He took two steps forward. Suspended within the column of light was a warhammer of utterly savage design.
The hammerhead was a dull black, its material impossible to identify. It was covered in crater-like depressions and jagged spikes, radiating a primal sense of destruction.
“This one.”
The moment Chen Guan pointed at it, a voice sounded beside him.
“Dragonfall Warhammer.”
Chen Guan turned his head. Long Ao was standing beside him.
“You recognize it?” Chen Guan asked.
“My grandfather drew the designs years ago. He wanted to create a weapon capable of smashing through a dragon’s bones with a single blow, but in the end, he left behind only the blueprints.”
Long Ao looked somewhat surprised. “I didn’t expect the academy to actually build it.”
He shook his head again. “If it really was made according to the blueprints, then it’s far too vicious. This hammer has nothing but extreme weight behind it. One swing means either the enemy dies or you do. It’s not easy for an ordinary person to wield.”
Hearing this, Chen Guan grew interested instead. “Sounds good.”
The column of light faded, and Chen Guan reached out to catch the hammer. His wrist suddenly dropped.
It was heavy.
He weighed it in his hand. The cold metal of the handle fit perfectly against his palm, and the weight was still within what he could handle.
“A deal settled with one strike. Simple.” The corners of Chen Guan’s mouth lifted. “Saves me the trouble.”
Seeing his expression, Long Ao immediately understood and said no more.
After taking the hammer, Chen Guan plunged straight into the materials section.
He needed two things: an extremely resilient energy-absorbing material and a cushioning material capable of isolating energy. Both would be used to reinforce the inside of his coffin.
The coffin itself was already sturdy, but he wanted to prepare for every possibility. Staying beside the protagonist group was far too dangerous; anything could happen.
He had no intention of passing up this publicly funded upgrade.
Before long, he stopped in front of a column of light.
Inside was a cotton-like bundle of fibers that gave off tiny points of starlight.
Grade A: Starfall Absorption Fiber.
The description was perfectly clear. Extracted from the cores of fallen stars, it could absorb and store kinetic impacts exceeding a thousand times its own weight.
“I’ll take this.” Chen Guan made the decision immediately.
The stuff was practically tailor-made for his coffin.
“One more.”
Chen Guan continued searching. A moment later, his gaze was caught by a mass of blue, jelly-like material.
Grade A: Deep-Sea Stasis Gel.
Refined from an unknown life-form found ten thousand meters beneath the sea, it was almost completely inert. It could perfectly isolate and cushion the transmission of any form of energy and was the core material used in top-tier protective suits.
“This one.” Chen Guan made another decisive choice.
These were excellent military-grade supplies that couldn’t be bought anywhere on the outside.
Once everyone had finished choosing, Sima Ming nodded and led them out of the treasury.
“You’ve all got what you need.”
Looking at their excited faces, Sima Ming smiled. “Starting today, you have three days to rest and recover.”
“Three days from now, gather at the academy’s southern gate at six in the morning.”
With that, he dismissed them.
…
Inside the dormitory building, Qin Wu’s booming voice made the ceiling tremble.
“You’re really not going?”
Qin Wu hooked an arm around Chen Guan’s shoulder and invited him out for a meal.
Qin Wu was tall and powerfully built. He had no particular hobbies beyond eating, drinking, and having fun.
“No. I have something to do.”
Chen Guan expressionlessly freed himself from Qin Wu’s arm.
“I’ll pass too.” An Changqing stood to one side, smiling gently, though his eyes kept drifting toward the window. His heart clearly wasn’t here.
“Ugh, what a drag.”
Qin Wu waved his hand in disappointment and noisily led the others away. “You two boring guys can stay here and grow mold in the dorm.”
Click.
The dormitory door shut, completely cutting off the noise of the outside world.
The tension in Chen Guan’s body relaxed all at once.
He placed the Starfall Absorption Fiber and Deep-Sea Stasis Gel on the table, then set the coffin in the middle of the room.
With a heavy creak, the thick coffin lid opened.
Inside the coffin lay another version of him.
It was a body whose face looked entirely different from his current one. Its eyes were closed, and its breathing was faint to the point of near nonexistence, as though it were dead asleep.
Its skin was so delicate that it hardly seemed to belong to a living creature, gleaming with the cold, inorganic luster of jade.
Chen Guan sat cross-legged beside the coffin and quietly gazed at the other him within.
“Heh heh heh. I really can’t understand you. Why go to such lengths?”
Baal’s strange cackle rang out in his mind.
Chen Guan ignored him. Ever since Baal had gained a new room in his head, Chen Guan had reduced the number of times he met with his other self.
There was only one reason: Baal was too annoying.
Useful, certainly. Noisy, equally certainly.
Chen Guan extended a finger and lightly touched the back of his original body’s hand.
There was not the slightest trace of warmth belonging to a living person, only coldness. No matter how many times he did this, the result was always the same. Chen Guan had grown accustomed to it.
He lifted his original body and placed it on the bed. Then he removed the inferior materials originally lining the inside of the coffin and picked up the cotton-like bundle of Starfall Absorption Fiber from the table.
“Grade A material, Starfall Absorption Fiber. First, an inner lining.”
Chen Guan muttered to himself as he put his practical skills to full use.
“Kid, is this really necessary? This thing is already hard enough.”
Baal’s voice was full of confusion as he watched.
“It’s not enough.”
Chen Guan didn’t even look up, his hands continuing to work.
“The people I encounter are getting stronger and stronger. What if one day he gets hurt because I overlooked something?”
The “he” Chen Guan referred to was naturally the original body lying on the bed.
“This time, I had the advantage. But what about next time?”
The final sentence was directed at himself.
At present, he was like a hamster preparing for winter, frantically stockpiling the sturdiest materials for his own safe house.
Before long, a thick layer of Starfall Absorption Fiber had perfectly covered the entire interior of the coffin, making the inside glow brightly.
Chen Guan pressed down on it with his palm in satisfaction. The soft yet resilient texture gave him a great deal more peace of mind.
Next, he picked up the jelly-like blue substance.
Grade A: Deep-Sea Stasis Gel.
“Another layer for cushioning. This one’s specifically for dealing with those unreasonable types.”
He poured the gel into the coffin. Like a living thing, the blue substance automatically spread itself evenly over the Starfall Fiber, forming a translucent blue film and saving him the trouble of spreading it by hand.
A cool, refreshing scent, like the deep sea after a torrential rain, filled the room.
He thought of Su Yuehe’s Word Spirit, and of those invisible, untouchable attacks that could directly affect the rules themselves.
In this world, pure physical defense had long since become obsolete.
Once he finished, the entire interior of the coffin had been completely transformed.
The inner layer absorbed kinetic force, while the outer layer isolated energy—a double layer of protection.
He believed that even if White Tiger took his broadsword and struck the coffin with all his strength, the original body inside wouldn’t even have a corner of its clothing disturbed.
At last, he had a little sense of security.
Chen Guan let out a long breath, stood up, and stretched his stiff body.
Once again, he carefully lifted the original body from the bed and gently placed it back inside the coffin he had personally transformed into an absolutely safe zone.
That exquisitely handsome face rested against a backdrop as deep as the starry sky, shrouded in a faint blue radiance. It looked even less like something mortal—as though a divine being were sleeping at the center of the universe.
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.
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
