CHAPTER 38: MEET A GIRL ON STARNET

Without hesitation, Yu Xi drove the poisoned horn into its flank, deep and brutal. The creature bellowed, its body convulsing. Its belly, normally shielded, flared open in a moment of vulnerability.

Yu Xi summoned his psychic blade, a shimmering arc of green light, and sliced upward in a single, clean motion.

The beast fell in two halves, its roar fading into silence. Yu Xi stood on the spot, chest heaving and his eyes still glowing. But the simulation didn’t end. Something else was coming.

His intent when training was to continue until his body gave out. Until his breath came ragged and his limbs trembled. It was the only way to build the endurance he needed not just to survive, but to protect Jian Ci.

The leaves rustled again. Two more Verdant Maws burst from the underbrush, faster and leaner than the first. Their eyes locked onto him, glowing with psychic hunger. Yu Xi didn’t wait.

He launched into the air, spinning, his blade slicing through the wind in a gleaming arc. The beasts lunged, but he was already moving—anticipating, countering, striking.

Moments later, their corpses lay sprawled across the mossy terrain, their psychic auras flickering out like dying stars. Yu Xi stood over them, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm, his blade humming faintly in his grip.

Then the panel appeared.

A translucent screen hovered in the air, pulsing with golden script:

MISSION ALERT: Retrieve the Bloom of Virelia.

Time Limit: 12 minutes.

Yu Xi’s eyes narrowed. The terrain, the timing, the cruel elegance, it had Jian Rui’s fingerprints all over it.

He took off running. A trail of green light burst behind him, his Soulforge Mantle flaring with velocity. Trees blurred past, the wind howling around him. He reached the cliff’s edge and leapt, his arms tucked and his body streamlined.

He landed with a seismic thud, the earth denting beneath his boots. He vanished mid-stride, reappearing meters ahead, then again each teleport a psychic flicker, a heartbeat of displacement that left the air shimmering in his wake.

The mountain loomed before him, jagged and dark, its crags like the teeth of some ancient beast.

He reached the base and scaled the incline in seconds, his Soulforge Mantle flaring with each leap. At the summit, he dove into the cave mouth without hesitation.

Inside, the air was thick, humid, metallic and vibrating with low growls. There were seven Verdant Maws. Their eyes glowed like embers in the dark, claws scraping against stone with a sound that made the walls tremble. It was their nest.

Yu Xi smirked, tying his hair back with a flick of his wrist. The scrunchie snapped into place like a seal of intent.Three beasts roared and charged.

Yu Xi stood on a ledge above them, calm, calculating. When they struck the stone wall below, he leapt his blade drawn and his aura blazing. He landed in their midst like a meteor, the impact sending shockwaves through the cavern.

His movements were fluid, deadly, entrancing. He spun low, slicing through one beast’s legs, then vaulted over another, driving his blade into its spine. The third lunged and he caught it mid-air with a psychic burst, slamming it into the cave wall.

Blood sprayed, roars echoed and Yu Xi stood, radiant and unyielding, in the heart of the storm.

The remaining beasts circled, their snarls echoing off the cave walls, but Yu Xi was no longer the same fighter who had entered. He was faster now. Sharper. His movements were honed to instinct and precision, each step calculated, each strike deliberate.

He ducked beneath a claw swipe, twisted past a horned lunge, and struck with surgical clarity. One by one, they fell—claws shattered, horns torn from sockets, psychic fields rupturing in bursts of light and sound.

Only one remained. It bellowed, its body soaked in blood, eyes wild with fury and desperation. It charged, reckless and roaring, its aura flaring in chaotic pulses.

Yu Xi didn’t move. He waited for it deliver itself in his grasp. At the last second, he sidestepped, his blade flashing in a brutal arc that sliced clean through the beast’s side.

It stumbled, its own momentum driving it into the stone wall with a sickening crunch. Its guts splattered across the cave floor, and it collapsed in a twitching heap, the light in its eyes fading.

Yu Xi exhaled, steady and slow. He looked up. Nestled in a crevice above, glowing with soft psychic light, was the Bloom of Virelia. He leapt, snatching it mid-air.

MISSION COMPLETE, the voice chimed.

The panel vanished. The simulation dissolved into white.

Yu Xi stood alone in the chamber, sweat dripping down his face, chest rising and falling. His blade dimmed. His aura settled, but his eyes still burned green.

He stepped out of the simulator chamber, a towel draped around his neck, wiping the sweat from his brow. His body ached, but it was the good kind. The kind that came from progress. As he turned toward the control room, he froze.

There, standing awkwardly in there, was Jian Ci. Still in his pajamas, hair tousled from sleep, with one stubborn strand sticking straight up like it had declared independence.

Yu Xi’s heart skipped. It was absurdly cute. His fingers twitched with the urge to smooth it down, but he clenched them instead.

Jian Ci spotted him and grinned. "Wow, Yu Xi, you looked so handsome. Quite impressive."

Yu Xi smiled, the compliment warming his chest like sunlight. It felt sweet and disarming.

He walked over to the floating screen, checking the simulation data. Jian Rui glanced up from the console. "That was good. Much better. Keep it up."

Jian Ci slung an arm around Yu Xi’s shoulder, his grin turning mischievous. "Now I kind of want to beat your ass."

Jian Rui snorted. "Then why not just do it? You have been lounging in that game all this time. You haven’t touched the simulator once."

Jian Ci raised his hands defensively. "It’s the same thing! Training here or in the game makes no difference."

Jian Rui’s tone sharpened. "Well, you can’t go."

Jian Ci groaned. "Oh come on, why not?"

Yu Xi stood between them, towel still around his neck. Jian Rui leaned against the console, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. "Why do you want to go there so bad? Did you meet a girl on Starnet again?"

Yu Xi stiffened. That kind of question always came with a story, and not a good one. He had heard enough of Jian Ci’s impulsive escapades to know how they usually ended.

Jian Ci scoffed. "No. I just want to go out before school starts. Plus, I can show Yu Xi around."

Jian Rui didn’t even blink. "You are just using him as an excuse to go out."

Jian Ci pulled Yu Xi closer, draping an arm around his shoulder. "No, no, I genuinely want to show him around. Right, Yu Xi?"

Jian Ci turned to him, eyes wide with exaggerated innocence. "Do you want to go out with me?"

Yu Xi gently removed Jian Ci’s arm. "Are you going to meet someone?"

"No," Jian Ci said, more serious now. "I really mean it. I just want a change in scenery."

Yu Xi studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. Then I will come with you."

Jian Ci beamed and ruffled Yu Xi’s hair, earning a soft smile in return.

Jian Rui wasn’t convinced. "Just because he said he will go doesn’t mean I will agree to you going out."

"Oh come on," Jian Ci groaned. "I am not going to make trouble, I promise."

Jian Rui raised a brow. "That’s what you said last time. Then I got a call saying you had gotten into a fight and it was all over Star Net."