Chapter 430 - 199: Perspectives
At this exact, quiet moment, inside a brightly lit lecture hall of the elite academy, a young man who had been slumped over his mahogany desk sleeping soundly suddenly bolted straight upright, his chair screeching violently against the polished floor, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"NO!"
The desperate, agonized roar tore through the quiet academic atmosphere like a sudden thunderclap.
This sudden outburst stunned every single student in the room into complete, wide-eyed silence.
Over sixty young cultivators, scions of prominent clans, and talented disciples froze mid-note, turning their heads in utter disbelief to stare directly at him with bewildered, mocking, or annoyed expressions.
At the front of the hall, the esteemed master teacher holding an ancient scripture bamboo scroll stopped speaking mid-sentence.
His brow furrowed into a deep, displeased frown, and his sharp, reprimanding gaze locked onto the gasping youth.
"It seems student Tang Lin deeply disagrees with my lecture," the master teacher remarked coldly, his voice dripping with dry sarcasm.
The young man, Tang Lin, ignored the mocking murmurs around him as his chest heaved in ragged, frantic gasps.
Cold sweat poured down his neck, soaking through his pristine student robes as he stared with wide, dilated eyes at his immediate surroundings.
The carved wooden desks, the neat rows of familiar classmates, the glowing blackboard array, and the stern master teacher standing at the podium...
This... this wasn’t the blood drenched, ash choked battlefield of the Immortal Road at all!
There were no severed limbs, no falling celestial stars, no roaring dragon beasts of the tyrannical Shen Clan, and no scent of burning flesh!
Could it be... I traveled back in time?!
A dizzying rush of shock and disbelief washed over his mind.
But realizing where he was and the impropriety of his scream, Tang Lin quickly stepped out from his desk, turned towards the master teacher, and offered a deep, ninety-degree bow of humility.
"Apologies, Teacher! I truly didn’t mean any disrespect!" Tang Lin pleaded earnestly.
The master teacher stared at him for a few tense seconds before letting out a soft, dismissive hum as he waved his sleeve through the air.
"Sit down. And do not dare to disturb the class once again, or you will find yourself cleaning the Spirit Beast Pens for an entire month."
"Thank you for your mercy, Teacher," Tang Lin whispered, bowing once again with gratitude before quietly sitting back down in his wooden seat.
As he pulled himself closer to the desk, his heart hammered furiously against his ribs like a wild beast trying to break free.
It wasn’t an illusion. It wasn’t a dying hallucination. He really was back! He had returned to his youth, back to the days before his life fell into an irreversible spiral of misery, humiliation, and ruin!
In other words... he can still change everything!
Those horrific tragedies that haunted his nightmares, those devastating losses that tore his soul to shreds... none of it had happened yet!
Tang Lin tightly clenched his fists beneath the desk until his fingernails dug painfully into his palms, drawing tiny beads of blood. His knuckles turned stark white.
This time... in this second life granted by the heavens... I will never make the same foolish, fatal mistakes again!
Thinking of that, he immediately closed his eyes and sent his divine sense inward, urgently scanning his dantian and meridian pathways.
After a thorough inspection, he exhaled a long, heavy breath and sighed in profound relief, noticing that his internal foundation was not yet completely ruined, and his qi was nowhere near as filthy and impure as it had been in his previous life.
In his past life, he had been weak-willed, naive, and fell into the wrong crowd among the academy’s degenerate rich scions.
Seeking quick thrills and artificial euphoric surges, he had become heavily addicted to prohibited alchemical spirit drugs—the insidious, soul-corroding ’Ethereal Bliss Powder.’
That cursed poison had eroded his spiritual channels, causing his cultivation foundation to become brittle and cracked like dry clay.
His physical health suffered catastrophic decay, his talent evaporated, and he rapidly squandered his clan’s allowances, losing all his possessions, treasures, and dignity until he was reduced to a pathetic, shivering slave to his drug addiction.
This addiction didn’t stop even until graduation.
When he finally returned home to his family’s modest estate, his addiction was so uncontrollable that he secretly sold off all their ancestral properties, spiritual farms, and family heirlooms just to buy more high-grade doses.
When the truth was finally revealed, his proud and honorable father was so overwhelmed by grief and fury that he spat out three mouthfuls of black core blood, his meridians rupturing on the spot before dying in agony right before his eyes!
His mother, drowned in unending sorrow and heartbroken tears, fell into a severe depression and passed away shortly after.
Worst of all was his beloved younger sister, Tang Rou. To pay off the astronomical debts that Tang Lin had racked up with the ruthless underground black-market syndicates, she was forced to sell herself into servitude to the very drug kingpins who had supplied him.
It was only several agonizing months later, after he had sobered up in the gutter like a stray dog, that he desperately tracked down her whereabouts—only to find her cold, mutilated corpse in a secret laboratory, learning the horrific truth that she had died after suffering unimaginable, inhuman dark-alchemy experiments and flesh modifications at their hands.
That guilt had burned through his soul for centuries.
This time... I will slaughter those black-market scum myself! I will protect my parents! I will keep Rou’er safe! I will NEVER allow that nightmare to happen again!
"Hm?"
As his divine sense delved deeper into the absolute center of his lower dantian, Tang Lin suddenly blinked in pure astonishment.
Hovering quietly in the deepest mist of his spiritual sea, completely motionless and untainted by the surrounding qi, was a tiny, dried-up green twig barely the length of a finger.
That’s... that is the sapling of the World Tree?!
Tang Lin’s breath caught in his throat.
In his past life, following the horrific deaths of his entire family, he had become an empty, hollowed-out shell of a man.
Consumed by self-hatred, he had abandoned the central region entirely, wandering aimlessly across the southern region like a walking corpse, searching for a quiet place to die and end his miserable existence.
It was during those dark, wandering years in the primordial forests of the Southern Region that he accidentally saved and met the kind, pure-hearted princess of the Elven Race.
Despite his ragged appearance and scarred soul, she had treated him with gentle warmth and deep compassion.
Over the decades, they had grown incredibly close, developing a bond that transcended race and mortal boundaries.
Recognizing the shattered state of his meridians, the elven princess had gone so far as to defy her clan’s ancient elders, stealing a sacred, primordial seed of the divine World Tree to give to him, allowing him to completely rebuild his broken physical body, cleanse his corrupted marrow, and reforge an immortal-grade foundation!
Unfortunately, that brief era of peace was short-lived.
When the Immortal Road finally opened its celestial gates to the myriad realms, the terrifying and tyrannical Shen Clan suddenly launched an unprovoked, genocidal assault upon the entirety of Tian Yuan Empire!
Coveting the boundless life vitality of the World Tree, the invincible experts of the Shen Clan uprooted the entire thing, slaughtered the ancient guardians, and enslaved the proud Elven Race into chattel servitude, dragging the princess away in heavy soul-suppressing chains!
At that time, Tang Lin had burned with the flames of vengeance.
For years, he had fought with everything he had, seeking to cut down the Shen Clan’s legions and rescue the woman he loved.
But against the terrifying, insurmountable might of the Shen Clan’s monstrous young master and their invincible armies, his efforts were as futile as an ant trying to shake a mountain.
In the end, he was utterly crushed, his chest pierced through by a blade, dying in bitter failure.
Thankfully... by some miraculous grace of the cosmos, he had been reborn!
Could this sacred World Tree sapling, which had fused with his soul before his death, be the true reason for my time reversal and rebirth? he wondered internally, his heart swelling with a mixture of reverence, gratitude, and profound awe.
However, he quickly reeled his thoughts back in and didn’t dwell on the mystery for too long.
Right now, in this present moment, the most critical, urgent matter at hand was to immediately expel, purge, and completely discard every single trace of the toxic chemical impurities lingering inside his teenage body.
Although his present younger self had not yet fallen into the deep, irreversible abyss of complete chemical dependency, he knew the grim truth: this body had already foolishly tasted the bliss powder a few times during recent secret gatherings with those degenerate classmates.
The addictive toxins were already beginning to take root in his bloodstream, subtly whispering to his nervous system.
’I need to immediately detoxify my meridians, purge the residual chemical slag, and get my body back to peak condition.’ Tang Lin planned ruthlessly in his mind.
Counting the time on the academy calendar... there are only a few days left before the grand Year-End Examination trial taking place in the lower realm begins.
A sharp, predatory, and confident light ignited deep within Tang Lin’s eyes as he stared down at his desk.
In his past life, the lower realm trial was the turning point where countless undiscovered ancient inheritances, hidden legacies, forgotten emperor tombs, and primordial spirit veins were unearthed by other geniuses and factions.
Back then, crippled by his early addiction, he had missed every single one of those legendary fortunes, watching from the sidelines as others rose to become peerless powerhouses.
’That lower realm trial is my ultimate chance to rewrite fate!’ Tang Lin thought with burning determination. ’With my future knowledge of every hidden realm, every inheritance, and every undiscovered treasure location... this time, I will not leave a single crumb for anyone else! I will seize all the heavenly opportunities, take every legacies for myself, and forge a path of supreme power that no one, not even the mighty Shen Clan, will ever be able to crush!’
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Ancient Heaven Star.
This vast, primordial world was a notoriously powerful lower realm under the ironclad administrative control of the Imperial Academy.
Unlike mundane mortal planes that suffered from thin spiritual qi and brittle environmental laws, this celestial sphere was brimming with untamed elemental energy, colossal ancient ruins, savage beast-filled mountain ranges, and forgotten subterranean tombs dating back to the primordial eras.
It was a brutal, unforgiving realm that the academy frequently utilized as the ultimate testing ground for its most prestigious trials, examinations, and faction expeditions.
At this exact moment, at the border-most, barren region of this vast realm, situated directly in the sweltering middle of a boundless yellow desert where dust storms howled like wild beasts, a young man was standing alone in front of a cluster of ruined and dilapidated buildings.
Cracked stone pillars were half-buried in the shifting dunes, collapsed wooden rafters were roasted dry by the blistering desert sun, and shattered roof tiles were scattered across the dry sand like old bones.
The once-grand entrance gate was missing its right pillar entirely, while the left one barely supported a faded, termite-eaten wooden plaque hanging crookedly by a single rusted nail.
The young man stared at the desolate wasteland with veins popping on his forehead, violently kicking a pile of loose gravel.
"Fuck! I just transmigrated, and instead of becoming an invincible immortal emperor, a pampered young master of an ancient clan, or at least a wealthy merchant scion, you’re telling me I became the sect master of this destroyed, godforsaken sect!?"
He grabbed his messy hair in utter disbelief.
There were no disciples, no elders, no treasury, no spiritual herb gardens—not even a single bowl of clean water!
He was stranded in a lethal desert surrounded by high-tier spiritual beast territories with a cultivation level barely scraping the early Qi Gathering stage!
Just as he was about to curse the heavens for giving him the worst transmigration starting point in cosmic history, a crisp, mechanical chime echoed directly inside his brain!
[Ding! Detected that the host has officially inherited the position and became the Sect Master of the Rising Dragon Sect. Would Host like to bind with the system?]
The young man froze. The despair on his face instantly vanished, replaced by an ecstatic, feverish grin.
"Bind! Obviously bind! Bind right this second!" His eyes lit up like blazing torches.
[Ding! Binding Successful. Initialization complete. Greetings Host, I am the Game Master System.]
"Game master system? Quick, system, tell me your functions! What kind of cheats do I get? Can I summon characters and items from games I have played before? Can I spam En*ma El*sh and reign supreme over the universe?"
[The system can establish an interdimensional quantum link to summon "players" from another modern technological world, constructing spiritual avatar bodies for them to inhabit so they can descend to this world and experience it entirely as an ultra-realistic, full-dive virtual reality cultivation MMORPG!]
[The host’s role is to act as the supreme NPC and Game Master, publishing quests, managing rewards, manipulating exchange rates, and guiding them to reconstruct the ruins and make the Rising Dragon Sect the strongest, most terrifying force in the entire universe!]
[Host currently has Ten Initial Summoning Slots available for the closed beta phase. Would you like to summon now?]
The young man rubbed his hands together with a wide, wicked, and thoroughly unhinged grin stretching across his face.
Although it’s not what he expected, but this one is good too!
As an avid internet user and hardcore gamer in his past life, he knew better than anyone what a swarm of immortal, unkillable, quest-obsessed, and morally unhinged players could do to a traditional cultivation world.
"Good! Good! Magnificent! Summon them immediately!" he shouted into the howling desert wind, his laughter echoing across the dunes. "Let this world feel the true, unimaginable pain of being thoroughly dominated by gamers!"
SWISH—!
Ten pillars of blue spatial matrix light shot straight down from the sky, embedding themselves into the sand before the ruined sect gates as the digital summoning protocols began to construct the first batch of player vessels.
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Meanwhile, on another far-flung side of the vast desert region, deep inside a secluded, heavily concealed subterranean cave hidden beneath a towering red-rock mesa, a massive surge of spiritual energy suddenly detonated.
BOOM!
The dense, concentrated elemental qi that had been swirling through the cavern for the past seven days rapidly condensed, spiraling inward into the lower abdomen of a handsome, sharp-featured young cultivator sitting cross-legged atop a flat stone dais.
Within his dantians, a glowing, pristine golden core, pulsing with dense, vibrant life force, officially formed and condensed!
The young man successfully broke through to the Golden Core realm!
He snapped his eyes open, a radiant, crystalline light flashing across his irises, revealing the look of pure, unadulterated excitement.
He clenched his fists, feeling the immense, transformative power of a true Golden Core powerhouse coursing effortlessly through his newly expanded meridians.
"Master, I did it! I finally forged my Golden Core!" he exclaimed with boundless joy and pride, turning eagerly toward his right hand.
On his middle finger, an ancient, blackened bronze ring engraved with subtle spatial runes began to glow with a gentle, ethereal silver radiance.
Just then, a delicate mist of spiritual light seeped out from the surface of the ring, condensing mid-air into a translucent, floating spectral figure that hovered gracefully above the stone dais.
"Hmm, good job. Your foundation is solid, and you did not rush the meridian expansion," a melodious, cool, and refined female voice said, carrying a calm, ancient authority that naturally commanded respect.
The young man stared at his master floating before him, and no matter how many times he had seen her over the years since he first awakened the ring in his youth, he could truly never get used to how breathtakingly, impossibly beautiful she was.
She possessed long, dark hair that floated like ethereal silk in the cavern air, skin as flawless as sculpted immortal jade, and deep, tranquil orange eyes that carried the profound, unfathomable wisdom of ancient cosmic cycles.
Her ethereal robes drifted around her slender, elegant silhouette like mist over a mountain lake, radiating a serene, noble grace that felt utterly transcendent.
However, what the young man doesn’t know... is that if someone from Shen Haoran’s inner circle were here inside this cave right now and saw this floating spectral woman, they would be shocked completely beyond belief, their jaws dropping in utter, earth-shattering bewilderment!
Because this spectral figure... in her facial contours, her posture, her serene cadence, and her very soul signature... looks a lot like Xu Xiansu!