Chapter 72: First Lesson for White
So this was how fun it was to tease other people. Even though White was just a tiny mortal compared to peak cultivators, she still didn’t make Nexus feel bored.
Maybe what mattered wasn’t strength, but whether the two sides could interact. If you could actually talk to someone, teasing them became fun.
"Congratulations. You’re officially my disciple now."
Those words from Nexus directly crushed all of Ziz’s remaining hope. Since things had already reached this point, Ziz just went offline and let the AI take over this body so he wouldn’t have to get annoyed every time he saw White.
"So now I can mess with Ziz however I want without worrying about him attacking me, right?"
Seeing Ziz suddenly go quiet, White tried poking and squeezing him, but he didn’t react as fiercely as before, which made her very satisfied.
"Yes, but not right now. First, we need to finish your first lesson."
Nexus was the same as always. Just one announcement was enough to start teaching a disciple. Whether it was Mark or White, neither of them would get any special treatment.
"Huh? Why did everything suddenly go dark?"
Before White could figure out what was happening, she was already standing inside a pitch-black space. Even though she couldn’t see anything, she could feel through her feet that the ground here was perfectly flat.
The incredibly realistic sensations coming from her senses made White feel like this place wasn’t an illusion. But somehow, her special eyes no longer worked here.
It wasn’t just her eyes. None of her other abilities worked either. At this moment, she had returned to how she was over ten years ago, back when she hadn’t awakened yet.
"Damn it, does cultivating really make someone who only awakened as a G-rank not long ago this ridiculously strong? No, it should be the opposite. Nexus must have been secretly cultivating somewhere for a long time before humanity could even awaken."
White wasn’t stupid. She immediately guessed that Nexus wasn’t someone who had only recently learned about cultivation. Disabling her eyes directly was unlikely, but if Nexus had simply brought her consciousness here, that made perfect sense.
Even if it was only her consciousness, perfectly recreating the sensations of her nervous system until it felt no different from using her real body wasn’t something simple at all.
"You’re completely wrong. Want to hear my story before your first lesson starts?"
Nexus’s voice suddenly appeared inside White’s head, making her instinctively dart her eyes around, but in this pitch-black space, there was nothing to see.
"What are you trying to do?"
Right now, White wasn’t in the mood to listen to Nexus tell stories about his life. This damn place made her feel extremely uncomfortable.
"Just one lesson. You’ve been through plenty of dungeons, fought all kinds of battles, and faced death more than a few times. Your composure is already something my first disciple couldn’t compare to. But your perseverance still isn’t enough yet. It needs more training. The path of cultivation values perseverance. Things don’t happen as quickly as they do when you’re a hunter."
Hearing Nexus’s explanation, White’s instincts told her that something very bad was about to happen. Maybe one of the worst situations she had ever experienced in her life.
"Wait, explain it more clearly."
Silence answered her. Nexus obviously hadn’t left, but he refused to respond, as if he was teasing her.
Of course, Nexus wasn’t simply teasing her. Even knowing White’s mentality was very strong, Nexus still added a little test. If White’s mentality was weak, there was a good chance it would be shaken. If that happened, Nexus would just have to add another lesson for White.
"Hmph, fine if you won’t say it. Like I’d be scared of you. Besides, you’re not my enemy. You’re my master, so you wouldn’t deliberately kill me.
If Mark heard those words, who knew what his reaction would be. Nexus really didn’t deliberately kill his disciples, but if a disciple was too weak and died during training, that wasn’t his fault.
The sound of something like chains dragging across concrete... No, that wasn’t right. There seemed to be something sharp too.
"What the hell is that? There are a lot of them, and there’s definitely something like iron chains."
The absolute darkness made White extremely uncomfortable because she had no idea what was lurking around her. White had never imagined there would be a day when she’d become an ordinary person again, just like before she awakened.
It had been a long time since she’d felt this weak. Deep down, she instinctively felt a little anxious, but after just a few seconds, she returned to normal.
A will tempered through thousands of battles naturally wouldn’t fear facing difficult challenges.
The system’s power might be able to intimidate her, but she wasn’t truly afraid. Even if she knew she would die, if the system used that power against humanity, she’d still fight to the end, even knowing it was pointless.
While she was straining her mind to analyze the sound, a chain with a sharp spike attached suddenly changed direction.
White immediately reacted on instinct and tried to dodge. But her current speed was painfully slow. Even if she predicted it correctly, there was no way she could avoid it in time.
The long chain with the spike pierced straight through White’s abdomen. Fresh blood splattered everywhere, but things got even worse. The weight of the iron chain pressed down on White’s body, making the wound even more severe.
The sudden pain made White grit her teeth and... nothing else. It really did hurt, but she’d suffered wounds like this plenty of times before. The only difference now was that she couldn’t heal herself anymore because she’d lost her abilities.
"Your will isn’t bad. But this time, it’s mainly about perseverance. Will is only secondary. Your body is like an ordinary human’s now, so if you’re pierced, you’ll weaken and die just like normal.
I guarantee that dying won’t reset your memories, and weakening won’t make your thinking become fuzzy. Your job is to count every single time your body gets pierced until I send you back to reality. If your count is even slightly wrong, you’ll fail and have to start over."