Discovery

Nan'an Community. A young man stood at the community entrance. Chen Hao stared at the familiar yet unfamiliar buildings. As a low-rent housing complex, the architecture couldn't compare to the bustling city center's developments.

From the outside, it bore the weathered marks of the Great Nirvana era. Aside from the clean streets and relatively sturdy construction, it had no redeeming qualities. There wasn't even a guard at the gate.

Entering the stairwell, Chen Hao grimaced. His home was on the top floor—the 36th—with no elevator. That was a real killer.

But all the buildings in this community were like this. No elevators installed. Going up or down meant taking the stairs. He recalled the original story mentioning that Base City had a tight power supply and electricity was expensive.

Chen Hao climbed the stairs slowly. To his surprise, after more than ten floors, he didn't feel too exhausted. His breathing was only slightly labored.

Then he understood. In the Swallowed Star world, ordinary people's physical fitness wasn't bad. It already rivaled the level of average athletes from his previous life.

No wonder the six or seven kilometers from the hospital to the community entrance had felt so easy on foot. This must be a benefit of humanity's physical evolution after the Great Nirvana.

Soon, Chen Hao reached the top floor. Standing at his door, he pulled out his key, unlocked it, pushed it open, and surveyed the room. No one had been there.

The room wasn't big. One bedroom, one living room, plus a bathroom—about thirty square meters or so. For one person, the space was quite spacious.

The downside was that aside from a window facing away from the sun, there was no other source of light. Fortunately, that living room window kept the place from feeling too dim.

Chen Hao walked to the only table in the living room, set down his keys, sat on the chair beside it, and propped his chin on his hand, thinking.

Since he'd come to this world, if he just lived as an ordinary person and died of old age decades later, he definitely wouldn't be content.

After all, he still wanted to return to his original world. No matter how good this place was, it wasn't his home. Besides, this wasn't a safe world.

But thinking about his predecessor's training talent, Chen Hao felt helpless.

His predecessor had graduated high school a year ago and worked odd jobs, saving less than ten thousand yuan.

Relying on that kind of wage to help himself train into a warrior was like trying to put out a blazing cart with a cup of water.

Besides, after getting injured, he probably couldn't work for the next few days. It was manual labor, and his injury hadn't fully healed. If he overexerted himself, there might not be a future. It looked like his predecessor's temporary job was about to be lost too.

Injury? Chen Hao's heart jolted. He recalled the TV report from not long ago. Wasn't this the point in Swallowed Star where the plot just started, with Luo Feng having about a month left before his college entrance exam?

He remembered the original story mentioning that a few unlucky people got injured at this time. Damn! So he was one of those unlucky bastards.

If he remembered correctly, Luo Feng's family also lived in this community.

But in a little over a month, Luo Feng would become a Quasi-Warrior, and the Luo family would move to Mingyue Community. It seemed the time to latch onto Luo Feng's coattails was running out.

Although his predecessor knew Luo Feng's family, they weren't close—just nodding acquaintances.

Chen Hao felt a bit relieved. At least they weren't strangers. His predecessor hadn't been completely useless; he'd done one right thing by renting a house in this community.

But thinking about Luo Feng's family moving away soon, he grew irritated. Sure, latching onto the protagonist as a transmigrator sounded a bit shameful, but it was genuinely sweet!

He thought about Wei Wen, whose martial arts talent was also terrible. Yet as Luo Feng's good brother, he still became an Immortal with eternal life.

After Luo Feng transcended reincarnation, he'd probably move into Luo Feng's Mini-Universe and continue living forever. A total winner in life!

If he could latch onto Luo Feng's coattails, even if he didn't become an Immortal, reaching Cosmic Level shouldn't be a problem, right?

Cosmic Level meant a lifespan of 100,000 years. 100,000 years was enough time to seek his own opportunities.

The prerequisite was staying alive. Thinking about the later Golden Horn Beast Crisis, the Space Exploration Squad, and even Earth's special nature being discovered by Giant Axe...

And what the Five Great Titans did on Earth, Chen Hao shuddered. Earth was way too dangerous. He had to leave early.

After resting a bit, Chen Hao grabbed his keys and went up to the rooftop terrace. The roof was divided into several sections. Some areas had wires strung with clothes and blankets hanging on them. Others had small vegetable plots.

The section belonging to Chen Hao's home was clean and empty.

Chen Hao walked to the edge of the rooftop and looked down at the entire base city. A surge of ambition and thrill rose within him. He really wasn't content with being ordinary! He had to become a warrior!

With that thought, he began the basic exercises he'd grown rusty at. He'd worked hard through three years of high school, but he'd never even reached the Junior Student standard.

After graduating, with daily work fatigue and discouragement, his predecessor had stopped even basic training.

The main reason was that physical labor was exhausting. By the time he got home, he had no energy left to train.

So the exercise methods had become unfamiliar. But as time passed, he slowly found the feeling of training in school's Martial Arts Class.

After all, he'd trained hard for three years back then. Many basic training moves had become muscle memory.

An hour later, Chen Hao looked at his sweat-soaked self. He clenched and unclenched his hands a few times, feeling helpless. Over a year without training, and even training now had little effect.

Without reaching the Junior Student standard, he couldn't even enter a martial arts hall. He could only use the most basic training methods taught in school, which had a painfully slow efficiency.

Actually, recalling his predecessor's memories, Chen Hao understood. Besides his poor talent, there was also his body's deficiency.

His predecessor was an orphan. In the orphanage, just not going hungry was already good. Eating nutritious food was completely unrealistic.

Especially in this high-martial-arts world where warriors had privileges. The country still took care of these orphans, not letting them become homeless or starve on the streets. It even built special orphanages to raise them and provided free compulsory education. As a government, it had done everything it could.

Even globally, after the Great Nirvana, Huaguo did the best in this regard.

Before the Great Nirvana, foreign countries promoted survival of the fittest. After the Great Nirvana, that mindset didn't ease up—it got worse. Orphans' situations became even more miserable.

Chen Hao was glad he still lived in this country. Even so, in the orphanage, unless someone had exceptional talent, those with ordinary talent would just fade into the crowd. His predecessor was one of those in the crowd.

Chen Hao sighed and slowly walked back down to his home. He sat in the chair and rested for a bit.

Soon, his stomach started growling. He got up, opened the cupboard, and looked inside. It was empty except for a steamed bun and a few shriveled potatoes in the corner. He couldn't afford electricity, so naturally he had no appliances like a fridge.

Chen Hao reached for the potatoes. Just as he picked one up, a virtual image suddenly appeared before his eyes. Caught off guard, he was startled, leaping back with a "whoosh," and the potato in his hand dropped to the floor.

The image vanished along with his movement. In his shock, Chen Hao hadn't clearly seen what that sudden image was.

His face still pale with lingering fear: Could it be that his concussion was severe? Those quack doctors hadn't caught it?

Suddenly, a thought burst into his mind, stirring excitement yet also deep unease—could it be that his Golden Finger had just been triggered?

Thinking this, he hurried over to the kitchen cabinet, recalling the moment just now, and reached for a potato.

The instant his hand touched the potato, sure enough, a flash of light flickered before his eyes, and a virtual image appeared once more.

Chen Hao stared intently and saw that the virtual image was an icon. When he set the potato down, the image vanished again.

He then repeated the motion of picking up the potato, and the image reappeared. Chen Hao was now certain: his stroke of luck—the Golden Finger Plugin—had most likely awakened.

But even though this Golden Finger, this virtual image before him, had awakened, he had no clue how to actually use it.

At a loss, he fell back on some experience from his past life and wild ideas he'd seen online, focusing his attention on the image before him.

As his concentration sharpened, the virtual image gradually grew clearer, eventually taking the shape of a furnace and a card-like symbol.

Seeing that it worked, he focused again on the furnace symbol. The furnace's image slowly blurred, transforming into a vortex, and then nine blank circular slots appeared within the vortex, finally stabilizing completely.

Staring at the nine empty slots, Chen Hao thoughtfully glanced at the potato in his hand and mentally willed it into one of the blank positions.

The next moment, he felt his hand go empty—the potato had suddenly vanished, and a potato icon appeared on the panel. He then concentrated on the vortex, mentally clicking on it, but the panel didn't respond.

He continued picking up potatoes from the cabinet and placing them into the other slots. The potatoes appeared in the remaining blank positions as well. Unfortunately, there were only five potatoes in the cabinet, counting the one that had fallen on the floor.

Chen Hao let out a long breath. Success or failure hinged on this one move. He focused his mind and clicked on the central vortex symbol.

The five potatoes suddenly vanished. The vortex symbol disappeared, and in its place appeared a single, fresh-looking potato that had changed drastically.

Before Chen Hao could even feel surprise, a wave of exhaustion washed over him. As he thought about taking the potato out, it materialized in his hand out of thin air.

But it caught him off guard—five fist-sized potatoes had fused into one potato the size of a watermelon, and it looked incredibly fresh.

Staring at the giant potato in his hand, Chen Hao was thrilled and instantly understood: this was a synthesis function, and it consumed his mental energy.

If it could synthesize potatoes, could it synthesize other vegetables? Or even other items?

But after gauging his mental state, he set aside the idea of synthesizing anything else for now.

He then turned his attention back to the virtual image, mentally commanding it to return, and the image reverted to its initial state of the furnace and card symbols.

Next, Chen Hao focused on the other card symbol. To his surprise, the card remained completely unresponsive.

No matter how he fiddled with it, nothing new happened. A pang of disappointment hit him, but when he thought back to the furnace symbol's function, excitement surged again—at least he hadn't come away empty-handed.

Exhausted from training on the rooftop and synthesizing the potato, compounded by his still-unhealed injuries, he ate a few plain steamed buns, then went to the bedroom, lay down on the bed, and fell into a deep sleep.

A new author, a new book just launched—hope everyone will show their support.