New Life of Fantasy and Reality

Dreamlike Rebirth into Reality

Warm, brilliant sunlight shone through the window into a clean, orderly room. Gradually, a mischievous ray of sunlight crept onto a gentle, scholarly sleeping face. The sleeping young man's brow twitched. Perhaps the sunlight had disturbed him, but his frown soon deepened, fine beads of sweat seeped across his forehead, and his body stiffened as though he were trapped in a nightmare from which he could not wake.

"Ah!"

A cry of agony shattered the quiet, gentle morning. Mu Xiao abruptly sat upright, opening a pair of sword-cold eyes that flashed with a fleeting, intimidating gleam—utterly at odds with his gentle, scholarly features.

"What happened?!" Mu Xiao's breathing came fast, his chest rose and fell, and his heart pounded wildly. His fierce, wolf-like gaze swept across the room as he instinctively asked again, "Where is this? Wasn't I fighting to the death?!"

His entire consciousness froze.

"No! I should be dead... Yet I'm alive again?"

The room remained quiet. Only a figure as motionless as a statue sat on the bed.

Mu Xiao forced himself to calm down. He quickly ruled out the possibility that someone had saved him, and dismissed the possibility that an enemy family had captured him alive. He coldly examined every arrangement in the room, then suddenly noticed that some of the items and devices were antiques in the New World. Yet they felt both unfamiliar and incomparably familiar to him, as though he would know how to use them the moment he touched them.

"What is this overwhelming sense of dissonance...?"

A contradictory feeling of familiarity and strangeness rose within Mu Xiao.

At that moment, it was as though he had touched upon some crucial trigger. Countless scenes flashed through his sea of consciousness like lightning. Memories of his lost youth and memories of becoming a New Human all surged forth. That path of evolution—from ordinary life to slaughter—was so vivid before his eyes. Yet in the end, he had died amid the fierce battle on the moon!

At this point, all vigilance had vanished from Mu Xiao's face, replaced first by bewilderment, then shock, and finally a profound, impenetrable gravity and disbelief.

"Is this... rebirth?"

He still could not believe those "absurd" things in his mind. He immediately got out of bed and walked to a metal desk. Pressing his palm against its surface, he found it was not as cold as he had imagined. Instead, it felt as warm and smooth as jade, once again stirring that familiar yet unfamiliar sensation.

Lines of light lit up across the metal desktop, darting and moving like tiny snakes. A one-meter-wide holographic screen popped up before him, and a pleasant, sweet female voice sounded.

"Master Xiao, welcome to Xixi."

A highly realistic beauty appeared on the holographic screen. Smiling sweetly with lifelike expressions, she said, "Xiao Xiao, you woke up ten minutes early today! Xixi has canceled the alarm command! Please approve it, Master Xiao!"

"Ha!"

Mu Xiao lowered his head and held his forehead, one hand braced against the edge of the metal desk as he let out an incredibly complicated laugh. The sight before him, the sensations of his body, the scent of the air, everything in the room—all of it told him that this was no illusion. It was real.

"...Please approve it, Master Xiao!" the holographic beauty repeated.

Mu Xiao knew exactly what this holographic beauty was. It was a household intelligent computer. Such antiques did not exist at all in the New World he had once lived in; they existed only in another world he had once known—the old world.

When the holographic beauty repeated herself again, Mu Xiao helplessly gave his approval, while also issuing a command for a "mirror."

The metal desktop split apart, and a large mirror rose from within, clearly reflecting Mu Xiao's current appearance.

He had regular features, a mature and clear-eyed look, and a refined, gentle demeanor. At a glance, anyone would see him as a trustworthy, decent man. Only his sharp, brilliant gaze and cold temperament differed.

"Damn it! It really is what I looked like back then. Compared to who I became later, I look like such a decent man now—but I'm missing so much, and this body is unbelievably weak..."

Mu Xiao finally accepted that he had been reborn onto an unimaginable point in the timeline. But soon, uncontrollable ecstasy surged through his heart. He clearly remembered that his former self should have died at the hands of his enemies. Now that he had returned to this old world, it meant that the New World had not yet arrived. Everything could still be changed!

Memories of the old world flooded back like a tide...

Before the New World arrived, humanity had already entered an age of cutting-edge technology, and the moon had become the holy land of human civilization.

Mu Xiao had been born in that lunar holy land, a place countless people envied to madness. But at sixteen, he had defied his family's discipline amid the rebellious arrogance of youth. Then, during a power struggle on the moon, his vast and influential family collapsed completely, and the halo that had once shone like the stars faded into darkness.

His parents became sacrifices in the power struggle. Only he and his younger sister survived, but they were expelled from the lunar holy land and reduced to struggling for survival on Earth. At first, he was battered bloody by this dog-eat-dog society, until he gradually understood that the glorious identity he once possessed was gone. He ground away his youthful arrogance and sharp edges. For the sake of the sister who depended on him, he became a decent man and prepared to live an ordinary life, with no thought of revenge, because the moon was something he could never shake.

Yet the New Human Project appeared, and the world entered the "Age of Evolution," rekindling the flames of vengeance within him. But revenge came at a terrible cost: the death of his only sister. It drove his craving for power to an extreme. He fought day after day, enduring countless hardships of blood and sweat, stepping over the corpses of innumerable powerhouses and monsters, until he slaughtered his way into the moon's headquarters. There, he learned that the force which had destroyed his family had been one of the sinister factions behind the New Human Project. He even uncovered a heaven-shaking secret on the moon—and paid for it with his life...

Mu Xiao suppressed the past in his heart and calmly faced this miraculous rebirth, refusing to let any error arise in his thoughts as he began to confront his current situation.

The technological era he had returned to was at the beginning of life's evolution. In other words, he had been reborn at the very start of the world's evolution... How this world developed into a chaotic, dark age; how humans became New Humans; how those peerless powerhouses were born; what stories lay behind them; and what earth-shattering conspiracy lay behind the entire tale—thinking about it made him increasingly excited. It was as though he stood upon the shoulders of a giant, able to see the history of the Age of Evolution with perfect clarity. Endless opportunities lay right before him!

"If fate arranged for my rebirth, then I will surely seize my destiny in my own hands! I will never again muddle my way onto that extreme path of evolution!"

"With memories of the future, if I still cannot rewrite my little sister's tragedy, then what right do I have to live? What right do I have to surpass my former self and embark upon the endless road of evolution!"

"The things I once regretted will never happen again! The opportunities that once slipped through my fingers will all be in my grasp! As for those enemies from the past, I will make sure they die miserable deaths!"

"All the hardship and pain I once endured will become the source of strength that drives me to the pinnacle!"

"In the future, all New Humans will revere me as the supreme one! Every false god will become a stepping stone beneath my feet! I will become a true god!"

Mu Xiao's fingers moved rapidly across the intelligent holographic screen. Pages of information fluttered out like snowflakes, surrounding him on both sides.

"Earth Federation... Age of Evolution! I'm so happy right now I can hardly stand it!"

He once again confirmed that the world he was in was indeed at the beginning of the Age of Evolution, afraid that this might be nothing more than a beautiful dream.

"If I couldn't clearly feel my own breathing and heartbeat, I'd truly suspect I was dreaming." Mu Xiao looked at the information on the holographic screen, all of it news and data from this era. At this time, the world was entirely at peace. There was no so-called apocalypse.

But Mu Xiao knew very clearly that all of this was merely the calm before the storm.

"At least I have extensive evolutionary experience. I even fought on the moon..." Mu Xiao felt more relaxed and exhilarated than ever before, as though the entire Age of Evolution lay within his control and his fate would now follow his will. But before he could rejoice for long, he discovered something that made his face drain of color.

The holographic interface clearly displayed today's date: August 28, 2288!

It was such a memorable and auspicious date, yet to Mu Xiao, it felt as though he had swallowed a pile of dead flies. His expression became utterly hideous.

Because today was the day the Earth Federation would erupt into an evolutionary frenzy—or, in other words, the apocalyptic crisis. No one in the past could forget this date. Now that it was written so clearly before him, how could Mu Xiao not know? Thus, his plan to become an advanced evolver several years in advance was completely ruined.

"The apocalypse will break out at five in the afternoon. It's around eight in the morning now, leaving me less than nine hours to protect myself and make arrangements that benefit me..." Mu Xiao's mind entered an emergency state. It raced at high speed through everything he knew about human evolution and the secrets hidden within it, turning all of it into his own cheat.

Ever since Mu Xiao discovered that he had been reborn—and that he was once again at the most critical point of the Age of Evolution—his emotions had been far from as calm as he had imagined. What he was grateful for, however, was that the crisis had yet to occur. That meant the world had not yet fallen into an utterly terrible state.

Relatively speaking, it was still "safe," and he had time to gradually adapt to his "new life" and adjust his mindset.

But now that he knew today was the "date of the apocalypse," the immense impending catastrophe forced him to accept his current circumstances and begin planning how to survive.

If the world he had been reborn into had been in the later stages of the apocalypse, when everyone had already adapted to that hellish era and the people of the past had established their own factions, then Mu Xiao would have had no advantage whatsoever. He would also have missed countless major events and lost the golden opportunity to rapidly grow stronger. That would have been truly terrible...

Because this beginning was the darkest period of the entire apocalyptic age, and also the time when the great Age of Evolution truly began to take shape.

Moreover, the Earth Federation possessed cutting-edge technology. If Mu Xiao had found himself at the height of this world's development, he would have been nothing more than a nobody, constantly threatened by powerful figures. Especially in this dark era, those threats would have been even more obvious and deadly. But now, everything was still in its infancy. He had the chance to evolve himself into the strongest new human, perhaps even rise above every faction that had once existed.

To him, this was the advantage of foresight!

Do not forget: he possessed the experience of a veteran evolver in this world. That was undoubtedly an exceptionally precious asset.

Faced with so many unbelievable events in a single morning, Mu Xiao was able to calm down and think with extreme rationality because he himself had once been a powerful new human who acted alone and made his own decisions.

At this time, he had not forgotten about his little sister's safety. No matter what, he had to protect her. He did not want the tragedy to repeat itself. Yet after calling several times without anyone answering, his impatience and anxiety mounted. Just as he was about to call her school, Mu Xuanyin sent him a message saying that she was in class and would call him back later.

"She still has time to get back..." Mu Xiao sent several messages without telling her what was happening, lest she become too frightened and at a loss. He only told her to hurry home and, preferably, call him back immediately.

Shortly afterward, Mu Xiao's optical-brain phone rang. Seeing that it was his sister, Mu Xuanyin, he answered at once without a second thought.

"Brother, is something wrong? Why did you need me so urgently? I still have class later..." A soft, gentle female voice came through.

"Come home immediately!" Mu Xiao said coldly and sternly.

"Did something happen?" Mu Xuanyin asked anxiously. Mu Xiao's tone had clearly frightened her; he had never spoken to her in such a manner before.

"Don't ask so many questions. Come back quickly. If anything happens outside once you're on your way back, don't pay attention to it. Communicating like this wastes too much time. You'll understand once you get home."

"Okay! I'm coming back now!"

Mu Xuanyin had always listened closely to Mu Xiao, especially since the two of them had depended on each other and lived together, sharing an excellent sibling bond. If nothing serious had happened, Mu Xiao would never have spoken to her in that tone. As for their family matters, although she had been young at the time, she still retained some memories. As she grew older, she had vaguely pieced together some of what had happened, so she naturally worried about their situation.

Mu Xuanyin had lived with him since childhood and was highly independent. Mu Xiao set aside half his worries and began making plans of his own.