Chapter 1 — From Ruins to the Dharma Lord's Throne

The morning mist on the Tinh Quang Plateau was always thicker than other places on the Cang Plain Continent, as if the mountain where the Tinh Quang Magic Academy was located wanted to hide everything that happened within its walls. Tần Dịch Phàm stood under the ramshackle porch of Te Ban Institute, watching the mist drift across the clay yard, clutching the chipped wooden bowl containing the morning's thin porridge.

He had lived in this place for seventeen years. In all that time, he had never known his parents or heard anyone call him by a proud family name. People only knew him as the child found in front of the Hospice gate on a rainy night seventeen years ago, wrapped in a cloak scorched at one corner, without a piece of paper or any sign of his identity.

"What are you still standing there for, you soulless thing?"

A high-pitched voice rang out from behind. Dịch Phàm didn't need to turn around to know that it was Lôi Khinh Hàn, one of the oldest children at Te Ban Institute, who always considered bullying weaker children a daily hobby. He didn't have strong spiritual roots, but in this place, just being a few years older and having stronger fists was enough to claim the title of king.

"Get out of the way." Dịch Phàm stepped aside, not wanting to cause trouble.

Lôi Khinh Hàn smirked, grabbed the bowl from his hand, and dumped the remaining porridge on the ground. "What's the point of wasting the academy's food if you're worthless like you? The spiritual root awakening exam is in three days, do you think you'll be able to awaken anything? In the past seventeen years, no one in Te Ban Academy has ever awakened a decent spiritual root." A few other children laughed nearby. Dịch Phàm bent down to look at the puddle of porridge on the ground, a familiar feeling rising in his chest — not anger, but an emptiness that had hardened over the years. He learned very early that protesting only makes the beating worse, and tears only make the bully more excited.

"Leave it alone, Lôi Khinh Hàn."

A deep voice rang out. Hùng Bạt Sơn, the strongest teenager at the Te Ban Institute, stepped between Dịch Phàm and the others. His Earth spirit had awakened the previous year. Bạt Sơn was not as strong as the geniuses in the Main Area, but within the institute's four walls, he was strong enough to make Lôi Khinh Hàn wary.

"Okay, okay, I was just kidding." Lôi Khinh Hàn glanced at Bạt Sơn, then left with his friends, not forgetting to throw back a contemptuous sentence. "Anyway, in three days the whole academy will see that it's trash."

When the group had gone away, Bạt Sơn turned and held out his hand to pull Dịch Phàm up. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Dịch Phàm brushed the dust off his knees and looked down at the empty bowl on the ground. "Thank you."

"No need to thank me." Bạt Sơn smiled and patted his shoulder. "We are brothers here. If we don't help each other, who will?" Then his voice dropped. "But Dịch Phàm, three days from now is really the spiritual awakening exam. Are you... worried?"

Dịch Phàm was silent for a moment. From the age of fourteen, when children of the same age one by one awakened their spiritual roots - some were Wood-type, some were Water-type, most of them were just weak common spiritual roots but at least a sign of becoming a magician - he still had nothing. For three years in a row, every time he stood in front of the academy's awakening platform, the aura around him just quietly passed through him as if he didn't exist.

People call people like him "rootless" — no spiritual roots, no future, no qualifications to be considered real humans in a world where magical power decides everything.

"I don't know," he finally replied, his voice small but firm. "But I will stand at the awakening platform for the last time in my life the academy will allow me to try. No matter the outcome, at least I tried." Bạt Sơn looked at him for a long time, then nodded. "Okay. I believe you."

That afternoon, after the mandatory work time of the Te Ban Institute - cleaning the backyard of the Main Area, where the children of famous families study - Dịch Phàm stood silently next to the iron fence dividing the two areas, watching young men and women wearing robes embroidered with gorgeous family crests pass by, practicing basic magic tricks under the guidance of professors.

A girl wearing a jade green robe, long hair tied up, was practicing an ice move, sparkling crystals flying around her like a flock of crystal butterflies. Dịch Phàm did not know her name, only heard people whispering that she was the young lady of one of the continent's most famous families, possessing rare dual-type spiritual roots - Ice and Water - and was predicted to become the most outstanding magician of this generation.

For a moment, the girl turned and met his eyes through the iron fence. Then she looked away as if he were no longer worth noticing. Dịch Phàm was not angry. He was used to that look—the way the whole world regarded an unknown orphan as if he had no lineage and no worth.

But in his heart, something smoldered.

He did not want to spend his life outside the fence, watching others live the life he desired. He did not remember his parents' faces or know whether they were alive, but he held a vague, instinctive belief that he had not been born to be despised as useless. Some power, faint but present, still slept in his veins, waiting to awaken.

That night, Dịch Phàm couldn't sleep. He lay on a rickety wooden mat in the dormitory room of Te Ban Hospital, listening to the steady breathing of the other children, looking up at the dark ceiling, clutching an old piece of cloth - the only thing left from the robe he was wrapped in when he found it in front of the hospital gate. The piece of cloth was worn out, no longer recognizable as a pattern, but he still kept it like a treasure, like the last fragile thread connecting him to a past he did not know.

"Dad, mom..." he whispered in the darkness, his voice so soft that only he could hear. "If you are alive somewhere on this continent, I will find you. But first, I must prove that I am worthy of existence."

Three days passed as quickly as the wind blowing across the plateau. On the morning of the spiritual awakening exam, the entire academy gathered at Tinh Quang Square, where there was an ancient awakening platform built since the founding of the institute, a block of white marble engraved with formations that channeled spiritual energy from all over the plateau.

Dịch Phàm stood at the end of the line, among the students of the Outer Area waiting for his turn. He saw Hùng Bạt Sơn standing nearby, his eyes encouraging. He also saw Lôi Khinh Hàn and his friends standing together, laughing and pointing at him, clearly waiting to see him be humiliated for the fourth time in a row.

On the high stage, the professors and elders of the academy sat observing, including a thin old man with cold eyes - Nhạc Vĩnh Tuyên, the elder in charge of this year's awakening exam. Next to him was Director Hou Đạt Sơn, a middle-aged man with a stern face but eyes that always contained a tolerance rarely seen in the academy's power class.

Each name was announced, each student stepped onto the awakening platform, placed their hands on the central stone slab, let the plateau's spiritual energy flow through their bodies and awaken their hidden spiritual roots. There was cheering when a boy awakened his Wood spirit, and polite applause when a little girl awakened her weak Water spirit.

Then it was Dịch Phàm's turn.

"Qin Dịch Phàm." Nhạc Vĩnh Tuyên's voice rang out, carrying something almost contemptuous, as if this name was just a superfluous procedure that needed to be completed. "Idiopathic three years in a row. This time is the last chance according to academy regulations."

Giggles rang out somewhere in the crowd. Dịch Phàm took a deep breath and walked up the stone steps leading to the awakening platform. Each step felt as heavy as a stone, but he did not let himself falter. Standing in front of the white marble slab, he glanced around at the crowd below — waiting faces, some curious, most indifferent or scornful.

Far away, he caught sight of the girl in the emerald green gown. She was standing with a group of friends in the Main Area, not looking anything special, but her eyes lingered on him a little longer than usual.

Dịch Phàm turned back to the stone and placed both hands on its cold surface. The aura of the plateau began to flow through the formation, an invisible stream of energy spread throughout the square, flowing into his body like water flowing into a ravine.

And then he closed his eyes and waited.

For three years in a row, this feeling always ended with emptiness, with aura passing through his body without leaving any trace. But this time, something is different. A strange heat began to grow deep in his chest, like a small fire that had been buried for a long time now found air to burn.

Dịch Phàm did not know what was waiting for him ahead. He just knew that, for the first time in his life, he felt something stir and awaken inside his body — slowly, but surely, as if seventeen years of waiting were finally coming to an end.