The Ultimate Divine Class

Lu Yuan stood at the entrance of a small supermarket, nibbling on a peach-flavored popsicle. He watched two stray dogs fighting over a half-eaten sausage someone had dropped near a garbage bin not far away.

The relatively skinnier dog lost the fight and could only shrink to the side, watching the other dog devour the treat.

Lu Yuan crunched down the rest of his popsicle in two bites, then turned around, went into the supermarket, and bought two sausages.

He fed one sausage to each of the stray dogs.

A reward for the victor, and consolation for the loser, he thought.

Having done this, Lu Yuan looked up contentedly at a streetlight in the distance.

Noticing several crows perched there, his eyes flickered slightly, and then he briskly walked in a certain direction.

Turning the corner, he saw the Burnt Rock Central Hospital's outpatient building.

People were bustling in and out of the entrance, and several cars were stuck, their drivers frantically honking their horns.

Lu Yuan quickly entered the hospital's main gate and followed a side path straight to the inpatient area behind the outpatient building.

His grandpa, Lu Yueping, had previously been treated at the First Hospital for a stroke. Lu Yuan had never visited this particular hospital before, yet he navigated it with ease, as if it were his own home.

He dashed into Building Three of the inpatient area and went straight up to the seventh floor.

When the elevator doors opened, the words "Special Intensive Care Unit" came into view.

There was an access control gate at the entrance to the inpatient ward area. Lu Yuan lingered at the entrance for a moment, then slipped in behind a middle-aged woman carrying a black backpack.

This wasn't the first time Lu Yuan had done something like this.

Coincidentally, both instances had been related to Lin Zhiquin.

Lu Yuan scanned the rooms on both sides of the corridor and then walked straight towards the nurses' station.

A round-faced female nurse in a blue uniform was sitting behind the nurses' station, looking at a computer.

"Who are you looking for?"

As Lu Yuan approached, the round-faced nurse glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and asked casually.

The next second, however, she quickly turned her head to look at him more closely. Her voice and expression gradually softened.

「.....」

Twenty minutes later, Lu Yuan walked out of the hospital gate.

My looks and my student ID are still so useful, Lu Yuan mused, touching his increasingly smooth cheek.

He had used his little crow helper, Crow, to find out the hospital room number of Lin Zhiquin's sick daughter. Then, he had gone to the nurses' station and asked for the details of her medical records.

The excuse he used was that his school had assigned a summer project requiring him to write a reflective report related to "life," and he had come to the hospital to gather material.

It was a pity his smartest little crow helper, Crow, wasn't trained enough to sneak into the archive room and retrieve case files; that would have saved him a lot of trouble.

A very severe genetic defect. With this world's current level of medical technology, it's considered a difficult and complicated case. They've made an appointment with the top genetic medicine experts from the Distant Star Federation for surgery next month...

Lu Yuan sorted through the information he had just gathered in his mind.

There were a few interesting points in this information.

First, Lin Zhiquin's daughter, Lin Mo, had been diagnosed with a terminal illness a long time ago. According to the doctors who made the diagnosis at the time, she absolutely wouldn't live more than a month after the onset of the illness.

Yet, she had managed to hang on for nearly half a year, holding out until the scheduled specialist surgery next month.

Second, Lin Zhiquin seemed to be in dire financial straits; he had been late with hospital payments several times.

Lin Zhiquin's Martial Arts prowess is formidable; he's already stepped into the Extraordinary realm and is one of the top experts I've ever met. Why would he be so short on money? It doesn't make sense. If it were me, and my own daughter was sick, if I were pushed to the brink, I'd even rob a bank!

Also, why is he putting so much effort into teaching me, even taking me to Mosa for boxing matches, without taking any commission? This makes no sense at all. Unless...

Lu Yuan blinked, an idea surfacing in his mind.

Unless his reason for bringing me to Mosa wasn't about money at all.

Instantly, images of the eerie Goat Head Statues flashed through Lu Yuan's mind, along with that feeling of being watched, scrutinized.

Lu Yuan seemed to have thought of something. His eyes flickered, and he stood motionless on the spot.

The flow of people passed slowly on either side of him.

「......」

THWACK—THWACK-THWACK—THWACK-THWACK-THWACK—

In his bedroom, Lu Yuan held a solid iron rod, continuously striking various parts of his body.

He hadn't tried this before, afraid of being too clever for his own good and practicing incorrectly.

After getting Lin Zhiquin's affirmation, he had completely let loose with his body tempering ideas.

Lu Yuan's current strength was 14 points, with a maximum force close to seven hundred kilograms. Even a casual strike from him was very heavy. The effects of his resistance training were far better than sparring with those Amateur Level young sparring partners at the Origin Martial Arts Hall.

He struck himself for a good few tens of minutes, stopping only when his entire skin had taken on a faint purplish-red hue.

It really is like forging iron,

Lu Yuan walked to the full-length mirror, looking at his reflection.

But this crude method, even if it's effective, definitely can't compare to the body tempering legacies of those specialized sects. I'll still have to find a chance to learn a proper Transverse Martial Arts technique later.

Lu Yuan thought, letting the injuries beneath his skin heal on their own. Then, he sat down at his desk.

He pulled a notebook from a pile of books beside him, flipped through it, and then turned on his computer.

His chat program was running. He casually clicked it open, and a slew of private messages and group chat notifications popped up.

Lu Yuan went through them one by one, replying to some and directly ignoring others.

There were a particularly large number of messages from girls.

Most were inviting him out. Among them, the class beauty, Ling Yue, had sent quite a few, even @mentioning him several times in the class group chat.

Unfortunately, he hadn't seen any of them. Of course, even if he had, he wouldn't have replied.

Although Lu Yuan himself wasn't too keen on admitting it, he had to acknowledge... he and his classmates—with whom he could still chat about games, anime, action movie actresses, and secretly complain about their teachers just a few months ago—were now gradually becoming people from two completely different worlds.

The things Lu Yuan had experienced during this time, if he were to tell these people, they wouldn't believe him at all. They would just ask which science fiction novel's plot he was using to try and fool them.

A wave of emotion washed over Lu Yuan as he cleared out the accumulated friend request notifications one by one.

Suddenly, the avatar of a girl with a red hairpin in the friend request list made his eyes flicker.

"Quiet Zhu Bao."

Lu Yuan read her nickname aloud. After a moment's thought, he had a good idea who it was.

He casually accepted the friend request.

A long time passed with no message.

Looking at her grayed-out avatar, Lu Yuan wasn't sure if she was offline or just too nervous to type.

He casually sent ".." and then paid it no further mind.

He was mainly checking the chat software for messages in a few newly joined group chats about ancient languages, White Mountain history, and White Mountain mythology, hoping to find some clues he wanted.

He checked several groups one after another. When he got to a group chat named "White Mountain Religions," he was surprised to find that someone had @mentioned him in the group.

Lu Yuan clicked on it, scrolled with his mouse, and pulled the message history all the way up.

Finally, he found the message that @mentioned him.

A user named "White Grass" had @mentioned him, saying: "This looks like a symbol of the Elephant God Religion."

Lu Yuan instantly became alert.

He had previously posted his stick-figure drawing of the mysterious, unintelligible symbol in the group, hoping some experts might recognize it.

No one had replied in the other groups; only this "White Grass" had.

Elephant God Religion!

Lu Yuan immediately switched to his browser and searched the keyword: Elephant God Religion.

The search results, however, yielded a large amount of information about a foreign liquor brand called "Elephant."

Well, then.

Lu Yuan could only click on "White Grass's" avatar and choose to send her a private message.

He was in luck; she happened to be online.

Lu Yuan got straight to the point, asking for information about the Elephant God Religion.

White Grass: Actually, I'm not entirely sure either. It's just that a part of the symbol you drew really resembles the symbol of the Elephant God Religion.

Lu Yuan: Which part?

White Grass: See for yourself.

White Grass immediately sent an image. This time, it wasn't a hand-drawing like Lu Yuan's.

It was a photograph of a rubbing taken from some object.

The photograph showed a symbol. Lu Yuan took out his own drawing to compare, and indeed, the three curved lines in the center were exactly the same.

White Grass: The Elephant God Religion is also called the Demon Mountain Sect because, according to their religious legends, the ancient Elephant God resided on Demon Mountain, where the land was covered in black and red soil...

Reading this message from White Grass, a fog in Lu Yuan's mind instantly dispersed.

He was almost certain.

The Elephant God Religion that White Grass spoke of was the origin of the temple Lu Jing's archaeological team had excavated.

Lu Yuan clearly remembered the phrase that accompanied the mysterious symbol: "Eternal Cracking Black Soil, He will cover every pebble of Demon Mountain with blood..."

The information mentioned in it perfectly matched what White Grass had said.

Black Soil, Demon Mountain, red soil (pebbles covered with blood)...

The next message White Grass sent completely confirmed this.

"The Elephant God Religion existed in the earliest period of the White Mountain Era. It existed for a very short time and was very mysterious. However, a language quite prevalent in the White Mountain Era, which we now call Ancient Phoenician, is said to have originated and developed from the Elephant God Religion..."

The phrase about Demon Mountain was recorded in Ancient Phoenician!

"Does this symbol have any special meaning?"

Lu Yuan didn't rush to share the sentence he had on hand. Instead, he continued to ask White Grass about the Elephant God Religion's symbol.

White Grass: The symbol of the Elephant God Religion is very clear and simple.

Look, these three curved lines, don't they resemble an elephant's trunk and two ears?

Lu Yuan: .....

White Grass: Existing information about the Elephant God Religion is extremely scarce. Even in specialized fields, very few people know about this sect. You're lucky to have met me; the Elephant God Religion happens to be one of the main topics of my current research.

"But my luck isn't bad either; the symbol you provided is something we've never discovered before.

"If it's genuine, it would be very valuable for our research.

"Look, if the three curved lines inside represent the Elephant God, then does the triangle outside represent the legendary Demon Mountain?

"I haven't completely figured out the eye yet. Perhaps it represents the authority and wisdom of the ancient Elephant God...

"By the way, may I be so bold as to ask where you obtained this symbol? Besides this symbol, is there any other information?"

Lu Yuan looked at the long string of messages White Grass had sent, his eyes flickering slightly.

He didn't answer any of her questions. Instead, he asked another one.

"You... aren't a Sum Countryman, are you?"

After the message was sent, there was silence from her end for about half a minute.

Finally, a reply came.

"Correct."

"I'm currently in Havel, but I sometimes return to Sum Country. My father is a Sum Countryman; I have half Sum Country blood."

「......」