Awakening

The woman's voice continued to ring beside Zhou Bai's ear. "How is it? Did it work? The power of the Primordial Spirit can retrieve objects from afar and wound people invisibly. However you think, it can be used that way..."

Isn't that telekinesis? Zhou Bai's thoughts stirred slightly, and he felt an invisible force spreading from his consciousness into the real world.

Boom! The heavy iron door was finally smashed open. A monster covered in rotting flesh, as though countless severed limbs had been stitched together, walked in. Its pale pupils fixed on Zhou Bai.

Zhou Bai instinctively activated the power of his Primordial Spirit. The air twisted faintly, and an invisible force, carrying a breeze, swept over the monster and tightly bound it.

Joy flashed across Zhou Bai's face. "It worked?!"

But in the next moment, the monster merely paused slightly before charging toward Zhou Bai against the power of the Primordial Spirit. Though its movements had slowed, it still advanced toward him step by step.

Zhou Bai's expression changed. He immediately understood and, looking at the panel in his mind, poured all nine remaining points of Laziness Qi into his Primordial Spirit Value in one go.

The number after his Primordial Spirit Value shot upward, rising from 1 all the way to 10 in the blink of an eye.

Boom! The power of his Primordial Spirit suddenly surged. The force acting upon the monster compressed the air with a soft bang, and amid an explosive crack of air, the monster was flung away like a toy.

Zhou Bai watched the scene excitedly, but before he could think further, his vision went dark, and he passed out completely.

Zhou Bai groggily opened his eyes, waves of stabbing pain pulsing through his brain.

An unfamiliar ceiling lay before him, and the scent of disinfectant seemed to linger beneath his nose.

A crunching sound rang out. Zhou Bai instinctively looked up and saw a little blonde girl in a white dress.

The little girl was holding biscuits from beside the bed, crumbs all over her mouth. Her sapphire-like eyes suddenly widened. She covered her little mouth and stared at Zhou Bai in panic.

"I didn't steal your biscuits!"

Looking at the unfamiliar surroundings and unfamiliar person before him, Zhou Bai froze for a moment before instinctively asking, "Who are you? Where am I?"

Yet the little girl acted as though she had not heard him at all. She frantically ran out of the room, shouting, "He's awake! The person we picked up is awake!! He ate all the biscuits!"

Zhou Bai curled his lip and slowly climbed out of bed, sensing the changes in his body.

"My body..."

He suddenly threw open the white robe he was wearing. A somewhat unfamiliar body appeared before his eyes. It looked thin and frail. Turning to the mirror beside him, he saw a younger version of himself, only seventeen or eighteen years old.

"What the hell... Why have I become so much younger?" Zhou Bai instinctively touched his face, stunned. "Still, to be honest, I was pretty handsome when I was young."

Just then, the door opened again. The little girl pulled a middle-aged man with black hair and black eyes inside. The man was tall and slender, but his face was gloomy.

He looked at Zhou Bai coldly and said, "You're awake? Then come register..."

"Wait..." Zhou Bai climbed out of bed and hurriedly said, "Where is this? Why have I become like this? Can I borrow a phone first? I want to make a call..."

The gloomy man frowned. "Register and get examined first..." As he spoke, he turned and left, muttering, "Another one gone mad..."

With no other choice, Zhou Bai followed him. The blonde little girl followed at his side, staring at him curiously as she circled around him. "Big brother, did you come in from outside?"

"Big brother, do you have any more biscuits?"

"Big brother, why aren't you talking?"

Zhou Bai had no mood to answer the little girl's muttering. His mind was a complete mess—the unfamiliar place he had suddenly arrived in, the strangers he had encountered, this unfamiliar body he now possessed, and what had happened before he fainted.

Everything left him utterly bewildered.

Suddenly, he raised his head and swept his gaze over both sides of the corridor. One door after another slowly opened, little heads poking out. They watched Zhou Bai walking down the middle, cautiously studying him with eyes full of curiosity and wariness.

The youngest are seven or eight, and even the oldest don't look older than fifteen or sixteen. Zhou Bai muttered inwardly. And there are Asians, whites, blacks—people of every race. What kind of place is this?

Come to think of it, before I passed out... Zhou Bai recalled what had happened before he fainted and focused his attention within his mind. Sure enough, the Nine Calamities of Heaven and Man auxiliary cultivation system appeared again.

Daoization Degree: 0%

Primordial Spirit Value: 10

Divine Map: Nine Calamities of Heaven and Man

Laziness Qi: 0

This thing... seems to have been invented specifically to assist in cultivating the so-called Nine Calamities of Heaven and Man. Judging from this Laziness Qi thing, it might be some kind of super cheat.

But when Zhou Bai saw the 0 after Laziness Qi in his mind, he was slightly taken aback.

That's not right. I've been lying in a hospital bed for so long—why is it still 0?

Before he could think further, Zhou Bai had already followed the gloomy man to a white door. The man turned to the blonde little girl and said, "Elsa, wait for us here." Then he turned to Zhou Bai. "Come in with me."

The blonde girl called Elsa nodded, then said, "Teacher, I'm hungry."

The gloomy man's face fell. "Didn't you just eat lunch?"

Elsa blanked out for a moment, a powerful look of suspicion flashing through her eyes. "But why am I still hungry?!"

Letting out a helpless sigh, the gloomy man said, "Wait here. When we come out, I'll get you something to eat."

Zhou Bai followed the gloomy man into the room and discovered that it was an office. The gloomy man sat behind the desk and pointed to the chair in front of it, telling Zhou Bai to sit.

He took out a stack of documents and asked Zhou Bai, "Name?"

"Zhou Bai."

"Age?"

Zhou Bai looked at his much younger body. "...I don't know."

"Where are you from?"

"China."

The gloomy man raised his head and frowned. "China? Where is China?"

Zhou Bai froze, then laughed. "You don't know where China is?" But in the next instant, he was stunned, because he abruptly realized that the words he had spoken, including those from earlier, were not Chinese. They were a language he theoretically should never have learned, yet he strangely understood every word and grammatical rule, as fluent in it as he was in Chinese.

Having only just awakened, he had not noticed it before. But now that he paid a little attention, he suddenly realized there was a problem with the language.

What language is this...? There's nothing about it in my memories...

This guy doesn't even know China. Is it a translation problem? Or...

Though countless questions filled his heart, Zhou Bai saw the puzzled look in the unfamiliar man's eyes and forcibly suppressed his doubts. Smiling, he said, "Just a small place. Maybe you haven't heard of it."