He endured it, and at last, class was over.
Li Su grabbed his schoolbag and ran, quickly rushing out of school.
Hmm, the streets hadn't changed much. This was where he had once lived for decades.
Though things were a little different from what he remembered, the general layout hadn't changed much. After confirming his direction, Li Su headed straight for an internet cafe.
Back when he was in school, internet cafes had already spread across every street and alley. By the time he graduated, they had begun to dwindle, replaced by internet lounges.
Before long, Li Su found an internet cafe he used to visit often.
Starry Sky Internet Cafe.
"Boss, start me up a computer."
"Got a membership?"
"No."
"Want to sign up? There's a special offer right now. Add fifty, get fifty free."
Li Su's mouth twitched. Back when he was young, even though he'd already started to have some money, he was a day student, and having five yuan on him was pretty good. Fifty? What was he thinking?
"Of course not. Just a temporary card. Add five yuan."
"Here you go!"
He hurried over to a regular computer, sat down, and logged on.
First, World Fragments!
Great, this world had Qian-Du too.
After browsing through the results, Li Su fell silent for a moment, then typed in another search: Level 7 Grandmaster.
As expected, Qian-Du had information on that too.
After looking around for nearly an hour, Li Su got up, logged off, and left the internet cafe.
He jogged all the way.
Following his memories, he made it back to the home he'd lived in before it was demolished.
Standing downstairs, Li Su couldn't hold back any longer. He started jumping around, his eyes burning with excitement—no, with outright fervor.
At last, he'd figured it out.
First!
His situation couldn't really be called a rebirth. It was more like a rebirth combined with a transmigration.
And this world had once suffered an immense catastrophe known as the Great Cataclysm!
Its cause? Its reason? No one knew.
The only thing people knew was that the Great Cataclysm had killed countless people. Even civilization itself had been severed. Many years later, the survivors not only had no idea what had caused the Great Cataclysm, they didn't even know what the world had looked like before it.
And then!
Something had appeared in this world—something incomparably mysterious and wondrous.
World Fragments.
They were about the size of a palm and looked like crystals, but they weren't solid objects. They were made of energy, and no instrument could detect them. Normally, they were only as large as crystals, but when activated, they transformed into a door. Once someone stepped through, they vanished into the Fragment.
That was why they were called World Fragments: those palm-sized crystals contained entire worlds, each with its own culture and civilization, vivid and varied.
And that wasn't all. Unlike the outside world, these worlds wielded supernatural powers.
There were martial worlds driven by inner force.
There were Daoist worlds powered by magical energy.
There were mythic worlds where immortals existed.
Based on what was found inside, these civilizations had been roughly divided into several dynasties.
Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming.
There had been dynasties before the Sui, too, but Qian-Du didn't provide any detailed information about them.
Since these worlds seemed to follow on from one another, people believed they had once formed a complete history of civilization—or perhaps they were the civilization that had existed before the Great Cataclysm, shattered into separate World Fragments when the world fell apart.
To uncover the cause of the destruction, people began organizing teams to enter and investigate.
Though a thousand years had passed, no one had yet discovered what had caused the Great Cataclysm. But they had found that if people entered these worlds and managed to come back out "successfully," they could bring back the extraordinary power possessed by the people inside.
There were two ways to gain that power.
One was to cultivate techniques inside.
The other was to analyze that world.
At the same time, Li Su understood why that so-called Murong Tianxiu from the video, and Dharma King Tianlun, were so powerful—able to destroy the heavens and earth with a casual gesture.
It was simple.
They had entered World Fragments many times.
When people entered a World Fragment, they always possessed someone in that world.
That created a problem. The first time was fine, but starting with the second time, the power you'd obtained during your first visit disappeared, and everything began again from scratch.
Take the Dragon-Elephant Prajna Art, for example. If you gained it during your first visit and cultivated it for sixty years, you'd start from zero the next time you entered. If you survived that life and cultivated the Dragon-Elephant Prajna Art for another sixty years, then once you left, your original inner force would double, even if you hadn't made any practical breakthroughs.
Just imagine the difference between sixty years of inner force and a hundred and twenty years.
Its power wouldn't simply double. It would probably undergo a complete transformation.
And what if you entered a third time, a fourth, a fifth—and kept going until you'd entered seven times, like Murong Tianxiu and the others?
If one palm could smash a wall before, then it wasn't hard to imagine it smashing a mountain now.
After all, cultivating again on a second visit was absolutely different from cultivating for the first time. Even if the time was the same, the results would be something else entirely. After accumulating this way over several visits, never mind what technique they practiced—their several hundred years of inner force alone would be terrifying.
Thinking of this, Li Su trembled with excitement, his whole body shaking.
If he could, he'd have loved to throw back his head and let out a long roar, shouting to the whole world, "I'm going to become the ruler of the world!"
Why, you ask?
Do you even need to ask?
Because when he'd searched online, he'd discovered that every world known to humanity, every world ever recorded, came from a novel he'd read.
He knew those worlds like the back of his hand.
Top-tier techniques?
Analyze the worlds?
Haha, what was there to explain?
The Nine Yang Divine Skill in the Lanka Sutra at Shaolin Temple.
The Northern Dark Divine Skill and Lingbo Micro-steps in Langhuan Blessed Land beneath Wuliang Cave.
The Eagle Saber belonging to Chuan Ying in Han Mansion, and the God of War Record, in Overturning Clouds and Rain.
And then there was Handsome Siblings. The Mo Wuque in that story inherited the Yi Hua Jade-Transferring Technique from Yi Hua Palace. And speaking of Yi Hua Palace, how could he not mention the famous Bright Jade Art? There was a chance to get that one too: at the very end, neither of the two palace mistresses was in Yi Hua Palace.
How could Li Su not be excited thinking about all this?
He had to enter a World Fragment. He absolutely had to.
What boy didn't have a martial arts dream? Nine Yin and Nine Yang, Dragon-Subduing and Six Meridians, Wedding Dress Art and Bright Jade Art, Longevity Art and the Demon-Planting Technique. Never mind how powerful it would be to get them from those small worlds; just gathering all the techniques he'd fantasized about countless times into one person was enough to drive him wild with excitement.
And besides, how could he think of Overturning Clouds and Rain and not think of the legendary Dao Heart Demon-Planting Technique?
The legendary stud technique!!!
If you were a man who'd read Overturning Clouds and Rain, and you'd seen Han Bo's adventures, then answer me this: weren't you jealous?
He had to enter a World Fragment!
The world was opening its doors to me!!!