Chương 131: Lord Ross

Phillips Exeter Daoist Academy, Earth"I'm sorry, Principal Cross." Leo said.

"I think I misheard you. Did you just say I'm giving the valedictorian speech?" Leo stood in the wings of the auditorium stage, staring at Principal Cross like the man had just told him gravity worked sideways on Tuesdays. The last time Leo had seen Principal Cross was during freshman orientation, and he was pretty sure the Gold Core Superior wasn't this shameless back then. Principal Cross smiled with the patience of a man who had weathered countless rich helicopter parents.

"You did not mishear me, Mr. Chen."

"But that's impossible. There is no way I'm valedictorian." Leo gestured vaguely at himself, at the auditorium next to them, at the concept of academic achievement in general.

"I'm pretty sure I hold the school record for least days attended on campus. I haven't been here since sophomore year. I thought I was just here to pick up my diploma and shake some hands."

"You would be surprised at your grades." Principal Cross reached into his suit jacket and produced a folded document.

"I anticipated this conversation, so I printed out your transcript." Leo took the paper and unfolded it.

"Only sophomore through senior year grades count toward class rank," Principal Cross explained.

"Your freshman year, while memorable, does not factor into the calculation." Leo's eyes found the sophomore and junior year sections. Row after row of classes, each one marked with a pristine A. Dr. Reyes's name appeared as the instructor of record for every single course. He grimaced. Of course she had given him all As.

"What about senior year?" Leo asked.

"Who was grading me? I spent most of it in Pittsburgh, the Catacombs, or Berlin." Principal Cross turned the page for him. Professor Morimoto. The class names were exactly what Leo should have expected from the convicted counterfeiter. Practical Applications of Mind Your Own Business Independent Study in Plausible Deniability Seminar on Creative Accounting (Audit-Resistant Methods) Workshop in Document Authentication (For Educational Purposes Only) Every single class showed an A next to Leo's name.

Leo pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Of course." Then his eyes caught something at the bottom of the transcript. One class in the final semester stood apart from the rest. Ethics and Integrity in Cultivation Practice: B Leo knew exactly why Morimoto had given him that grade. Leo had refused to ask CIA Deputy Director Nick to help reduce Morimoto's sentence. And apparently Morimoto had taken his frustration out on Leo's transcript.

"What about Vivian?" Leo asked, looking up from the paper.

"I bet she got all As." Principal Cross's expression shifted slightly.

"Miss Xin received a C in Ethics and Integrity."

"Vivian got a C?" Leo stared at him.

"She was the one who tracked down Mr. Morimoto when he removed his monitoring cuff and disappeared for two days. She reported his location to federal authorities." Of course Morimoto had given her a C. The man loved his grudges.

"What about the rest of the students?" Leo asked.

"The ones who actually attended class?" Principal Cross laughed.

"Somehow they all coincidentally received a C in one of their classes during the final semester. Every single one of them." Leo felt his jaw drop.

"Every student?"

"Every student."

"That's completely unfair. You can't let him ruin their futures like that. Some of these kids have been working toward this for four years. They actually showed up. They did the assignments. They didn't spend their high school career ditching class to play Flying Aces." Principal Cross raised one hand.

"Leo. Do you hear that?" Leo paused. Through the heavy curtains separating the wings from the main auditorium, he could hear it. Cheering. Applause. The dull roar of hundreds of voices.

"Yes?"

"They are cheering for you." Principal Cross's voice carried a note of amusement.

"It is nearly two weeks after the last day of classes for the seniors, and over eighty percent of the graduating class returned to campus to hear you speak. The percentage would have been higher, but many of the international students had already traveled home." Leo processed this.

"They came back? After classes were already over?"

"They did."

"To hear me speak?"

"To hear you speak." Leo looked back at the transcript in his hands. He thought about the four years of chaos that somehow added up to him standing here, wearing borrowed formal robes, about to address an auditorium full of people he'd never met.

"What do I even say?" His voice came out slightly strangled.

"I didn't know I had to give a speech. I genuinely thought I was here to collect a piece of paper. I have nothing prepared. I don't even have notes."

"It was Professor Vogt's idea to keep you in the dark. She knew you would find an excuse not to come if you learned what was actually planned." Leo just glared at him. Principal Cross seemed entirely unbothered.

"Just pay attention to the teleprompter. Miss Vivian Xin wrote you a speech. I am told she worked quite hard on it." Leo looked toward the stage. Through a gap in the curtain, he could see the edge of the teleprompter positioned just below the podium.

"I'm sure you'll like it," Principal Cross added. The cheering from the auditorium grew louder. Someone had started a chant that might have been his name. Leo took a deep breath.

"Fine," he said.

"Let's do this." Twenty minutes later, he stood at the podium reading Vivian's final lines about the long benefits of sunscreen having been proved by scientists, while his classmates wiped tears from their eyes and Principal Cross nodded along like this had been the plan all along. Leo had no idea what any of it meant. But somehow, that felt right.

Seattle, Washington After graduation, Leo took the next flight to Seattle. Lord Ross was apparently the Chief Science Officer of Pfizer Inc and wanted to discuss his Foundation Establishment body refining technique in person. He wasn't sure what to expect. Some part of him hoped it would be like the ZIE, the Soviet facility where Taras had shown them fusion reactors and the Chernobyl Well. Secret research hidden behind guard towers and chain-link fencing. Warning signs in multiple languages.

Instead he got corporate America. The Pfizer campus sprawled across several acres of carefully landscaped corporate parkland. Leo walked through the main entrance and found himself in a lobby that felt like it had been designed to offend no one and inspire nothing. A Qi Refining receptionist looked up from her computer and somehow smiled at him without wiping the vacant look from her eyes.

"Mr. Chen? Welcome to Pfizer Bothell. I'll need you to sign this liability waiver, and then I can get you your visitor badge." Leo signed where she indicated. The waiver was three pages of dense legal text that he didn't bother reading. She printed a badge and handed it to him on a blue lanyard.

"Lord Ross is in Building C, third floor. Just follow the signs for Body Refining Research. The elevators are down the main hall, past the cafeteria."

"Thanks." Leo clipped on his visitor badge and followed the signs. The hallways stretched ahead in that particular corporate geometry that prioritized wayfinding over aesthetics. Carpet tiles absorbed his footsteps. Motivational posters hung at regular intervals, their stock photography sunsets accompanied by words like SYNERGY and INNOVATION. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. For a disorienting moment, Leo wondered if he had transmigrated again.

Back to that other life, the one without cultivation or spiritual qi or flying swords. He could have been walking through any corporate headquarters in any city in his old world, and nothing about this hallway would have seemed out of place. He paused at an open break room door and extended his divine sense, just to make sure. Two researchers sat at a small table inside, eating lunch from plastic containers. One complained about a project deadline that had been moved up without warning.

The other scrolled through his phone, making occasional sounds of agreement without looking up from the screen. Both of them were Foundation Establishment cultivators. Leo relaxed slightly and kept walking. An open lab door drew his attention. Inside, a Foundation Establishment researcher had paused mid-experiment, her hands still glowing faintly with residual qi. A laptop sat open in front of her, showing a video call. Someone was sharing their screen. A PowerPoint slide read "Q3 Alignment Objectives."

The researcher's eyes had glazed over completely. Leo found this deeply unsettling. Was this what the path of immortality looked like? You meditated for years, refined your qi, endured hours of agony while your meridians tore themselves apart and reformed into something new. You found your Dao and felt the Heavens teach you how to transcend your mortal limits. And then you put on a tie and commuted to work, because Foundation Establishment meant you graduated from blue collar work to white collar.

Leo couldn't judge them. They were doing fine. They were comfortable. Their lives were stable and safe and thoroughly ordinary, and there was nothing wrong with that. They probably even had great benefits. It just made him feel hollow. He didn't know what he had been expecting, but somehow he had always assumed that cultivation meant something more than a better salary and business casual Fridays.

Lord Ross stood behind a mahogany desk, arranging a stack of folders. She was tall and blonde, her hair pulled back in a French twist that exposed high cheekbones and sharp blue eyes. Her pantsuit was tailored and the only jewelry she wore was a simple gold wedding band. She looked up when Leo appeared in the doorway, and her face broke into a warm smile.

"Leo Chen. Please, come in." She gestured to one of the leather chairs facing her desk.

"I'm Katherine Ross, Chief Science Officer of Pfizer's Body Refining Division. I've been looking forward to meeting you." Leo stepped inside and took the offered seat. The office matched the rest of the building. Very corporate. No sword rack. No formations. Just a desk, a computer, and a family photo turned at an angle he couldn't quite see.

"Thank you for seeing me personally," Leo said.

"I wasn't expecting the Chief Science Officer."

"I make time for special cases." Lord Ross settled into her chair.

"Besides, my husband talks about you constantly. I feel like I already know you." Leo blinked.

"Your husband?" Lord Ross tilted her head, a flicker of confusion crossing her features. Then understanding dawned, followed by something that looked like irritation. She reached across her desk and turned the framed photograph so Leo could see it. The photo showed Lord Ross in a sundress at the beach. A three-year-old girl with blonde pigtails was in her arms, laughing at the camera. And standing next to them, one arm wrapped around Lord Ross's waist and grinning like he had won the lottery, was Mike.

Leo's mouth opened. Nothing came out. He looked at the photo, then at Lord Ross, then back at the photo, making sure it was the same woman. Mike. The Mike who complained about his wife being too busy for dinner. The Mike who changed the subject whenever anyone asked personal questions. The Mike who suddenly remembered he needed to check his DIY brewery whenever anyone asked about his wife. Mike Ross was married to a Nascent Soul Lord in charge of research at Pfizer, and he had never said a single word about it.

"He didn't tell you," Lord Ross said. It wasn't a question.

"No." Leo's voice came out slightly strangled.

"He definitely did not tell me." The warmth drained from Lord Ross's expression.

"I see." She picked up her phone and typed something with her thumb, visibly angry.

"I'll be having a conversation with my husband this evening." Leo felt genuine fear on Mike's behalf. Lord Ross set down her phone and smoothed her expression back to professional warmth.

"Well. Let's discuss why you're actually here." She opened one of the folders on her desk.

"I've reviewed your file. Your Rated status gives you access to the restricted catalog." Leo nodded. He'd known his battle merits from Fort Cambridge would unlock special privileges, but he hadn't been able to take full advantage until now.

"Most Foundation Establishment cultivators never see these options," Lord Ross continued.

"The restricted catalog represents the best body refining techniques humanity has developed. You earned access by killing Nascent Souls at Qi Refining cultivation, which Mike tells me you are very humble about and which I think is frankly absurd." Leo nodded. Good information on Earth's best techniques was hard to come by. His phone served him ads for techniques like Jade Marrow Bones and Tough Bear Skin constantly, but none of them seemed worth the investment.

A Foundation Establishment flyer in the NFL carried a sword that hit at peak Nascent Soul, two full realms above their actual cultivation. At that scale, harder bones and tougher skin were rounding errors. Every attack you faced could level a building let alone some Jame Marrow Toothpicks. She pulled three documents from the folder and arranged them on the desk facing Leo. Lord Ross tapped the first document.

"This is my personal recommendation, the Youth Retention Formula. It is my greatest work. Still experimental, but I've spent the last twenty years developing it because I believe it's the future of cultivation." She leaned back and studied him for a moment, as if deciding how much to share.

"When I was your age, the restricted catalog was all combat techniques. Ways to hit harder and move faster. I chose the Vermilion Calamity Physique and spent eighty years becoming one of the most dangerous cultivators in the Pacific Northwest." She smiled.

"And then I reached Nascent Soul, and I realized that every fight that actually mattered happened in boardrooms. Senate hearings. Funding committees. I could kill a dozen Gold Core cultivators before lunch, and it meant absolutely nothing when what I needed was to convince a room full of bureaucrats that body refining research deserved their budget." She tapped the document again.

"The Youth Retention Formula focuses on endocrine optimization and neurochemical balance. In plain English, it makes people trust you. It sharpens your emotional control, your presence, the way you carry yourself in a room. You're going to be in the NFL, and starting a company. This technique would make you better at both of those things than any sword technique ever could." Leo considered it. The logic was sound, and coming from someone of Lord Ross's caliber, he couldn't dismiss it lightly.

But something in him resisted the image she was painting. He had always imagined the path to immortality as something grander. The idea that true power meant making people agree with you in meetings felt like a betrayal of what cultivation was supposed to be. Lord Ross watched his face and smiled knowingly.

"You're making the same expression Mike makes when I suggest he try decaf." She slid the next document forward.

"Let's move on. The Evergreen Dao Body. This is the one Vivian chose for you." She paused.

"How familiar are you with how cultivation lifespans actually work?"

"I know the basics," Leo said.

"Foundation Establishment is one hundred sixty years of life, Gold Core is three hundred twenty."

"Those numbers represent peak ability, not actual death. A Foundation Establishment cultivator who hits one hundred sixty doesn't drop dead. They might live another forty or fifty years. But their abilities decline rapidly. Meridians calcify. Divine sense weakens. We call that period the twilight." Leo nodded. Nobody on the team knew exactly how old Arthur was, but they'd all learned not to ask.

The last person who suggested Arthur might be approaching his twilight had received an hour long lecture on respecting one's elders.

"The Evergreen Dao Body extends the peak window before twilight begins. A Deity Transformation cultivator with a standard twelve hundred eighty year peak could stretch that by another two centuries at full power." Leo leaned forward. He understood why this mattered. Cultivators didn't fade peacefully into twilight. They were pushed. The spirit veins and Qi sources that sustained high-realm cultivation were finite, and younger cultivators were always hungry.

A Lord whose strength began to slip would lose their wealth first, then their cultivation base, then their life.

"There's a catch," Lord Ross said.

"The technique fools the body but not the soul. Once your soul enters twilight, that erosion is irreversible. Advancing realms won't extend your lifespan anymore because your soul has already started to die."

"So if I chose this and reach Nascent Soul, I might have a full extra century of peak combat power?"

"Exactly." Lord Ross folded her hands.

"And Miss Xin points out that isn't the only benefit. She told me that if you carry extra peak years, organizations and mentors will invest more heavily in you. A longer lifespan means a longer return on investment. People want to back cultivators who will stay relevant for centuries." Both options made sense. Both were good ideas. But neither really felt right for him.

"What about the one I was looking at?" Leo asked.

"The Synaptic Acceleration Protocol. I sent my preference through Vivian." Unlike the other techniques in the restricted catalog, the Synaptic Acceleration Protocol didn't promise youth or longevity or an impressive physique. The technique optimized nerve pathways and muscle responsiveness until the body could execute almost as fast as the mind could perceive.

"I received it." Lord Ross's tone was careful.

"Miss Xin also sent a note asking me to talk you out of it."

"She doesn't understand what it's like to be a flyer." Leo leaned forward.

"In every fight I've been in, my divine sense perceives threats instantly. I can see attacks coming from any direction, track multiple enemies at once. But my body can't keep up. I'm always a half-second behind what my mind already knows. The Synaptic Acceleration Protocol fixes that. And it's one of the few techniques that stays relevant at Nascent Soul and Deity Transformation level combat." Lord Ross was quiet for a moment. Then she opened a drawer and pulled out another folder.

"Let me explain the downsides." She placed the folder on the desk.

"The Youth Retention Formula and the Evergreen Dao Body are civilian techniques. They're designed for cultivators who expect long, comfortable careers. The Synaptic Acceleration Protocol is a military technique. It's designed for people who expect to keep fighting." She met his eyes.

"Have you seen the life expectancy statistics for Tier 4. 5 flyers?" Leo grimaced. During the Battle of Fort Cambridge, the life expectancy of a flyer had been measured in hours.

"I understand the risk," Leo said.

"But most of my combat will happen in the Azure Profound Continent, where death doesn't carry the same consequences. And I have a feeling that as the war with the Catacombs continues to escalate, I won't be able to avoid going back in. When that happens, I need to be ready." Lord Ross nodded slowly, though her expression remained unconvinced. She pulled a photograph from the folder and slid it across the desk.

"The other downside is far more concerning. The Synaptic Acceleration Protocol focuses entirely on nerve pathways and muscle responsiveness. There's no digestive optimization. No energy management. Take a look at what a typical cultivator who chose this technique looks like after a few decades." Leo looked at the photograph. A middle-aged man stared back at him. Chubby. Balding. His military uniform strained against a belly that suggested too much fast food and not enough restraint.

He looked like someone's uncle who had let himself go.

"Here's the thing most eighteen year olds don't realize about Foundation Establishment body refining," Lord Ross said, her voice carrying the gentle exasperation of a mother explaining something to her toddler.

"The greatest benefit isn't combat power. It's the ability to eat whatever you want without gaining weight. You've chosen one of the few techniques that gives that up entirely." Leo shrugged.

"I'm not worried. I'm in the NFL. I'll eat clean and healthy."

"You say that now." Lord Ross's voice carried the weight of someone who had heard this before.

"In the future, you'll regret this decision. You'll curse your younger self every time you step on a scale." Leo looked at the photograph again. The chubby, balding cultivator smiled back at him with the resigned contentment of someone who had made peace with his choices.

"Then I'll make the decision now," Leo said, and pointed at the picture.

"I don't care if I end up looking like that as long as I'm ready when it counts." Lord Ross studied him for a long moment.

"I'll put in the order for the alchemical compounds tonight. The preparation takes two days, so we'll begin the procedure on Thursday morning. Clear your schedule for the rest of the year." She paused.

"But decades from now, when you look in the mirror and wonder where your jawline went, I hope you won't regret your choice."