System Upgrade, New Abilities Begin to Show

Chen Wuya's fingers still hung in midair, the thread of misaligned force in his palm only just dispersed, when his body suddenly tightened. A surge of heat exploded from his dantian and charged wildly up through his meridians, as if another path had been forcibly opened. He clenched his teeth, his back drawn taut in a straight line, his whole body frozen atop the stone platform. He did not even dare twitch his fingertips.

"It moved." His voice was so low it seemed squeezed from his throat. "I didn't guide it. It... wants to come out on its own."

Bai Zhi immediately stepped forward and placed a hand on the back of his neck, slowly sending true qi into him. She said nothing, but her palm was faintly warm and her rhythm steady, like a rope gradually pulling him back from the roiling torrent of force.

Chen Wuya closed his eyes. His sea of consciousness shook violently. The blurry structural diagram no longer flickered; it abruptly solidified, points of light linking into clear channels that slowly revolved at its center. Three ancient seal-script characters emerged—"Misaligned Force Fusion"—their strokes seeming carved in stone as they hung heavily in the depths of his mind.

Then, a message descended soundlessly:

[System advanced to Stage Two. Ability unlocked: Misaligned Force Fusion—can forcibly blend two or more nonhomologous misaligned forces, generating a mutated force. Power greatly increased; pathways self-consistent.]

His heart jolted.

This was not completion. It was creation. Before, he had struck crookedly and hit true, relying on misunderstandings to trigger the system's reverse corrections. But now, the system actually allowed him to actively splice errors together, forcibly welding force paths that should never have been compatible and creating entirely new "wrong moves."

"What did you see?" Bai Zhi noticed the change