The Magic Cube wasn't a simple storage artifact.
It was, in a sense, a library.
Not of books, but of dead men.
Souls crushed, marks erased, memories refined into pure fragments. Techniques, laws, experiences, legacies—all floated within its depths like motes in a gray ocean, drifting in slow, silent currents, waiting for someone with the right qualifications to claim them.
In that ocean, Remnants of sect masters and divine lords lay side by side with the last obsessions of ruined geniuses. A lesser man would have tried to seize all of it, to stuff himself full until he burst.
Ren wasn't a lesser man.
Within his inner Heaven, the Immortal Soul Bone along his spine gleamed faintly as it extended his perception into the cube. His soul sense skimmed the ocean's surface like a lantern sailing across fog.
He wasn't interested in stealing every scrap of knowledge it held. That was arrogance without purpose, the kind of greed that led to bloated, unfocused cultivation.
He wanted one thing.
A flavor of law he'd noticed buried in the cube's "expectations"—a strange, overbearing pattern designed for body transformation. A path that devoured heaven and earth and used that stolen vitality to force the body beyond its limits.
He followed that taste.
A cluster of memories coalesced in his perception:
—A man in black robes, eyes cold and fanatical, standing beneath a sky split by crimson thunder.
—An energy circulation path that sucked heaven and earth true essence like a starving beast.
—A set of stages—Strength Training, Flesh Training, Viscera Training, Altering Muscle, Bone Forging—that redefined the mortal body layer by layer.
Heretical God Force.
The fragment floating in the cube had once belonged to a Supreme Elder of the Realm of the Gods—someone who'd pushed this path to terrifying extremes and paid the price for it.
Now, stripped of its mark, it was just a memory.
Ownerless.
Ren reached.
Chaos swirled behind his eyes as the Immortal Soul Bone unfolded its charts, mapping the fragment's structure in an instant. Dao runes he'd taken from Nine Worlds, Tenth World, Three Immortals, and Eight Desolates flickered through his vision, dissecting the Heretical God Force like a frog on a table.
He wrapped the cluster of memories in his Dao essence, isolating them from the rest of the cube, then gently pulled.
The gray ocean rippled.
The cluster moved.
For a moment, he felt a faint, echoing resistance—a dying instinct of possession from a man long dead, the last stubborn thought of a Supreme Elder who refused to let go.
The Ancient Ming Bloodline stirred.
Predatory hunger snapped down—not at Mo Eversnow, not at the cube's core, but at that stray, clinging will. It devoured what remained of the Supreme Elder's ego the way it had devoured gods in another world, stripping away everything but technique and comprehension.
The protest ended.
The fragment sank into him.
Ren closed his eyes.
Heat.
Pain.
A tidal wave of foreign knowledge surged through his consciousness: countless hours of standing beneath waterfalls heavier than mountains, bones cracking and knitting back together, organs tempered in burning essence, tendons pulsing with power. The Heretical God Force Art was ruthless, designed to tear down the body and rebuild it stronger, heedless of the toll.
For an ordinary lower-realm martial artist, absorbing this would have been suicide.
For him, it was… interesting.
He let his own cultivation suppress the fragment's instinct to overwrite.
Myriad Epoch True Self Canon unfolded within his soul, a grand Dao scripture born from four epochs:
Nine Worlds solidity.
Tenth World flexibility.
Three Immortals introspection.
Eight Desolates ferocity.
Each weighed this new path, judged it, then made room for it—not as a main pillar, but as a subordinate branch.
A useful axe, not the Foundation Stone.
He exhaled.
When he opened his eyes again, a faint, wild glint flickered in them and then faded.
"Heretical God Force, huh," he murmured. "Let's see how far you can go when you're not the main act."
...
He didn't sit.
He didn't need a cave, a meditation mat, or carefully arranged arrays.
He was the array.
The cliff beneath him, the night wind, the scattered stars—they were just a backdrop, a convenient vessel for his will.
Sky Spill Planet's heavens arched high overhead. The qi of this world was thicker than the human world's, rougher than the DxD universe's magic, but the Ancient Ming Bloodline had already learned its texture. The qi-lines of Sky Fortune Kingdom and beyond pulsed faintly in his perception, like veins in a titan's body.
Ren let the Heretical God Force's first stages uncoil in his mind.
Strength Training—drawing power into muscle and bone, compressing it until the body became a reservoir.
Flesh Training—tempering skin and flesh, making defense and offense one.
Viscera Training—the third stage, turning organs into furnaces, each heartbeat a hammer-blow.
For anyone else, this was a step-by-step climb, each stage a gate that could halt a man's life for years.
For someone whose base was equivalent to a Primordial Saint, with Nine Star Eternal Prestige, twelve fused Fate Palaces, and a half-complete Hell Suppressing Immortal Physique… it was like filling in missing lines on a diagram he'd already drawn.
He inhaled.
Sky Spill's heaven and earth origin energy rushed into him.
The Heretical God Force Art roared to life, its brutal pathways flaring along his meridians. For a brief instant, the lower realm's laws shivered in confusion—this technique wasn't meant to be run on a body like his. The flow rate, the capacity, everything exceeded its original parameters.
Ren smiled.
"Relax," he told the world softly. "I'll keep it gentle."
He opened the first stage.
Strength Training.
Muscles tightened, then relaxed, each fiber condensing as if forged by invisible hammers. Tendons hummed with contained power. Bones rang like tempered steel beneath his skin. In his inner sight, the Heretical God Force's pattern tried to form crude channels.
Myriad Epoch True Self Canon quietly corrected them, smoothing the jagged paths, folding them into his existing system.
By the time the breath he'd drawn finished leaving his lungs, Strength Training had already reached a completeness that would have taken a normal genius years.
Second stage.
Flesh Training.
Heat flooded his skin. The Ancient Ming Bloodline surged, devouring impurities as soon as they appeared, turning them into more fuel. His skin didn't merely harden—it became a living barrier, part of an integrated system that recycled every impact into energy. Stray force that should have become bruises instead flowed back into his meridians.
Third stage.
Viscera Training.
His heart pounded once.
Twice.
Each beat boomed like a drum, sending shockwaves of power through muscle and marrow. His lungs expanded, not just with air, but with True Essence; the edges of his breath glimmered faintly in the dark, twisting like twin snakes. His liver, kidneys, spleen—every organ lit up in his inner sight as if poured in molten metal and then quenched in ice, cooling into something tougher, cleaner, more resilient.
The Heretical God Force Art shuddered.
In the memory of its original creator, Viscera Training meant months of agony, teetering at the edge of organ collapse. In this moment, running inside a monster wearing a man's skin, it found itself dragged to perfection in heartbeats.
Ren stood as still as the mountain.
He didn't scream.
He didn't bleed.
He let the pain roll through him like waves breaking against a cliff face that had endured ten thousand storms. The Heretical God Force clawed and tore; the Hell Suppressing Immortal Physique simply accepted the strain and became denser.
The cliff under his feet shook.
Far below, a flock of night birds erupted from the trees, screeching as they fled. The forest rustled, beasts stirring uneasily as the world itself reacted—the faint tremor of "something" stepping into a new alignment.
He exhaled slowly.
The energy settled.
In Martial World's system, he now stood at the third stage of Body Transformation—Viscera Training. But every "stage" had been filled past the brim, consolidated with the solidity of an ancient land, foundation thick enough to make the path ahead feel almost embarrassed to call itself a path.
He flexed his fingers.
True Essence surged.
The night air rippled, as if trying to move out of his way.
"…Not bad," he admitted.
He glanced at the invisible cube hovering just above his palm.
Within it, Mo Eversnow's soul had gone still.
Not with sleep.
With focus.
She had felt that.
Not the full depth of his Dao, not the true weight of his cultivation—but the way he'd leapt stages, the solidity of the foundation he'd just laid, the unnatural speed with which the Heretical God Force had been integrated.
To someone who'd lived in the Divine Realm, who'd seen countless geniuses struggle through body cultivation paths, what he'd just accomplished in a handful of breaths was outrageous.
Her attention sharpened like ice.
Who are you?
The question rang through the cube's inner sky, silent but sharp.
Ren didn't answer.
He let the question hang, hooks of curiosity sinking deeper into caution.
"You'll see," he murmured instead, lips curving. "In time."
He closed his hand.
The cube slipped back into his Inner Void, sealed under Hell Suppressing weight and Myriad Origin circulation. The night grew a fraction lighter, as if relieved to have that alien thing hidden away again.
Ren rolled his shoulders.
"All right," he said to the empty air. "Body's tuned. Art feels good. Let's get some live practice before I start thinking too highly of myself."
His gaze turned north.
Toward Sky Fortune Kingdom.
Toward the Zhou Mountains.
Toward a waterfall and a cluster of youths that fate had once been very interested in.
..
The Great Zhou Mountains rose like a jagged spine against the lightening sky.
By the time Ren reached them, dawn had begun to gray the horizon. Mist clung to the slopes, drifting in and out of pine forests and rocky cliffs. The scent of wet stone and resin hung thick. Somewhere ahead, the roar of a waterfall cut through the quiet—a constant, pounding crash that spoke of ten-thousand-year erosion.
Ren walked.
He didn't rush.
Universal Travel Art could have put him anywhere he wanted in an instant, turning distance into a suggestion. But part of him enjoyed the simple act of moving—feeling dirt under his boots, hearing twigs snap, the air thinning as he ascended.
Besides, walking made it easier to "accidentally" bump into trouble.
And today, he was in the mood for trouble.
The sword at his hip was a crude thing—a bandit's weapon he'd picked up during his sweep through the Southern Wilderness. Its edge was decent, its inscriptions low-grade. It was perfect.
A proper weapon would have been bullying.
This was just… imbalance.
He smirked faintly at his own justification.
The mountain path curved.
Voices reached him before the people did, rising above the waterfall's roar in sharp, youthful tones.
"…Senior Brother Zhu Yan, we don't need to waste time on trash like that kid from the Lin Family. He'll never catch up to you."
"That's right! You're the Sky Fortune Princess' fiancé. You'll be a prince consort in the future. Letting him train under the waterfall is already giving him too much face—"
"Enough."
The last voice was deeper, carrying the impatience of someone used to being obeyed.
Ren stepped around a bend in the path and saw them.
A broad ledge jutted out over a deep pool. Above it, a waterfall thundered down from three hundred feet up the cliff, water smashing into the pond with sledgehammer force. The air was thick with mist; every droplet carried a faint edge of true essence, the falling water cutting at skin like tiny knives.
At the pool's edge, a boy in simple clothes knelt under the falling curtain.
His body shook as he tried to stand, muscles straining, breath ragged. Every time he straightened, the pressure drove him back down. His meridians flickered weakly; his cultivation was low, but his eyes, bloodshot and stubborn, never left the falling water.
Lin Ming.
Ren's gaze slid over him in a glance and moved on.
He wasn't the one Ren had come for.
Not today.
His attention settled on the leader of the group overlooking the pool.
Zhu Yan.
He wore fine, water-resistant armor and carried a spear with a half-decent inscription pattern. His face had that particular combination of handsome and arrogant that came from being praised too often. Fire-aspected true essence coiled around him, faint flame patterns flickering at the edges of his aura.
Ren could see why the universe had once paid this one attention.
Not because Zhu Yan was kind.
He wasn't.
But because he was stubborn.
Exiled from the capital, sent here as a "punishment," still clawing toward strength with teeth bared.
Ren watched him for a few breaths, listening to the tone of his words as he addressed the kneeling boy.
"…Lin something, was it?" Zhu Yan said, voice cool. "I don't care about your name. You've had your time under the waterfall. If you can't endure, you can't endure. If you want to waste your life here, that's your choice. But it's my turn now."
The boy tried to speak. Water hammered into his back, cutting his words to a wet cough.
Ren's brows lifted a fraction.
So that's the sort of scene this is.
He did become curious.
Why was Lin Ming here of all places already? The Magic Cube wasn't in his hands; Ren had it locked under Hell Suppressing weight. Without it, this boy was just a stubborn, talented youth wrestling with a waterfall.
Interesting.
But not his problem.
He had his own path to carve.
He stepped forward.
...
The nearest of Zhu Yan's hangers-on noticed him first.
"Hey! This area's reserved today. Get lost."
Ren kept walking.
Zhu Yan turned, brows knitting as he took in the newcomer—simple clothes, a cheap sword, no sect insignia.
His gaze skimmed over Ren's seemingly ordinary aura and moved to dismiss him in the same breath.
Ren smiled.
"Morning," he said easily. "Nice waterfall. Loud fan club."
The lackey who'd spoken bristled.
"Who do you think you are, talking to Senior Brother Zhu Yan like that—"
Ren looked at him.
Just looked.
The man's words stuck in his throat.
It wasn't killing intent. It wasn't an oppressive aura crashing outward. It was something deeper, a quiet shift in the world's attitude toward that man's existence—like the moment a prey animal realizes the forest has gone silent.
For a heartbeat, the youth felt it.
That his life, in this moment, depended entirely on the mood of the stranger in front of him.
Ren let the moment hang, then relaxed his gaze.
"Don't worry," he said, not really apologetic. "I'm not here to steal your spot."
He tilted his head toward Zhu Yan.
"I just needed target practice."
Silence dropped like a stone into the pool.
Several of the youths flushed red.
"You bastard—"
"I'll kill you—"
They surged forward.
Ren didn't draw his sword.
The first attacker threw a punch, true essence flaring in his arm. Ren stepped into his guard, flicked his wrist, and tapped the elbow lightly.
Bones cracked.
The youth flew sideways, spinning before slamming into the ground with a strangled cry, his arm bent at an angle arms shouldn't bend.
Another swung a fist wreathed in basic fire-qi.
Ren caught the wrist, turned with the motion, and brought his knee up.
Ribs popped. The sound was like dry branches snapping.
Within a breath, three more had joined them on the ground, groaning, limbs twisted, meridians shocked half-numb by precise taps. Ren's movements were clean, not flashy; he wasted neither strength nor expression.
He frowned mildly.
"Mm. Sloppy," he muttered to himself. "I'm overusing strength."
He adjusted.
The next attacker came in with a spear thrust. Ren stepped just far enough aside that the spearhead whistled past his sleeve, then tapped the shaft with two fingers.
The weapon vibrated violently.
The youth's hands spasmed open. The spear flew upward into Ren's waiting grip as if it had always belonged there.
He finally looked directly at Zhu Yan.
"You're the one in charge, right?" he asked.
Zhu Yan's face had gone pale, then flushed a hot, furious red. His true essence flared, fire aura rising like a heat mirage.
"You… who are you?" he demanded, raising his own spear as flame crawled along its length.
Ren tilted his head, the stolen spear resting casually on his shoulder.
"Name's Ren," he said lightly. "And you're going to be very good target practice."
The last three words landed like a slap.
Flames roared higher around Zhu Yan.
"Arrogant!"
He stomped forward, spear sweeping up. Fire gathered along the tip, condensing into a blazing arc as he thrust—a technique meant to shatter boulders and smash aside the waterfall's pressure.
Ren watched the strike come.
He thought back over the battles he'd fought so far. Gods erased in a single gesture. Dragons crushed. The Fire Worm Tribe burned to ash. Most fights had ended before they even felt like fights.
Overwhelming force. Quick, clean.
Useful.
But dull.
Here, in this universe where battles decided destiny, where a waterfall like this could polish a spear saint, Ren wanted something different.
He wanted to test the edge of his martial cultivation. To feel the weight of a spear, the rhythm of flesh and blood.
To hone his Dao Heart on real steel.
The Heretical God Force thrummed quietly under his skin. His newly tempered muscles and organs wanted to be used. His heart beat once, steady, as Viscera Training circulated strength through him like a calm storm.
He lifted the bandit sword from his hip.
No flourish.
No named stance.
Just a smooth, downward cut that seemed almost lazy.
Sword and spear met.
The air between them detonated.
The waterfall's curtain exploded outward in a sudden, violent spray as force rippled across the ledge. The stone under their feet spiderwebbed with cracks. Mist blasted sideways, carrying shards of water like glass.
Zhu Yan's flame was crushed.
His spear shuddered. The formation inscribed along its length flickered, then dimmed as Ren's raw true essence rolled over it like a tidal wave. Fire laws intertwined with the technique wavered, trying to bite into something that refused to yield.
Ren's sword continued down.
He diverted the edge at the last moment, angling it so it didn't cleave Zhu Yan in half.
Even so, the blade sliced across the young man's chest, armor and all, leaving a deep, diagonal gouge that scorched as it cut.
Blood sprayed.
Zhu Yan staggered back, eyes wide.
His followers shouted.
"Senior Brother!"
"Zhu Yan!"
Ren shook his wrist once, flinging droplets of blood from the sword. The steel hummed faintly, surprised to be asked to carry power so far beyond its grade.
His expression remained calm.
"Not bad," he mused aloud. "Your basics are solid. You don't flinch when the clash goes against you."
Zhu Yan's jaw clenched.
Flame flared more fiercely, twisting tighter. This wasn't the simple, wide-arced attack from before. This was something more focused—his "ace," the strongest spear art he'd polished in the Zhou Mountains.
"Burning Sun Spear!"
The shout was raw, tearing at his wounded chest.
Fire essence gathered.
Ren's Immortal Soul Bone sang, tracing the pattern of that gathering in an instant: the way Zhu Yan's true essence anchored itself to heaven and earth fire, the tiny comprehension of Burning Heat he'd scraped together from training under the waterfall and breathing flame day after day.
A small, earnest ember.
Ren smiled.
He didn't move to dodge.
As the spear thrust forward, wrapped in a miniature sun, he stepped in.
In that instant, he did three things.
He let the Heretical God Force circulate fully, organs pulsing with strength, body cultivation anchoring him like a mountain planted in the world's spine.
He let the Immortal Soul Bone copy Zhu Yan's Fire Law comprehension, catching the flavor of Burning Heat and folding it into his own understanding, like adding a single note to a symphony he'd been playing in other universes.
And he let raw true essence, refined by Myriad Origin and filtered through the Ancient Ming Bloodline, surge down his arm into the bandit sword.
The blade cut.
No flame.
No flashy vision.
Just pure, condensed true essence carrying a nascent, more perfect Burning Heat along its edge.
Sword met spear.
Zhu Yan's "sun" shattered like cheap glass.
Fire Laws screamed as they were overwhelmed—his small, hardworking comprehension crushed under something that had watched Divine Realm laws dance and called them "interesting."
The backlash struck.
Zhu Yan's chest erupted with blood as the force of his own failed technique slammed into him. He flew backward, body spinning, spear tumbling from numb fingers. He crashed into the rock wall hard enough to crater the stone and slid down, leaving a smear of red.
Silence followed.
Only the waterfall roared on, ignorant.
Ren lowered his sword, the thrill of battle humming quietly beneath his skin.
But internally, he clicked his tongue.
"I am sloppy," he admitted to himself. "Letting the Heretical God Force run wild like that—I'm overshooting. Against actual martial experts, I'll look like a guy swinging a sword really hard."
He turned his head, regarding the groaning youths scattered across the ledge.
"…But this level is enough for what I came for."
He walked toward Zhu Yan.
The other youths scrambled, half-crawling, half-stumbling to put themselves between their senior brother and the stranger.
Ren stopped a few paces away.
"Move," he said.
They hesitated.
His gaze sharpened.
The air grew heavier.
Bones creaked in their bodies as the suppressed weight of his Hell Suppressing Immortal Physique leaked out just a fraction, pressing down like an invisible mountain. Knees buckled. Teeth ground together. One boy nearly collapsed outright, sweat pouring down his back.
They moved.
Zhu Yan coughed, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. His chest wound was deep but not instantly fatal—Ren had made sure of that. Pain clouded his eyes, but beneath it, a hard, unwilling light still burned.
"You… why…?" he rasped. "We have no… grievance…"
Ren crouched in front of him, resting the tip of the sword on the ground. The mist parted around him, as if even the water didn't quite dare fall on his shoulders.
"We don't," he agreed. "You were just convenient."
Zhu Yan tried to snarl. It came out as a low, hoarse sound.
Ren's smile turned a shade crooked.
"I've heard about you," he said. "You don't give up easily. I respect that."
His eyes cooled.
"But the way you throw your weight around—using your status to push others off resources—that's a habit you picked up from people who never had to start from nothing. If you think that's martial talent, then you're simply trash."
Zhu Yan's fingers twitched.
Ren could see the struggle in his eyes—the urge to spit back, to curse, to cling to pride. The unwillingness to bow even when beaten.
He almost laughed.
"You'll live," he said. "If you're smart, you'll remember today as the moment the world reminded you you're not special just because someone promised you a throne."
He rose.
He could have ended Zhu Yan here.
It would have been easy.
One more cut. One pulse of Dao. One decision.
But as he turned away, he remembered another youth in another life, carrying a cheap spear through these same mountains, refused entry, humiliated, still refusing to stop.
He'd always had a soft spot for people who didn't know how to quit.
Zhu Yan groaned behind him.
Ren's lips curved faintly.
"Try not to die before we meet again," he said over his shoulder. "I'd be disappointed."
He walked away.
He didn't spare more than a glance for Lin Ming under the waterfall. The boy had half-fainted, clinging to consciousness by will alone.
Ren's Immortal Soul Bone flickered, automatically parsing Lin Ming's movements, his breathing, his meridian strain.
A little sloppy. Solid will. Good seed.
But this story, this time, belonged to someone else.
He let the waterfall's mist swallow him as he left the ledge, steps light, aura already fading into the mountains.
...
He didn't go far.
Just deep enough into the range that the sounds of training and complaints faded into background noise. He found a narrow ravine, half-filled with mist and early sunlight, its walls stained dark by centuries of spray.
Here, the air tasted of damp stone and faint, lingering heat from buried fire veins.
Perfect.
Ren sat on a jut of rock, laid the bandit sword across his knees, and let his eyes fall half-shut.
Within his inner sight, Fire Laws flickered.
Zhu Yan's crude Burning Heat comprehension was a tiny, shaky flame—basic, but honest. Mixed into it now were hints of other fires Ren had brushed since arriving in this world: campfires in the Southern Wilderness, Earthcore Crimson Flames he'd inspected in passing, the memory of gods and dragons burning in another universe.
Ren let the Immortal Soul Bone quietly chart all of it.
Burning Heat—the first level of the Concept of Fire, the foundation of all Fire Laws. The basic attribute of flame: to burn, to sear, to annihilate.
Above it lay Annihilation, Creation, Flame Mirage, and beyond that, true fusion with Laws.
He could see the ladder clearly.
He could also see how easy it would be for him to skip rungs.
If he let his full comprehension unfold—if he linked Burning Heat to the principles he already owned, to Trihexa's annihilation, Great Red's dreamfire, biblical holy flames, the casual sun-bursts of gods he'd dissected—he could tear through this level in minutes.
He didn't.
Mo Eversnow was still watching.
He couldn't sense her directly, but he could feel the Magic Cube's faint attention hovering at the edge of his perception, like a distant gaze behind a curtain.
A Divine Realm genius whose soul was bound to the Magic Cube wasn't going to ignore an anomaly fiddling with Fire Laws right after copying a lower-realm youth's comprehension.
If he progressed too fast, too cleanly, she'd categorize him as something dangerous.
He wanted her to categorize him as something… dangerous but trustworthy.
Furthermore, his own Dao Heart wouldn't feel settled.
Cultivating Dao Laws using his Immortal Soul Bone as a crutch? Convenient.
But this time, in this world, he wanted to feel the grind.
To let his comprehension walk instead of teleport.
So he slowed down.
On purpose.
He let himself work.
He raised his hand.
True essence flowed to his fingertips, drawing in a thread of heaven and earth fire qi. It curled around his fingers like warm smoke, faint sparks flickering.
He guided it along the Heretical God Force's new pathways, letting it brush heart and lungs, then bled it out through his palm.
A small flame appeared above his fingertips.
It wavered.
It spat.
He adjusted.
He deliberately left in tiny flaws—small inefficiencies, slight misalignments. Enough to make his progress look fast, not impossible. Even without the Immortal Soul Bone, his Spirit Sense stripped away the worst wasteful loops, but he made sure it didn't polish everything to mirror finish.
Hours slid by.
The sun climbed, light spearing into the ravine in thin beams. Mist swirled around him, occasionally hissing into steam when stray heat brushed it. The walls, slick with condensation, began to dry in patches near where he sat.
He burned his skin a few times.
Superficially.
He let some of the scorch marks stay visible.
He called that "acting."
Inside, the Ancient Ming Bloodline devoured damaged tissue and rebuilt it cleaner, but he slowed even that process a fraction, leaving faint redness for anyone watching to see.
By the time the sun began its descent, the flame hovering above his hand no longer flickered.
It burned.
Not wildly. Not in some grand phoenix vision. Just hot, pure, obedient.
He flexed his fingers.
The flame compressed.
Its color deepened from orange to a clear, almost transparent crimson. The air around it warped faintly, heat waves distorting the stone behind it.
When he flicked his hand, it shot forward—a thin, almost invisible streak.
It touched the ravine wall a dozen paces away.
Stone didn't just blacken.
It glowed.
Hairline cracks spread from the point of impact. A fist-sized crater appeared with a sharp cracking sound. The edges glimmered faintly, glassy from partial melting before solidifying again.
Burning Heat.
First level Fire Concept.
Complete.
Ren let the flame go out.
Within the Inner Void, the Magic Cube sat quietly.
But the presence inside was anything but calm.
Mo Eversnow's soul aura had sharpened throughout the day. Surprise, disbelief, grudging acknowledgement—each emotion left ripples in the cube's internal sky.
A lower-realm martial artist, on a planet whose heaven and earth laws had grown thin and sluggish after a great change, had used a single day to leap to third-stage Viscera Training and then condense Burning Heat to actual combat utility.
Even among Divine Realm talents, that was not "normal."
Her curiosity burned now, cold and focused.
Who are you?
What are you planning?
Why help me?
Ren smiled faintly, eyes still closed.
Because I like your road, he thought. Because I want you walking beside me when I start tearing into the things that broke your world.
He didn't send the thought.
He let it settle in his own Dao Heart like a promise.
His fingers twitched.
Fire flickered again, this time shaped into a thin, rotating ring above his palm. It spun slowly, leaving a faint red trail in the air.
He watched how it moved.
How it wanted to move.
He thought about other laws.
Lightning, for Akeno.
Twilight, for Asia.
Destruction, for Rias.
And now, Fire—for himself, for Martial World.
"The first Dao Law I'm cultivating here," he murmured, amusement in his tone. "Feels different when it's not tied to devils or gods."
He imagined taking Burning Heat further.
Combining it with the Heretical God Force to forge a body that was a walking furnace, each organ a different flame. Integrating it into Myriad Epoch True Self Canon as a subsidiary fruit on his Primordial Tree—a Fire Dao Fruit hanging among other paths, ready to be plucked.
Using it to refine the crude inscription techniques he'd seen on bandit weapons, turning Great Zhou's little tricks into something that could stand beside formations from Nine Worlds.
Ideas bloomed.
He let them.
There was no rush.
Time flowed differently for him now.
One day in Sky Spill for fifteen minutes near Kuoh.
He had room to breathe.
Room to walk.
Room to slowly reel in a Saintess of the Verdant Feather Holy Lands without spooking her.