True Spirit Awakening

True Spirit Awakening

"Little Tyrant, wake up! It's already noon!"

While Zhou Tong was still half-asleep, he suddenly heard that voice and felt a large hand shove his shoulder.

"Who is it?" Zhou Tong opened his eyes impatiently.

Through the haze, an unfamiliar figure appeared before him.

"You are..."

Just as Zhou Tong was about to ask who he was, countless memories suddenly surged into his mind, and the stranger before him became someone familiar.

"Uh, Zhou Yi? What is it?" Zhou Tong asked groggily.

"What do you mean, what is it? You slept from ten last night until twelve today!" Zhou Yi said helplessly. "Did you forget about yesterday's graduation drinking party? If you can't hold your liquor, don't take on three people at once. And you specifically picked someone like Pang Bo, that brute, to compete with! Look at the size of you. Do you know how exhausting it was for us to carry you back last night?"

As he spoke, Zhou Yi rubbed his forehead, looking thoroughly troubled.

Zhou Tong was the starting power forward on the university basketball team. He stood six feet five and weighed one hundred ninety pounds, tall and solidly built. It had taken all three of his roommates to carry him back.

It was also because of that build, coupled with the fact that his name, "Zhou Tong," was the same as the Earthly Vacancy Star among the 108 heroes of Water Margin—"Little Tyrant Zhou Tong"—that "Little Tyrant" had become Zhou Tong's nickname throughout his four years of university.

"I didn't lose!" Zhou Tong blurted out instinctively.

Zhou Yi rolled his eyes at Zhou Tong. "I know. Pang Bo, Ye Fan, and Li Changqing were carried back to their rooms by their roommates too!"

"Mm, Pang Bo, Ye Fan, Li Changqing..."

The moment he heard those three names, Zhou Tong's mind crashed for an instant. Then another flood of memories rushed into his heart. Almost on reflex, he blurted out, "Holy shit!"

He abruptly sat up, the groggy look on his face vanishing in an instant, replaced by utter shock.

"You didn't drink yourself stupid, did you?" Zhou Yi grew increasingly speechless as he watched Zhou Tong jerk about in surprise.

"Don't forget, today is the day we leave campus. Your train is at three this afternoon, right? Don't miss it!" Zhou Yi kindly reminded him one last time, then left the dorm directly with his backpack and luggage.

Once Zhou Yi had left, the entire dorm room instantly became empty.

Only then did Zhou Tong have the presence of mind to sort through his current situation.

"Looks like I transmigrated... and into Shrouding the Heavens, at that?" Zhou Tong climbed out of bed, an odd expression appearing on his face. "I actually became Ye Fan's university classmate, and some nameless extra who didn't even exist in the original novel?"

"Did I possess Ye Fan's classmate? Huh..."

At that moment, Zhou Tong suddenly discovered something—more precisely, something inside his body.

It was an extraordinary round mirror, double-sided and heavy. It looked like it was made of metal, yet also like it had been polished from stone. Its exact material was unknown. In any case, it clearly was not glass.

Almost the instant Zhou Tong touched the mirror, a strange sensation welled up in his heart, as though an unfathomable power had begun slowly flowing into his body.

As that power entered him, Zhou Tong's complexion immediately turned rosy, and his limbs filled with a sense of strength he had never felt before.

At the same time, a stream of information entered Zhou Tong's consciousness.

This mirror was called the Reincarnation Mirror. It could reveal the past lives, the lives before those, and the lives before those of the living beings of the Myriad Heavens...

"So... this warm current is my past life!!" After fully understanding the information within the Reincarnation Mirror, Zhou Tong gradually came to understand many things.

His transmigration was not some so-called possession. Rather, his True Spirit had been directly brought by the Reincarnation Mirror into this world of Shrouding the Heavens to be reincarnated.

What he had previously believed to be "transmigration" and "possession" was merely his "True Spirit Awakening."

"So there was never any possession. Zhou Tong's body is my body; I merely lost a few years to the confusion of the womb... Now that my True Spirit has finally awakened, I am myself!! No wonder this body looks almost identical to my past life!" Zhou Tong took a deep breath, a glint of excitement appearing in his eyes.

The flesh of his past life had already been absorbed by the Reincarnation Mirror and transformed into the purest essence, qi, and spirit. The warm current now flowing into his body was the essence, qi, and spirit of his past life.

Naturally, after being fed back by the Reincarnation Mirror, the essence, qi, and spirit of his past life could not possibly descend upon him in their entirety. Some losses along the way were unavoidable.

As for whether those losses were an "agency fee" collected by the Reincarnation Mirror, there was no way to know.

After a long while, the essence, qi, and spirit fed back from the Reincarnation Mirror finally dissipated completely.

Zhou Tong himself became exceptionally alert, his mind seeming utterly clear.

He knew this was the healthiest state a body could attain. He had achieved it for a period in his past life. It was a feeling formed through a proper balance of work and rest, sufficient deep sleep, and nutrition.

"The foundation of my past life was transformed into the most basic essence, qi, and spirit, then fused into this body... In other words, I now possess the strength of two lifetimes!" Zhou Tong clenched his fist, and an incomparably abundant, unprecedented sense of power rose within him.

He looked at his bed, and a thought suddenly came to him.

He grabbed the iron guardrail of the bed. It was the common kind of railing found on dormitory beds, meant to keep students from rolling off in the middle of the night.

With a casual twist from Zhou Tong, the iron railing immediately bent slightly.

"One hand can already bend this thing slightly. With both hands, this railing wouldn't be able to stop me!" Zhou Tong silently said to himself. Excitement followed close behind. "With this kind of strength, if I took a physical test, my bench press would be at least two hundred and fifty kilograms!!"

Zhou Tong had been a player on the university basketball team, so he knew his original strength levels well. After making a rough estimate, his current bench press ability was absolutely above two hundred and fifty kilograms.

The strength of two lifetimes stacked together was indeed somewhat terrifying. It was far from a simple one plus one.

A two-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram bench press would already break the NBA bench press record. For someone of his height and weight to possess that kind of bench press strength was practically heaven-defying.

"But... what use is this kind of strength?" Zhou Tong sighed soon afterward.

A two-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram bench press made him invincible on Earth as it currently was, but what about afterward?

What if he encountered someone from the world of cultivation? Any random Sea of Qi Realm cultivator could beat him senseless with one hand!

"I have to cultivate, I must cultivate!"

Zhou Tong sighed softly, then looked once more at the Reincarnation Mirror and muttered, "Reincarnation Mirror, Reincarnation Mirror, since you brought me here, you should at least give me some means to protect myself, right?"

A divine artifact possessed a spirit. Before long, a stream of information entered Zhou Tong's heart.

Zhou Tong was instantly overjoyed.