The Secret of the Foundation Establishment Exam
C.E. 2030.
After the first Gate opened, the history of humanity was rewritten.
Civilization collapsed beyond any hope of repair, and people died in such numbers that the very notions of nation and ethnicity became meaningless. What ended that threat of extinction was the cultivator. Human civilization flowered once more upon the Earth, rebuilt upon the foundations of cultivation technique.
And so the Common Era, a relic of the old world, came to a close, and the age of the Immortal Calendar finally began.
It is now the first of December, Immortal Calendar Year 469.
“W-wait a second…!”
When Decia turned around, Nain was there, wrapped so tightly in a blanket that only her eyes peeked out. She had clearly done everything in her power to shut out the outside world. The blanket swallowed her childlike, frail frame and the legs that trembled like aspen leaves.
“What is it, Unnie?”
The sight of Nain made Decia feel as if her breath had been knocked out of her. The feeling was simple enough.
It was the bitter ache of looking back one day and finding the cherished doll you had adored as a child lying ruined and broken. The quiet shock of realizing that something which had once been your entire world no longer mattered quite so much now that you were grown.
Nain kept her eyes fixed on the floor. Her fingers clenched the blanket tight, and she forced open a mouth that wanted to stay shut. She was terrified, but whatever Decia had to say, she had to hear it.
Because it was about Mother.
“I haven’t heard anything about Mother’s F-Foundation Establishment Exam schedule…. Exactly wh-when is she taking it?”
“What? That can’t be.”
Decia realized at once that she had misspoken. The Foundation Establishment Tribulation was always held on the same day—the New Year, when one year ended and a new sun rose.
In other words, the first of January.
“I made a mistake.”
“Huh…?”
“I failed to read Mother’s intentions. She probably didn’t want us to know.”
Decia answered offhandedly as she slipped off her shoes. She stepped into the living room and sank deep into the sofa, settling her back against the cushions.
“Hieek.”
Nain flinched and swallowed a sharp breath as Decia drew closer. Still, she crushed down her fear and edged toward the sofa.
They sat at opposite ends, keeping their distance.
“This Foundation Establishment Tribulation is on January first, of course. And Mother has already been designated for the fourth seat.”
“Designated…?”
Decia turned her head and stared straight at Nain. Cowed by that gaze, Nain ducked her head low. White hair spilled down like falling snow.
She keeps… doing this.
Without thinking, Decia treated Nain as her equal—assuming that whatever she herself knew, her unnie would naturally know as well. Never mind that the gulf between Nain, who was still only at the Severing Longevity Stage, and Decia, who stood at the Peak of Qi Refinement, was vast beyond measure.
It wasn’t only a difference in raw power. One had not even properly set foot on the path of cultivation; the other had reached the absolute summit of Qi Refinement. Roughly the difference between an ordinary kindergartener and a tenured professor at a top-tier university.
The renown they enjoyed, and the quality of information they could access, were worlds apart. Decia folded her arms.
“If you didn’t know, learn it now, Unnie. Mother is a Golden Core Heaven’s Pride. She’s on a completely different level from ordinary Foundation Establishment seeds.”
“Ordinary Foundation Establishment seeds…?”
Nain felt as if she had been struck across the head. It wasn’t only the overwhelming weight of the words themselves—Decia’s attitude was far too casual. To speak of Foundation Establishment as if it were something ordinary?
Of a hundred ordinary mortals, only one possessed a spiritual root and walked the path of cultivation. And then, at the end of that long journey through Qi Refinement, only one cultivator in ten thousand received Heaven’s choice and finally achieved Foundation Establishment. One in a million. The top 0.0001 percent of geniuses were Foundation Establishment cultivators.
“Isn’t it pitiful? The people who stake everything on the Foundation Establishment Exam. They don’t even know that all the slots have already been assigned.”
A news report Nain had seen not long ago flickered through her small mind.
Nain felt as if she were peering into a bottomless abyss. Did that mean every last one of those people was already destined to fail?
Decia’s pupils glimmered faintly gold as she looked Nain straight in the eye. Startled, Nain met her gaze. For some reason, her heart wasn’t racing now, and her mind wasn’t tangling itself into panic.
“Unnie. You know the eligibility requirements for the Foundation Establishment Exam, right?”
“Mm….”
Nain nodded obediently and recited the requirements she had memorized as a child.
“Third Screening: reach Mid Qi Refinement before age twenty-five. Fourth Screening: reach Late Qi Refinement before age forty. Fifth Screening: reach Peak Qi Refinement before age sixty.”
The corners of Decia’s eyes curved into crescent moons. As if she had just heard something amusing, she lifted the corners of her mouth and let out a light laugh.
“Unnie. All of that is a lie.”
“Eh…?”
“Think about it simply. Only ten thousand people are permitted to break through to Foundation Establishment each year. But every year, fifty million ‘real humans’ are born.”
That was right. Unless you were a washout like Nain, the Second and Third Screenings were easy to pass. The Fourth and Fifth were a little harder, but even so the pass rate still exceeded two percent.
In the end, well over a million Peak Qi Refinement cultivators poured into the world every year. There were simply too many of them for eligibility requirements alone to have any real selective power. Nain wondered why she was only now grasping such simple arithmetic.
Decia watched Nain’s dazed, shell-shocked face and laughed under her breath, kuk-kuk. She was purely enjoying the rare sight of her unnie’s face so full of color.
Anyone who knew the usual expressionless Decia—her senior martial brother, or her master—would have been floored by the change.
“Then—then… what’s the real condition? There has to be some kind of condition, right?”
“I told you from the start. It isn’t a Foundation Establishment Exam—it’s a Foundation Establishment Tribulation.”
“Foundation Establishment Tribulation?”
“More precisely, the Seven Tribulations of Foundation Establishment. If you reach Peak Qi Refinement before the age of thirty, a government ‘examiner’ comes to find you. And they say this:”
“Isn’t that ridiculous, Unnie? Who do they think they are, talking about Heaven’s choice….”
Nain nodded as well—because Decia had already pressed right up against her side and was stroking her hair.
What happened to turn that pure little kid into this?
Having Decia pet her head was thoroughly uncomfortable. As a child she had been a sweet girl who trailed after Nain everywhere she went… Now she radiated a presence that felt ready to devour you just from meeting her eyes.
Damn it. If it weren’t for this body…
She was already being swallowed by the atmosphere, and with her body in such pathetic shape she couldn’t even dodge the head pats. Thankfully there was no seizure like the first time they had met—but it was so humiliating that tears pricked at her eyes.
“So the Foundation Establishment Exam is a lie. The real Foundation Establishment seeds have already all been selected as part of the Tribulation. Mother stands out even among them, which is why she’s been provisionally designated all the way to Golden Core.”
Still, the shame lasted only a moment. Stories of that higher world—one Nain herself could never hope to reach—were genuinely fascinating. Someday she wanted to confront those secrets herself, with power and ability she had earned with her own hands.
Then I still have a chance too!
Nain was only twenty. Before, there would have been no hope. But with Pou—that broken, cheat-level golden water paper—the time it would take to reach Peak Qi Refinement…
Three years at most. More than enough.
Honestly, even three years was a generous estimate. Pou’s potential was far beyond anything Nain dared to calculate.
Breaking through to Qi Refinement… I could do it today if I wanted.
Even now, the talisman spiritual energy produced in her heart was stacking steadily into her dantian. If she used the money from selling talismans to buy spirit stones and draw more talismans, she could break through at once. Then sell those talismans, buy more spirit stones, raise her realm again…
An infinite virtuous cycle, built on genius-level talent. Nain was almost afraid of her own potential.
So afraid that a laugh rose from her of its own accord.
“If Mother succeeds at the Foundation Establishment Tribulation, I’ll probably challenge it next year myself. So Unnie, you should also—”
Decia’s expression twisted, just slightly. As she spoke, a memory she had worked hard to bury rose unbidden—the fact that next year Nain would inevitably be banished from Earth.
Feelings she had sealed away began to sprout again. Perhaps she had known all along. Perhaps she had closed her heart early because she already knew her unnie would never pass the Second Screening.
Nain had first sensed spiritual energy and reached the Severing Longevity Stage at ten. For five years after that, she hadn’t been able to sense energy at all, living as a mere mortal.
So Decia had forced herself to forget. But breathing the same air, skin against skin, talking face to face—the feelings she had suppressed came flooding back. The name of that emotion, one she had been too young to recognize as a child, was of course familial love.
But Nain had already been broken. She would never pass the Second Screening. Once she was banished from Earth, they would never meet again.
Crushing down the ache of that truth, Decia looked at the sister sitting beside her.
And when she did—
“Heh, heheh.”
Nain was smiling. Not a trace of fear or darkness—only pure, unguarded joy.
Her pure white eyes sparkled, full of hope for the future and the will to climb higher.
It was as if the unnie from her childhood memories had stepped straight out of the past. Decia’s lips parted in a small, startled breath.