Shen Liang did not go to the tomb.
Not immediately.
That restraint alone told him this was not a dream.
A dream would have dragged him forward, pulled by fear or obsession. This—this demanded verification. Absolute certainty. If the day truly repeated, then reality itself had rules, and rules could be exploited.
The academy bell rang.
Classes began.
Exactly as before.
The first lecture covered Qi Circulation Fundamentals—how mana from the heavens was refined through the dantian, pushed through meridians, then shaped into spellforms or martial techniques. The master's explanation was dull, rehearsed, and unchanged.
Shen Liang already knew what question would be asked.
He raised his hand anyway.
The master frowned. "E-rank Shen Liang. Speak."
"If qi refinement depends on talent," Shen Liang said carefully, "then is talent truly innate—or merely a limit imposed by one's bloodline?"
The hall went silent.
A few students snickered.
The master's eyes narrowed. "Talent is fate," he said flatly. "Blood determines capacity. Capacity determines rank. Questioning this is pointless."
The same answer.
Word for word.
Exactly the same.
By the time the sun began to dip, doubt was gone.
This was a loop.
Not illusion. Not madness.
Reality itself had reset—except for him.
That night, Shen Liang sat cross-legged in his room, eyes closed, mind racing. He circulated qi experimentally, slow and controlled. E-rank talent meant shallow meridians, sluggish refinement, and weak mana output. No matter how perfect his technique, his ceiling was low.
But—
He frowned.
Something was different.
His qi responded faster than yesterday. Yesterday, before he entered the catacombs.
Because the catacombs have been used by his ancestors to train there in the past, Qi sustainabilty was high there. Merely being there could increase your Qi Circulation for a few days, if only a little.
Barely. Subtly.
But undeniably.
"Memory carries over," he murmured. "Does progress?"
He tested again, refining mana with ruthless precision. His reserves were still pitiful, but control… control was sharper.
Whatever had happened did not erase the slight boost in Qi Circulation.
Only events were erased.
A dangerous smile threatened to form, but he crushed it immediately.
Hope was a liability.
"They persist," he whispered.
Anchors, the voice had called them.
Shen Liang exhaled slowly.
If the day always resets at morning, then his mother would always be alive—until the moment she wasn't. The murder was not erased. It was scheduled.
Which that this reset had some sort of trigger. What could it be?
Since nothing was triggered this time, nothing happend. Was it the catacombs? The images?
Sheng Liang thought to himself that no matter what, he can not be sure that there won't be anything happening regardless of whether he enters the catacombs again.
He stood and retrieved his training sword, gripping it tightly.
Tomorrow—when tomorrow came again—he would go to the tomb.
But not as a passive observer.
This time, he would test his theory... He would test the world
And if the world broke—
He would take notes.
And so the day ended and Sheng Liang went to sleep.