Not until the roar of the crowd and the oppressive, high-level Dou Qi signatures of the Yun Lan Sect disciples had been muffled by two twisting market alleys did Zui Zian slow his pace.
He ducked into a small, shadowed nook beside a spice vendor and leaned heavily against the rough stone wall, fighting to steady his ragged breathing.
Three years. That was his takeaway. The whole terrifying, anxiety-inducing encounter was worth it because it confirmed one critical piece of information: that from now on, Xiao Yan was officially on the path to the Three-Year Agreement and soon he would leave Wu Tan City.
The System Breach Protocol had required a great mental toll to be taken just to run a passive scan on such powerful targets; his 3-star Dou Disciple energy reserves were also greatly depleted.
He felt physically hollow.
"A simple request for directions almost emptied me," he grumbled, running a tired hand across his face. "If I had actually tried to use the [Cultivation Base Lock] on that Elder Ge Ye, I'd be a brain-dead vegetable right now. Seventy-five percent chance of success, zero percent chance of survival after the fact."
His power was a sword of Damocles. It offered catastrophic power, the ability to break the very foundation of this world's cultivation. But the cost was currently astronomical. He needed fuel. He needed Dou Qi.
Zui Zian pushed off the wall and began a walk toward the less-populated edge of the city, heading for a small, abandoned watchtower. It was an inheritance: a memory fragment from the original, dead owner of this body, a useless bit of knowledge about some ruined structure on the fringe of the city.
He forced himself to reevaluate the life he'd taken over.; the previous Zui Zian was a total failure.
Memories of the previous owner came in disjointed flashes—hunger, failure, cold nights under broken roofs. In this world, Dou Qi talent wasn't created equal, and the boy who had come before him got the worst roll of fate. His meridians were narrow and irregular, his energy flow sluggish and stunted; his spiritual sense was weak, barely able to guide his own breathing, and he had no elemental affinity whatsoever-no spark of fire, no pull of wind or earth. He could cultivate in theory, but he was always meant to stay a bottom-feeder, a Dou Zhi Qi who would die before breaking through.
Worse, he'd never had the means to rise above that limit. No clan, no pills, no teachers-just a cheap, mass-produced manual used by servants and guards, a technique that did nothing but kept the body alive. Every day he had cultivated wrong-forcing Dou Qi through narrow meridians like a man trying to punch through stone. It worked, barely, but every attempt left microscopic scars in his channels. Over time, his meridians had turned into a tangle of damaged pathways. He had made himself stronger and weaker at the same time.
The rest was simple decay. He'd wandered into Wu Tan City after being rejected by a minor sect, survived on scraps, and worked odd jobs until exhaustion set in. His Qi Sea had shrunk to a flicker. One day, the body had simply failed—a quiet, unremarkable death in a world that had long forgotten him. Zui Zian breathed out, his hand resting over his chest, feeling the faint pulse of life that was now his. "No wonder," he muttered. "This body wasn't stolen. It was abandoned."
The wind slipped through the cracks, carrying dust and dry grass scents. His mind was still ringing from the earlier strain, but curiosity pushed through the fatigue.
He closed his eyes. "System… open panel."
A weak humming responded, and blue text appeared in front of his eyes.
[System Breach Protocol - Active]
Host: Zui Zian
Cultivation: Dou Zhi Qi (3-Star)
Energy Level: Low
Core Ability: [Eternal Blue]
"Eternal Blue."
Zui Zian watched the words pulse softly in midair, reflected by the soft blue glow in his tired eyes. The term felt familiar, yet utterly foreign-something not belonging to the structured world of Dou Qi.
He frowned. "Define ability. Eternal Blue."
Nothing happened for a moment, then faint lines of text began to unfold across the air like circuitry blooming into light.
[Core Ability: Eternal Blue
[Classification: Prohibited Construct
[Primary Function: Unauthorized Access to Energetic Constructs.]
Description: Eternal Blue works by being a self-improving protocol meant to infiltrate, spread, and overwrite the source code of energy patterns in general. Can adapt to all energy circulation patterns and all energy cultivation matrices. Energy source: Neural and spiritual output of the host.
Zui Zian blinked. "So… you're a virus."
The system didn't respond-but the faint hum in the air seemed to grow louder, resonating faintly through his skull.
He exhaled slowly, the information sinking in. "A virus for energy systems," he murmured. "That's… insane."
He'd heard of Eternal Blue before-not from this world, but from his own. A cyberweapon. A data-killer. A tool that broke through digital firewalls and seized control of entire systems. And now, somehow, the concept had crossed over with him, translated into this universe's rules.
Here, it didn't target code or machines; its target was cultivation.
"So that's why I can see flaws in their Qi networks," he realized quietly. "You're not analyzing them — you're reading them like open ports."
The thought sent a chill crawling up his spine. The body of every cultivator was a fortress built on balance, energy, and discipline. Eternal Blue saw none of that; it saw architecture, lines of access, points of intrusion, exploitable weaknesses.
And if he wanted to, he could invade those systems. Rewrite them.
He swallowed. "What if I use it directly on someone?
A pause, and then the answer appeared.
[Direct Breach Activation consumes spiritual and neural output at 1:1 ratio with the target energy level.]
[Warning: Current host output insufficient to breach above 3 star Dou Disciple(Dou Zhi Qi).
Estimated outcome: death of the host through neural collapse.
He gave a dry, humorless laugh. "So, using it on a Dou Ling like Ge Ye earlier would've cooked my brain."
The faint blue text flickered once, almost as if in confirmation.
Zui Zian rubbed his temple, the fatigue and dread weighing upon him. "And I can't even cultivate properly in this body," he muttered. "You gave me the power to break systems-but not the strength to survive using it."
With a sigh, he sat on the cold stone floor of the ruined watchtower and half-closed his eyes. As he stared at the flickering blue interface hovering above him, his breathing steadied.
"…No," he whispered after a while. "That's not precisely true."
The exhaustion was cut by a spark of thought. Eternal Blue wasn't limited to enemies. It could breach any system.
"What if I use it on myself?" he said slowly. "If I can access the structure of my own meridians… maybe I can patch the damage. Rebuild the flow. Optimize it." The system flickered, seeming to weigh the command.
[Proceed? Y/N]
Zui Zian hesitated only for a second. "Run diagnostics first. Show me my current state."
---
Continued chapters are posted on my blog:
memory1gigabyte.blogspot.com