The air in the deep basement of the Forgotten Library Archives, heavy with the scent of ancient dust and neglect, was ripped apart by a silent, internal scream. Lian Chen lay motionless on the stone floor, his body trembling violently, a silent, primal shudder that preceded a monumental shift. The faint, soft blue glow that had erupted from the scroll had vanished, leaving behind only the oppressive, suffocating darkness, yet inside him, a universe had ignited.
The sapphire bead, the essence of the Ten Thousand Stages Scripture, now spun slowly in the center of his Spirit Sea, a dark, polished obsidian core radiating a chilling, absolute power. It was indifferent and cold, a celestial mechanism that regarded his life not as a miracle, but as a project requiring calibration.
I am dying, was the last coherent thought that fought through the mounting sensory overload.
A voice, deeper than the earth and colder than the vacuum between stars, settled in his consciousness. It was the mechanical announcement of a supreme system.
"Condition: Host meridians shattered. Base Cultivation: Degraded and flawed. Assessment: Terminal within 6.4 days without immediate intervention. Protocol Initiated: The Vessel Reborn."
The protocol initiation was not a gentle awakening; it was an execution and subsequent rebirth. The Obsidian Bead pulsed, and from it erupted not gentle Spiritual Qi, but a fierce, scorching current of Azure Essence. This was not the refined Qi of the Qingyun Sect, but the raw, unadulterated power drawn directly from the heavens, filtered through the immense power of the scripture.
The Azure Essence immediately clashed with the remnants of his old, broken body. Lian Chen felt a searing pain, infinitely worse than the agony that had caused him to spit blood moments earlier. The Essence moved through his body, deliberately seeking out his meridians—those pathetic threads he had described as shattered glass. Instead of repairing them, the Essence acted as an abrasive solvent, vaporizing the damaged tissue, burning away the weakness, the flaws, and the very memory of his failed cultivation path.
Every nerve ending screamed as his spiritual pathways were dissolved into nothingness. He thrashed weakly against the floor, muffled by the layers of forgotten scrolls and the crushing realization that this Heaven-defying chance might kill him first.
But the Obsidian Bead was mercilessly efficient. Once the weak vessels were gone, the reconstruction began. The Azure Essence, guided by the scripture's wisdom, meticulously wove new structures. They were not fragile threads, but wide, strong channels that pulsed with a faint, iridescent silver-blue light, like polished jade conduits. His new meridians were not merely healed; they were Transcendent Meridians, designed to carry a volume and purity of Qi that no ordinary cultivator could ever possess. This was the true meaning of the scroll's message: To reach the apex, one must first shatter the cage of the mundane.
Hours passed in this agonizing state. The pain receded into a throbbing warmth, and when Lian Chen finally regained his senses, he was covered head-to-toe in a thick, dark, oily sludge—the final impurities expelled from his Profound Yin Physique during its forced upgrade. The air around him shimmered faintly.
He flexed his fingers, and for the first time in his life, he felt not only a sense of power but a sense of connection to the ambient Spiritual Qi. It was no longer something he had to laboriously pull into his body; the Qi was now drawn to him, swirling into his lungs with every effortless breath.
He focused inward, checking his Dantian. His spiritual core, once a pitiful, half-empty well, was now a deep, pulsing sphere, radiating steady power. The result of the Vessel Reborn process was instantaneous: he hadn't just healed his meridians, he had been directly catapulted through the starting gates.
He was no longer stuck at the First Layer of Qi Condensation. He had blasted past the bottleneck, stabilizing firmly in the Third Layer of Qi Condensation—a level only achieved by the Inner Sect's most promising talents after years of diligent effort.
This triumph was immediately tempered by the Obsidian Bead's voice.
"Cultivation Technique: Ten Thousand Stages Scripture. Current Realm: Qi Condensation. Stage: 3. Warning: The rapid foundation requires continuous, accelerated refinement. The standard nine layers are insufficient. This scripture demands one thousand stages per realm. Deadline for Stage 4 - The Inner Heaven: Two hours (local time). Failure to comply will result in a Qi Deviation, shattering the newly formed vessel."
Lian Chen felt a cold sweat break out despite his inner warmth. Three stages accomplished in one night was a miracle, but the system demanded Stage 4 in two hours! The very nature of his new power was a relentless whip, pushing him to heights and deadlines no one in the Qingyun Sect could comprehend.
He looked around the forgotten, dusty basement. This place, once his refuge of despair, was now a battlefield. He had no time to fear Elder Lin's deadline; he now faced the tyranny of the Ten Thousand Stages Scripture itself.
He quickly wiped the residue from his body, his movements fluid and swift. He immediately sat cross-legged, adopting the new meditation posture the scripture had burned into his mind. This technique was utterly different. It didn't involve the slow, delicate absorption of fragmented Qi.
Lian Chen closed his eyes and began to breathe. The world around him changed.
The vast Spiritual Qi of the Jade Dragon Mountains, which usually drifted lazily, suddenly became a frantic river, converging violently on the basement window, funneling down onto Lian Chen. His body was no longer an absorber; it was a vortex. The surrounding Qi was sucked in, channeled through the vastly expanded Transcendent Meridians, and then passed through the ultimate filter—the Obsidian Bead.
The bead refined the Qi hundreds of times, compressing it, purifying it, and forging it into something liquid and potent before releasing it into his Dantian. This relentless refinement process was what constituted the Ten Thousand Stages. Stage 4, The Inner Heaven, required a level of purity that would make the Qingyun Sect's Inner Disciples weep in envy.
The time pressure was immense. Lian Chen poured all his will into the cultivation, his breathing deep and rhythmic, like the pounding of a celestial drum. The spiritual hunger of the technique was staggering; he felt every ounce of energy in the archive being drained, yet his internal engine roared, demanding more.
As the scent of the coming morning—a fresher, sharper scent that carried the distant hint of snowmelt—began to permeate the archive, a sound like a small, resonant bell chimed within his Dantian. The swirling Azure Essence settled, reaching an apex of purity.
Qi Condensation, Stage 4 achieved.
Lian Chen opened his eyes. Relief washed over him, immediately replaced by a surge of triumphant confidence. He was powerful. He was fast. The fear of demotion had vanished, replaced by the certainty of Ascension.
He stood up, his silver-blue meridians thrumming beneath his skin, invisible but intensely felt. He was no longer the failed Fourth Disciple. He was the host of the Ten Thousand Stages Scripture, the destined Ascendant of the Azure Heaven.
He needed to face Elder Lin. The deadline was here. Let them see what a true prodigy looked like.