(3.13, failed review, can only keep revising and aim for a Friday release—otherwise it’ll have to wait until next week… Sorry for the lack of updates during the review period, but 94K words is such a tricky number. Once it hits 100K, it’ll automatically trigger the debut promotion, and we can’t waste that opportunity while stuck in the "black room"...)
The night deepened.
The nights in Yuanjing were eerily quiet.
Only the occasional chirping of insects broke the silence.
Su Qi glanced at Liu Yuan, already asleep in her hammock.
That brat didn’t even bother to guard against anyone—she had her back turned to him.
Honestly, that just left her even more exposed.
What’s more, with the martial exam approaching, Su Qi hadn’t seen Liu Yuan practice even once today.
He couldn’t make sense of it.
But Su Qi was different.
No matter how terrifying one’s talent was, it had to be converted into real strength as soon as possible.
He’d only broken through to the sixth rank a month ago, yet he’d casually mentioned to Xiao Yuanwei in the afternoon that he was close to the seventh.
And there wasn’t a hint of exaggeration in that claim.
[Card Name: Heaven’s Forged Strings]
[Type: Illusion]
[Rarity: Primordial]
[Energy Level: ? (First Tier)]
[Description: The sky that humans must gaze up at is nothing more than strings for Him to pluck at will.]
[Special Skill: Pleasing Strings’ Chime]
[Upon activation, the wielder automatically gains the strongest known source-energy absorption technique in human history. In exchange, after each breakthrough, the wielder must complete an "interesting" task as "equivalent exchange" to continue using it.]
At first, Su Qi assumed this "strongest" referred to the best in Great Xia—or perhaps on Earth.
But as time passed, he realized his imagination had been too limited.
It wasn’t the strongest technique humans possessed—it was the strongest one they knew of.
And humanity’s traces might not be confined to Earth alone.
In fact, this technique might not even be designed specifically for absorbing source-energy—it’s just that source-energy was the only valuable energy on Earth.
Su Qi combined this with the name of his unique talent and the celestial patterns that manifested around him during cultivation…
From this, he deduced that this was likely a technique once used by the "Him" repeatedly mentioned in the card’s description.
And "Him" was typically the pronoun reserved for deities.
In other words, if Su Qi stayed on this path, he might very well become the first person on Earth to shatter the twelve-rank limit.
But…
Su Qi closed his eyes.
In the void of his vision, stars ignited.
The first glimmer of nascent radiance slowly unfurled its brilliance.
Even if this technique were placed before the most talented individual in Great Xia, they might spend their entire life grasping only a fraction of it.
Yet, thanks to the card’s special skill, Su Qi could comprehend it effortlessly, following its guidance step by step.
Under Su Qi’s meticulous control, the celestial patterns gradually brightened.
The process was slow—his mastery over the stars remained clumsy.
A full two hours passed before he completed the simplest cycle.
Had Liu Yuan opened her eyes then, she would have seen nine dim stars orbiting Su Qi.
Then again…
Even that faint starlight would appear dazzling to an outsider.
Unseeable. Unthinkable.
A forbidden sight—one that would evaporate reason in an instant for those who dared to glimpse its truth.
The nine stars formed a vortex around Su Qi, a whirlpool of condensed source-energy!
Like a whale swallowing the sea, it voraciously devoured everything.
But soon…
Su Qi’s brow furrowed.
Tonight’s source-energy "quality" felt off.
Normally, source-energy was somewhat like oxygen—
invisible to the naked eye yet renewable.
In the short term, the amount in any given area was limited. If one person absorbed it more efficiently, others would find their own absorption rates dropping.
But since everyone’s daily cultivation time was finite, and source-energy regenerated quickly enough, this rarely caused major issues.
At most, people just avoided overlapping their sessions with those above the tenth rank.
Yet, based on the "quality" Su Qi sensed, this level of interference would require at least four seventh-rank cultivators practicing simultaneously within five kilometers.
Other class instructors?
But Old Li was only sixth-rank.
Was he such a bad actor that he couldn’t even fake his cultivation level?
Or was he genuinely weak—hence why he had to compensate with acting skills?
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
【Prologue: The Beginning of It All – Use holy water to heal the saintess tainted by demonic energy, then converse with her.】 Shen Nian stared at his older sister sipping yogurt, lost in thought. So you’re telling me my sister is the saintess, and yogurt is the holy water? 【Main Quest 1: Brave Youth, Become an Adventurer! Reward: Rookie Adventurer Title.】 【Side Quest 1: Find the Adorable Kitty! Reward: 1000 Gold Coins.】 Shen Nian: "Wait, I’m a high school senior here—did some guy who got isekai’d accidentally bind his system to me?" Hold on, completing quests gives gold rewards? Titles even boost stats? Is this for real? (A lighthearted, absurd campus comedy—not a revenge power fantasy.)
Heart] Chen Yi traversed the cultivation world for eight hundred years, charging his way to the Tribulation Transcendence stage. Just as he was outwitting his 81st Heavenly Tribulation to ascend to immortality, he was suddenly pulled into a chat group called the "Multiverse Transmigrators Support Group." To his surprise, the group was filled with nothing but fresh-faced newbies who had just transmigrated. [Help! I transmigrated into a disgraced concubine in the cold palace, and the tyrant emperor is about to execute me!] [I ended up as a cannon-fodder villain, and the protagonist is still chasing me—WTF!] [I woke up as the protagonist’s father, but I’m about to be sacrificed in a ritual! What do I do? Urgent!!!] Chen Yi stared at the chaotic flood of desperate pleas in the group and fell into deep thought. "Seriously? You drag me into a newbie transmigrator chat group… only after I’m one step away from becoming an immortal?"
