Lin Xuan's final conscious thought lingered on the cold digits ticking in the bottom-right corner of his screen: 3:47 a.m. Seventy-two straight hours of overtime without sleep had felt like an invisible hand clutching his heart. He tried to reach for the coffee cup on his desk, but all he felt in his fingertips was a violent, uncontrollable spasm. Then the whole world plunged into endless darkness.
Cold. Painful.
It was as if he'd been thrown naked into the Siberian wind, every pore screaming.
Then came an indescribable sense of suffocation, as though he'd sunk ten thousand meters beneath the sea. The crushing pressure threatened to grind every bone in his body to dust.
Lin Xuan snapped his eyes open. This wasn't the oppressive ceiling of his cubicle, nor the stark white lights of a hospital.
Before him lay a vastness and desolation beyond words.
The sky was a translucent blue unlike anything he'd ever seen, so pure it made his heart flutter with unease. Vast mountains with jagged, ferocious outlines wound across the land like the spines of prehistoric beasts, stretching to the horizon. But most astonishing of all was the colossal shadow in the distance, supporting heaven and earth—a presence that defied the word "mountain." It joined sky to land, so immense it surpassed the limits of sight, as though the weight of the entire universe rested upon it. It radiated an ancient, primeval majesty that made his soul tremble.
"Wh-where am I?"
Lin Xuan struggled to sit up, only to find himself terribly weak. His hands and feet seemed smaller, like those of a boy on the verge of adulthood. He looked around. He was lying in a valley strewn with strange, jagged rocks. The air smelled of soil and some peculiar plants. Breathing it in brought a searing pain to his lungs, yet somehow it also carried unimaginable vitality.
"Wasn't I... supposed to have died suddenly?" He rubbed his aching temples as memories flooded back—flickering code, his project manager's tirades, the moment his heart stopped...
Could he have... transmigrated?
As a modern young man who'd read countless web novels, he couldn't stop the thought from surfacing. Fighting through his discomfort, he studied his surroundings. The trees were absurdly tall; several people would have to join hands to encircle even a single one. Moss covered the rocks, which glimmered with a faint, strange light. The pressure in the air was astonishing. Just standing there felt like carrying a hundred pounds on his back.
He looked up at the colossal shadow supporting heaven and earth again. A name from ancient myth struck his mind like lightning—
Buzhou Mountain!
The pillar of heaven and earth said to have been formed from Pangu's spine after he created the world!
"Holy crap... This can't be... the Primordial World, can it?" Lin Xuan's voice trembled with disbelief. The thought was horrifying. If this really was the Primordial World, how dangerous would it be? Golden Immortals as common as dogs, Great Luos everywhere? No, there might be even more terrifying beings!
A bone-deep chill shot from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. He was a modern programmer who couldn't even fight a chicken. In an age of myths like this, he probably wouldn't even qualify as cannon fodder! Any wild beast or stray gust of astral wind could leave him dead without a trace.
His instinct to survive urged him to act at once. He had to find water and somewhere safe to hide. Every step was incredibly difficult; the pressure in the air left him gasping for breath. He realized that some force seemed to have strengthened his body a little. Otherwise, he might not even have been able to stand.
Just then, a low, threatening hiss came from behind him. Every hair on Lin Xuan's body stood on end. He spun around and saw a creature resembling a wild boar, with two curved tusks jutting from the corners of its mouth and rough, rocklike scales covering its body. Its blood-red eyes were fixed on him. The beast wasn't very large, but it radiated savage menace.
"I'm done for..." Lin Xuan's heart sank. He was unarmed, and his body was weak as a kitten.
The stone boar pawed the ground, then charged at him with astonishing speed!
Acting almost entirely on instinct, Lin Xuan scrambled toward a crack beside a boulder. The stone boar slammed into it with a crash, sending fragments flying and displaying its terrible strength.
"Damn it, I just transmigrated and I'm about to get eaten by a pig?" Shock and fury surged through Lin Xuan as the shadow of death loomed closer than ever. He snatched up a sharp-edged stone from the ground and fixed his gaze on the beast as it turned to charge again. Adrenaline flooded his system, briefly drowning out his exhaustion and fear.
At that critical moment, a cold, emotionless voice rang deep in his mind, carrying a hint of mechanical sarcasm:
[Host's soul strength meets the required threshold. Binding conditions satisfied... Scanning surroundings... Environmental energy level too high! Too high! Warning! Was the newbie zone deployed incorrectly?!]
Lin Xuan froze.
[Error code #%&*... Forcing binding... Ding! Great Dao Sign-in System successfully bound!]
[Hello, host. I'm your system (though this starting location is so terrible, I almost want to format myself).]
Lin Xuan: "???"
Why did this system's opening line reek of the resentment of an overworked office drone, mixed with the attitude of a professional heckler?
[Given the host's current survival odds of 0.0001%, in the spirit of humanitarianism (or perhaps systemitarianism?), an initial quest has been issued.]
[Initial Quest: Complete one sign-in at the foot of Buzhou Mountain (current location).]
[Quest Reward: One beginner's gift pack.]
[Quest Failure: Congratulations, host. You can take an early one-day tour of the Primordial Underworld (assuming your soul is still intact).]
"Sign... in?" Lin Xuan had no time to complain about the "damned system's" tone. His will to survive overwhelmed everything else. He practically shouted, "Sign in! Sign in now!"
[ Ding! Sign-in successful! Congratulations, host, on completing your first sign-in at the foot of Buzhou Mountain. You have received a beginner's gift pack! Open it now?]
"Open it! Hurry!" Lin Xuan kept a nervous eye on the stone boar, which was gathering itself to charge again, while frantically shouting in his mind.
[Opening beginner's gift pack...]
[Congratulations, host. You have received:]
[Technique] Nine Revolutions Profound Technique, introductory chapter (directly passed down from the great Pangu, the foundation of a sanctified body. A top-tier technique in the Primordial World, guaranteed authentic. It's just a little hard to practice. Good luck, host.)
[Treasure] Chaos Bead (damaged) (Grade unknown. Currently severely incomplete. Function: Contains a ten-cubic-meter Mustard Seed Space and can shield its bearer from detection by beings below the Golden Immortal level. Note: It may be junk, but to you, it's another chance at life. Count yourself lucky.)
Two surges of immense information flowed into Lin Xuan's mind. One contained the profoundly arcane incantations and diagrams of a technique brimming with supreme power—the Nine Revolutions Profound Technique! The other gave him a sense of a dim gray bead covered in tiny cracks. With a thought, he could sense a small, hazy space inside it.
At almost the same time, the barely perceptible aura of the damaged Chaos Bead seemed to naturally coil around Lin Xuan.
The stone boar, which had been preparing to attack again, suddenly showed a glimmer of instinctive fear in its red eyes. From its weak prey, it sensed an indescribable life pressure from a higher level. It growled low, then actually stepped back twice, eyeing Lin Xuan warily. In the end, it turned around unwillingly and darted into the nearby woods, vanishing from sight.
The crisis... was over for now.
Lin Xuan slumped to the ground and panted heavily. Cold sweat had soaked through his ragged clothes. Relief at surviving and the overwhelming rush of information left his mind blank.
It took him a long while to collect himself. He felt the supreme technique called the Nine Revolutions Profound Technique in his mind, along with the Mustard Seed Space he could enter at any time.
"The Chaos Bead... the Nine Revolutions Profound Technique..." he murmured, a spark lighting in his eyes. "The Primordial World... Maybe I really can survive here?"
He raised his head and looked once more at Buzhou Mountain, towering into the clouds and radiating boundless majesty. His heart held more than fear now. A faint flame called hope had begun to kindle.
Yet a more immediate problem remained. How was he supposed to practice this technique? What other wonders could the damaged bead hold? And when would the next threat arrive at the foot of this perilous mountain?
Where would this seemingly unreliable "damned system" lead him?
Before you continue