The sun sank in the west, and the last trace of warmth was swallowed by the ink-blue sky. The endless wilderness fell into deathly silence.
The cold wind began to rise, sharp as a blade as it swept over Lin Fan's bare skin, sending shivers rippling through him.
The farmer's brazen mockery from earlier that day, his verdict of "a total weakling," still rang in Lin Fan's ears. Every word pierced his heart, ten times more chilling than the night air.
He stumbled away from the dirt road where he had suffered such terrible humiliation, then curled up beneath a cluster of jagged rocks sheltered from the wind. He clutched himself tightly, his teeth chattering with a faint, brittle sound.
Unknown insects crawled through the cracks in the rocks. From deep within the distant forest came the occasional, faint roar of a beast, adding to the sense of danger.
Racked by hunger and cold, covered in wounds, with no hope in sight.
A crushing despair weighed on his chest like a block of ice, nearly robbing him of breath.
The Dragon Ball World... This was a terrifying place where mountains could collapse and energy could pierce the skies at any moment. The strong could dim the stars with a wave of their hands, while he was nothing but a "total weakling" with no clothes but his own skin and a battle power as low as dust.
Forget the Saiyans who roamed the universe and the Frost Demons. Even that monstrous beast from earlier—or a slightly larger wolf—could easily take his life.
"Could it be... that I'm really going to die here, becoming a pile of bones in this wilderness, with no one ever finding me?"
He murmured to himself, his voice hoarse and dry, filled with despair and unwillingness to give up.
His consciousness blurred from the cold and exhaustion. The events of his more than twenty years of life swept through his mind like scenes from a film: studying through long nights, office politics, working himself to death...
He had thought he'd already hit rock bottom. Who could have imagined that after death, he would fall into an even deeper, more desperate abyss?
Just as his mind grew hazy and he was about to freeze to death in this strange wilderness, a faint, defiant flame suddenly sprang up from the deepest part of his nearly frozen heart.
I can't die!
Even if I'm a total weakling, even if I'm as insignificant as an ant, I can't just die here without a sound!
Dying at his desk had been absurd enough. How could he let his story end with his body exposed in the wilderness?
His fierce, almost stubborn will to live was like a final spark, igniting his fading consciousness.
This thought was more focused than anything he had ever felt, pure and powerful as it surged straight toward his spirit!
Suddenly!
Deep in the murky darkness of his sea of consciousness, ten thousand rays of golden light burst forth without warning!
The radiance blazed with glorious brilliance, but was not harsh. Instead, it carried an indescribably ancient, vast, and supreme Daoist aura, instantly dispelling the cold, despair, and darkness.
Where the golden light passed, his sea of consciousness seemed like chaos being opened up. It became clear, vast, and stable.
At the center of the boundless golden light, a massive, ancient book slowly appeared. It was neither metal nor jade, neither silk nor leather.
Profound, inscrutable Daoist patterns intertwined naturally across its cover, forming four characters that embodied the highest principles: the Great Dao Source Scripture!
The moment the book appeared, Lin Fan's turbulent mind settled. A tremor and a sense of connection rose from deep within his soul, as though the book had been his lost possession all along and had finally returned to him.
Without any prompting from him, the Great Dao Source Scripture opened by itself to the first page.
There were no ordinary words on the page, only countless tiny golden runes, as dense as stardust and ceaselessly flowing.
The runes were extraordinarily profound. Though Lin Fan could not recognize their shapes or understand their meaning, the boundless truths they contained poured naturally into the depths of his soul, as if he had received an infusion of enlightenment, and were engraved there without the slightest resistance.
"The valley spirit never dies; this is called the Mysterious Female. The gateway of the Mysterious Female is called the root of Heaven and Earth. Continuous, seemingly present, it is used without ever being exhausted..."
"Attain the utmost emptiness; maintain profound stillness. The myriad things arise together, and I observe their return..."
"Draw qi into the body and refine the essence into the sea; thus is the Dao foundation established..."
Passages of scripture containing the truths of Heaven and Earth, along with an incomparably mysterious method of breathing and guiding qi, became clear to his senses.
At the same time, though his mortal eyes could not see it, his spiritual perception had grown incredibly keen with the activation of the Great Dao Source Scripture. He could clearly "see" that countless particles of energy, tiny as dust and glowing faintly, were floating in the dark void around him!
The particles came in different colors—green, yellow, red, white, black... The five colors mingled together, each containing a strange vitality and spirituality.
As if drawn by an invisible force, they began to gather slowly, thread by thread, around Lin Fan's body.
"This is... qi? Spiritual energy?!"
A sudden flash of insight struck Lin Fan, and he understood at once.
It had to be the energy that existed in this world, of the same origin as the "ki" used by the warriors of the Dragon Ball World, but more primitive, more primordial, and closer to its original form!
He had no time to wonder where the Great Dao Source Scripture had come from or what level of treasure it was. His desperate will to survive drove him to follow the supreme method in his mind and try to guide the faint energy gathering inside him.
He cast aside every distracting thought and tried to adjust his breathing until it was deep, long, fine, and slow, in harmony with a unique rhythm of Heaven and Earth.
He sank his thoughts into his body, trying to catch and guide the cool currents that flowed in faint, threadlike wisps.
At first, it was extremely difficult. Once the spiritual energy entered his body, it darted around like a mischievous sprite, impossible to control.
Lin Fan's mind remained taut and utterly focused. He dared not slacken for even a moment as he circulated the profound qi-guiding method again and again.
After an unknown length of time, thanks to his relentless effort, a faint, cool current finally began to move along a mysterious path under the clumsy, slow guidance of his thoughts.
Where it passed, warmth—faint as a trickle of rain after a long drought—spread through the skin and bones numbed by the cold. The pain and fatigue seemed to ease by the tiniest degree.
He'd done it!
It was only a single thread of energy, and its course was halting and unsteady, but this was truly the drawing of qi into the body!
He had successfully caught and guided the spiritual energy of this world!
A surge of joy and hope swept through him like a warm current, instantly washing away his icy despair.
He did not dare let up. Forcing down his excitement, he immersed himself even more deeply in the process, circulating this most basic method again and again.
More and more particles of spiritual energy were drawn in and entered his body, absorbed and refined by the flowing current.
The current, initially as thin as a thread, gradually grew a little stronger, and its circulation became much smoother.
Gradually, Lin Fan entered a wondrous state in which he forgot himself and the world around him.
The biting wind outside, the roars of beasts in the distance, and the pain of his injuries all seemed to fade away.
All his attention was immersed in the faint current flowing through his body. He felt it resonate with the countless particles of spiritual energy in the world around him, nourishing and repairing his battered body.
He was still hungry, and the cold had not entirely faded, but the profound helplessness and despair that had sunk into his bones were gradually replaced by this faint yet resilient new power.
The Great Dao Source Scripture continued to float quietly in his sea of consciousness, radiating gentle, peaceful golden light that suppressed all evil and clarified his mind.
The runes flowed across its pages, the Daoist aura innate within them, as if they held the supreme secrets of the primordial universe, waiting for him to unlock them one by one.
The night remained deep and cold.
Yet beneath the rocks, an almost imperceptible glow gradually enveloped Lin Fan. His breathing was long and rhythmic, and his face was no longer deathly pale; a trace of color had returned.
He was still naked, still covered in wounds, and still a "total weakling."
But a seed containing the supreme Dao had been quietly planted in this wasteland, so barren it was nearly parched.
The flame of hope had been kindled once more.
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