Awakening

At eight in the evening, night gradually fell. In an alley between several buildings.

In the shadows beyond the reach of the dim streetlights, someone could vaguely be seen lying on the ground.

"Ah, hiss..."

The figure on the ground suddenly trembled and drew in a sharp breath.

"What is this?"

The figure braced himself against the wall and slowly stood up.

The dim streetlights left his face hidden in shadow, with only his two eyes standing out unusually in the darkness.

"Where am I?"

As the figure slowly moved, the yellowed light revealed him to be a young man of seventeen or eighteen.

He wore a black tracksuit, though the dust and bloodstains covering it made him look extremely disheveled.

As he stepped out of the alley, the conspicuous words "Limitless Martial Arts School, the Limits of Warriors" on a roadside billboard suddenly entered his sight, leaving him frozen in place.

The unfamiliar young face reflected in the billboard's mirrored metal surface also left him stunned!

"Did I transmigrate?"

Suddenly, an intense pain made him clutch his head and crouch down.

His trembling body and the veins bulging from his exposed arms all showed that he was enduring tremendous pain.

After quite a while, the pain gradually faded, and he discovered countless memories from the past had appeared in his mind.

It turned out this was still Earth, and the owner of this body was also named Xia Zhi.

He was only seventeen this year and an Advanced Student at the local Limitless Martial Arts School.

Xia Zhi's physical fitness had even approached the standards of a Quasi-Warrior.

Next week was the time for the Quasi-Warrior Assessment.

Recently, Xia Zhi had also been training hard in preparation for the assessment.

Everything had originally been very peaceful.

But today, turmoil had suddenly arisen.

Because he was an orphan who had been raised alone by his grandfather since childhood, his family was poor.

Meanwhile, an older student named Li Wei came from a warrior family. It was said that his father was a very high-ranking warrior, while his mother was an executive at a major conglomerate.

The two of them should never have had any connection.

Yet because Xia Zhi trained diligently and stood out among his peers, he was often compared to Li Wei.

Combined with several other reasons, Xia Zhi had earned Li Wei's resentment, and Li Wei often deliberately caused him trouble.

There were two opportunities for the Quasi-Warrior Assessment every year. Li Wei had already passed the one held at the beginning of the year.

Since Xia Zhi had still been slightly below the minimum standard for a Quasi-Warrior, he had planned to take the midyear assessment.

Unexpectedly, tonight, as Xia Zhi was passing through this secluded alley on his way home, Li Wei and several lackeys had blocked his path.

They had actually wanted to injure him and prevent Xia Zhi from taking this year's final Quasi-Warrior Assessment.

As a result, during the fight, while the original owner was being insulted and provoked by Li Wei's group, he awakened as a Mind Controller. However, his injuries were too severe, and he ultimately failed to survive the aftereffects of the genetic enhancement mutation. His soul dissipated, allowing Xia Zhi to transmigrate here and take over his body.

Feeling the original owner's seventeen years of memories, along with the scenes of the humiliation he had just suffered, even Xia Zhi, who had only just transmigrated, felt boundless fury rise in his heart.

Those insults, one after another.

"Trash!"

"A lowly piece of garbage like you deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as me?"

"You should be collecting garbage with that dead old bastard grandfather of yours..."

They seemed to still echo beside his ears, lingering for a long time.

"Don't worry. I'll let him know who the real garbage is," Xia Zhi muttered softly.

He said it to himself, and also to the original owner's dissipated soul.

The pain in his body, along with the mental strain from his recent awakening, left him without even a trace of strength.

He casually found a slightly cleaner spot, slowly sat down against the wall, closed his eyes, and focused his consciousness on his mind.

Boom!

It felt as though his entire soul was trembling. He suddenly discovered that his consciousness had arrived in a mysterious space.

The space seemed boundless, filled everywhere with endless mist.

Two Dark Gold spheres constantly revolved around each other within the mist.

The larger one slowly rotated on its own like a star.

The smaller one was like a planet, slowly orbiting the larger sphere.

Both Dark Gold spheres continuously released streams of mist.

Causing the mist in this mysterious space to continuously increase.

"Is this my Sea of consciousness?"

"There are actually two solid spheres in my Sea of consciousness?"

"What is this?"

"Why is it here?"

Within his Sea of consciousness, Xia Zhi discovered a Nine-story Pagoda standing in its depths, concealed beneath the endless mist.

He would never forget this pagoda, even in death. It was the thing that had brought him here through transmigration.

In his previous life, although he had been a native Earthling, he had suffered from headaches since childhood.

His family had taken him to hospitals for all kinds of examinations, but nothing had come of them.

Later, he accidentally discovered that exercising could ease the pain!

The stronger his physical fitness became, the weaker his headaches felt.

With no other solution, he began cultivating his body in order to reduce the pain!

Fitness training, taekwondo, external martial arts, internal martial arts—he had tried everything that could improve his physical fitness.

Until that day, when he went to Wudang Mountain to borrow Dao Collection texts, he accidentally discovered an ancient scroll with the two characters "Supreme" printed on its cover.

Out of curiosity, he casually opened the ancient scroll, only to see that it contained nothing but Patterns of a Nine-story Pagoda and an Ancient Bronze Bell.

Those two Patterns were impossible to describe with words.

Shocking, majestic!

The feeling was like Creation of Heaven and Earth, like suppressing all eternity. Every thought in his mind was completely stilled, leaving him rooted to the spot.

After that, he lost consciousness. When he woke up again, he was here.

At this moment, Xia Zhi looked at the Nine-story Pagoda in his Sea of consciousness, faintly visible amid the surrounding mist.

Xia Zhi desperately tried to control his will and move closer to the pagoda, only to discover that once he reached a certain distance, he could not advance another step.

Just then, the pagoda in his Sea of consciousness trembled, and a beam of Golden Light shot out from its tip straight toward him.

Boom!

Segments of information surfaced in his mind.

"Supreme Body Refinement Technique!"

Images of human figures and lines of text continuously emerged. The massive flood of information left him needing quite some time to recover.

As the information was transmitted, he could not help sitting cross-legged, with his palms, soles, and crown facing heaven. Following the contents of the Supreme Body Refinement Technique in his mind, his thoughts gradually sank inward, and he unexpectedly entered meditation.

"Hiss, three ribs are broken, and there are bruises in so many places."

By examining his body internally, Xia Zhi discovered that his injuries were indeed severe.

As he sensed the condition of the damaged areas throughout his body.

A slightly cool stream of energy entered his body through the centers of his palms, the soles of his feet, and the baihui acupoint atop his head.

The cells in his body, as though they had been starving for countless years, instantly began devouring it madly.

The absorption by the cells throughout his body in turn caused the cells themselves to undergo earth-shaking changes.

His broken ribs began reconnecting at a speed visible to the naked eye.

His body's DNA and genetic blueprint also began to undergo slight changes, their division speed accelerating as one became two.

Time passed bit by bit.

Xia Zhi's body surface, muscles, bones, and even every cell deep within his body were changing as time passed. This was the evolution of life, the optimization of life's genes.

Only when the cells in his body could no longer absorb that energy did he slowly open his eyes and stop.

He stood up and moved his body, only then discovering that his previously broken ribs had actually reconnected.

The purplish bruises all over his body had also nearly vanished, with only faint bruising remaining on his face.

"Almost good enough. Even if Grandpa sees me, I can just make up an excuse and fool him for now."

Xia Zhi and his grandfather had depended on each other since he was young. Now, he did not want the only family member he had left in this world to worry about him again.

"I need to get home quickly, or Grandpa will worry."

Recalling the residence from his memories, Xia Zhi quickly ran into the distance.

At this moment, in a luxurious KTV, a group of young men were drinking with female companions gathered around them in twos and threes.

One of the young men had Triangular Eyes. After taking a sip of alcohol, he shouted loudly, "Young Master Wei, we should've just killed that little bastard."

The person he was speaking to was a young man with pale golden hair. His originally handsome features were marred somewhat by his gloomy expression.

"You dare kill someone in a base city? An Advanced Student from the Limitless Martial Arts School, no less?"

After seeing that the young man with Triangular Eyes did not dare respond, he continued, "It's enough to injure him so he can't take the assessment. If we really kill him, it'll be troublesome to smooth things over."

Another young man beside them stepped in to smooth things over. "That little trash actually dared to be mentioned in the same breath as Young Master Wei at school."

"Now that he can't take the assessment, once you become a warrior, Young Master Wei, won't you be able to make him die however you want? Hehe."

"Hmph, a lowborn peasant dreaming of turning his life around!"

Perhaps because he had thought of something, Li Wei's expression became even gloomier.

"This time, he should understand that garbage will always be garbage. If something isn't meant for him, he shouldn't even think about getting it!"

"Hahaha..."

Hearing Li Wei's words, the young men in the private room burst into laughter!

This is my first book. The outline is complete, and I'm determined to finish it!

PS: After writing nearly four hundred thousand words, I'll add this... Everyone knows the first dozen or so chapters are rather unpleasant. I'm very sorry. I'll revise them when I have time. The later content will be better. Newcomer Following the Wind is constantly improving as well, so please take care of me, esteemed readers!