Seven days passed quickly.
Too quickly for the world.
Not quickly enough for Lin Xuanye.
He did not return to the dormitory except to sleep briefly. Every spare moment was spent at the abandoned construction site, drawing in thin strands of spiritual energy before anyone else realized they existed.
By the sixth night, the thread beneath the earth had grown noticeably stronger.
His Qi Gathering cultivation stabilized at early stage.
Still weak compared to his former self.
But compared to ordinary humans, he was already standing at the edge of a new realm.
On the seventh morning, the sky felt wrong.
It was subtle at first.
The air carried a faint metallic scent.
Birds flew lower than usual.
Dogs barked without reason.
Lin Xuanye stood on the rooftop of an unfinished building near the construction site.
He had chosen this location deliberately.
High ground.
Clear sightlines.
Away from dense crowds.
His phone buzzed endlessly in his pocket.
News alerts.
Emergency weather warnings.
Astronomical anomaly reports.
He did not look at them.
He looked at the sky.
At exactly noon, the sunlight dimmed.
It did not fade like sunset.
It thinned.
As if something vast had passed between the Earth and the sun.
People on the streets below began pointing upward.
Voices rose in confusion.
Then the clouds began to move.
Not drifting.
Spiraling.
A massive vortex formed directly above Canglan City. Silver light flickered deep within its center.
The pressure in the air changed instantly.
Lin Xuanye felt it first.
His meridians trembled.
The faint Qi inside his dantian reacted violently, as if greeting something ancient and familiar.
Across the city, glass shattered.
Car alarms screamed.
Some people collapsed where they stood.
Others grabbed their heads in pain.
Then the sky split.
A pillar of blinding silver light descended from the vortex and struck the earth beyond the western hills.
The shockwave followed half a second later.
The entire city shook.
Screams erupted everywhere.
And then it came.
Spiritual energy.
Not a thread.
Not a whisper.
A tidal wave.
Invisible yet overwhelming.
It poured down from the heavens and spread across the planet in an instant.
Lin Xuanye inhaled sharply.
His body ignited.
The Qi inside him surged wildly, almost out of control.
He immediately sat cross legged on the rooftop and began circulating the Nine Nether Immortal Scripture.
Guide it.
Refine it.
Do not let it tear you apart.
Below him, chaos unfolded.
A man fell to his knees as veins bulged beneath his skin.
A woman screamed as her eyes flashed with strange light.
Several people simply fainted.
In the distance, a deep roar echoed.
Not human.
Something was changing.
The spiritual energy density increased rapidly.
For ordinary people it was poison and opportunity mixed together.
For Lin Xuanye, it was fuel.
He drew it in deliberately.
Pain exploded through his meridians as the density multiplied.
His body was not ready for this much power.
Blood seeped from his nose.
His muscles trembled violently.
But his control was absolute.
In his previous life, he nearly died during the first wave because he did not know how to guide the energy.
This time he shaped it like a blade.
Compress.
Condense.
Stabilize.
The Qi in his dantian expanded from a thin stream to a swirling vortex.
Early stage Qi Gathering broke instantly.
He stepped into middle stage.
The rooftop beneath him cracked from the pressure leaking out.
Wind whipped around his body as spiritual energy continued flooding into the world.
Suddenly a scream rose from the street below.
Lin Xuanye opened his eyes.
A stray dog that had been wandering near the construction site convulsed violently. Its body swelled, bones cracking audibly as muscle mass doubled. Black veins crawled across its fur. Its eyes turned crimson.
The first wave of beast mutations had begun.
The mutated dog let out a distorted howl and lunged at a fleeing pedestrian.
Lin Xuanye stood.
Without hesitation he stepped off the rooftop.
He landed lightly on the pavement below, knees bending to absorb the impact.
The mutated beast had already knocked a man to the ground.
Its jaws opened wide.
Lin Xuanye moved.
His speed was not extraordinary yet, but compared to unawakened humans it was terrifying.
He appeared beside the beast and drove his palm into its skull.
Qi surged through his arm.
A sharp cracking sound echoed.
The beast's head snapped sideways as its body slammed into the concrete.
It twitched once.
Then went still.
The man beneath it stared up in shock.
Lin Xuanye withdrew his hand calmly.
Warm blood dripped from his fingers.
Around him, several people froze.
They had seen it clearly.
One strike.
Instant kill.
Someone whispered, "What are you?"
Lin Xuanye ignored them.
More howls echoed in the distance.
The Spiritual Tide had only just begun.
He looked up at the swirling vortex in the sky.
This was only the first descent.
Over the next hours the energy density would stabilize.
Over the next days awakenings would spread.
Governments would panic.
Clans would rise.
Power structures would collapse and reform.
In his pocket, his phone vibrated again.
This time he glanced at it.
A message from Han Tianyu.
Bro, are you seeing this? Something is seriously wrong.
Lin Xuanye stared at the name on the screen.
For a moment, the memory of fighting back to back flashed through his mind.
He erased it.
This time there would be no brotherhood.
Only inevitability.
He typed a single reply.
Stay alive.
Then he put the phone away.
He turned toward the western hills where the pillar of silver light had struck.
In three days, a minor spirit crystal deposit would form there.
In one week, the Black Moon Ruins would begin resonating.
He had no intention of falling behind.
Behind him, sirens wailed.
Ahead of him, the world was breaking.
Lin Xuanye began walking toward the hills.
As spiritual energy swirled violently around him, his cultivation surged once more.
Middle stage Qi Gathering stabilized completely.
He was already ahead of nearly everyone in Canglan City.
And this time, he would never be caught unprepared again.
The era of cultivation had returned.
And Lin Xuanye had returned with it.