Chapter 1: The Awakening of Three Souls
The first breath of his third life tasted of incense and rain.
Alex Chen gasped awake, his infant lungs burning with the unfamiliar sensation of air. The memories hit him like a tsunami—three distinct lives crashing together in a maelstrom of consciousness that should have shattered his newborn mind. But it didn't. Instead, it clarified.
First life: Alex Chen, software engineer from Seattle, aged thirty-four when a drunk driver ended his existence on a rainy Tuesday evening. He'd been crossing the street to his favorite pho restaurant, thinking about his mother's birthday present. The screech of tires, the impact, the brief moment of weightlessness before darkness.
Second life: Sovereign Xaelinth, the Void Emperor, ruler of the Stellar Dominion of Aetheria, a civilization spanning three thousand star systems. Peak existence of the Soul Anomaly Realm, just a step away from the mythical Dao Source. He had lived for fourteen thousand years, his power capable of collapsing stars with a thought. His death had come not from an enemy's blade but from the final tribulation—the Heavenly Dao's last test that had reduced his godly form to ash across the void.
Third life: Now, reborn as...
"Young Master Alex! Oh, thank the heavens!" A woman's voice, thick with relief and tears. "You nearly stopped breathing!"
The memories settled like sediment in a pond, layering and organizing themselves with impossible precision. He was Alex Chen. He was Sovereign Xaelinth. He was both, and now he was something new—something that shouldn't exist according to the fundamental laws of the universe.
A soft chime echoed in his mind, clear and crystalline.
[Dual Path Ascension System Initializing...]
[Host Detected: Three-Soul Anomaly]
[Error: Host possesses memories exceeding soul capacity... Compensating...]
[System Upgrade Granted: Pre-Ascension Package]
[Would Host like to activate the Tutorial? Y/N]
A system? Alex's infant mind processed this with the clarity of his combined experiences. In his second life as the Void Emperor, he had searched for such entities—artifacts of primordial law that could bend reality. He had found traces, whispers, but nothing concrete. Now, in his weakest incarnation, one had bound itself to him.
He couldn't physically respond, but he focused his will. Yes.
[Tutorial Override: Manual Control Enabled]
[Due to Host's unique circumstances, full system access granted. Concealment Protocol: Active]
[Current Host Status: Newborn. Cultivation Potential: UNLIMITED]
[Warning: Detecting hostile intent from nearby cultivators. Recommendation: Feign mediocrity.]
The system's mechanical voice in his mind felt like coming home. As Sovereign Xaelinth, he had created similar AI constructs to manage his stellar empire. As Alex Chen, he had written code that mimicked decision trees. This was both and neither—a true artifact of cosmic law.
Through his blurry infant vision, he saw the woman who had spoken—his mother in this life, her face elegant even with tear-streaked makeup. Behind her stood a man with severe features, his robes embroidered with the sigil of a soaring phoenix. His father, presumably. And beside them, an old man with a calculating expression, his spiritual senses probing Alex's tiny body.
"Patriarch," his father said, voice tight with tension. "Does my son possess..."
The old man—Patriarch of the Azure Phoenix Clan, as Alex's memories identified him—frowned deeply. "One spirit root. Possibly damaged during the difficult birth. I'm sorry, Shen. Your son will be fortunate to reach Qi Condensing in his lifetime."
His mother's sob was quiet but devastating. In his Sovereign life, Xaelinth had heard billions of such sounds—the death cries of civilizations, the mourning of galaxies. Yet this one small sound affected him more profoundly than all of them combined.
Perfect, Alex thought with the cold logic of his past life. They'll underestimate me. The system will ensure my growth. Let them see mediocrity while I ascend beyond their comprehension.
[Host Analysis Complete]
[Optimal Path Selected: Silent Ascension]
[Current Realm: Mortal (0/100 Qi Units)]
[Passive Skill Unlocked: Omniscient Meditation - Cultivation proceeds 10,000x faster during sleep, completely concealed]
[Active Skill Unlocked: Path of the Sovereign - Memories of peak existence provide perfect comprehension of all realms below Soul Anomaly]
[System Shop: Unlockable at Qi Refining Realm]
As the family continued their discussion of his supposed "deficiency," Alex allowed himself to drift into the first meditation of his third life. He didn't need to consciously cultivate. The system worked through him, pulling in the ambient spiritual qi of the Azure Phoenix Clan's ancestral mansion—qi that had been accumulating for millennia, thick and potent.
By the time he was three months old, he had silently advanced to Qi Gathering Perfection.
By six months, he broke through to Qi Refining while teething on a spiritual jade rattle—absorbing its essence without anyone noticing the item's degradation.
On his first birthday, as the clan celebrated the "frail young master" with a modest feast, Alex reached Qi Condensing. The system kept his aura perfectly suppressed, showing only the feeble fluctuations of a child struggling with damaged meridians.
[First Year Achievement Unlocked: Shadow Pupil]
[Reward: System Evolution Point (1/10 required for first upgrade)]
The real challenge wasn't cultivation—it was acting the part. When other children his age began spirit root testing at age five, Alex had to carefully manipulate his results. The system provided a "False Aura" function that created the perfect illusion of a struggling one-root cultivator.
His father, Shen Huang, began spending less time at home, throwing himself into clan business and expeditions. His mother, Lian Mei, poured her love into him with a desperation that made Alex's three-soul heart ache. She read him stories of legendary cultivators, fed him the best spiritual foods the clan could spare for a "lost cause," and held him when the spiritual pressure of the mansion became too much for his "frail" body.
If only she knew that pressure felt like a gentle breeze to him.
At age seven, Alex made his first true friend—a servant's daughter named Mina who brought him extra sweet buns from the kitchen and never treated him like he was broken. Her smile reminded him of his first life's younger sister, Sarah, who would now be in her forties back on Earth. The thought created a strange ache in his chest. Would he ever see them again?
The system gave him no answer.
[Reminder: Host's first life memories are sealed for mental stability. Partial access granted for emotional context only.]
Clever, Alex acknowledged. Full recall would drive a mortal mind insane.
By age ten, Alex had reached Foundation Building. The system revealed new functions—the Shop, which offered everything from mortal pills to divine artifacts, purchasable with "Destiny Points" earned through achievements. He had accumulated 47 points through his silent milestones.
He bought nothing. Patience was a virtue both his previous lives had mastered.
The Azure Phoenix Clan's younger generation began treating him with a mixture of pity and contempt. They were the blazing stars of the generation—talented, arrogant, secure in their multi-spirit-root gifts. Alex, the "broken young master," became a convenient target for their budding superiority complexes.
He let them. Every insult, every minor bullying incident, every time they "accidentally" knocked his books from his hands—they were all data points, all camouflage for his true nature.
On his twelfth birthday, everything changed.
The Li Clan arrived for the decennial martial tournament. Among their delegation was a girl with eyes like cut diamonds—Li Xianling, a prodigy rumored to possess five spirit roots and cultivation at the shocking level of Qi Core at just sixteen. She was beautiful, cold, and when her gaze swept across the "talent-less" members of the Azure Phoenix Clan, it held nothing but disdain.
Her eyes met Alex's for just a moment. And in that moment, his Sovereign's senses—enhanced by the system—detected something.
She's a reincarnator too.
Not like him. Not a three-soul anomaly. But someone with memories of a single past life, awakened and dangerous. And she recognized him—not as a fellow reincarnator, but as something wrong in the fabric of reality.
Her perfect lips curved into a smile that held no warmth.
[Threat Assessment: Medium]
[Recommendation: Accelerate cultivation plan]
That night, as the clan celebrated the tournament's opening, Alex made his decision. While the geniuses displayed their prowess in the tournament grounds, he slipped away to the one place in the clan mansion where spiritual energy pooled like a forgotten well—the Ancestral Tomb.
The system had identified it weeks ago. A crack in reality, a place where the boundary between the mortal world and the void was thin. It was where the clan buried its Golden Core ancestors, but deeper still, in a chamber sealed for five hundred years, lay something else.
[Location Detected: Void Fracture - Suitable for Foundation Establishing breakthrough]
[Risk: High. Detection Probability: 15% if using Sovereign's Veil technique]
Alex had never used his second life's techniques before. They were too distinctive, too recognizable to anyone who had lived in the Stellar Dominion. But in the tomb's deepest chamber, surrounded by the bones of the dead, he dared.
He activated the Sovereign's Veil.
Reality bent around him. For a moment, he wasn't Alex Chen or the Void Emperor—he was both, a being of paradox that existed outside the normal flow of causality. The system responded with excitement, its interface flickering with new options.
[System Synchronization: 99%]
[Foundation Establishing breakthrough commencing...]
The spiritual qi of the entire planet seemed to answer his call. It poured into him not in a torrent that would alert every cultivator for a thousand miles, but in a silent flood that the system redirected through dimensional pockets, through void channels that only a Sovereign would know existed.
His dantian transformed. From a small pond of spiritual energy, it became an ocean—crushing, infinite, contained within the perfect stillness of his control. Foundation Building , then Foundation Establishing , then perfection, then… he stopped himself. Even with the system, breaking through three realms in one night would create ripples. He settled at Foundation Establishing Perfection, his aura still showing the pathetic fluctuations of a Qi gathering failure.
When he returned to his quarters, dawn was breaking. The tournament would begin in earnest today.
And Li Xianling was waiting in his room.
"Void Emperor," she said, her voice soft as a dagger's edge. "Or should I call you Alex? I've been searching for you for three hundred years."
The air froze. Every instinct from his second life screamed danger.
But the system merely chimed:
[Hidden Quest Activated: The Starfall Empress]
[Reward: Unknown | Failure: Death of all three souls]
Alex smiled his first true smile of this life—a smile that held the weight of fourteen millennia and the casual confidence of a man who had once held galaxies in his palm.
"Hello, Xianling," he said, using her name from her past life—the one she thought no one knew. "I see the reincarnation arrays finally worked for you. Pity they couldn't fix your personality."
Her eyes widened. For the first time since her arrival, the cold empress looked truly surprised.
And somewhere in the distant void, beyond the galaxy that held both their pasts, the Heavenly Dao began to take notice of an anomaly it had thought erased.
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[END OF CHAPTER 1]
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