Awakened Again

In his coma, Lin Yi felt himself sinking into a warm, boundless darkness.

Every inch of his body cried out with thirst. His muscles, bones, blood—even the marrow deep within—rumbled as if cracking apart.

That thirst pierced through all his senses. It was fiercer than hunger, more enduring than pain, as though countless parched mouths had pressed themselves against his body, desperately sucking at anything in the air.

Yet his body was utterly empty at that moment, unable to gather even a thread of vital energy and blood.

Amid that extreme thirst, his brain stirred.

The Super Brain that had been activated by spiritual energy from the very beginning of his transmigration, growing stronger every day, now seemed to have awakened on instinct and began madly devouring the free spiritual energy around it.

The spiritual energy in the forest had originally been sparse, gentle particles scattered through the air. Now, however, as though drawn by an invisible giant mouth, it surged toward Lin Yi's head from all directions, forming a tangible yet invisible trickle.

The two clansmen carrying the stretcher were the first to notice something strange.

"...Did you feel that? It feels like wind is blowing toward Lin."

"It is kind of strange. The leaves around us aren't moving at all, but there's a breeze swirling around his head."

The two looked at each other, and their pace slowed.

The wind was light and soft. When it brushed past their faces, it carried a trace of crisp coolness unlike any ordinary draft.

They could not figure out what it was, so they could only chalk it up to the fact that strange things always happened around Lin.

Meanwhile, Lin Yi's brain was immersed in a state of activity unlike anything before.

Vast amounts of spiritual energy poured into his skull like a waterfall. His brain greedily consumed that clear current, using most of it for some unknown evolution taking place within itself.

Yet it also exquisitely separated out a tiny portion and sent it down along his spine, replenishing his physical body.

The spiritual energy flowing back into him seeped into his parched body like a cool stream into cracked earth. It slowly passed through the gaps in his shattered breastbone, through the meridians injured by the Inkshadow Leopard, through the flesh pierced by the Xie Wolves.

The tiny cracks in his broken bones were gently nourished. Torn muscle fibers drew together and fused beneath the nourishment of spiritual energy, while the burning pain throughout his body was peeled away layer by layer.

Lin Yi's brow relaxed.

The corners of his lips unconsciously curved upward, and a soft hum carrying a note of satisfaction escaped from deep in his throat.

Though quiet, the sound was especially clear in the silent forest.

The two clansmen carrying the stretcher stopped at the same time and looked down at him.

The expression of blissful near-intoxication on Lin Yi's face made them both fall silent for a moment. Then one of them could not hold it in any longer and whispered to the other.

"...He's badly injured and unconscious, yet he can still have a spring dream? Lin really is young."

"...Shut up and carry him properly."

By the time they returned to the tribe, night had completely fallen.

The village chief immediately checked Biao's condition. The bones in his left forearm had been shattered in more than one place, the visible dents and dislocations horrifying to behold. The claw marks on his forehead were deep enough to expose bone, and more than ten wolf bites and claw wounds across his body were still bleeding.

The village chief's brows twisted into a knot. He could only apply medicine to stop the bleeding and bandage the external wounds. As for that pulverized arm, he was helpless.

"Biao's left arm can only be set once Lin Yi wakes up," the village chief told the gathered clansmen. "He understands bone-setting better than I do. We'll deal with it when he wakes."

Then came Lin Yi.

The village chief's examination left everyone breathing a sigh of relief. Lin Yi's injuries looked frightening—his body was covered in blood, and he had wounds both inside and out—but he had no major fractures, and his internal organs had suffered no fatal damage.

Compared to Biao, his condition was far better. The village chief cleaned his wounds, smeared on a thick layer of ointment, wrapped him in clean linen strips, then poured a bowl of herbal medicine for replenishing vital energy and invigorating blood down his throat before telling the clansmen to carry him back to his stone house.

The two clansmen laid Lin Yi flat on the stone bed. Just as they stood to leave, one of them looked back at the person on the bed.

"...It still feels strange." He frowned. "There was wind swirling around him all the way back. Now that we're inside and the door's shut, that wind is still there."

The other person sensed it too.

With the doors and windows of the stone house tightly shut, there should not have been any airflow. Yet a faint current was indeed slowly circling around Lin Yi's stone bed, stirring the loose hair over his forehead.

"He should be fine, right? The village chief said his injuries weren't serious."

"Forget it. Lin has always been weird. Let's go and let him sleep properly."

The two shut the door behind them.

Once the stone house fell completely silent, that trickle of spiritual energy not only failed to disperse but instead began to accelerate.

The frequency at which it absorbed spiritual energy abruptly rose by another level.

Spiritual energy swarmed in from every direction, pouring through the cracks in the stone walls and stirring invisible ripples within the dark stone house.

At that moment, an even deeper transformation was taking place on the surface of Lin Yi's cerebral cortex.

Strands of Platinum Divine Markings began emerging from deep within his cerebral cortex, like ancient seal script that had slept for a thousand years being lit inch by inch with a brush of light.

Those markings were more intricate and mysterious than the Savage Bull Divine Markings, more precise and profound than the ink-black Divine Markings of the Inkshadow Leopard. Every curve carried an innate rhythm, like a living image that was growing on its own.

As spiritual energy continuously poured in, those Platinum Divine Markings began evolving on their own.

They slowly extended, intertwined, and rearranged themselves. New branches grew from the main trunk, while the original curves became smoother and more precise. Their profundity rose layer by layer at a speed invisible to the naked eye.

The markings seemed alive, possessed of their own will, constantly perfecting themselves through absorption and deduction.

But at that moment, the brain seemed to notice a more important objective.

It began drawing away most of the spiritual energy it had absorbed from the evolution of its own Divine Markings, instead driving those platinum patterns to spread in a single direction—toward Lin Yi's eyes.

Fine tendrils as thin as hair extended from the cerebral cortex, inching forward along the neural pathways toward his eye sockets, slow yet unwavering.

The process was extraordinarily slow. Every step forward consumed a vast amount of spiritual energy, and the brain diverted nearly all the resources it absorbed toward it.

At last, the final strand of platinum markings settled upon the surface of Lin Yi's eyeballs.

Those dense, web-like patterns began wrapping around the outside of his pupils, layer upon layer, as though weaving an invisible, supreme crown for each eye.

Although Lin Yi's eyes remained tightly shut, a faint platinum glow had begun to seep through the gaps between his eyelids.

The light was extremely restrained, flickering between his closed lashes.

After the brain completed its work on the eyes, it gathered the spiritual energy back toward its own evolution.

About another hour passed.

Under the continuous nourishment of spiritual energy, the Platinum Divine Markings reached a certain state of saturation. Every end of every pattern found its corresponding node, and the entire design connected head to tail, forming a closed cycle.

The rate at which the brain absorbed spiritual energy began to fall step by step, slowly returning from its tidal-wave-like eruption to its usual gentle, continuous rhythm.

The circulating airflow within the stone house gradually calmed as well, finally vanishing completely, as though nothing had ever happened.

The stone house became quiet again.

Lin Yi's eyelids twitched.

Slowly, gradually, he opened his eyes.

"...Where am I?"

His voice was hoarse and dry, and his consciousness had not fully returned from the coma.

But he quickly remembered: the Inkshadow Leopard, the wolf pack, Biao, the Eye of Zheng, the village chief and the hunting party arriving.

Lin Yi abruptly sat upright!

"Hiss—!"

The movement pulled at the injury in his chest, and a tearing pain instantly exploded through him.

He hunched over and coughed several times, one hand covering the tightly bandaged wound on his chest as he sucked in cold breaths.

He took several deep breaths and calmed himself for a while before sensing that something was wrong.

His vision felt strange.

Lin Yi blinked. He instinctively looked toward the door of the stone house. The door was closed, and the room was dim. Under normal vision, it would have been impossible to make out the details of the wood grain.

Yet he could see them clearly now.

Every grain in the wood, every fiber tip curling upward from dampness, even a wisp of dust seeping through the crack in the door—all of it was vividly displayed before his eyes.

The clarity was unprecedented.

He blinked several times, then rubbed his eye sockets hard. "...What's going on?"

When his fingers touched his eyelids, he vaguely sensed something unusual coming from deep within his eyeballs.

But the sensation vanished in a flash, so quickly that he thought it might have been an illusion.