(Brain Storage!)
Great Xia Calendar Year X217, Night.
Young Ji Jinnian stood on the second-floor balcony of his home, his consciousness somewhat dazed, as if he had just had a very, very long dream.
In the dream, he grew up peacefully, went through school uneventfully, worked an ordinary job, and aged naturally.
Until the year he turned forty-nine; he was clearly in good health, looking more than ten years younger than his peers, yet he inexplicably felt that his end was near.
This feeling came out of nowhere.
Facing this, Ji Jinnian was naturally a bit flustered at first. He sought out famous doctors and underwent checkups, but everything showed he was healthy.
Eventually, he calmed his mind.
Although his life hadn't been grand or tumultuous, he was already very satisfied.
Compared to the current average lifespan of two Jiazi (120 years), passing away before reaching one Jiazi (60 years) could be considered dying young, but he didn't care much or feel indignant.
The depth of life is not measured solely by its length.
He adjusted his mindset in a very short time, and then it was time to handle his affairs.
He hadn't married when he was young, and without a partner, he naturally had no direct descendants.
But he had an older brother, and he had always treated his brother's two children as his own.
He had originally planned to leave his entire estate to these two children after his death; now, it was just happening a bit sooner.
It wasn't a big deal.
Since the premonition of death was groundless, Ji Jinnian didn't make a big fuss while arranging his "after-death affairs."
After all, what if it was just his imagination?
He had always been the "handsome middle-aged uncle" in the hearts of the younger generation, and he certainly didn't want to become a laughingstock because of a false alarm and ruin his reputation.
What happened next?
It seemed the memories closer to his death were the blurriest.
Ji Jinnian shook his small head and reached out to steady himself on the nearby railing to prevent himself from falling in his daze.
Once that wave of dizziness, which felt like low blood sugar, subsided, Ji Jinnian's calm mind returned.
'This is... the old house that was already demolished.'
Although it was night, with the help of the balcony light and the moonlight, Ji Jinnian could still clearly see his surroundings.
Memories of his childhood also surfaced.
But now was clearly not the time for reminiscing.
Just as Ji Jinnian looked up at the starry sky in contemplation, a change occurred on the horizon.
A meteor, or perhaps a giant fireball, approached from afar, rapidly growing larger.
Ji Jinnian's pupils constricted; he remembered this scene.
Back then, his younger self had instinctively raised his hand to cover his eyes out of fear.
When he opened his eyes again, that mysterious celestial body—whether fireball or meteor—had already vanished, as if it had all been a figment of his imagination.
This time, however, he did not close his eyes.
The mysterious celestial body was fast, fleeting in an instant, and then it enveloped Ji Jinnian. Vaguely, he heard a satisfied chuckle.
And the expected heat and pain did not occur.
Yet, none of this was his imagination.
At this moment, Ji Jinnian found himself in a dazzling, magical world. The surrounding ribbons of light drifted like flames, but they emitted no heat, only light.
Ji Jinnian didn't make any rash moves, but his heart began to beat violently and uncontrollably.
Everything had changed.
He didn't have to wait long before another change occurred.
The flame-like ribbons of light converged, transforming into a blurred female figure.
The reason he could tell it was a woman was not only because of her flowing long hair but also her magnificent attire.
The woman seemed to be saying something, but he couldn't hear it clearly. Much like that initial chuckle, he could only catch a few fragments now.
By piecing things together, Ji Jinnian could vaguely infer that the woman had created such a grand spectacle to complete a ritual similar to an inheritance.
And the content she was passing down was her fundamental cultivation method for survival?
The reason Ji Jinnian seemed a bit hesitant was entirely because of the other party's identity.
This woman was not some extraordinary immortal or divine being, but a Weaver Girl.
Not the one from the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl meeting on the Magpie Bridge, but simply an ordinary fairy whose duty and specialty was Weaving, with the title of Weaver Girl.
Although the inheritance she provided was her fundamental cultivation method, the only part of real value was the Visualization Method.
The Visualization Method is the source of cultivation, much like the seed of a plant.
Perhaps for this reason, the Visualization Method was the only part of the entire inheritance Ji Jinnian received that was complete.
Other abilities regarding Weaving (the majority), Combat (scraps), and Travel (scraps) all suffered from varying degrees of loss.
When the inheritance ended and the phenomena vanished, Ji Jinnian's surroundings returned to his home's second-floor balcony.
"Hiss... my head hurts."
The little boy rubbed his temples with an air of maturity.
By now, his frantic heartbeat had calmed down.
The headache wasn't actually a physical one.
From the moment he received the inheritance, he knew his future life would be completely different.
He wasn't yet sure if his dream-like experience of the future was real or fake, but he was very clear on one point: his life from now on would no longer be ordinary.
It might even bring great danger if he wasn't cautious enough.
First of all, he didn't believe he was unique.
After all, if such a magical thing could happen to him, how could he be sure it wouldn't happen to others?
'There's no point in worrying about fortune or misfortune now; I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.'
Thinking this with a calm expression, Ji Jinnian turned and went downstairs.
Extraordinary powers and the world were unknown to him.
Fortunately, he wasn't an ordinary seven-year-old child. Whether that dream-like future experience was real or not, at least his memories and life experience were genuine.
With these thoughts, Ji Jinnian arrived downstairs and saw his parents, who were so affectionate that they even huddled together to watch TV dramas.
Looking sleepy, he said, "Dad, Mom, I'm tired. I'm going to bed now."
The couple was currently engrossed in each other's company and didn't even give him a second glance, just waving him off to bed if he was tired.
His parents were very affectionate—so much so that he and his brother felt like they had been picked up from the street.
This didn't seem any different from his dream-like future.
Before his death in the future dream, his parents were still alive and well.
If that dream had continued, it would likely have been a scene of parents burying their child.
Amidst these scattered thoughts, Ji Jinnian finished washing up, returned to his room, and lay down on his bed.
He appeared to be closing his eyes to enter dreamland, but in reality, he was beginning his first journey of visualization.
Although this inheritance was overall incomplete, the Visualization Method, being the foundation of everything, had no gaps. Of course, given Ji Jinnian's lack of knowledge in this area, he couldn't perform any more extraordinary feats for the time being.
Things having come to this, he couldn't possibly cast aside this clearly fantastical Visualization Method and relive that dream-like future life, could he?
That would be so boring.
With the inheritance etched into his heart, although it was Ji Jinnian's first time attempting to engage with the visualization content, he wasn't slow to start. Beyond that, he needed to maintain a peaceful state of mind.
Achieving a calm and tranquil state might be difficult for some, but for him, it was second nature. Even though the events happening to him were incredibly bizarre, they didn't change his leisurely mindset, which was like that of someone who had seen through the world.
Skipping the minor details for now, Ji Jinnian concentrated his mental energy on the Visualization Method.
'The final visualized form is a... spinning wheel?'
Ji Jinnian felt a bit surprised, but not shocked.
After all, in the information obtained through visualization, visualized forms were all sorts of strange.
There were books, brushes, scrolls, bird nests, rivers, mountain peaks, and even the sun.
Since it was just a spinning wheel, there was nothing to be strange about.
As for the differences in visualized forms, there was no inherent superiority or inferiority.
In other words, an entity visualizing the sun isn't necessarily more powerful than one visualizing a flame.
It also depends on what concepts and content the visualizer fills into the visualized form.
This wasn't hard to understand. If the visualized form is compared to the design framework for building a house, the concepts and content filled in by the visualizer are the various building materials.
Of course, more magnificent and grand visualized forms have inherently loftier intentions, which also serve as positive guidance for the practitioner.
Therefore, in a broad sense, this could lead to a result where one who visualizes the "sun" is stronger than one who visualizes "flame."
'But the essence of visualization dictates that none of this is predetermined.'
After understanding this, Ji Jinnian did not rashly begin practical application.
Since he knew that the concepts and content used for visualization determined its upper limit, he couldn't just copy the content from the inheritance and become a male Weaver Girl immortal—the likes of which he didn't even know existed in the myriad heavens.
If there weren't any, he certainly didn't want to become such a precedent.
'If I don't want to become an orthodox Weaver Girl immortal, then some concepts in the Visualization Method must be replaced.'
But this was clearly not a simple task.
It was also thanks to the human-centric nature of the Visualization Method. If it were any other cultivation system, a novice like Ji Jinnian might not succeed even if he spent his whole life on it.
'First, I'll mark the concepts and content in the inherited Visualization Method that favor Weaving, then try to organize and categorize them to summarize the visualization concepts I need.'
This is like building with blocks: first, select the blocks you don't need, pull them out, and then fill in the ones you do need, preferably with better materials.
Step by step, eventually all the unnecessary blocks will be removed and replaced with the ones he needs.
As a novice, it didn't matter if he didn't know how to build a new visualized form from scratch; he could just use the original one.
However, this way, once he succeeded, the originally plastic visualized form would be transformed, turning into steel or even diamond.
'Hmm, can't rush. Take it slow.'
Although he died young in the dream, his life experience was rich.
If he truly had the mindset of a child, encountering such a mysterious thing, he would have started following the visualization steps regardless of anything else.
And once a complete visualization was successfully finished, even if it didn't produce a substantial leap in strength, it would mean the foundation was set. At that point, it wouldn't be as simple to make modifications as it was now.
'I wonder where this inheritance originated from and why it came...'
Well, thinking about these things is still a bit premature.
Soldiers to block, water to earth.
'As long as I keep going, I'll eventually find out.'
No rush.