📘 CHAPTER 12: The Book's Hidden Page
The gaze lingered—a feather-light brush against the walls of his spiritual sea, cold and curious. Tang San was watching. Always watching.
Huo Yuhao let out a slow breath, dispersing the ice clone with a thought. The frost patterns on the walls melted away, leaving damp streaks on the metal. He needed to be more careful. Every display of power, every deviation from the "script," drew the God King's attention.
But caution alone wouldn't shatter destiny.
He sat cross-legged on the cultivation mat, his mind turning inward. The Black Book floated serenely above his azure spiritual sea, its dark cover seeming to drink the light of the orbiting treasures. For months, he had treated it as a guide, a system, a repository. But the future Huo Yuhao's echo had called it an "arbiter from beyond the pages." A being that could defy local laws.
What else could it do?
He focused his consciousness, reaching out to the Book not as a user to an interface, but as a soul to a companion.
"Show me what you haven't shown me," he whispered in the depths of his mind. "You didn't bring me here just to give me missions and points. What else are you hiding?"
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, the Black Book trembled.
It wasn't a physical tremor, but a ripple through the fabric of his spiritual sea. The stolen treasures—the Dragon God soul, the Ice Lotus core, the Frozen Marrow—hummed in resonant harmony. The Book's cover, once a plain expanse of void, began to shimmer. Patterns emerged, not of ink or light, but of condensed narrative possibility. They looked like… locks.
Six intricate seals, arranged in a circle. Five were closed, shimmering with opaque, forbidding energy. But one—the first—was different. Its complex lines were glowing with a faint, pulsating light, and a hairline crack ran through its center.
As Huo Yuhao's consciousness focused on it, information flowed into him, not through the system's text, but as direct understanding.
"Multiversal Anchor Function: UNLOCKING"
"The Black Book is a repository of narratives, a bridge between stories. Within its pages lie pathways to other worlds, other laws, other cultivations."
"Host's accumulated Rebellion Points (2,850) and repeated defiance of local fate have triggered the first seal."
"First Pathway: BATTLE THROUGH THE HEAVENS – UNLOCKED 🔓"
"Access Level: Limited (Soul Projection) "
"Time Dilation: 3-year agreement (3 years there = 3 days here) "
"Warning: Direct physical travel not yet possible. Only consciousness and spiritual essence may cross. The body remains anchored in the Douluo timeline."
Huo Yuhao's heart hammered against his ribs. Other worlds. The phrase from the future echo resonated: "a place where stories were written and worlds were but turning pages."
"Battle Through the Heavens…" he breathed. He knew that story. A world of Dou Qi, of Heavenly Flames, of a young alchemist's rise against heaven-shaking odds. A world with a completely different cultivation system.
The Book's page beneath the seal imagery turned, revealing not words, but a swirling vortex of multi-colored flame and vast, primeval forests.
"Would you like to establish a temporary anchor?"
"Y / N"
This was insane. A distraction. He had a god watching him, a war to navigate, a rebellion to plan.
It was also an unimaginable opportunity. A system Tang San could not perceive, operating on laws he did not understand. Power he could not predict.
He didn't hesitate.
"Y"
The vortex in the Book surged. Huo Yuhao felt a terrifying lurch, as if his soul was being pulled through a pinhole. The world—his workshop, his body, the feeling of the mat beneath him—vanished.
He was a point of consciousness hurtling through a kaleidoscopic tunnel of fragmented scenes: a youth fighting a three-headed snake, a beautiful woman in regal purple robes, a towering pagoda of flames, and a whisper that seemed to echo from the dawn of creation: "Nà lÃng, huÇ’ yà n wà ng…"
The journey lasted an eternity and an instant. Then, he landed.
He had no eyes, but he could see. He had no body, but he could feel. He was a floating point of awareness in a dense, energy-rich forest. The air thrummed with a power completely alien to Douluo Continent—not spirit power, but a wild, vibrant, elemental energy. Dou Qi.
Below him, a scene unfolded.
A young man, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, with determined eyes and a stubborn set to his jaw, was locked in combat with a magical beast resembling a lightning-wreathed panther. The youth moved with impressive agility, green Dou Qi swirling around his fists. But he was outmatched, his movements growing sluggish, his energy fading.
Xiao Yan. It had to be.
This was the moment. The intersection. Huo Yuhao's consciousness, a foreign variable from another narrative, had touched down at a point of tension, of potential.
The Black Book's voice, now echoing with the authority of a cross-dimensional law, resonated in his soul-essence.
"Anchor established at: 'Three-Year Agreement' commencement point."
"Host may observe, interact minimally, or impart. Direct intervention will expel consciousness."
"Local time will now flow."
Huo Yuhao watched as Xiao Yan was swatted aside by the beast's paw, tumbling into a creek bed, battered and desperate. He felt the youth's fierce, unyielding will—a will that mirrored his own Refusing Rage.
He could just watch. Gather data. Learn about Dou Qi.
But that wasn't why he was here. He was here to break scripts. And sometimes, breaking one script meant empowering someone in another.
He focused his consciousness, drawing not on spirit power, but on the pure conceptual energy of the Black Book itself—the energy of a Reader's defiance. He shaped it into a whisper, a gift, a seed of knowledge from one rebel to another.
He aimed it not at Xiao Yan's mind, which was guarded by the mysterious ring and its resident, but at the very air around him, at the Dou Qi of the world, imprinting a pattern upon it.
A technique. Not from Douluo. Not exactly from this world either. A synthesis, born from the Black Book's analysis of the 'Nine Star Element Theory' it had scanned from Huo Yuhao's original world memories and filtered through the nascent laws of this realm.
The knowledge settled around the wounded Xiao Yan like invisible dew. It would seep into his comprehension when he next meditated, feeling like a sudden inspiration, a breakthrough in understanding.
"Impartment Complete: 'Nine Star Element Technique – Foundation Level' "
"A technique of conceptual attraction and elemental synthesis. Foreign to local Dao. Origin: Reader's Will / Black Book Synthesis. "
The technique's principles unfolded in Huo Yuhao's own understanding as he bestowed it:
First Level: "Construct a Mansion in Your Dantian." The cultivator must visualize and forge a stable, spacious core within their energy center—not just a rotating vortex of Dou Qi, but an architectural construct, a foundation that can house greater power.
Second Level: "Attract the Power of Stars." Once the Mansion is built, the cultivator learns to resonate with the distant, refining energy of stars (or in this world, perhaps the essence of particular Heavenly Flames or rare elemental sources), drawing minuscule traces to temper their Dou Qi and physique.
Third Level: "Reduce Any Treasure to Ash." A formidable refining ability. By projecting the cultivated star-aspected Dou Qi, the user can disintegrate the physical and energetic structure of materials, breaking them down to their base components for absorption or destruction.
Seventh Level (Concept Unlocked, Far Distant): "Create Essence." The theoretical pinnacle. The ability to synthesize pure elemental or conceptual essences—Fire Essence, Water Essence, Sword Essence—from gathered energy or dissolved materials. These essences could then be combined with other techniques or used to forge peerless items.
It was a slow, profound, and incredibly versatile technique, utterly different from the explosive, flame-focused path Xiao Yan was known for. It was a complementary power, a foundation builder.
As the knowledge transferred, Huo Yuhao felt his consciousness straining. The vortex reappeared, pulling him back.
He had one last glimpse: Xiao Yan, bleeding in the creek, suddenly frowned, his eyes flashing with a strange, new clarity amidst the pain and determination.
Then, the tunnel of light swallowed Huo Yuhao again.
---
He gasped, jerking forward on his cultivation mat in the Sun Moon Academy workshop. Cold sweat soaked his robes. Only a few seconds had passed in the Douluo world. His spirit power was nearly drained, his mental energy exhausted as if he'd fought a day-long battle.
But in his spiritual sea, something had changed.
The Black Book's first seal was now fully open, revealing a shimmering, stable portal-like image of a forest and a distant, cloud-wreathed mountain range. The label BATTLE THROUGH THE HEAVENS glowed softly beneath it.
And floating beside the Book, a new, tiny orb of light had appeared—a pearl containing the complete understanding of the Nine Star Element Technique.
More than that, he felt… different. His perception had expanded. He could still feel the spirit power of his world, but now, at the very edge of his senses, he could also feel a faint, ghostly echo of something else—the vibrant, wild thrum of Dou Qi. It was inaccessible here, but knowing it existed, feeling its echo, changed his understanding of energy itself.
[Multiversal Anchor: Battle Through the Heavens – STABLE]
[Host has gained: 'Multiversal Perception (Faint)']
[New Energy Comprehension: +10% to all cultivation insight.]
[Time until next conscious projection: 7 Douluo days (Cooling Period)]
He had done it. He had reached beyond his own story.
But the cost of defiance was never zero. As the thrill of discovery faded, the familiar, chilling gaze returned—this time, sharper, more focused. It swept over his spiritual sea like a searchlight.
Tang San had felt the dimensional breach.
The gaze probed, curious and now slightly alarmed. It brushed against the Black Book, but the Book simply sat there, a perfect, unreadable void. It scanned Huo Yuhao's soul and found it… slightly altered, imprinted with a foreign Dao it couldn't immediately decipher.
The gaze lingered for a tense minute, then withdrew, though the sense of observation remained heightened.
Huo Yuhao let out a shuddering breath. He had drawn more attention. But he had also gained a tool of unimaginable potential.
A knock at his workshop door made him jump.
"Huo Yuhao?" It was Ke Ni's voice, worried. "Are you okay? I felt… a weird energy spike."
Huo Yuhao stood, smoothing his robes. He opened the door to find Ke Ni and, behind him, Meng Hongchen. Her expression was neutral, but her eyes were sharp, analyzing everything in the room—the damp walls, his sweat-soaked clothes, his exhausted demeanor.
"Working on a new project?" she asked, her tone light. "The energy signature was… unusual. Not quite spirit power. Not quite soul tool resonance."
Huo Yuhao's mind raced. He smiled wearily, the exhaustion genuine. "A failed experiment, Senior. Trying to merge a cultivation technique with a spirit circuit. Caused a feedback loop. Nearly blew the dampeners."
It was a plausible lie for a genius tinkerer.
Meng Hongchen's eyes narrowed slightly, but she nodded. "Ambitious. Dangerous. My brother and I would be interested in your findings… successful or not. The powered armor project needs innovative energy solutions."
"Of course," Huo Yuhao said. "Once I've recovered and documented the failure."
After they left, he locked the door and slumped against it.
The paths were multiplying. The Douluo script, the Sun Moon war, the Meng siblings' ambitions, Tang San's surveillance, and now a doorway to another universe entirely.
He looked inward at the Black Book, at the five remaining locked seals: Martial Universe, Perfect World, Shrouding the Heavens, Honghuang, Eternal Life. Each a universe of limitless danger and power.
He was no longer just a crack in one narrative.
He was becoming a fault line between worlds.
And he needed to be strong enough to handle the earthquake.
End of Chapter 12
(Chapter 13 Preview: Fallout – The unusual energy spike attracts more than just Meng Hongchen. Academy security and possibly Tang Sect agents begin discreet inquiries. Meanwhile, Huo Yuhao must explore the practical applications of his newly-gained 'Nine Star Element Technique' understanding in the Douluo world—can it be adapted to spirit power? At the same time, in the Battle Through the Heavens timeline, Xiao Yan begins his three-year journey, occasionally meditating on a strange, starlit cultivation method that came to him in a moment of desperation.)