(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?
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
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!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
agon king storylines. At the start, I obtained the "Ultimate Lackey System" - the more I act as a lackey, the stronger I become. What else could I do? I chose to become the personal henchman of the ultimate villain, Su Muwan. I provoke all sorts of chosen ones, snatch away their opportunities, and commit every evil deed imaginable. You ask who's behind me? Hmph! You're not worthy of knowing my lady's name! ...... ....... I am Su Muwan, the eldest daughter of the Su family. Since childhood, I've possessed extraordinary talent in martial arts, which led to my arrogant and domineering personality in my past life. I was even foolish enough to repeatedly challenge those favored by heaven, ultimately resulting in a tragic death. In this life, I must behave and absolutely cannot walk the same path again!! However... SLAP!! "So you're the Dragon King, huh?!" When I saw my little lackey swagger over and viciously slap the Dragon King who was hiding his identity, I felt my heart sink. Su Muwan's suspended heart finally died as she watched Qin Luo, her utterly loyal lackey, standing before her. She fainted on the spot from shock. Heaven is determined to destroy me!! (Pure love 1v1, light-hearted, no angst, single female lead, villain, reincarnation, lackey)
