Chapter 13: As Everyone Knows, The Qilin Can Do Anything

The body tempering continued until dawn.

I didn’t wake Cluru.

I just gently wiped her down and carried her to bed.

It was super difficult!

Even asleep, that girl’s rear tentacles were tangled all over me! 

Some of them were even wrapped up with my tail!

Aaaaargh—! 

Heaven knows how I managed to inch my way back to the bed with Cluru on my back, like a wriggling worm!

Even thinking about it now makes me ache all over.

By the time I finally made it to the bed, the morning bell had already started ringing outside.

Damn it, stupid octopus. 

I didn’t sleep a wink all night!

“Ammmm…” Hearing the bell, Cluru smacked her lips and tightened her tentacle grip around me, even throwing a leg over my body, “That stupid school’s being noisy again… My love, we don’t have to care about that… Even if it’s the end of the world, it has nothing to do with us…”

Ah, she still thinks she’s asleep in the basement.

“Wake up. It’s time for class.”

“Class… What class… class? Who’s talking?”

Cluru’s eyes slowly opened.

The girl blinked in confusion for ten seconds before her memory gradually returned.

Oh, right. She wasn’t in the basement anymore.

She rubbed her sleepy eyes and looked at me in puzzlement.

“Eh? Why do you have such big dark circles?”

“You guess.” I gritted my teeth.

Cluru clearly had no idea what had happened.

Her mind had been muddled last night, so for her, it was probably just a blank—no memories at all.

“Can you get off me now?”

“Oh…” Cluru sounded reluctant.

Schlorp…

With a slick noise, her tentacles withdrew, and I was finally free.

Just then, Teacher Xiao Yuan returned.

“You two don’t need help getting dressed, do you?”

I shook my head forcefully and hurried into my uniform.

The first time’s awkward, the second time’s easier. 

After wearing girls’ clothes all day yesterday, my sense of shame had already plummeted.

Wait a sec—going from resisting, to adapting, to liking, and finally to being unable to stop… Why does that progression feel so familiar?

No way! Absolutely not happening!

“Right, I forgot to register you two yesterday,” said Teacher Xiao Yuan, pulling out an enrollment form. “One of you is Cluru… and the other?”

Me?

Now that Cluru had given me a new life… I couldn’t keep using my old name.

Thinking about how I, the dignified master of the celestial realm, ended up crashing and burning at the hands of a little girl… It was a bit depressing.

“Call me Yun Luo Xian.”

I meant it as a joke like a fallen immortal cultivator but Teacher Xiao Yuan misunderstood.

“Yun Luo Xian? That suits you~ The legendary Luo River Fairy, said to be so beautiful she made men lose their souls—probably only looked as good as you.”

And with that, she wrote down “Yun Luo Xian” on the form.

Well, I guess that’s fine too.

“Alright, you two are in Teacher Ishida’s class today—Cultivation of Immortal Spirits.”

……

Cultivation class? I was actually curious about how they trained immortal spirits.

Immortal spirits were strange things. 

They could exist in an ethereal state and merge with their masters to enhance combat abilities but they could also manifest physically, eat, drink, and play like normal creatures.

Kind of like Pokémon, kind of like avatars.

This unfamiliar power system intrigued me.

Not far off, Teacher Ishida stood in the school’s herb garden, a burly Fireback Croc coiled beside him.

We sat cross-legged between rows of herbs.

Class began.

“As everyone knows, immortal spirits can broadly be divided into two types: biological and artifact. Biological ones grow and evolve through feeding, leveling up, and transformation.

Artifacts, on the other hand, improve through refinement, socketing, enchantment, and reinforcement.”

“Today, we’re focusing on the training methods for biological immortal spirits.”

Teacher Ishida wasn’t exactly a lively speaker, but I didn’t zone out for a second.

After surviving the hell of exam-driven education, what kind of boring class hadn’t I sat through? 

Now I was getting lessons on fantasy creatures from a legit school teacher—this was like watching anime. 

I was loving it.

Bring on more classes like this!

“While biological spirits can eat regular food, it doesn’t improve their stats. To enhance their attributes, you need to feed them special spirit fruits or potions made by alchemists.”

Feeding them, huh…

I wonder what would happen if a Qilin ate a Foundation-Building Pill?

Also, unlike the locals here, who were wary or even hostile toward demon cultivators, I—raised on anime and games—had no such prejudices. 

I even lent a helping hand.

Over time, I got along well with the furries and picked up some neat demon cultivation techniques.

I wonder if immortal spirits could learn those as well?

“If you just feed them raw spirit fruits, the stat gain is minimal. But if you refine the fruits into potions, the effect improves dramatically. Also, the diminishing returns from repeated feeding are less severe.”

“Most immortal spirits can also evolve. The methods vary widely, and humanity still hasn’t figured them all out—

For example, take the common Flame Pig. 

To evolve it into a Blaze Boar, you need to set up a wooden cabin on a northern winter night, light a campfire inside, and wait for the star ‘Shixiu’ to appear in the sky. 

Then the Flame Pig will absorb the flames and evolve.”

That’s so cool.

How does that even work?

Now I’m curious—how would Little Qilin or that little octopus evolve? And into what?

“Besides feeding and evolution, there are other enhancement methods. But those are far beyond your current level. If you manage to get into elite universities like Fu Dan Egg or Beiqing, your professors will go into more detail. For now, we’ll stop here.”

“Now, everyone take out your cauldrons—we’re going to brew the most basic potion: the Low-Grade Agility Elixir.”

Becoming an alchemist didn’t require much unlike pill refiners, who needed powerful fire techniques.

Anyone could be an alchemist… Just light a fire, stick a cauldron on top, and boil it like some old-school witch.

“By boiling, we can break down harmful components in the ingredients, isolate heat-resistant compounds, and extract the essence.”

What an ancient method… The extraction efficiency was ridiculously low.

So we just had to wait?

Staring blankly at the bubbling potion, stirring occasionally… and just like that, an hour passed.

I was starting to doze off.

“Yun Luo Xian! No sleeping during class!!”

Hahaha, who’s the dumbass nodding off in alchemy class? 

Don’t they know that dozing off can burn the brew?

…Oh, right. Me. Never mind, then.

Tsk. Still not used to this new name…

I rubbed my drowsy eyes and couldn’t help letting out a big yawn.

My mouth opened in a long “haaah~,” eyes fogging up with sleep.

Curled up against the little Qilin’s soft, fluffy belly, the exhaustion of a sleepless night hit me like a wave.

“Your… tail… it’s on fire,” Cluru whispered.

“Sprinkle some cumin then,” I mumbled in a half-conscious daze.

“……”

Fwoof—fwoof—fwoof—

I heard the girl next to me blowing frantically.

Fire—extinguished.

Thankfully, Cluru acted fast. 

My tail didn’t get scorched bald, just a tiny tuft at the tip was singed, not enough to ruin my look.

“You’ve been out of it all morning,” said my deskmate, the class president, Xinyue.

“I’m getting old. All-nighters are brutal…”

“If you’re old, then I might as well be in the grave,” Xinyue pouted. “So how did you even pull it off yesterday?”

“Talismans.”

“Talismans?”

“The Qilin’s powers.”

“Meow—” the little Qilin let out a disgruntled chirp, clearly offended. 

It didn’t think it was that overpowered.

Too bad humans couldn’t understand its complaints.

“Divine beasts really are amazing,” Xinyue sighed, “But the way you use your powers… kinda reminds me of those cultivator types from novels. You’re not actually a cultivator, are you?”

I smiled faintly and waved it off. 

“There’s no such thing as cultivation. Believe in science.”

Just as I finished, thunderclouds gathered in the sky. 

A blinding bolt of lightning struck down—KRAKOW!—and the potion in my cauldron instantly condensed into a pill.

“……”

The deafening boom left everyone’s ears ringing. 

All the students turned to me in shock and horror.

“Don’t overthink it. Qilin did it. Totally not a divine pill triggering a heavenly tribulation or anything.”

I passed the blame like a seasoned pro, casually ruffling the Qilin’s mane. “You little rascal. Don’t scare your classmates next time, okay?”

“……”

The little Qilin was speechless.