Awakening

Midnight.

Tang Ping, a 32-year-old software engineer with a monthly salary of 25,000.

"Tap, tap, tap~"

The slow clacking of the keyboard echoed through the quiet night. As a senior software engineer, Tang Ping's coding process clearly wasn't what outsiders imagined: fingers flying as lines of code appeared one after another on the screen.

Those in the know understood that what programmers were best at was actually copying and pasting. Then came the three great questions of programming:

Why won't this code run?

I didn't touch anything. Why did the program crash?

How is this massive pile of crap still running smoothly?

Once he solved the problem, he'd successfully completed a task. Then it was on to another round of copy-pasting and bug hunting.

"Hoo~" Tang Ping let out a long breath. After fixing the last bug he'd written himself, he casually blamed the testing team in his work log, then stretched mightily.

At 32, after years of overtime, all-nighters, pulling all-nighters, drinking coffee, and eating food loaded with oil and salt, he'd acquired the hallmarks of a peerless powerhouse: slight baldness, a slight paunch, cervical and spinal problems, lumbar muscle strain, and all sorts of other occupational ailments.

A few more years of this and he'd retire. Even if he didn't, he'd probably get laid off, right? Then he could enjoy himself, work out, and travel the world. Heh heh~

Chuckling to himself, Tang Ping rose with bright dreams for the future—then his vision went black, and he collapsed.

He'd died suddenly!

"Brother Ping! Brother Ping, wake up! Why are you so pale? Don't scare me!"

The frantic cries stabbed at his eardrums. Tang Ping's consciousness struggled out of a haze, his eyelids heavy as lead. He managed to crack them open, and the first thing he saw wasn't the familiar ceiling of his dorm room, but a vaulted dome glimmering with cool silver light.

The dome wasn't solid. It was a holographic canopy formed from countless flowing particles, slowly scrolling lines of pale blue text: "Warrior Graduation Assessment: Guide to Submitting University Preferences · Version 37."

He sat bolt upright and realized he'd been slumped over a streamlined silver-gray desk. Its surface was a transparent, flexible light screen. The moment he touched it, the screen lit up and displayed his personal information: "Tang Ping, Apprentice Rank Level Nine Warrior, Overall Rating: A-, Preference Submission Countdown: 03:59:47."

The scene around him fully awakened his memories. This was the graduation classroom at Jiangnan City Warrior Academy, in the Swallowed Star World.

The walls were made of color-changing smart alloy panels, currently set to a deep blue that simulated the starry sky. Tiny points of light were embedded across them, like a map of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Three person-sized "gravity simulation pods" stood at the back of the classroom. Their casings bore the label "Luo Family Heavy Industry · G-100 Model"—a product of the Luo Family, now the dominant power in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Even the students' chairs had built-in levitation functions. If someone found sitting uncomfortable, a light press on the armrest would automatically tilt the chair into a reclined position, a faint blue anti-gravity glow rising from beneath it.

"I... I'm actually in the world of Swallowed Star?" Tang Ping's mind buzzed as memories of staying up late to read the novel mingled with his experiences in this life.

He recalled the crucial details: by this point, Luo Feng had already finished the Genius Tournament and become the Galaxy Lord. The entire Milky Way Galaxy was now within the Luo Family's sphere of influence. And in this life, Tang Ping not only shared his previous life's name, but had also received two pieces of good news that would make ordinary people envious.

First: his parents had once been members of the Luo Family's guard unit. During an interstellar transport run, they encountered space pirates, and not a single member of their team survived.

The Luo Family, grateful for their past service, had paid a huge lump-sum compensation and promised to give Tang Ping an annual "survivor's stipend." Together with the inheritance his parents had left him, it meant he'd never have to worry about food or clothing.

Second: he was even luckier in that his martial talent far surpassed that of ordinary people. At eighteen, he was already an Apprentice Rank Level Nine warrior, on the verge of breaking through to the legendary Planetary Rank. He was consistently among the top five in his graduating class and was regarded by his teachers as a "promising prospect."

Of course, there was one piece of bad news: he'd been a simp. A girl in his class named Zhang Min had led him around by the nose, often finding excuses to borrow money so he'd buy her all kinds of cultivation supplies.

Without that woman dragging him down, he could've been even stronger.

"Brother Ping, you're finally awake! You suddenly fainted while filling out your preferences. You scared me half to death." His close friend Liu Hui leaned over, holding an "Energy Pen."

The pen was made of pale purple crystal. It could automatically absorb free-floating energy in the air, and the words it wrote glowed faintly.

Tang Ping looked at the preference form on the light screen, still unsubmitted, and his expression instantly darkened.

He remembered what had happened just before he fainted: Zhang Min had come over and badgered him until he agreed to give up applying to the top-ranked "Galaxy Warrior University" and choose the second-tier "Jiangnan Interstellar Academy" instead, just like her. Her excuse had been that they could look out for each other in the future.

He'd been bewitched at the time and had actually considered it. But when he finally worked up the courage to ask, "Xiaomin, if we apply to the same university, could we be together in the future?" Zhang Min had smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "Tang Ping, don't get the wrong idea. I've always thought of you as a big brother. As for dating, we should focus on our studies. We can talk about everything else after graduation."

A big brother?

He remembered his two years as her simp: Zhang Min said she didn't have enough cultivation resources, and he immediately gave her the Dragon Blood Crystal his parents had left him.

Zhang Min said she wanted to buy the latest model of the Telekinesis Training Device, and he gritted his teeth, borrowed money from his classmates, and scraped together a million Silver Blue Coins. He'd even pulled strings to get Zhang Min's younger brother into a Luo Family-affiliated middle school... And now she was saying she thought of him as a big brother?

In a fit of rage, Tang Ping had fainted on the spot.

"Wow. So I've been a complete sucker these past two years?" Remembering all that, Tang Ping felt his blood rush to his head.

But just then, a cool sensation suddenly came from deep within his mind, as if a veil of Chaos had been cleaved apart.

He instinctively concentrated. A faint silver light appeared at his fingertips, and an Energy Pen beside a desk rose into the air without warning, slowly floating into his palm.

"Is this... Spiritual Telekinesis?!" Tang Ping's eyes lit up.

He clearly remembered that Luo Feng had first stood out through his Spiritual Telekinesis, becoming Earth's savior and making a huge impression in the Genius Tournament.

The Galaxy Lord, third place in the Cosmic Humans' Star Rank Genius Tournament! That was the potential of a Spirit Reader!

And now, he'd unexpectedly benefited from his fainting spell. Not only had he awakened his memories from his previous life, he'd also opened his mindscape and become a legendary Spirit Reader!

The students around him were still arguing over their preferences. Some were racking their brains to get into the Luo Family's businesses, while others wore worried frowns over cultivation resources.

But a blazing fire had ignited in Tang Ping's heart. He had memories of the story from his previous life, support from the Luo Family's stipend, and now the "cheat" of Spiritual Telekinesis. His future would go far beyond Planetary Rank!

He deleted "Jiangnan Interstellar Academy" from the light screen, filled in "Galaxy Warrior University" without hesitation, and pressed the submit button hard.

A golden confirmation light flashed across the screen. He could almost see himself standing beside Luo Feng, riding across the Milky Way.

"Woohoo, here I come!" Tang Ping cheered inwardly, unable to stop the corners of his mouth from lifting.