When Will Spiritual Energy Revive?

[A semi-alternate setting with low magic and a historical backdrop, but the story takes place in modern times]

[There may be some borrowing from FGO lore. The outline isn't written yet, so I'll revise the blurb later.]

[Low-magic adventure]

After school, Ying Linfei is stopped by a strange woman who insists she's a descendant of Fusu, heir to the last of the Great Qin's national destiny, and destined to save the world.

Ying Linfei: ...

First of all, there are no slaves, nobles, or royals in the People's Republic of China.

Second, uh, have scammers started downgrading their scams too? If you're going to invoke an emperor, why not go all the way back to the First Emperor?

Ying Linfei doesn't take this uninvited guest seriously, until after her college entrance exams, when the university she applied to turns out to be a secret agency directly under the state. Her admission letter comes with a magnetic card and a train ticket, and a mysterious package appears right at her doorstep.

Bad news: It seems she won't be going to college after all.

Good news: She has a secure government job right off the bat.

Even worse news: If that woman isn't a scammer or a lunatic...

What do you mean the world is going to end?!!!

On the first day of school, no, her first day on the job, Ying Linfei sees another girl and two boys her age in the conference room, along with the familiar woman standing at the front.

The woman clears her throat. "Have you ever considered that the world is completely different from what you know? The true history has been guarded and hidden away by a group of people, generation after generation, so that when the world changes one day, we'll still be able to find a way to save everything..."

Ying Linfei divides her attention, watching the other three. She thinks she might know whose descendants they are.

The Imperial Jade Seal has shattered into four pieces, lost and gone who knows where.

The fortune of Kunlun's dragon vein has run dry. Its rivers have dried up, and its plants and trees are in mourning.

The pre-Qin era marked the end of the age of spiritual energy. Since the Great Qin fell apart, no one has been able to commune with Heaven and Earth. Time has eroded the relics of history. Yet now, demons and ghosts stir restlessly in the cracks, growing stronger on resentment, while the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth remains cut off. The peaceful and prosperous age hangs by a thread.

The whole world is in the same state.

And yet, the Great Way has fifty paths, of which Heaven acts upon forty-nine, leaving one chance for life.

In the empire where the sun never sets, the contract-bearer of the Lady of the Lake awakens Britain's red dragon once more.

Beneath the flag of France, after Joan of Arc, the title of Saint is reborn in the flames.

Across the vast frozen lands, a descendant of the witch Baba Yaga emerges from the depths of the forest.

On the American continent, an Indigenous girl presses her ear to the ground and listens to the echoes of the earth.

Ying Linfei sees a fantastical, bizarre world, a world that is real.

Notes

1. An ensemble adventure story in a semi-alternate setting. There may be discrepancies between low-magic history and actual history; these will be noted in the author's comments.

2. The protagonist grows over the course of the story.

3. The protagonist group are descendants of Fusu, Liu Ju, Li Chengqian, and Zhu Biao. This isn't exactly a matter of bloodline, and it'll be explained later in the story. In the People's Republic of China, people only care about lineage when buying pets! (And even then, they don't have to.)

Theme: Charge toward the world