Inside the thatched hut, Zhou Xuan sat cross-legged, his expression solemn.
His gaze was fixed on the unremarkable fragment of Green Copper in his palm. A chill seeped into his hand, as if the fragment were telling him of the long ages it had endured.
Zhou Xuan focused his mind on the system panel.
With a thought, he targeted the Green Copper fragment in his palm.
"System, enlighten this item!"
[Beep! Unknown fragment detected. It contains incomplete Dao laws. Spend 1,000 Gold Touch Value to enlighten it?]
The system's prompt rang in his mind. The cost made Zhou Xuan's heart skip a beat.
A thousand points!
That was almost his entire fortune.
But once the bow was drawn, there was no turning back. He had no better choice.
"Enlighten it!" Zhou Xuan growled inwardly.
[Gold Touch Value -1,000!]
[Gold Touch Value balance: 27 points!]
Almost the instant he confirmed, the Green Copper fragment in his palm shuddered violently.
Hum!
A dazzling green light burst from the fragment, bathing the entire humble hut in emerald radiance.
The light wasn't harsh. Instead, it carried an ancient, profound aura.
Then something even stranger happened.
Amid the green light, countless tiny golden runes, each no larger than a grain of rice and unfathomably mysterious, appeared from thin air. They circled the Green Copper fragment like living things, spinning faster and faster before gathering into passages of scripture he couldn't begin to understand.
Before Zhou Xuan could even marvel at the sight, the golden scriptures turned into a streak of light. Giving him no time to react, they shot straight into the space between his brows.
Boom!
In an instant, Zhou Xuan felt as if a thunderbolt from the ninth heaven had struck his head. The whole world seemed to explode around him.
In his mind, hundreds, even thousands, of indistinct divine and Buddha-like phantoms seemed to appear out of nowhere.
They sat solemnly in the depths of his consciousness, their mouths opening in unison to chant a tune he couldn't understand.
The sound was ancient, vast, solemn, and murderous...
Countless utterly opposing moods intertwined, becoming a chaotic tidal wave of sound that surged and crashed through his mind.
Every syllable was like a heavy hammer, slamming into his Divine Soul.
"Ugh!"
Zhou Xuan let out a stifled groan. Veins bulged on his forehead, and sweat poured down his face, soaking his clothes in an instant.
It felt as if an ordinary mortal had been forcibly shoved into a Scripture Repository that held the truths of heaven and earth.
Countless profound secrets poured into his mind without restraint, threatening to burst his consciousness apart and tear it to shreds.
His body shook violently. His teeth clenched with a grinding sound, and a trace of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Any ordinary Body Tempering Realm Cultivator—or even a Qi Refining Cultivator—would likely have suffered a shattered Divine Soul and been reduced to an idiot on the spot beneath such a terrifying mental assault.
But Zhou Xuan was different.
After all, he was a transmigrator who carried the memories of two lives. His spiritual foundation was far stronger and more resilient than that of Cultivators of the same level in this world.
He stubbornly clung to the last glimmer of clarity in his Spirit Platform, letting the torrent of sound rage through his mind. He was like a tiny boat in a storm, teetering on the brink but never capsizing.
He forced himself not to understand or listen. He could only act as a bystander and endure it all.
He didn't know how long it lasted. Perhaps an instant, perhaps several hours.
Just as Zhou Xuan felt his consciousness approaching the Critical Point of collapse, the vast chant filling his mind abruptly ceased without warning.
Everything vanished.
The divine phantoms and chaotic waves of sound scattered without a trace, as if they had never appeared.
All that remained in Zhou Xuan's mind was utter silence.
He sucked in a ragged breath. He was drenched in sweat, as if he had just been hauled out of the water.
Slumped on the floor, he panted heavily. His vision swam with darkness, and it took a long while for him to recover.
When he instinctively opened his palm, he found it empty.
The Green Copper fragment, which had cost him a thousand points of Gold Touch Value, had disappeared.
Alarmed, Zhou Xuan hurried to examine his body, trying to see what had changed.
But the instant the thought arose, he suddenly sensed that something seemed to have appeared in his mind.
It was a very strange sensation, as if a new realm had opened up beyond his usual thoughts.
He closed his eyes without thinking.
The next moment, he saw it.
There was no darkness before him, but a vast, boundless, and strange space.
There was no sky or earth in this space. Gray mist filled every direction, a churning chaos with no visible boundaries.
What was this place?
Zhou Xuan was filled with confusion and shock.
He tried to walk, only to discover that he had no physical form here—only a thought.
Wherever his thoughts went, there he was.
After a moment's reflection, a term he had seen in the Sect's books leapt into his mind.
The Sea of Consciousness!
This was actually the Sea of Consciousness space he hadn't yet opened!
Zhou Xuan's heart gave a hard thump.
According to common knowledge in the Sect, only after a Cultivator induced qi into their body and officially entered the Qi Refining Realm would their Divine Soul resonate with the Spiritual Energy of heaven and earth, allowing them to open a spiritual space in their mind. That was the Sea of Consciousness.
The Sea of Consciousness was the foundation where Cultivators stored their Divine Souls, cultivated their spiritual sense, and controlled magical treasures and spells.
But he was clearly still only at the Ninth Layer of Body Forging, with an impassable chasm between him and the Qi Refining Realm. How could he have opened his Sea of Consciousness ahead of time?
Suppressing his shock, Zhou Xuan began carefully observing this space that belonged to him.
Since his Sea of Consciousness had not yet been fully opened, the entire space remained in a primitive state, as if chaos had yet to be separated. Gray mist drifted everywhere.
Yet right at the absolute center of this gray space, something was quietly suspended.
It was a scripture.
An ancient scripture that looked battered and worn.
Its pages had yellowed, and its edges were damaged, as if it had endured the erosion of endless ages. There were no words on the cover, only some indistinct, archaic patterns.
With a thought, Zhou Xuan drifted straight in front of the scripture.
He could feel that it was closely connected to this Sea of Consciousness space, as if it were the space's very core.
This must be what the Green Copper fragment had contained!
Could it be some supreme Cultivation Method that had been lost to the ages?
Zhou Xuan's heart burned with excitement. He hurriedly sent his thoughts into it, trying to understand the scripture's contents.
But when his gaze fell on the words, he discovered he couldn't read a single one.
Their shapes were utterly unlike any writing he knew. They were filled with Dao Rhyme, yet obscure and impossible to decipher.
He tried to delve deeper and grasp their meaning, but his head only began to spin. It was like gazing up at a starry sky beyond his understanding; he had no idea where to begin.
Zhou Xuan tried for a long time, then could only give up in resignation.
Even though he couldn't understand its specific contents, he could clearly feel one thing.
Under the scripture's suppression and nourishment, his Divine Soul had grown far stronger than before!
His thoughts were clearer, his senses sharper, and his mind felt fuller than ever.
His Divine Soul had raced ahead of his body!
Zhou Xuan immediately understood what an astonishing opportunity he had gained.
This was undoubtedly a special, heaven-sent fortune!
The Divine Soul was an unfathomable thing, inborn and incredibly difficult to strengthen after birth.
Most importantly, the strength of one's Divine Soul had nothing to do with the quality of one's Spirit Root!
As far as he knew, there was no method for specifically cultivating the Divine Soul anywhere in the Sect.
Even across the entire Cultivation World, such Cultivation Methods were as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns. Almost all of them belonged to powerful Cultivators who had reached the Nascent Soul Realm, a level that alone qualified them to encounter such a field.
And he—a Chore Disciple in the Body Tempering Realm—had stumbled onto this path ahead of time.
This door that had opened by chance might not help him break through to the Qi Refining Realm directly, but it had laid a broad, unrivaled road for his future journey toward immortality!
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