(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?
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
