Lu Chen pulled out his last reward—the 10 Body Tempering Pills. He stared at the jade pellets.
"Swallowing ten of these at once is probably a catastrophically bad idea. Right?"
Lu Chen stared at the pills, then at the empty wall. …Who looks at ten pills and thinks 'explosive death' is the main risk?
He shrugged. "In for a penny, in for a lifetime of screaming agony. No pain no gain"
He tipped the ten pills into his mouth and swallowed.
For one blissful heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then—
A furnace ignited in his dantian.
Raw, unrefined power flooded his channels, a scorching torrent burning through his meridians. He doubled over, a strangled gasp escaping his lips.
[+100 Cultivation EXP!]
[Total: 155/320]
"Ghk—! Not… enough!" he gritted out, veins standing out on his neck.
"Fine!" he rasped. "System, use all my Points! Spin the gacha! Give me something that doesn't suck!"
DING! DING! DING!
[Spinning the Wheel of Marginal Fortune…]
[Your historical luck is 'Appallingly Bad'…]
[Spinning… Still terrible…]
DING!
[Rewards Granted!]
—Body Tempering Pills x20!
—Basic Spirit Spear x1! (Slightly pointier than a stick!)
—Healing Pills x10!
"More pills!" He didn't think. He grabbed the twenty new pills and swallowed them all.
…This is how people in cautionary tales die.
The furnace in his gut became a supernova.
His veins lit up like glowing cracks under his skin. The hut filled with the ozone stench of scorched impurities. Agony was a white-hot river. He gripped the floorboards, guiding the torrent through his Pathways of Pain, burning out weakness, forcing expansion.
[+200 Cultivation EXP!]
[Total: 355/320!]
[BREAKTHROUGH THRESHOLD SURPASSED!]
BOOM.
An internal detonation, silent but seismic. The barrier to the next layer didn't crack—it shattered.
His body compacted. Muscles knit tighter, denser. Bones hummed with a new, heavier strength. His senses sharpened—he could hear the skitter of a centipede under the floorboards, smell the difference between the cedar wall and his own sweat, see dust motes dancing in a sliver of sunlight.
The violent energy crested, then settled into a profound, humming calmness.
[Realm Ascension Successful!]
[Body Tempering – 7th Stage!]
[All Physical Attributes Enhanced!]
[Residual 'Scar-Devil' Poison Compression: 87% Complete!]
Lu Chen opened his eyes. He exhaled a plume of grey impurity. He flexed a hand, feeling potent, coiled strength thunder beneath his skin.
Alright. Upgraded from 'pathetic trash' to 'somewhat respectable trash.' Baby steps.
Cultivation: Body Tempering 7th Stage (0/640 to next)
Dormant EXP:35
"Now, System," he said, wiping sweat and grime from his brow. "That Face-Slap Treasure Chest. Open it."
Golden light erupted in his mind's eye, accompanied by celestial, slightly sarcastic chimes.
DING! DING! DING!
[Face-Slap Treasure Chest Unlocked!]
[Reward: 'Mirage Step' (Movement Art Fragment)!] — Allows three rapid, illusion-tinged steps. Do not trip.
[Reward: High-Grade Healing Elixir x1!]— Tastes like victory and bitter regrets.
[Reward: 'Veil of the Unremarkable' (Temporary Charm)!]— Renders host 40% more forgettable for 6 hours. Not invisibility—just profound mundanity.
A movement art! And the Veil… perfect for not being the obvious target in a bamboo grove.
"Learn the movement art."
Knowledge of the Mirage Step flooded his mind. In a flash, he practiced. Swoosh! Three afterimages fanned out before he stumbled, the skill cancelling.
[Ding! Your movement art: Mirage Step has swallowed Dodge Reflex.]
Lu Chen: "..."
[Mirage Step — Level 1. Allows three rapid, illusion-tinged steps. Speed +100% when active.]
Hmm? No EXP bar?
Lu Chen ignored the system and activated the Veil. A cool, subtle mist seemed to settle over him. He didn't look different, but he felt quieter and less noticeable.
The Western Spirit Bamboo Grove was breathtaking in its serenity.
Emerald pillars reached for the clouds. Sunlight filtered though the tree canopies. The air was sweet with sap and life. It was, as the mission slip said, a place of negligible risk and great beauty.
Lu Chen slipped into the grove like a shadow, the Veil making him a part of the scenery.
He worked with silent efficiency, his new 7th Stage strength making the tough stalks snap with clean thwacks. Ten stalks. Twenty. Thirty.
The grove was peaceful. Only the wind and a hidden stream. He kept one ear tuned to that peace, listening for the first discordant note.
At the base of a particularly ancient, thick stalk, he paused.
This bamboo was odd.
Its vibrant green had leeched away to a deep, glossy black that seemed to swallow the light. A hungry black. Against his better judgment, he reached out.
His fingertips brushed the surface.
A cold—not winter's chill, but the deep, soul-sapping numbness Li Yun had warned him about—shot up his arm. It was the cold of a tomb that had never known sun.
He recoiled, shaking his hand. The unnatural numbness clung to his skin.
Gritting his teeth, he snapped the stalk at its base.
It didn't crack. It desiccated, crumbling into fibrous, black dust. A wisp of violet-tinged miasma coiled from the break—smelling of ozone and spoiled blood—before dissipating.
[Spirit Bamboo (Corrupted) Acquired.]
[Contaminant: Demonic Qi (Trace).]
[Appraisal: Toxic. Direct indicator of environmental corruption.]
[System Note: How fascinating! And by fascinating, I mean 'potentially world-ending'! File under: 'Not Host's Problem (Yet).' Do not lick.]
"Who looks at evil, crumbling bamboo and needs to be told not to lick it?" Lu Chen muttered, flinging the remains into the shadows.
A thread of genuine unease wove through the grove's tranquility. The peace now felt fragile—a painted backdrop over something deeply rotten. Li Yun's warning wasn't superstition… What is actually festering here?
His pile grew. Forty stalks. Forty-five. The sun began its swift descent, painting the world in long, grasping shadows.
As his hand closed around the forty-ninth stalk, the grove's harmony shattered.
A blur of green scales and coiled muscle plummeted from the canopy—a Green-Scale Python, jaws wide, needle fangs aimed at his throat.
Time stretched.
Lu Chen's body, honed by pain and new power, moved. He tilted his head a bare inch to the left. The fangs whistled past his ear.
In the same, fluid motion, his other arm—the one holding the simple harvesting knife—rose.
Not a slash. A thrust. Short. Brutal. Upward.
The blade met scale just below the jaw and found the soft life beneath it.
Dark, hot blood streamed out. The serpent convulsed once, a powerful spasm that thrashed the bamboo, then went still.
[Hostile Neutralized.]
[Sword Comprehension +6]
[EXP +3]
Lu Chen cleaned his blade. He stored the serpent corpse in his inventory. Dinner is handled. No fasting pills tonight. His heart hammered a victorious rhythm against his ribs. The forty-ninth stalk joined the bundle.
One remained.
The shadows were now long, clutching things. The light had turned thick and heavy. …before dark, Li Yun's voice echoed.
He took a steadying breath. The grove had gone too quiet. No insect hum. No wind sigh. It was the silence of a held breath. It was as though something is about to happen.
He reached for the fiftieth and final stalk.
"Your humble task is complete, then?"
The voice sliced through the false peace—smug, anticipatory, dripping with the glee of a predator finally springing its trap.
Lu Chen didn't startle. He straightened up, turning with deliberate slowness.
Mo Tian stepped into the clearing, his smirk wide and ugly. He was flanked by two hulking disciples. But it was the fourth figure, lingering a step back in the shadows, who commanded attention—a taller youth with a placid face, casually spinning a serrated short blade that glowed with a sickly, poisonous green light.
Spirit-Eating Centipede venom. Infamous for one thing: permanently crippling dantians.
They fanned out with familiarity, forming a tight semicircle. The glowing dagger in front. Mo Tian behind, blocking the path out. The two brutes on the flanks. They hemmed Lu Chen against a wall of dense, impassable bamboo.
Trap sprung. Circle closed.
"You dared to shame me," Mo Tian hissed, all pretense of civility gone. "Senior Brother Xu Rang wants you humiliated in public. But me? I want you obliterated here, where the earth is soft and no one finds the pieces."
Lu Chen stood at the center of the closing ring. He felt the new power of the 7th Stage humming in his limbs. The warmth of Li Yun's talisman pulsed against his chest.
Fear was a cold stone in his gut, but it was buried under a mountain of something sharper: focused calm.
His gaze swept over them, lingering on the lethal green glow of the dagger. When his eyes finally met Mo Tian's, they held not defiance, but an insulting, profound weariness.
"Your threats," Lu Chen said, his voice flat and bored, "are as unoriginal as your cultivation. You couldn't even touch the hem of my robe at my peak. And you think the only thing that's changed is the calendar?"
Mo Tian's face went through a spectacular transformation, shifting from smug superiority to purple-red fury. His aura flickered wildly.
The other two disciples couldn't understand Lu Chen's words, but one glance at Mo Tian's face told them everything—it was certainly not a compliment.
[Provocation Level: Maximum!]
[Adversary Emotional Control: Critical Failure!]
"END HIM!" Mo Tian screamed, the sound raw and嘶裂. "BREAK EVERY BONE! LEAVE THE CORE FOR THE DAGGER!"
The dagger-wielder moved first—a blur of malignant intent, the green blade carving a silent, deadly arc toward Lu Chen's lower dantian. A strike meant not to kill, but to destroy forever.
Lu Chen didn't block it.
He shifted his weight minutely, a subtle twist of his hips, and the venomous glow passed through the empty space where he'd just been.
But the dodge placed him directly in the path of Mo Tian, who was charging from behind. A fist sheathed in grey, destructive force—the Shattering Rock Fist—descended toward the back of his skull.
DING!
Lu Chen dropped into a low crouch. The destructive force of the fist passed over him, rustling his hair.
He was surrounded. Four to one. The green dagger hissed as its wielder pivoted. The two brutes closed in from the sides.
Lu Chen's gaze flicked from face to face—the empty cruelty, the mindless aggression, the gloating hatred.
And for the first time since his soul was slammed into this painful, ridiculous, wonderful world…
A genuine, cold smile touched his lips.
Not the smile of a righteous hero. Not the smirk of a cruel villain. The smile of a player who has finally seen the shape of
the rigged board and decided, with absolute clarity, to flip the table.
Alright, he thought, a silent contract sealing between his will and the snarky, digital presence in his mind. Clock's in.
Time to grind.
[TO BE CONTINUED…]