Back in his humble home, Shiheng reached behind him and shut the weathered wooden door.
He walked straight to the edge of the bed and sat down, his expression deeply solemn.
He slowly closed his eyes and sank his awareness fully into his body.
Again and again, he carefully examined his still-weakened body and methodically sorted through the two sets of memories that had finished merging.
At the same time, he silently planned the course of his life in this other world.
In his previous life, he had been an utterly ordinary person on Earth, so ordinary that he had all but disappeared into the crowd.
As a student, he had followed the prescribed path, his grades always stuck in the middle, neither high nor low.
He had barely managed to get into the county's top high school, and his college entrance exam score had only just cleared the cutoff for vocational college.
After graduating and entering society, he had found an ordinary job with no prospects, earning a meager salary with no improvement for years.
When he reached the expected age, he had married and had children, following the rules all his life and living days so uneventful that not a ripple disturbed them.
One glance ahead had been enough to see how he would grow old and die.
But only he had known that deep in his heart, a fierce refusal to settle for mediocrity had never truly died.
As a student, he had studied desperately, longing to excel in his exams.
He had wanted to make his parents proud and force everyone who looked down on him to see him in a new light.
Yet his talent had been limited, and even after giving everything he had, he had remained trapped in mediocrity.
After starting work, he had brimmed with ambition, wanting to venture out and build a career of his own.
He had wanted promotions and raises, to escape his straitened circumstances once and for all.
But there had been no one to help him up, no path forward, no opportunities or powerful backers.
In the end, he could only remain trapped in mundane work day after day, drawing a paltry salary as the drive and dreams of his youth slowly wore away.
Among all the countless people in the world, no one had ever willingly settled for being ordinary.
Yet the vast majority of ordinary people could struggle and strive their entire lives, only to pass those lives in mediocrity.
But now, things were different.
He had been given another life, arriving in this fantastical world filled with miracles, opportunities, and dangers.
This was his perfect chance to break free of his previous life's mediocre fate and defy heaven to change his destiny.
Deep in his heart, Shiheng silently swore a solemn oath.
In this life, I will never drift through life accomplishing nothing again, never live as dim and lackluster an existence as I did before!
And on the Yulan Continent, where the strong preyed on the weak, strength was the foundation of everything.
There was no comprehensive legal system like Earth's to restrain its people.
The moral boundaries of ordinary society were even less capable of restraining the supreme powerhouses who wielded strength.
Without sufficient strength, making a name for himself in the world was out of the question.
Even the most basic security and survival were extravagant hopes, and life would only be harsher and more brutal than in his previous existence.
What weighed even more heavily on his heart was this continent's harsh, ironclad rule.
Every healthy young adult of eligible age had to answer the duchy's call and undergo compulsory military service.
With his paltry cultivation as a mere First-Level Warrior, stepping onto a battlefield would make him no different from cannon fodder.
Blades had no eyes, and war showed no mercy.
Once he enlisted, he could die on the battlefield at any moment, with even his ability to stay alive hanging by a thread.
If he wanted to rewrite his destiny completely and escape the fate of those at the bottom,
the only way forward now was to throw everything into increasing his strength as frantically as he could.
Yet the many difficulties before him made every step an ordeal, leaving him barely able to move forward.
He possessed nothing of value and had no precious, advanced cultivation techniques whatsoever.
Throughout his years of training, he had relied entirely on the crudest physical strength to persevere.
He wanted to test whether he possessed the rare aptitude for magic.
But even a single basic aptitude test cost a full ten gold coins.
For someone as utterly destitute as he was now, that sum was nothing short of astronomical.
Even if he worked himself to the bone for a year or two and scrimped on everything, he might still fail to save enough.
On this seemingly vast and prosperous fantasy continent, the conditions in which ordinary people at the bottom survived
were no different from the ordinary, impoverished life he had led before.
The aristocratic families and leading powers at the top had long since monopolized every cultivation resource in the world and every means of rapidly gaining strength.
The seven or eight gold coins that commoners at the bottom saved through an entire year of exhausting labor, working day and night with all their might,
would vanish in the blink of an eye into taxes, food, and daily expenses.
Generation after generation remained trapped in a struggle to keep themselves fed and clothed, with no hope of ever rising above it.
Every shortcut that could let them quickly gain strength and cross the barriers of social class had been sealed off completely.
Newly arrived and possessing nothing, he could find no opening through which to escape his predicament for the time being.
With no other choice, he could only settle his mind and take things one step at a time.
He silently reminded himself that his strength was still meager and his foundation weak.
He absolutely could not recklessly draw attention to himself or flaunt his abilities.
Only by remaining steady and reserved, concealing his talents and quietly lying low among those at the bottom,
could he follow the safest and most sensible path to survival for now.
Displaying his abilities too early would only provoke other people's wariness and jealousy.
At best, it would bring trouble; at worst, it would invite undeserved disaster and get him killed.
Until he had enough strength to protect himself, patience and lying low were his only rules for survival.
Time slipped quietly by, and amid the bleak autumn winds, late autumn arrived in the blink of an eye.
The day of nationwide conscription and enlistment finally came as scheduled.
During the brief stretch of time spent waiting to enlist, Shiheng had not slackened for even a moment.
He had kept his teeth clenched and done everything he could to improve his strength.
He had tried practicing the continent's most basic cultivation technique, the Qi Accumulation Form.
But for him, already firmly established as a First-Level Warrior, this basic method had produced negligible results.
It could not help him accumulate strength or break through the barrier of his current realm at all.
Though the way ahead was blocked, he had not grown discouraged or despondent in the slightest.
Memories of his previous life had slowly surfaced in his mind, bringing him an entirely new approach to training.
He had recalled Taijiquan, which had been passed down on Earth for ages.
Its movements appeared soft and unhurried, yet concealed profound principles of overcoming hardness with softness, nourishing blood and vital energy, and tempering both body and mind.
There had also been simple, brute-force weighted training, which could specifically hone physical strength and unlock the body's potential.
Without cultivation resources or advanced techniques, he had used the exercise methods from his previous life to train relentlessly.
Day after day, he had never stopped.
In the mornings, he had practiced martial forms to nourish his vital energy, strengthen his body's foundation, and harmonize the blood and vital energy throughout his body.
In the evenings, he had run cross-country carrying weights and trained with squats, pushing his body to its limits and increasing his whole body's explosive power.
In his spare time, he had ventured deep into the mountain forests alone to hunt.
He had nourished his body with fresh wild beast meat, strengthening his physical foundation.
However bitter and exhausting the days became, he had gritted his teeth and persevered, never pausing for even a moment.
Day after day of unrelenting perseverance and training had finally brought visible rewards.
He could clearly sense his physical condition transforming and improving at tremendous speed.
His robust physique, already far beyond that of ordinary people, had grown increasingly powerful and solid.
With every punch and every step, his entire body brimmed with a sense of abundant strength.
The strength accumulated within him had grown ever more substantial, and the barrier that had confined him for so long had quietly begun to loosen.
He knew with absolute clarity that he was now only one step away from becoming a second-level warrior.
With just a little more consolidation and accumulation, he could break through the bottleneck and enter an entirely new realm of cultivation.
And in the distance, the horns calling men to military service had already begun to sound.
Shiheng's heaven-defying journey across this brutal continent was about to truly begin.
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