After realizing his own situation, Lin Yun sighed and was about to close the interface, when his eyes fell on the 'Skills' tab. Curiosity piqued, he willed it open.
[Skills: Heavenly Eyes]
"Huh?" Lin Yun's breath hitched. His blood ran cold, then hot. "This skill…"
He knew this skill. Intimately. It was the pride of his account, his greatest treasure in the game. He had earned it not through grinding or purchase, but by winning a limited-time, server-wide world boss event.
It was categorized as an SSR-ranked divine ability. Out of millions of players, he was the one and only person who had obtained it.
The Heavenly Eyes skill was what had truly cemented his position as the 3rd-ranked player. It allowed his character to analyze any ingredient, any pill, any formation, or even an opponent's cultivation technique, breaking it down into its core components, revealing its properties, flaws, and potential. It was the ultimate tool for an alchemist.
And it was here. In this new, fresh system.
With trembling anticipation, he focused on the skill icon. A description box popped up.
[Heavenly Eyes (Level 1)
[Rank: SSR]
[Effect: Allows the user to analyze the spiritual properties and composition of ingredients. Reveals basic information.]
[Progression: 0/10000 to Level 2.]
Level 1. The description was simple, a far cry from the world-shattering analysis it could perform at max level in the game. It could only analyze ingredients right now. But that didn't matter. The potential was there. The seed of his greatest power had crossed over with him.
"Hehe. With this skill, I'm not afraid of anything." A wild, incredulous grin spread across Lin Yun's face, wiping away the pain and despair. The programmer in him was reeling at the implications. The gamer in him was already planning his build.
His gaze fell upon the scattered, ruined ingredients on the floor around him. An idea sparked. He focused his mind, channeling a faint, unfamiliar energy—his spiritual sense—towards the skill icon.
"Heavenly Eyes," he commanded silently.
His vision shifted. The world took on a new dimension. A faint, golden glow overlay his sight. He looked at a shriveled, red root near his foot.
[Firebell Root]
[Grade: Mortal (Low)]
[Property: Yang-Aligned]
[Qi Content: Faint]
[Status: Poor. Spiritual energy mostly dissipated due to improper storage and explosive force.]
[Usage: Primary ingredient for low-tier Qi Gathering Pills. Efficacy reduced by 70%.]
Golden, shimmering text, floating right above the root itself, detailing its secrets as if he were holding a magnifying glass and a database over it.
"Hahaha!" Lin Yun laughed happily.
He pushed himself to his feet, wincing as his body protested. Ignoring the lingering ache, he began a slow, deliberate circuit of the ruined room, his gaze sweeping over every surface.
The golden glow of the Heavenly Eyes cast an otherworldly light on the devastation.
He focused on another ingredient, a brittle blue leaf.
[Frost-veined Leaf]
[Grade: Mortal (Low)]
[Property: Yin-Aligned]
[Qi Content: Faint]
[Status: Brittle. Internal structure compromised.]
[Usage: Balancing agent for Yang-aligned ingredients in low-tier pills.]
Next, a chunk of chalky white rock.
[Spirit-chalk Stone]
[Grade: Mortal (Low)]
[Property: Neutral]
[Qi Content: Minimal]
[Status: Poor.]
[Usage: Catalytic agent to stabilize fusion during concoction.]
Piece by piece, he analyzed the scattered components. Everything was as it should be for a basic Qi Gathering Pill. Common, low-grade, stable materials. The memories of the original Lin Yun confirmed it.
Then came a question: how did it explode?
The boy had been nervous, yes, but he had followed the academy's standard recipe to the letter. The chance of a catastrophic explosion from these ingredients alone was virtually zero. It was like trying to make gunpowder explode by mixing flour and water.
His steps led him to the largest fragment of the shattered cauldron. It was a heavy piece of bronze-like metal, its inner surface scarred black and stained with residual herbal paste.
He knelt, his fingers brushing against the cold, rough surface. He channeled more of his meager spiritual energy into the Heavenly Eyes.
The golden glow intensified, focusing on a particular, thick smear of congealed, burnt paste.
[Analysis: Residual Slag from Failed Concoction]
[Composition: Firebell Root, Frost-veined Leaf, Spirit-chalk Stone...]
The list of standard ingredients scrolled past his vision. Then, the text flickered. A new line of information, faint and almost translucent, appeared at the very bottom. It was so subtle he would have missed it without the system's hyper-focused analysis.
[... Trace foreign substance detected.]
[Identified: Powdered Crimson-jaw Ant Mandible]
[Concentration: 0.003%]
[Property: Extreme Yang, Volatile]
[Effect: Dramatically amplifies and destabilizes Yang-aligned energy upon heating. Highly reactive with Spirit-chalk Stone.]
Lin Yun frowned slightly. Crimson-jaw Ant Mandible?
He rifled through the original Lin Yun's memories. The Crimson-jaw Ant was a fierce spiritual beast. Its mandible powder was never, ever used in basic alchemy.
It was an extreme ingredient, sometimes employed by reckless alchemists in high-tier, explosive battle-pills or for forcibly breaking through bottlenecks at great risk. It was notoriously unstable and required expert handling.
A minuscule amount, 0.003%, was all it took. It wouldn't have been detectable by smell or sight mixed in with the other ingredients. But when heated in the cauldron alongside the Yang-aligned Firebell Root, and especially when it came into contact with the neutral Spirit-chalk Stone that was meant to stabilize the process…
It would become a trigger.
The Spirit-chalk Stone would have catalyzed a violent, instantaneous reaction with the ant powder, turning a gentle simmer of Qi into a raging inferno. It was a perfect, undetectable sabotage.
"This was no accident," Lin Yun murmured, his voice low and hard. His programmer's mind, accustomed to finding malicious code and security breaches, saw the pattern instantly.
This was obviously a targeted kill. Someone had planted this substance, knowing the original Lin Yun would fail his assessment, knowing the recipe, knowing the exact moment it would cause a fatal explosion.
But who? And why?
The original Lin Yun came from the powerful Lin Clan—one of the seven major clans in Fortune City. He was the third young master and his father was the current patriarch of the clan.
With such a background, Lin Yun was hardly targeted.
Unless…
Bang!
Suddenly, the heavy wooden door to the alchemy room was flung open with such force it slammed against the stone wall.
A figure rushed in, a swirl of light blue robes and anxious energy. "Lin Yun!"