The Sea of Consciousness First Opens

Inside the thatched hut, Zhou Xuan sat cross-legged with a solemn expression.

His gaze was locked tightly onto the unremarkable piece of Green Copper in his palm; the cold sensation seeping from it seemed to speak of the long, ancient years it had endured.

Zhou Xuan sank his consciousness into the system panel.

With a flick of his intent, he targeted the Green Copper fragment in his palm.

"System, perform Enlightenment on this item!"

[Ding! Unknown fragment detected, containing incomplete Dao laws. Consume 1000 Gold Touch Value to perform Enlightenment?]

The system's prompt echoed in his mind, and the cost made Zhou Xuan's heart skip a beat.

One thousand points!

This was almost his entire fortune.

But there was no turning back now; he had no better options.

"Enlightenment!" Zhou Xuan growled in his heart.

[Gold Touch Value -1000!]

[Gold Touch Value balance: 27!]

Almost the moment he confirmed, the Green Copper fragment in his palm shuddered violently.

Hum!

A brilliant, dazzling green light erupted from the fragment, instantly bathing the entire humble hut in a verdant glow.

The radiance was not blinding; instead, it carried an ancient and profound aura.

Immediately after, an even stranger scene unfolded.

Within that green light, countless golden runes, each the size of a grain of rice and incredibly profound, emerged from thin air. They swirled around the Green Copper fragment like living creatures, eventually converging into scriptures he could not decipher at all.

Zhou Xuan didn't even have time to marvel before those golden scriptures transformed into a stream of light, giving him no time to react as they drilled straight into the center of his brow.

Boom!

In an instant, Zhou Xuan felt as if his head had been struck by a thunderbolt from the nine heavens, and his entire world seemed to shatter in a heartbeat.

In his mind, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of blurry phantoms of gods and buddhas appeared out of thin air.

These gods and buddhas were solemn and dignified, sitting cross-legged in the depths of his consciousness, all opening their mouths in unison to chant melodies he could not understand.

The sound was ancient, grand, majestic, and murderous...

Countless contradictory moods intertwined, forming an indescribable wave of chaotic sound that washed and surged madly through his mind.

Each syllable felt like a heavy hammer, slamming ruthlessly against his soul.

"Ugh, ah."

Zhou Xuan let out a stifled groan. Veins bulged on his forehead, and beads of sweat the size of beans rolled down, instantly soaking his clothes.

The feeling was akin to a mortal being forcibly stuffed into a library containing the ultimate truths of heaven and earth.

Countless profound pieces of knowledge were poured into his brain without consent, threatening to burst his consciousness and tear it apart.

His body trembled violently, his teeth clenched so hard they made a grinding sound, and a trace of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

Had it been any ordinary Body Tempering Realm cultivator, or even a Qi Refining Realm cultivator, they would likely have suffered a soul collapse under such terrifying mental impact and turned into an idiot on the spot.

But Zhou Xuan was different.

After all, he was a transmigrator carrying the memories of two lifetimes; his mental foundation was far stronger and more resilient than those of his peers in this world.

He clung desperately to a sliver of clarity in his mind, letting the torrential waves of sound rage within, like a lone boat in a storm—shaky and precarious, yet never capsizing.

He forced himself not to understand, not to listen, simply acting as a bystander and enduring it all head-on.

He did not know how much time had passed—perhaps an instant, perhaps several hours.

Just as Zhou Xuan felt his consciousness reaching the breaking point, the grand chanting that filled his entire mind ceased without warning.

Everything vanished.

Those phantoms of gods and buddhas, those chaotic sound waves—they dissipated instantly, leaving no trace, as if they had never existed.

In Zhou Xuan's mind, only dead silence remained.

He gasped for air, his entire body drenched in sweat as if he had been fished out of water.

He slumped to the ground, breathing heavily, his vision blacking out; it took a long while for him to regain his senses.

When he subconsciously opened his palm, he found it completely empty.

The Green Copper fragment that had cost him one thousand Gold Touch Value was gone.

Zhou Xuan was startled and hurriedly tried to check his body to see what changes had occurred.

However, the moment this thought arose, he suddenly felt that something new had appeared in his mind.

It was a very strange sensation, as if a new realm had been opened up beyond his original thoughts.

He subconsciously closed his eyes.

The next moment, he saw it.

Before his eyes, the darkness had vanished, replaced by a vast and boundless, strange space.

In this space, there was no sky and no earth; all directions were filled with a gray, hazy mist, a chaotic void with no visible boundaries.

What is this place?

Zhou Xuan's heart was filled with doubt and shock.

He tried to walk, only to discover that he had no physical form here, possessing only his consciousness.

Wherever his thoughts went, his presence followed.

He pondered for a moment, and a term he had once seen in the sect's archives suddenly leaped from the depths of his memory.

Sea of Consciousness!

This was actually his own Sea of Consciousness, a space he had not yet even opened!

Zhou Xuan's heart gave a violent jolt.

According to common sect knowledge, only when a cultivator performs Qi Induction and officially steps into the Qi Refining Realm, allowing their soul to resonate with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, can they open up a personal mental space within their mind—that is the Sea of Consciousness.

The Sea of Consciousness is the foundation where a cultivator stores their soul, cultivates divine sense, and controls magical treasures and spells.

Yet, he was clearly only at the ninth level of the Body Tempering Realm, still separated from the Qi Refining Realm by an insurmountable chasm; how could he have opened his Sea of Consciousness prematurely?

Zhou Xuan suppressed the shock in his heart and began to carefully observe this space that belonged to him.

Because the Sea of Consciousness had not been fully opened, the entire space remained in a primitive, chaotic state, filled everywhere with gray mist.

But right in the absolute center of this gray space, there was an object floating silently.

It was a scripture.

An ancient, tattered-looking scripture.

Its pages were yellowed and its edges frayed, as if it had endured the erosion of endless years. There were no words on the cover, only some blurred, archaic patterns.

With a shift of his thoughts, Zhou Xuan instantly drifted before the scripture.

He could feel that this scripture was closely linked to this Sea of Consciousness, as if it were the core of this entire space.

This must be the thing contained within that piece of Green Copper!

Could it be some kind of lost, supreme cultivation technique?

Zhou Xuan's heart burned with excitement. He couldn't wait to project his consciousness into it, attempting to understand the contents of the scripture.

However, when his gaze touched the characters on the scripture, he found that he couldn't understand a single one.

The shapes of those characters were completely different from anything he knew; they were filled with the rhythm of the Dao, yet obscure and difficult to decipher.

He tried to delve deeper to grasp their meaning, but only felt a wave of dizziness, as if he were looking up at an incomprehensible starry sky, with no way to begin.

Zhou Xuan tried for a long time, but in the end, he had to give up helplessly.

However, although he could not understand the specific content, he could clearly feel one thing.

That was that his soul, under the suppression and nourishment of this scripture, had become far stronger than before!

His thinking had become clearer, his perception more acute, and his entire spirit was in a state of unprecedented fullness.

His soul had outpaced his physical body!

Zhou Xuan instantly understood what an astonishing opportunity he had received.

This was absolutely a special kind of fortune!

One must know that the soul is something mysterious and profound, innate and extremely difficult to improve through acquired means.

Most importantly, the strength of the soul has nothing to do with the quality of one's Spirit Root!

In his impression, there were no methods in the sect specifically for cultivating the soul.

Even looking at the entire cultivation world, such techniques were as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns, and they were almost exclusively a domain that only great cultivators who had reached the Nascent Soul Realm were qualified to touch.

And he, a mere handyman disciple in the Body Tempering Realm, had stumbled onto this path by accident.

This unexpectedly opened door might not directly help him break through to the Qi Refining Realm, but it had paved a broad, unparalleled road for his future path to immortality!