a profound evolution. Without needing to rely on specific genetic abilities, they could fly through the air purely on their own power, breaking free from the earth’s restraints.

Beyond the Morning Star level lay the Tier Five Radiant Moon Level and the Tier Six Blazing Sun Level. Upon reaching the Blazing Sun Level, the genetic source energy within a Cultivator burned as fiercely as a great sun. Possessing all sorts of unimaginable power, this was the ultimate peak that the vast majority of people could only look up to for their entire lives.

And above that was the Tier Seven Glory Level! Reaching this echelon meant truly standing among the absolute strongest of humanity. Their lifespans far exceeded those of ordinary mortals, and their strength was enough to influence the fate of an entire city, or even a country.

The Guardian Envoy of Yu City Base City, Xiao Yuan, was precisely such a Glory Level powerhouse—the stabilizing pillar who protected millions of citizens in Yu City. For some Cultivators who fused with ordinary angelic genes, this level was also the absolute limit they could achieve.

Above Tier Seven lay the Tier Eight Legendary Level and the Tier Nine King Level. Those were realms of myth, granting the earth-shattering power to move mountains, empty seas, and dictate the destiny of nations. They were living legends and myths.

The Sky Tyrant Dragon Beast existed on the exact same level as a Glory Level Genetic Cultivator. It was a regional overlord among gene beasts, an incarnation of sheer disaster!

"That kind of power..." Ji Zhixing watched the terrifying silhouette gradually recede on the screen, his fists clenching subconsciously.

The frustration and inner turmoil he felt over his lie and his Tier One Genetic Acupoint seemed to wash away in the face of this awe-inspiring sight. In its place rose a more primal, surging impulse.

He, too, wanted to witness a world like that! He, too, wanted to wield that kind of power! To soar through the heavens, rule the world, live a long life, and command his own destiny!

The broadcast continued to echo. The crowds on the street recovered from their initial shock and broke into worried murmurs. Under martial law, the atmosphere had grown palpably tense.

Liu Qifan tugged at Ji Zhixing, who was still slightly dazed. "Stop staring and let’s go home. There might be more arrangements under martial law. Sigh, how unlucky can we be to run into something like this?"

Ji Zhixing withdrew his gaze, suppressing the turbulent emotions in his heart. "Let’s go," he said quietly.

The two sped up their pace.

When the familiar, slightly dilapidated front gate of Tingyu Garden came into view, Ji Zhixing’s heart rate spiked uncontrollably once more. Only this time, it wasn’t the excitement of aspiration, but a heavy, growing knot of anxiety as he neared his door. The closer he got to home, the heavier his footsteps became.

His parents’ expectant gazes, their proud boasting, the way they had scrimped and saved over the past two and a half years to give him their unreserved support... The scenes flashed through his mind one by one, making him wish the ground would swallow him whole.

"What should I do? Confess? But how can I even say it?" Ji Zhixing’s mind was a tangled mess. He could easily picture the light instantly dimming from his parents’ eyes when they heard the truth, and their poorly concealed disappointment. That would hurt far worse than if they beat or scolded him.

Torn by anguish, he instinctively sank his consciousness back into his body, looking at the slowly transforming gene furnace. At the location of his Dantian, the Eight Trigrams Map that had previously only been a blurry outline was now significantly clearer.

The symbols of the eight trigrams—Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Li, Gen, and Dui—glowed faintly as they slowly rotated.