Chương 10: Phillips Exeter Daoist Academy

September 2025, New Hampshire Leo Chen pressed his face to the window of the family Prius as Phillips Exeter Daoist Academy came into view below, their car joining a slow stream of cultivation cars flying through the air. The campus sprawled across the New Hampshire landscape. The Main Building's clock tower rose above Georgian architecture that had witnessed centuries of American cultivation history.

Elm-lined pathways wound past the great lawn where students could do their daily cultivation outside, while bronze statues of legendary alumni stood watching proudly. The school crest was carved above the main entrance: three flames rising from an open book, and beneath it, a founding date older than the Constitution. The founding fathers had needed somewhere to educate their children after they fled the Legacy Sects of the Old World. Somewhere to raise children who wouldn't kneel to European sects.

So they built academies. Exeter. Andover. Choate. Deerfield. Three centuries later, the Legacy Sects they'd fled were sending their own heirs to study here. Now senators' children sat on that lawn beside Gulf Royalty and Asian conglomerate scions. And now me. Leo leaned back from the window. His parents had saved for years to send him here.

"It's for your immortal potential," his mother had said. More times than he could count on the drive over. A few weeks ago, those words would have terrified him. Ms. Patterson's pyramid, the statistics, the suggestion that he settle for being someone's useful servant. But that was before the timer in his VR pod hit zero.

Before he spent weeks dying and respawning in the Azure Profound Continent, grinding his divine sense from nothing to sixty Si while the young masters of Exeter were posting training montages on Instagram. They had generational wealth. Spirit vein access. Nascent Soul parents who could buy them techniques he'd never heard of. He had a world that didn't exist. The car banked left, and the football stadium filled the window.

It dominated the eastern edge of campus, a massive oval stadium that dwarfed everything around it. Even in the skies Leo could feel the formation circles carved into the structure. His divine sense brushed against them and recoiled from the density of the spiritual architecture. There were thousands of array runes. Interlocking systems he couldn't begin to parse. Beautiful and completely beyond him.

"Leo." His mother's voice pulled him back.

"Are you listening?"

"Yes."

"Call us every week. Not texting. Calling. Your father wants to hear your voice." His father said nothing. He was focused on landing the car in the parking lot. The lot was filled with expensive luxury vehicles. Audi. Mercedes. Three Ferraris in a row. His father was very careful about not scratching anything.

"And eat properly," his mother continued.

"The cafeteria food is not as good as home cooking. I packed extra herbs in your suitcase. The red bag. Make tea every morning."

"I will."

"And sleep. Eight hours. I know you want to cultivate, but sleep is important for a growing body."

"Mom."

"I'm just saying." His dad finished parking. He sat there for a moment.

"Work hard. Call if you need anything." Leo grabbed his suitcase from the back seat. He stepped out onto the parking lot and felt the September sun on his face. He looked back at his mother through the window. She was smiling, but her eyes were wet. He turned away before any feeling could take hold.

Leo trailed behind a group of seven boys on his way to his new dorm. One of them stood out, wearing a Gucci jacket that probably cost more than his father's Prius. He was probably a young master. After all, the other six waited for him to finish every sentence before anyone else spoke. One of them started to say something, then cut himself off when Gucci boy opened his mouth. Leo extended his divine sense. Subtle. Just enough to brush against Gucci boy's spiritual signature without announcing himself.

Around 180 Si. Maybe less. Leo pulled his awareness back and smirked. 180 Si was low for a young master. Gucci boy probably wasn't one. He thought back to what Mike had told him yesterday. The young masters don't arrive until sophomore year. Gucci boy was probably a rich kid with ambitious parents, trying to build a posse before the real deal showed up. A group of girls walked by the other way. Leo slowed down to catch what they were saying.

"Did you hear about the new arrivals?" one of them said.

"Someone said Kim Yuna is transferring here."

"Who's Kim Yuna?"

"Are you serious? The Samsung princess. Her family owns half of Korea's spirit vein network. My mom said she's been cultivating with private tutors since she was six."

"Oh my god. Do you think we should introduce ourselves? Would that be weird?" This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"It would definitely be weird. She's not even here yet. She's coming sophomore year."

"So we have a whole year to figure out how to not be weird about it."

"A whole year to figure out how to be her friend, you mean."

"Same thing." Their voices faded. Leo filed the name away. Kim Yuna. Samsung. Sophomore year. Private tutors since age six. He had one year. One year before Kim Yuna and the real young masters arrived. One year to establish himself, to build a reputation, to become someone they couldn't step on.

His room was on the third floor, Room 317. Leo stepped inside and immediately understood why the housing office had apologized about the accommodations. The room was tiny, barely large enough for the furniture. Two VR pods took up most of the space. Each pod stretched six feet long and four feet wide, leaving barely enough floor space to walk between them.

"Hey! You must be Leo!" A broad-shouldered boy with an easy smile crossed the room and stuck out his hand. Leo shook it.

"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. Connecticut." Leo set his suitcase down and started unpacking, which mostly meant staring at his limited belongings and wondering where they would fit in the even smaller space in the room.

"Nice to meet you." Tom flopped onto his bed.

"Let me know if you have any questions. I know everything about this place." Leo had a lot of questions. Well, one big one in particular. Over the past three Mike had killed him seven times a day, every day, and the sessions were only getting longer. It was going to be nearly impossible to balance dying seven times a day and attending classes. Something had to give. And it wasn't going to be dying.

His mom was already texting him, reminding him that his three hour timer was up and that he needed to get back into his VR pod. Everyone kept on telling him that the rich kids barely showed up to class. If they could get away with it, maybe he could too.

"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. Are you thinking of majoring in one of them?"

"I'm majoring in 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 formations just to nudge your Si up bit by bit. 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 was proud of his Si increase, he had worked hard for it.

"I have a special cultivation technique for divine sense."

"Special how?" Leo thought for a moment, and tried to figure out how to explain Mike's special training sessions. After all, Tom was his new roommate, and they would be together for the next four years. He decided some things were easier to show than to tell"Here, let me show you." Leo walked to his VR pod, started the activation sequence, and climbed inside. The pod sealed around him. Light flooded his vision, then resolved into the familiar landscape of the Azure Profound Continent, where Mike was waiting.

The pod's hatch cracked open five minutes later. Leo gripped the rim. He dragged himself out in stages, wheezing and groaning with each movement. Tom looked up from his phone with alarm. Leo collapsed onto the narrow strip of floor between the pod and his bed, and begun fumbling blindly for the thermos in his suitcase. His hands shook so badly that he needed three attempts to unscrew the cap. The tea inside was still warm, its medicinal fragrance filling the cramped room. Leo drank.

The liquid hit his throat and spread through his chest, carrying a wave of calm that pushed back the throbbing pain in his head. He sat on the floor, thermos clutched to his chest, staring at nothing.

"Uh," Tom said from his bed.

"You okay there, buddy?" Leo blinked, the motion taking visible effort. His gaze drifted toward Tom a beat too late, as if his mind hadn't finished reassembling.

"No." 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." Tom 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 opening ceremony was the next afternoon. Leo sat in the darkest corner of the auditorium, trying not to wince at the lights and noise. He was starting to think that attending this year had been too ambitious. He should have skipped freshman year. Off to the left, near the aisle, Tom Wheeler was engaged in urgent negotiations.

"Come on, David. I'm serious. I will pay you. Actual money." The boy Tom was talking to 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." Leo could hear every word but let it go. He had more important things to worry about, like when the divine sense press would be ready. Mike's sessions had become an extremely painful process for them both. Leo began to feel a hint of sympathy for that man. A very small, tiny, hint of sympathy. Tom opened his mouth to respond, but the auditorium doors swung open with a resonance that silenced every conversation instantly.

Principal Cross entered the auditorium. He was not a physically imposing man, but his cultivation was another matter. Gold Core realm. The pressure rolled off him in waves that pressed against every student in the room. The students rose as one, a reflex drilled into them since childhood. Lower realm cultivators always used honorifics for those above them.

"We greet the Gold Core Superior!" Principal Cross smiled. He gestured for them to sit. 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.

"Above Qi Refining lies Foundation Establishment. Above Foundation Establishment lies Gold Core. Above Gold Core lies Nascent Soul. These are words you have heard since childhood. But words alone cannot convey what it means to stand in the presence of a Nascent Soul Lord." Principal Cross turned to face the stage's eastern wing.

"Today, we are honored by the presence of one of Exeter's most distinguished alumni. Class of 1943. Veteran of three Catacomb Wars. Commander of the Boston Catacombs." He paused, and something shifted in his bearing. The composed administrator receded. What remained was a Gold Core cultivator showing deference to his superior.

"Lord Astor has agreed to deliver your welcome address." Principal Cross performed a formal salute.

"And he has agreed to demonstrate, for your education, the majesty of a Nascent Soul domain."