Phillips Exeter Daoist Academy sprawled across the New Hampshire landscape lazily like an old ancestor taking a break. The Main Building's clock tower was iconic, surrounded by Georgian architecture that had witnessed three centuries of American cultivation history.

  Elm-lined pathways wound past the great lawn where students could do their daily cultivation outside, through courtyards where bronze statues of legendary alumni stood watching proudly.

  Beyond the academic quad, the Dao Discussion Grounds stretched toward the tree line, sparring arenas built over spirit veins that the school's founders had claimed two hundred years ago.

  America had always done things its own way. When the founding fathers moved their families to the New World to escape the influence of the Sects of the Old World, this created an education problem. These families needed somewhere to educate their children, so they built academies. Exeter. Andover. Choate. Deerfield.

  Over generations, these prep schools evolved into the crucibles where America forged its future masters. The children of senators trained alongside heirs of European banking dynasties and scions of Asian conglomerates. Leo's parents wanted the best for Leo so they sent him to the best.

  The Chen family Prius descended through the morning mist, its formation diagrams humming with the characteristic whine of Tier 2 Foundation Establishment technology. The vehicle was a modest thing by Exeter standards. Elsewhere in the sky, luxury flying sedans and family transport treasures circled the designated landing zones, each one representing fortunes Leo could barely comprehend.

  His father guided their Prius down with practiced hands, the car's anti-gravity formations compensating for the crosswind as they touched down in the freshman arrival lot.

  "Remember to call every week," his mother said from the passenger seat, already dabbing at her eyes. "And eat properly. Burgers and french fries will ruin your cultivation."

  Leo nodded, grabbing his suitcase from the trunk. He had packed light, after all, he probably wouldn't need much things, too busy being occupied by divine sense training.

  His room was on the third floor. Room 317.

  The door was already open when he arrived, revealing a space that tested the definition of the word "room." Two beds occupied opposite walls, their frames pressed so close to the desks beside them that sitting down required careful negotiation.

  Two wardrobes stood like sentinels, leaving a narrow channel of floor space down the center. And dominating what little room remained, two VR Pods squatted at the foot of each bed, their sleek casings incongruous against the building's century-old bones.

  The pods were new additions. Leo had read about the initiative in his acceptance materials. With the impending resumption of the Catacombs war, the government had mandated Simulated Combat training for all students at cultivation-track institutions. Every dormitory in America was being retrofitted to accommodate the pods.

  "Hey! You must be Leo!"

  The voice belonged to a broad-shouldered boy with an easy smile and the kind of handshake of a natural extrovert. Tom Wheeler had clearly arrived hours ago.

  Tom's side of the room was already decorated with photos, pennants, and a small shrine to the New York Giants National Flying Aces Team.

  "Tom Wheeler. New York. Legacy admission, but don't hold that against me." He laughed at his own joke. "My dad graduated in '98. Grandpa in '71. We're pretty much furniture at this point."

  "Leo Chen. Conneticut."

  "Nice to meet you." Tom flopped onto his bed as if it was his own room. "Let me know if you have any questions. I know everything about this place."

  Leo set his suitcase down and began the process of unpacking, which mostly consisted of staring at his limited belongings and wondering if they would fit in the even smaller space in the room.

  "Actually, I wanted to ask you something. The first year curriculum. Mortal Studies. How important is it really?"

  Tom propped himself up on his elbows, considering the question. "Depends on what you're going for. You doing traditional academics? Business? Law? Then yeah, grades matter. You need that GPA foundation for college admissions."

  "What about cultivation arts?"

  "The cultivation majors don't care about your Mortal Studies GPA. In fact all of the rich kids don't even bother coming to the first year of school for the mortal studies."

  "What they care about is your performance in the extracurricular clubs. Competition results. Fighting Strength. And most importantly divine sense measurements." He gestured vaguely toward the window, where the Dao Discussion Grounds were visible in the distance."

  Tom continued. "I'm going to go into mortal studies instead, Finance. Which of the three arts do you plan on studying? Martial, Dao, or Spell? Both Martial and Spell Arts require military contracts after graduation. Mandatory service. And with the way the last Catacombs war went...."

  "Dao Arts. Specifically Formation Arts."

  Tom's eyebrows rose. "Dao Arts, huh? That's... ambitious."

  "Why ambitious?"

  "Divine sense cultivation." Tom leaned back against his headboard.

  "It's supposed to take forever. Years and years of drawing countless formations to just increase your Si slowly and slowly. Most Formation Arts students start their divine sense training in elementary school, and most of them wash out before junior high."

  He studied Leo with renewed curiosity. "Did you start early? Private tutors? Family technique?"

  Leo shook his head. "I have a special cultivation technique for divine sense."

  "Special how?"

  Instead of answering, Leo walked to his VR Pod and began the activation sequence. The hatch hissed open, revealing the neural interface cradle within. He climbed inside, settling into the familiar embrace of the sensory feeds.

  "Actually," he said, just before the hatch closed, "I should start right now."

  The pod sealed around him. The world dissolved into light and code. And then he was in Azure Profound Continent, where Mike was waiting.

  The pod's hatch cracked open five minutes later.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Leo's hands found the rim first, fingers clawing for purchase. He dragged himself out in stages, each movement accompanied by sounds that made Tom look up from his phone with alarm. A wheeze. A groan.

  He collapsed onto the narrow strip of floor between the pod and his bed, fumbling blindly for the thermos in his suitcase.

  His hands were shaking so badly that he needed three attempts to unscrew the cap. The tea inside was still warm, its medicinal fragrance filling the cramped room with notes of something ancient and carefully cultivated.

  Leo drank. The liquid hit his throat and spread through his chest, carrying with it a wave of calm that slowly, incrementally, began to push back against the howling void where his divine sense had been.

  He sat there on the floor, thermos clutched to his chest, staring at the wall with eyes that had seen too much.

  "Uh," Tom said from his bed. "You okay there, buddy?"

  Leo blinked. The motion felt like it took significant effort. His gaze drifted toward Tom, but there was a lag in it, as if his consciousness was still catching up with his body.

  "No." He answered.

  Tom stared at his new roommate for a long moment, watching as Leo continued to simply sit there, thermos in hands, existing in whatever private hell he had just crawled back from.

  "Right," Tom said slowly. "Okay. Cool. Normal first day stuff."

  He went back to his phone, but he watched in confusion as somehow Leo kept at it, entering and exiting the pod every three hours, looking worse and worse each time.

  ---

  The auditorium of Phillips Exeter Daoist Academy could seat two thousand students with room to spare. Mahogany pews stretched in curved rows toward a stage framed by pillars of white marble, each one carved with the names of distinguished alumni dating back to the school's founding.

  Afternoon light streamed through stained glass windows depicting scenes from American cultivation history: the signing of the Immortal Constitution, the Battle of Gettysburg Spirit Vein, the development of the Five Elements Spiritual Technique.

  The freshman class of 2029 filled perhaps a quarter of the available seating, clustered in the front sections with the nervous energy of young students who had not yet embarked on their path of longevity. Whispers echoed off the vaulted ceiling, creating a constant murmur of conversation.

  Off to the left, near the aisle, Tom Wheeler was engaged in urgent negotiations.

  "Come on, Marcus. I'm serious. I will pay you. Actual money."

  Marcus Liu, a thin boy with glasses and the look of someone who had been promised a quiet roommate, shook his head. "I already met my roommate. He's normal. He sleeps at normal times. He doesn't crawl out of a VR pod every three hours making sounds like a dying animal."

  "It's not that bad."

  "You texted me at 2 AM saying, and I quote, 'I think my roommate might be possessed by a demon.'"

  "I was being dramatic."

  "You sent a follow-up text at 2:15 asking if I knew any exorcists."

  Tom opened his mouth to respond, but the auditorium doors swung open with a resonance that silenced every conversation instantly.

  Principal Harrison Cross entered the auditorium, and the air itself seemed to bow in deference.

  He was not a physically imposing man. Average height, gray hair swept back from a weathered face, wearing the simple navy robes that marked Exeter's administrative faculty.

  But his cultivation was another matter entirely. Golden Core realm. The pressure of it rolled off him in waves that pressed against the students like a gentle but undeniable tide.

  The students rose as one, a reflex drilled into them since childhood. For Golden Core and above cultivators, typically lower realm cultivators use honorifics. Golden Core Superiors, Nascent Soul Lords, adn Deity Transformation Monarchs.

  "We greet the Golden Core Superior!"

  Principal Cross smiled, the expression carrying the warmth of a grandfather and the weight of someone who had lived long enough to see generations rise and fall. He gestured for them to sit.

  "Please. We'll have four years to stand on ceremony. For now, let an old man speak to young minds."

  He walked to the center of the stage, hands clasped behind his back, and for a long moment simply looked out at the assembled freshmen.

  When he spoke again, his voice carried without amplification, a simple technique that nonetheless reminded everyone present of the gulf between their cultivation and his.

  "Generation Z. I'm sure you've heard this many times. Generation Z, the generation of Zenith, the greatest and strongest generation. The Zenith of human Science and Cultivation development, the crystallization of advanced earth technology."

  "But some people say Generation Z is our last generation, the last generation before the Cultivators of the Catacombs realms crush and annihilates us all. The Catacombs Realm is much larger than our own, and much more spiritually blessed than our own. Defeat is the most likely outcome."

  The auditorium had gone utterly silent.

  "As many of you have heard, the Cultivation war between our world and the Catacomb's war was not resolved. We are only in a waiting period, a temporary truce as we wait for the radiation to clear. The spirit veins at the entrance of the catacombs, that were bombed to oblivion in the last war, have begun to recondense."

  "The government has already begun remobilization and drafting civilians into the national guard. No one knows exactly when the fighting will resume, but it will be either shortly after you all graduate college or shortly before."

  "The first spirit veins to recondense will be the lower-tier one and two veins. This means the initial fighting will be dominated not by the Nascent Soul lords, but by Qi Condensation disciples and Foundation Establishment cultivators." Principal Cross stopped pacing. His eyes swept across the freshman class.

  "By you. By your peers. By the friends you will make in these halls over the next four years."

  A girl in the third row made a small whimper. A boy started crying.

  "I tell you this not to frighten you, but to contextualize what I am about to say next." The principal's expression shifted, hardening with something that might have been pride.

  "There are many ways to contribute to the war effort. Many ways to serve your nation and your species without standing on the front lines."

  He raised one hand, and a holographic display flickered to life above the stage. Images of sleek drones, of pilots in remote operation bays, of formation diagrams integrated into modern circuit boards.

  "The Unmanned Cultivation Vehicle program has made remarkable strides. Within a decade, we anticipate that a significant portion of Catacomb engagement will be conducted through drone proxies, allowing cultivators to fight without risking their physical forms."

  The images shifted to laboratories, to researchers in white coats, to equations sprawling across digital blackboards.

  "The integration of mortal science with immortal arts has produced innovations that would have seemed like fantasy to our ancestors. Your mortal studies are not a prerequisite to be endured. They are a foundation to be mastered."

  Principal Cross dismissed the holographic display with a wave of his hand.

  "But I did not come here today to discuss drones and laboratories. I came to discuss something far more important." He walked to the edge of the stage, close enough that the students in the front row could see the fine lines around his eyes.

  "Innovation."

  "The America of 2025 is not the America of 1999. We are wealthier. Stronger. More advanced in both mortal technology and immortal cultivation than at any point in our history. And do you know why?"

  He let the question hang for a moment before continuing.

  "Startups. Entrepreneurs. Mortals with no family background, no wealth to speak of. Men and women who looked at the world and saw not what was, but what could be. Who bet everything on ideas that others called impossible. Who failed, and failed again, and kept failing until they succeeded."

  Principal Cross's voice had risen, carrying a passion that transformed his grandfatherly demeanor into something almost fierce.

  "The free market rewarded them. Their innovations created value, and that value translated into wealth, and that wealth translated into immortal potential. Many of your classmates come from such families. Some of the richest, most powerful families were only mortals during the last war."

  He spread his arms wide. "This is the greatest gift of American society. We are a nation of laws. Of intellectual property protection. Of meritocracy. Your immortal potential is not determined by the circumstances of your birth. It is determined by your choices. Your courage. Your willingness to venture into the unknown."

  The auditorium was silent, hanging on every word.

  "So when I look at this freshman class, do you know what I hope to see?" Principal Cross lowered his arms. His voice dropped to something almost intimate, despite carrying to every corner of the vast space.

  "I do not hope to see just a generation brave enough to sacrifice their lives in the Catacombs."

  He shook his head slowly.

  "What I hope to see is a generation brave enough to risk their immortal potential. To reject the stable path. To refuse the comfortable job that pays well enough to maintain your cultivation but never enough to truly advance. To bet everything on ideas that might fail. To be leaders, not followers."

  Principal Cross smiled again, and this time there was something almost wistful in it.

  "The Catacombs will test your bodies. But life will test your spirits. I hope, when that test comes, you will have the courage to realize your immortal potential."

  He performed a daoist salute to the assembly.

  "Welcome to Phillips Exeter Daoist Academy. Your journey on the path of longevity begins."