The crater was silent, but inside Li Xin's stone body, a cosmic war was raging.
The Innate Morning Dew left by Great Immortal Zhenyuan was like a river of pure, cooling starlight. In contrast, the Chaos Fiend Energy he had absorbed from the finger was a roiling volcano of purple magma, screaming with the resentment of a fallen god.
If these two forces collided head-on, Li Xin would not just die; he would be erased from the river of time.
"System! I cannot balance them manually. Start the 'Grand Harmony Simulation'. I need to find the Golden Mean!"
[Ding! Consuming 20 units of Spiritual Energy. Current Balance: 45 units (including energy from the Morning Dew).]
[Simulation Beginning!]
[The Simulation: The Path of the Flesh]
[Year 1: You attempt to use the Holy Dew to wash away the Chaos Energy. The Chaos Energy retaliates, turning your core into a battlefield. Your stone body explodes into a cloud of glowing dust. Death!]
[Year 5: You try the opposite. You let the Chaos Energy swallow the Dew. You become a 'Chaos Demon Stone.' Your power skyrockets, but your sanity snaps. You begin to eat the nearby soil, eventually consuming yourself in a fit of hunger. Death!]
[Year 20: You decide to stop fighting. You use the 'Innate Gravity' to pull both energies into a spiral. They begin to orbit each other like a Taiji diagram (Yin and Yang). Your stone body begins to soften. You feel the first tingle of 'Nerves.']
[Year 60: Success! The two energies have reached a delicate equilibrium. You begin to mold your spiritual body. You want to look like a human, but your subconscious keeps turning you into a rock-man with three heads. The deformity causes your Qi to stagnate. Failure!]
[Year 150: You spend a century studying the 'Innate Laws' within the Morning Dew. You realize that to take a human form in the Honghuang, you must align with the 'Heavenly Dao's' image of perfection. You begin the metamorphosis. Skin, bone, blood, and breath... they all start to form from the dust of your stone body.]
[Year 151: Just as you are about to open your eyes as a human, a Thunder Tribulation gathers above. Because you are a 'Spirit Stone' taking a human form—an act of defying nature—the Heavens send the 'Four-Nine Small Heavenly Tribulation.' You are struck by four bolts of blue lightning. You have no defensive artifacts. You are charred to a crisp. Death!]
[The Simulation has ended. Duration: 151 years.]
[Evaluation: You have found the secret to the Human Form, but you lack the strength to survive the 'Heavens' Jealousy.']
[You may choose one of the following rewards:]
[Transformation Template: 'The Perfect Innate Human Body.']
[Cultivation: Mid-Stage Foundation Establishment.]
[Insight: 'Thunder Resistance' (Minor Success).]
"I choose Option 1!" Li Xin gritted his teeth. "Power and resistance can be gained later, but if my foundation as a human is flawed, I'll never reach the Saint realm!"
FLASH.
The darkness of the crater was suddenly illuminated by a blinding white light. Li Xin felt his stone body—the hard, jagged obsidian that had been his home—begin to melt. It wasn't painful this time; it felt like returning to a warm womb.
The Innate Morning Dew acted as the catalyst, providing the "Life Force," while the Chaos Energy provided the "Raw Substance."
Inside the liquid stone, a skeleton began to form. Not made of calcium, but of refined Chaos Obsidian. Meridians began to weave themselves like golden silk threads, and a heart—the Obsidian Heart—started its first beat.
Thump.
The sound echoed through the crater, causing the nearby plants to wither and then suddenly bloom again.
Thump. Thump.
As the skin—fair as jade but tough as dragon scales—finished forming, Li Xin felt a terrifying pressure gathering in the sky above the broken mountain.
The clouds, which were clear a moment ago, turned into a swirling vortex of ink-black lightning. This was the Tribulation he saw in the simulation. The Heavens did not want a "Chaos Rock" to walk the earth in the shape of a man.
"Come then!" Li Xin's voice, the first time he had spoken with real vocal cords, sounded like the clashing of swords.
He stood up. He was a young man, appearing no older than twenty, with long hair that shimmered with a purple-black luster. His eyes were like deep pools of starlight, one pupil faintly gold, the other a void-like violet.
CRACK-BOOM!
The first bolt of lightning, as thick as a tree trunk, descended. It wasn't blue, but a sickly pale white—the 'Bone-Washing Lightning.'
Li Xin didn't hide. He didn't have a shield or a sword. He only had his new body and the knowledge from a thousand simulated deaths. He raised his fist, coated it in a layer of Innate Gravity, and punched the lightning.
COLLISION!
The shockwave leveled the remaining trees for a mile. Li Xin's arm shattered, the obsidian bone peeking through his skin. But in an instant, the energy from the lightning was absorbed by his Chaos Veins, and his arm healed before the second bolt could strike.
"Is that all?" Li Xin roared, his blood pumping with the adrenaline of a survivor. "I have died 151 times in the simulation just to stand here! You think one bolt of lightning can stop me?"
The Heavens seemed insulted. The black clouds turned a fiery red. The remaining three bolts didn't strike one by one—they merged into a single, massive dragon of lightning that lunged at the crater.
Li Xin closed his eyes. In that split second, he entered a state of "Simulation Clarity." He saw the path of the lightning, the weak points in its structure, and the exact moment its energy would peak.
He didn't punch this time. He opened his mouth and inhaled.
[Ding! Host is attempting a 'God-Level' maneuver: 'Swallowing the Tribulation!']
The lightning dragon was sucked into Li Xin's throat. His body began to glow so brightly that he looked like a miniature sun. His skin cracked, golden blood leaking out, but his Obsidian Heart beat faster and faster, refining the destructive lightning into pure, concentrated True Qi.
[Ding! Breakthrough! Breakthrough! Breakthrough!]
[You have reached the Late-Stage of Foundation Establishment!]
[Your 'Chaos Obsidian Body' has been tempered by Heavenly Lightning.]
The clouds dissipated. The sun shone once more on the ruined mountain.
Li Xin stood in the center of the crater, naked but radiant. He looked at his hands, feeling the terrifying strength coursing through him. He was no longer a rock. He was a Human Cultivator in the Honghuang, but with a foundation that would make the disciples of the Saints green with envy.
"System," he whispered, a cold smile forming on his lips. "It's time. The Dragon-Phoenix war is about to peak. I need a name for my 'Secret Sect.' A name that will make the Heavens tremble."
[Ding! Suggestion: 'The Myriad Path Simulation Hall'.]
"Too long," Li Xin said, looking toward the horizon where a massive dragon made of clouds was fighting a phoenix of fire. "We shall call it... The Heaven-Veiling Pavilion. And I... I am no longer Li Xin. From today, in this world, I am Daoist Wu-Ji (The Infinite)."
With a wave of his hand, he created a robe out of the surrounding spiritual mist and stepped out of the crater. His first journey into the Great Desolate World had truly begun.