Consciousness returned like wading through thick mud.
His limbs felt leaden, as though iron weights had been strapped to his bones while he slept. Even opening his eyes required concentrated effort that left him breathless.
The borrowed sleeping mat beneath him was damp with sweat despite the morning chill.
Through the gaps in Uncle Chen's roof, pale sunlight suggested he had slept far longer than intended—perhaps until midday.
But as his mind cleared, a priority surfaced—one he had deliberately avoided since his rebirth.
The reason the Heavenly Emperors had tried to destroy him. The artifact that had rewritten his very timeline and bound him to this mortal flesh.
The First Book. It is a tool created by the First Being that contained in it the story of existence from the very beginning to end.
Analysis: survival requirements temporarily satisfied. Memory palace: functional. Time for primary asset evaluation.
His parents still lay unburied behind their hut, but this could not wait.
The Book existed at the edge of his awareness—a vast presence that felt like standing before an infinite library whose shelves stretched beyond the horizon. Accessible, but requiring something he barely possessed.
Divine Qi reserves: trace amounts detected.
A fragment so infinitesimal it barely registered, like trying to cup starlight in his palms.
In his previous existence, Divine Qi had flowed through him like an endless river. Now, this microscopic remainder represented everything left of his godlike power.
But it might be enough. It had to be enough for one question.
He closed his eyes and reached toward the Book's presence with careful precision, the way one might approach a sleeping tiger.
Query: what does the future hold for me?
The response was immediate and catastrophic.
Reality shattered around him like broken glass. Information flooded his consciousness in torrents—not the controlled trickle of his memory palace, but an unstoppable deluge of possibility and consequence.
Imperial guards in three days—quarantine protocols, body searches, discovery. Famine spreading like a plague of its own—resource seizures, supply commandeering. His identity unraveling under investigation, questions he couldn't answer about family that no longer existed.
The visions exploded exponentially, each spawning infinite branches. His skull felt split by molten hammers, vision blurring with tears of blood.
Warning: neural overload imminent.
He tried to sever the connection, but the Book's momentum carried him deeper. Through the agony, crucial data crystallized:
Imperial investigation: approximately three days. Discovery probability without proper burial: over seventy percent. Optimal completion window: eighteen hours maximum.
With tremendous effort, he severed the connection to the Book.
The silence that followed felt deafening—his ears rang with a high, crystalline tone that wouldn't stop. The world returned in washed-out grays, as if all color had been leached away.
Divine Qi reserves: completely depleted.
He staggered, catching himself against Uncle Chen's wall. The microscopic fragment of his former power was gone, consumed entirely by those few seconds of prophetic vision.
He was now truly mortal—no different from any other seven-year-old child except for the vast knowledge trapped in his skull.
He wiped the blood from his face with shaking hands, checking to ensure no stains remained on his borrowed clothes.
The information was invaluable, but the lesson was equally clear: the Book would kill him if he tried to use it again.
Outside, he could hear Aunt Mei humming as she tended her small garden, Uncle Chen's measured breathing suggesting he still slept.
The normalcy of it felt surreal after glimpsing the cascading possibilities of imperial investigation and regional famine.
Immediate action required: complete burial before discovery window closes.
He rose carefully, testing his balance. The weakness was profound but manageable. His legs trembled as he walked to the door, but they held his weight.
"Going to check on your parents, dear?" Aunt Mei looked up from her turnips, soil dark under her fingernails.
"Yes, Aunt Mei. To see if they're feeling better."
Her expression softened with the kind of gentle sadness that said she knew exactly what he would find. "Take your time, child. Some goodbyes can't be rushed."
The walk to his family's hut felt longer than memory suggested. Each step required conscious effort, his body still reeling from the Book's power consumption. But his mind was crystal clear on what needed to be done.
The shallow graves behind the hut were exactly as he'd left them—half-finished scrapes in earth too hard for his weakened muscles to conquer efficiently. His parents' wrapped forms lay beside them, patient in their final rest.
Available resources: minimal water supply, basic tools. Deadline: eighteen hours.
He retrieved the clay jug and began the methodical process he'd started the day before. Pour water onto the packed earth, wait for absorption, repeat. Let physics accomplish what strength could not.
While the earth softened, his mind turned to the longer-term problem the Book had revealed—his body's complete inadequacy for what was coming.
He reached for cultivation knowledge and came away with fragments: incomplete breathing patterns, half-remembered acupuncture points, the beginning of a meridian diagram that dissolved before he could grasp its end.
Stage One objective: strengthening of meridians. Current condition: glass filaments that must be coaxed, not forced.
In his previous life, his meridians had been conduits of infinite power. Now they were delicate threads, liable to shatter under even the gentlest pressure.
But the Book's vision had shown him the timeframe: imperial investigation, resource seizures, systematic searches. He needed to begin cultivation immediately, regardless of his body's current limitations.
The earth was finally soft enough to work. He resumed digging, each shovelful a careful balance between necessity and his body's constraints. His split thumb reopened, but he ignored the blood. The graves deepened slowly, methodically.
Task progression: burial 60% complete. Estimated completion: 4 hours at current pace.
As he worked, his analytical mind began organizing cultivation knowledge from his memory palace.
The first stage of Body Tempering focused on meridian strengthening—a gradual process of encouraging environmental Qi to flow through and reinforce the pathways that carried it.
Meridian cultivation technique: selection required.
The sun was declining toward the horizon when he finally lowered his mother's wrapped form into her grave. Then his father. The depth wasn't perfect, but it would suffice for what the future required.
As he began covering them with soil, that familiar pressure built behind his eyes. The memory of his mother's humming, his father's quiet strength in the face of starvation. In his previous existence, he would have processed these as interesting data points about human attachment behavior.
Now they felt like weights in his chest, slowing his movements and blurring his vision with something that wasn't blood.
Emotional interference detected. Attempting suppression.
But the suppression wasn't complete. Part of him—the part that had learned to cry, to feel gratitude toward strangers—wanted to say something over these graves. Some words to mark the end of the people who had given everything so he could exist.
"Thank you," he whispered to the freshly turned earth. Not because it was tactically optimal, but because the words demanded to be spoken.
Task complete: burial finalized within acceptable parameters.
The walk back to Uncle Chen's hut felt different. Lighter in some ways, heavier in others. He had fulfilled his obligation to the dead.
Now he could focus entirely on the living—on survival, cultivation, and the systematic reconstruction of power.
Next phase: Body Tempering Stage One. Duration: estimated 30-45 days given current limitations.
That night, lying on his borrowed mat while Uncle Chen and Aunt Mei slept, he began the most important work of his new existence.
He closed his eyes and turned his attention inward, searching for the pathways that would need to carry environmental Qi through his mortal form.
His meridians were barely perceptible—thin, brittle threads that could barely withstand the gentlest flow.
Technique initiation: Memory Palace access. Objective: recovery of relevant meridian reinforcement techniques.
He began sifting through his disorganized knowledge, discarding irrelevant information while searching for cultivation methods suitable for his current limitations.
Even this minimal effort caused immediate discomfort, like forcing water through a clogged pipe.
Status: mild cognitive strain. Parameters: acceptable. Continue.
He paused after his memory palace flagged a useful meridian technique. The Gentle River Method—designed precisely for situations like his, cultivation beginning from a state of severe physical weakness.
Technique: The Gentle River Method.
Grade: Core Level.
Description: Nurture meridians through patient circulation—not a flood but a persistent trickle that polishes brittle channels into conduits. Create needle-thin energy streams, guide them through all acupuncture points. Progress until meridians can conduct Qi like flowing streams. Requires extreme patience and control. Impossible for mortals unfamiliar with Qi manipulation.
But there was a crucial limitation. In his previous existence, Qi perception and manipulation had been as natural as breathing.
Now, he could not see, sense, or perceive Qi directly.
He knew how it behaved fundamentally—knowledge as unshakeable as his own name—but working with it would be like performing surgery while blindfolded.
There was another technique buried somewhere in his vast memory—one that could nurture meridians with no effort, no restrictions, in dramatically less time.
However, searching for it might take a second in the best case scenario, millennia in the worst. He had neither the luxury of time nor the patience for such uncertainty.
His evaluation was coldly practical: technique viable but extremely challenging, alternative options insufficient. Yet beneath the familiar calculus, frustration gnawed at him.
In his previous existence, such limitations would have been irrelevant obstacles to sweep aside.
Now, with imperial guards arriving in approximately three days, he faced the alien concept of making do with inadequate resources.
Decision: initiate Gentle River Method despite suboptimal conditions.
He took a careful breath and prepared to attempt Qi manipulation blind. The meridians passed through the center of his body, connecting to his lungs.
Through specific breathing patterns, he could slowly draw environmental Qi into his system and guide it through his meridian pathways, nurturing them gradually.
Direct manipulation remained impossible without stable meridians, and extracting Qi from food was currently unfeasible due to the ongoing famine. This left only the most basic approach: environmental absorption through controlled breathing.
Progress assessment: controlling Qi impossible, sensing Qi impossible.
The advancement was almost non-existent, but it was progress nonetheless.
His foundation would be built one microscopic improvement at a time, each session strengthening his body's capacity to handle greater power.
Outside, night sounds filled the darkness. In less than three days, imperial guards would arrive to investigate the plague reports.
By then, he needed to be strong enough to avoid suspicion, skilled enough to deflect inquiry.
Cultivation session one: complete. Results: minimal but measurable improvement. Next session: tomorrow evening.
As sleep finally took him, his last conscious thought was of the Book waiting patiently at the edge of his awareness. Vast, infinite, ready to show him any future he was strong enough to handle.
Primary goal confirmed: recreate the perfect physique of his past life.
He took a deep breath, trying once more to grasp even the smallest trace of environmental Qi, but failed due to his lack of proper breathing cultivation techniques.
He sighed and settled into sleep, needing to recover his mortal energy for tomorrow's challenges.