January 1, Year 567 of the New Calendar, Upper City District of Starlight City, Guide Academy.
Today was the day another batch of students graduated.
Over two thousand young Guides who had come of age in the past year were now holding their diplomas. They were taking commemorative photos around the academy with their families or their Guardians.
Beside an artificial willow tree on campus, a young Sentinel in his early twenties, tall and lean, was confessing his feelings to a Guide: “Wu Nian, I like you. Can I become your Guardian?”
This scene drew the attention of many bystanders. Several Guides even looked on with envy. After all, the Sentinel confessing, named Ying Li, was B-Rank, while the object of his confession, Wu Nian, was only a D-Rank.
Sentinels and Guides of B-Rank or above could all go live in the Central District. Thus, in the Upper City District, B-Rank Sentinels were a rare sight.
The few B-Rank Sentinels living in the Upper City District would usually choose a C-Rank Guide as a partner.
Wu Nian was only D-Rank, yet he had gained the favor of a B-Rank Sentinel. How could that not be enviable?
Everyone thought Wu Nian would accept Ying Li’s confession, but Wu Nian’s reaction defied their expectations.
He stared at Ying Li for a long moment before suddenly saying, “No.”
The bystanders were stunned, doubting their own ears.
As for Ying Li, standing before Wu Nian, he felt a bit dazed.
Was this a dream? In this dream, he had returned to the moment he confessed to Wu Nian, and Wu Nian had refused him?
Ying Li looked at the Wu Nian before him and found the look in Wu Nian’s eyes was complex, even laced with hatred.
This look didn’t belong to the eighteen-year-old Wu Nian; it belonged to the twenty-eight-year-old Wu Nian.
Could it be that they had actually entered the same dream together?
What kind of cursed fate was this?
As Ying Li pondered, Wu Nian had already turned and walked away without a shred of hesitation.
Ying Li paid him no further mind and began observing his surroundings.
He felt that everything before his eyes didn’t seem like a scene conjured by his dreams; it felt real.
A Sentinel’s senses were incredibly sharp. He could hear the hushed whispers of the people around him and see every blade of grass and every tree in the Guide Academy clearly.
The scene matched his memory perfectly. The expressions and words of the people around him were also incredibly lifelike.
This wasn’t something a dream could fabricate.
So, this wasn’t a dream. Had he… returned to ten years ago?
All those things he regretted hadn’t happened yet. Could he live his life all over again?
Ying Li looked up, gazing at the sky, then into the distance.
The Artificial Sky Projector, as always, cast a brilliant blue sky and white clouds for the citizens of the underground city. However, the city beneath this projected sky was covered in rust, and the air itself emitted the peculiar, sour odor of decaying organic matter.
According to regulations, buildings in the underground city could not exceed ten meters.
The Guide Academy, located at the center of the Upper City District, and the buildings nearby were fairly low, even adorned with fake flowers and trees. But slightly farther away, it was a different scene entirely.
Buildings exactly ten meters high were packed together row after row, forming a solid mass, separated only by narrow, deep passageways—resembling rows of tightly placed dominoes.
This was the Upper City District from ten years ago, not the one that would be overrun by Mutant Beasts a decade later.
Ying Li pinched himself hard. He felt the pain, and he felt his own healthy body.
His current health was leagues better than it was ten years later.
This didn’t seem like a dream. It felt exactly as if he had truly returned to ten years ago.
Had he… been reborn?
The planet Ying Li lived on was struck by an asteroid over five hundred years ago.
That asteroid had been immense. Although missiles were launched to intercept it and blow it up before it entered the atmosphere, many fragments still broke through.
Those fragments carried a unique cosmic energy: Corrosive Energy.
This energy was radioactive. It spread rapidly, contaminating the air and water, and damaging the genes of plants, animals, and humans.
Those closest to the asteroid fragments initially all died within a short time. The surrounding people who suffered radiation also mutated and slowly perished.
Flora and fauna died off in vast swathes.
This radiation could also disrupt electromagnetic signals, rendering communication impossible.
To survive, humanity pooled all its resources and built underground cities capable of withstanding the radiation.
There were many such underground cities, and Starlight City was one of them.
The area where Starlight City was located had a very high population density before the Great Cataclysm, so initially, Starlight City housed over ten million people.
Now, Starlight City’s population had decreased somewhat, but still, over six million people lived here.
To accommodate a larger population and withstand radiation, the underground Starlight City was built with three levels.
The topmost level was called the “Upper City District.”
The name sounded decent, but the Upper City District was not a good place at all.
Underground cities couldn’t block Corrosive Energy radiation one hundred percent. The Upper City District was closest to the surface and had multiple passageways leading out of the underground city. Therefore, it was the area with the strongest radiation within the underground city. People living here risked radiation exposure and genetic diseases at the slightest misstep.
It also housed ninety percent of the underground city’s population and was incredibly crowded.
The middle level was called the “Middle City District,” also known as the “Central District.”
This was the desirable place. Radiation was minimal, the environment was good, and the residential population was small, making it very livable.
However, ordinary people generally had no way to live in the Central District.
The bottommost level was called the “Lower City District.”
Fewer people lived here. It was divided into three zones: the Industrial Zone, filled with factories providing energy and various products for the entire underground city; the Purification Zone, which helped purify clean water and air for the underground city; and the Ecological Zone, used for cultivating plants ungontaminated by Corrosive Energy and raising animals similarly untainted.
All flora and fauna outside the underground city had been contaminated by Corrosive Energy.
Initially, they died off in droves. Later, however, they began to mutate and coexist with the Corrosive Energy.
Most mutated flora and fauna contained violent, unstable Corrosive Energy and were inedible. Unmutated flora and fauna only existed within the underground city.
However, the food produced in the Ecological Zone was almost impossible for ordinary people in the Upper City District to eat.
The plants and animals raised in the Ecological Zone reproduced with difficulty and yielded scarce harvests. Even the rich and powerful in the Central District couldn’t necessarily eat their fill of such food. Ordinary people in the Upper City District might sometimes live their entire lives without tasting it once.
Their daily food consisted entirely of various fungi products.
From the very beginning of the underground city’s construction, humanity had researched fungi. They cultivated several high-yield fungal strains, then mixed these fungi with other substances to produce cheap, nutritious Nutrient Paste that fed the massive population of the underground city.
After humanity hid underground, the world on the surface slowly changed, becoming the domain of Mutated Flora and Mutated Fauna.
Mutated Flora boasted dazzlingly vibrant colors and were rich in Corrosive Energy. Mutated Fauna’s size increased dramatically, and their attacking power was astonishing.
The underground city could not completely isolate Corrosive Energy radiation. Under the constant barrage of weak radiation, humanity itself also began to mutate.
Among humans, Evolved Ones possessing Mental Power emerged, capable of ignoring the radiation from Corrosive Energy.
Evolved Ones were divided into two types: one was called Sentinels, and the other, Guides.
A Sentinel’s Mental Power was immense and filled with aggression. Their bone and muscle density far exceeded that of ordinary humans. Their combat prowess was astonishing; they were practically humanoid combat machines.
Their only flaw was that their Mental Power would become increasingly Berserk over time, making it difficult to ultimately control their own actions.
Guides were different from Sentinels. Their physical changes weren’t significant, and their Mental Power was very gentle.
Not only did Guides not lose control like Sentinels, but they could also soothe a Sentinel’s Mental Power, preventing it from growing Berserk.
The underground city had stored a vast amount of resources when it was first built.
But as time passed, these resources were exhausted, and life for the people of the underground city became very difficult.
Fortunately, by this time, Sentinels had appeared among humans. Sentinels could go to the surface and bring back various supplies for the underground city.
Mutated flora and fauna on the surface contained high amounts of Corrosive Energy and were mostly inedible. However, after processing, some plants could be used to cultivate fungi.
Humans also discovered Energy Crystal Cores within the bodies of Mutated Fauna.
Energy Crystal Cores were stable, didn’t emit radiation, and also contained vast amounts of energy. They gradually became the primary energy source for the underground city.
Currently, ninety percent of the energy used by the citizens of the underground city originated from Energy Crystal Cores.
Because Energy Crystal Cores needed Sentinels to go to the surface to hunt them, Sentinels—powerful, strong, and controlling these resources—gradually became the rulers of the underground city.
Currently, Starlight City had long been controlled by great families possessing S-Rank Sentinels. They had carved up the city’s various resources, like water and air.
The lives these people led might not compare to before the Great Cataclysm, but they were infinitely better than the lives of the people in the Upper City District.
Ordinary people in the Upper City District had to do many jobs daily, had only fungi to eat, and many lived in capsule rooms covering a mere two to three cubic meters.
“Capsule room” was a flattering euphemism. Most of the time, people called these rooms Coffin-Shaped Rooms.
After all, they were only the size of a coffin.
Ordinary people lived very poorly. The only way for them to change their fate was to Awaken as a Sentinel or a Guide.
If they couldn’t Awaken themselves, then they had to give birth to a Sentinel or a Guide.
Even a low-rank Sentinel could find a job much better than ordinary people’s, improving the whole family’s life.
As for Guides, although their physical fitness couldn’t compare to Sentinels’ and they couldn’t leave the city to search for resources, they could help Sentinels calm their Mental Sea.
In addition, since Guides were fewer in number than Sentinels, basically every Guide could find a Sentinel willing to protect them and receive that Sentinel’s support, thus naturally helping their own families.
If a family produced a B-Rank or higher Sentinel or Guide, the entire family could move to the Central District to live, completely escaping the filthy, chaotic, and squalid Upper City District!
Ying Li’s parents were among those hoping their children could change their destiny.
In the underground city, the government provided free food and water to minors. Raising children didn’t require parents to spend much. Thus, Ying Li’s parents had, one after another, produced seven children.
Ying Li was the fifth.
His childhood was unhappy. He, his siblings, and his parents lived together in a room totaling only ten square meters.
On one wall, eight beds were hung like the sleeper berths on a train from before the Great Cataclysm, and the remaining space was crammed full of miscellaneous items.
He grew up in that cramped space, had his food stolen by his older siblings, and was ignored by his parents. But he was very lucky.
At the age of ten, he Awakened as a Sentinel.
The government provided food and water to minors, and also offered free education.
What ordinary people received was only the absolute basics; sometimes it wasn’t even enough to ensure a growing adolescent could eat their fill. But minor Guides and Sentinels received much more food and water than ordinary people.
The education they received was also much better!
Minor Sentinels and Guides from the Upper City District could attend the Sentinel Academy and Guide Academy located in the center of the Upper City District.
After Awakening as a Sentinel, he moved into a spacious dormitory, had ample food, and occasionally could even eat vegetables and meat produced in the Ecological Zone.
Having grown up lacking food and clothing, bereft of resources, Ying Li yearned for a better life and swore he would climb to the top. After entering the Sentinel Academy, his conviction grew even firmer.
He always overfulfilled the assignments his teachers gave. He pushed himself to his limits time and time again.
His grades were far ahead of his peers, and the time he devoted to physical training far surpassed everyone else’s.
Ordinary Sentinels only ventured beyond the underground city to the surface after reaching the age of eighteen. But at just sixteen, he followed his teacher to the surface to battle Mutant Beasts.
Raising a Sentinel’s rank wasn’t easy. He was only D-Rank when he first Awakened, but relying on his intense desire to grow stronger, he reached C-Rank by the time he came of age.
That was when he met Wu Nian.
He wanted to become stronger, he wanted to live a good life, but he was also very pragmatic.
He knew his family background was poor. Not only could his parents and relatives not provide him with support, but they also needed his help.
A Sentinel like him would find it very difficult to find an excellent Guide.
Therefore, in his youth, he didn’t set his sights on the top-tier C-Rank Guides of the Upper City District.
He was well aware that those Guides could find Sentinels better than him.
Sentinels outnumbered Guides significantly. Those C-Rank Guides had many options; most would pair with B-Rank Sentinels. Only a very few would stay with C-Rank Sentinels.
Although he was outstanding among the C-Rank Sentinels of the Upper City District, he couldn’t compete with those C-Rank Sentinels who had power and influence.
According to the future Ying Li had planned for himself, he would strive to improve his strength, work hard hunting to earn money, and then find a suitable D-Rank Guide to start a family with.
After that, he would slowly save money. Once he saved enough, he’d buy a small house in the Central District and completely change his destiny.
Wu Nian was a D-Rank Guide born in the Upper City District. His father had already passed away. He was two years younger than Ying Li and had a very good temperament—a perfect match for his requirements.
Additionally, Wu Nian proactively approached him and showed interest, so he chose Wu Nian.
From the time they met, when Ying Li was eighteen and Wu Nian was sixteen, Ying Li often gave Wu Nian gifts.
Among all minors, minor Guides received the best welfare, even better than Sentinels.
But these benefits would all vanish once they turned eighteen and graduated from the Guide Academy.
The work ordinary people did was not only extremely arduous but also earned very little money. Guides generally wouldn’t do such work.
Furthermore, Guides couldn’t adapt to the food ordinary people ate.
Therefore, many Guides whose families had no money and who didn’t want their standard of living to drop would, after reaching adulthood, find a Sentinel to support them.
They would sign a Guardian Contract with that Sentinel, live together, and after a few years, once their bond had deepened and their Mental Powers had attuned to each other, they would establish a Mental Bond and formally start a family.
In his previous life, he met the sixteen-year-old Wu Nian at eighteen. Then, at twenty, he confessed to the eighteen-year-old Wu Nian and became his Guardian.
But they never established a Mental Bond, right up until his death.
At first, they got along fairly well, but in the end, they became a bitter, resentful couple.
