Prologue: Gestation

Thump, thump!

Gurgle, gurgle...

Wasn't I dead?

Gurgle, gurgle...

I'm—underwater!

Zhou Xu's heart jolted. He hurriedly held his breath, frantically trying to open his eyes as his limbs flailed and struggled on instinct.

A moment later, he suddenly froze.

Huh?

Why—don't I feel like I'm suffocating?

Thump!

Gurgle, gurgle...

Was he in a hospital?

Had he been resuscitated?

Zhou Xu hesitated.

Could this be some kind of new medical device?

Right, shouldn't I notify the doctors that I was awake?

With that thought, Zhou Xu tentatively reached out to feel around him.

It was a cramped space, surrounded by soft barriers. They felt somewhat like skin, though he had no idea what material they were made of.

How should he notify the doctors?

Zhou Xu pondered briefly.

Should he pat the wall in front of him?

He had no idea whether treatment with this machine was expensive. Would his savings even cover the medical bills?

Thinking this, Zhou Xu reached out and slapped the barrier in front of him.

"Ah!"

A muffled female cry came through the surrounding liquid, sounding strangely deep.

"..."

A string of strange female speech came from the surrounding barrier, vibrating Zhou Xu's skin until it faintly resonated.

Why did that sound like it came from above his head?

What language was that just now? Why couldn't I understand it?

"..."

A man's voice rang out nearby. Unlike before, it did not make Zhou Xu's body vibrate, but he could not understand what it was saying either.

Was he abroad?

Had they taken him overseas for treatment, or was some newly imported equipment being tested?

Thump!

Right, what was that sound that had been constantly echoing around him?

A drumlike sound had been pounding all along. Why had he not noticed something so heavy and deep before?

Thump... thump... thump!

Could this—be a heartbeat?

Zhou Xu arrived at an unbelievable conclusion. Yet as he focused on listening to it, he found the sound to be like the most wonderful lullaby in the world, and before he knew it, he had fallen asleep.

During the hazy intervals between sleep and wakefulness, Zhou Xu barely managed to figure out his current situation.

If this was not a dream, then he had probably—been reincarnated!

"No matter how I look at it, this has to be a dream!"

He did not know how much time had passed, but Zhou Xu still could not believe it. Yet all the information he had gathered confirmed this conjecture.

More importantly, at some unknown point, a virtual screen had appeared in his consciousness!

Personal Attributes:

Strength: (Growing in Gestation)

Agility: (Growing in Gestation)

Nerve Reflex: (Growing in Gestation)

Endurance: (Growing in Gestation)

Constitution: (Growing in Gestation)

Personal Martial Skills: None

Remaining Skill Points: 0

Personal Level: LV0: 0/10

Currently in gestation. Personal Martial Arts Mission cannot be issued for the time being.

The simple, easy-to-understand personal attributes interface filled Zhou Xu with anticipation for his future.

What he needed to do now was improve himself as quickly as possible and make sure he was already a hundred thousand meters ahead of everyone else at the starting line!

Making use of this rare period of wakefulness, Zhou Xu prepared to sort out what he could currently do.

Train his body?

Judging from the system's name, the outside world was very likely in an ancient era. Would becoming too physically strong cause a difficult birth?

This was no joke. One careless mistake could mean two deaths.

Practice Internal Energy Cultivation?

Practice... my ass!

Although he had a Martial Arts System, his past-life self had only been an ordinary person. How the hell was he supposed to know any cultivation technique that could be practiced starting from the fetal stage?

Easy to say, hard to do!

Tossing and turning, Zhou Xu pondered ways to improve himself.

Then he recalled a theory he had heard in his previous life.

Using a computer as an analogy, the number of brain cells could be viewed as a computer's storage capacity—both were limited.

Moreover, once an adult lost a brain cell, it was gone for good; it would not regenerate. If he did not get himself more brain cells while he had this chance to be reforged, that would be an enormous waste.

After reviewing and summarizing his abilities, he realized that the only thing he could do right now was think more.

There were two benefits to doing so.

First, it would exercise his brain. At the very least, he would stop being like this—falling asleep after thinking for two minutes.

Second, he could inject his habits from his previous life, his past logic and Way of Thinking—in other words, his memories and thoughts—into this newborn's brain.

A person's Way of Thinking was habitual. After all, the essence of thought was the formation and flow of neurons in the brain.

Zhou Xu did not know why he retained the memories of his previous life, but according to the theory that "human thought is merely the brain at work," his current state was—extremely unscientific!

A fetus in gestation did not even have a fully developed brain yet. Where were his memories stored?

It was like a computer. Without even a memory module, why could the system run at all, let alone contain several gigabytes of data?

Was this some kind of ghost story?

The only possible explanation was the system that had inexplicably appeared in his consciousness. His consciousness was very likely stored within that system.

If his consciousness was inside it, then would this body... give birth to a new consciousness in the future?

Thinking, recalling, Self-Hypnosis!

Zhou Xu did not dare slack off. He seized every moment of wakefulness and repeatedly recalled every last detail he could remember.

Through the mother's body, Zhou Xu could vaguely hear voices from the outside world, as well as explosion-like sounds that rang out from time to time, but he paid them no mind whatsoever.

There would be plenty of time to learn about the outside world after he was born. His own existence was the matter that determined life and death.

As he continued to recall things, he could clearly feel that the time he remained awake was gradually increasing, while his thinking speed grew faster and faster.

At the same time, his body's sensory abilities were gradually strengthening.

Perhaps this was also proof that his body was adapting to his memories.

The process went exceptionally smoothly, proving the saying: what is difficult for the unskilled is easy for the skilled.

It was like building a Nuclear Bomb. It only took three simple steps.

First, find a uranium-235 mine.

Second, purify the uranium-235.

Third, put the purified uranium-235 into a sphere that could explode evenly, and it was finished!

Zhou Xu suddenly thought that perhaps implanting memories was just as simple. He had merely skipped countless intermediate steps and directly reached the End Point, carrying out the final memory input.

It was just like Self-Hypnosis. As long as you stood before a mirror every day and repeatedly told yourself that you were the best, you could easily influence a person's mental state.

This process was itself a simple way of constructing neural structures, much like creating a new program within a computer system.

To a certain extent, influencing the human brain was even simpler than creating a new program on a computer.

From simple, repetitive external information to so-called hypnosis, their essence was the construction of new neurons in the human brain. To some extent, simple and repetitive external information could even more easily influence the brain's construction.

There was a saying: when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Interpreted through this principle, it meant that if you stared at the abyss long enough, another abyss would be constructed inside your brain, continuously influencing the way you behaved.

Remaining unstained while emerging from the mud was praised precisely because it was difficult. It was never the norm.

Amid his countless thoughts, just as Zhou Xu felt his mind become clear and unobstructed, the amniotic fluid inexplicably turned murky.

The soft barriers around him writhed continuously and began to press inward slowly.