The moment Zhao Hai lost consciousness, a flood of memories that were not his own poured into his mind — like foreign software being forcibly installed onto a computer. His brain nearly crashed from the overload. It didn't crash, but it did freeze, slowly processing the torrent of information piece by piece.
After some time — he couldn't say how long — Zhao Hai came back to awareness. His mind now contained an entire lifetime of memories that had never belonged to him.
In those memories, his name was Adam Buda.
He had been born into a military noble family on the Ark Continent, within the Aksu Empire. Three generations of Budas had served the Empire with distinction, rising to the rank of Marquis. But by Adam's generation, the family had begun to decline. Adam himself was a spoiled young master in every sense — his mother had died young, his father was perpetually away on campaign, and with no one to restrain him, he had become utterly lawless. Bullying commoners, harassing women, committing every manner of excess. His father, fiercely protective of his own blood and commanding a powerful army, had ensured no one dared touch him.
But his father had made one fatal mistake: he had backed the wrong side during the imperial succession.
The forty-seventh king of the Aksu Empire had fifteen sons, five of whom were eligible to inherit the throne — the First, Third, Fourth, Seventh, and Thirteenth Princes.
Imperial law stipulated that only sons born of the Queen or Noble Consorts could inherit the crown, and only if they had been granted the title of Archduke or above. Every member of the royal family received the title of Count at birth — and without merit, that was all they would ever hold. Only through contributions to the Empire could their ranks rise, with Prince as the ceiling.
Of course, sons of the Queen and Noble Consorts were never left at Count. They were typically granted Dukedom at birth, and with even minor achievements — or a convenient excuse — could be elevated to Archduke and eventually Prince, making them eligible for the throne.
All five eligible princes held the rank of Prince. The First and Fourth were sons of the Queen. The Third and Seventh were sons of Noble Consort Kalin. The Thirteenth was the son of Noble Consort Avril — the youngest, the weakest, and the most overlooked. Most people had always assumed the First Prince, as the Queen's eldest son, was the natural successor. The Third Prince was firmly in the First Prince's camp. A large portion of the Empire's nobility backed the First Prince. The Fourth and Seventh Princes formed their own faction, with the Seventh backed by both the Fourth and the powerful Kalin family. As for the Thirteenth Prince — quiet, unassuming, and seemingly powerless — no one had ever taken him seriously.
Adam's father had joined the First Prince's faction. It was a reasonable choice at the time. The First Prince had the strongest public backing, and House Buda was not an old noble family — they had only climbed to Marquis through military merit starting from Adam's great-grandfather's generation. To break into the inner circle of the established aristocracy, they needed to back the right winner. Supporting the leading candidate seemed like the surest path to the Empire's power core.
On this continent, every kingdom's nobility fell into two camps: old blood and new blood. The divide was stark. New nobles were regarded as upstarts — never truly accepted by the old families, never admitted to the true centers of power.
After centuries of history, the old noble houses had become a force that even the crown feared. They were the true backbone of the Empire, and every newly risen family desperately sought their recognition.
But winning that recognition required strength. House Buda had risen too fast — a deliberate strategy employed by previous kings to counterbalance the old families. After the forty-sixth king died, however, House Buda found itself caught between the new king's desire to promote them and the old nobility's determination to crush them. They had no choice but to keep supporting the crown and hope the family survived.
Then Adam's father chose wrong. He backed the loudest voice — and the loudest voice lost. The quiet, overlooked Thirteenth Prince ascended to the throne. The First Prince was put to death. Everyone in his faction suffered. Adam's father was arrested on a fabricated charge and died in prison under murky circumstances. Adam's past misdeeds were dredged up and laid bare. But because Grimm and the others were still with them — and the Empire had no wish to provoke several eighth-rank fighters — and because a newly crowned king needed to project magnanimity, Adam's punishment was softened. His inherited Marquisate was reduced to Viscount. The family's fertile ancestral lands were replaced with the Black Wasteland. And Adam himself was made to drink the Water of Nothingness, stripped of any future in magic or combat — reduced, completely and permanently, to an ordinary man.
Most noble families maintained their presence in the capital even when they held distant territories, keeping their eyes on the shifting tides of imperial politics. But Adam's family was given no such luxury. After the land transfer, they were ordered to leave the capital within three days — and forbidden from setting foot outside their new domain for the next three years. It was an unprecedented humiliation.
The reason the newly crowned king — formerly the Thirteenth Prince, now Emperor Abojue Aksu — had moved so harshly against House Buda was twofold: they had been First Prince loyalists, and the old noble families were applying pressure. Freshly seated on the throne, Abojue could not yet afford to move against the great houses. They, in turn, had never liked House Buda. So Abojue gave them what they wanted.
As for the Water of Nothingness — that was specifically because of a Buda family heirloom: the Raging Dragon Battle Qi cultivation technique. It was famous across the continent, discovered by Adam's great-grandfather by chance. Its cultivation speed was three times that of ordinary techniques, and its offensive power was fearsome. Every major family in the Empire had coveted it for generations. If Adam were still allowed to cultivate, and if he mastered the Raging Dragon technique while nursing a grudge — he would become a genuine threat to both the old families and the imperial bloodline. So Abojue had him drink the Water of Nothingness.
The reason Abojue had not simply killed Adam came down to Grimm. One night, Grimm had slipped silently into the imperial palace and presented the Raging Dragon technique directly to the Emperor — along with a sworn oath that House Buda would never practice it again. It was both a plea for mercy and a quiet demonstration of Grimm's power. The message was clear: I got in here once. I can do it again.
Abojue, unwilling to make an enemy of a fighter of Grimm's caliber, agreed. Adam would live — stripped of his rank and lands, but alive.
Grimm had accepted. He understood his own limits. His skills had allowed him to enter the palace unseen, partly because he knew the layout well, partly because the newly crowned Emperor's defenses were still in flux. It had worked — but barely. He harbored no illusions about pushing his luck further.
He had not tried to save Adam's father because he had assumed Abojue would keep him alive — a useful chess piece against the old families, too valuable to discard. He had miscalculated. Abojue owed his throne to the old nobility and had sacrificed Adam's father to repay that debt. By the time Grimm learned of it, it was too late. All he could do was protect Adam — the last blood of House Buda.
As for surrendering the Raging Dragon technique, the Water of Nothingness had forced his hand in more ways than one.
The Water of Nothingness was not simply a weapon that stripped one person of their power. Its curse was heritable. Whoever drank it would pass the affliction down through their bloodline — for ten full generations, no descendant could learn magic or battle qi. Only after ten generations would the curse lift.
Ten generations. An entire dynasty's worth of helplessness. Whether House Buda could even survive ten generations under such conditions was anyone's guess. This was the true horror of the Water of Nothingness — and the real reason Grimm had handed over the technique without hesitation.
Adam and the next ten generations of House Buda would never be able to practice the Raging Dragon technique anyway. Keeping it served no purpose. Trading it for Adam's life was the only logical choice. And Grimm had no regrets.
As events proved, he had been right. Without that offering, Adam would never have left the capital alive.
Whether someone had tampered with the Water of Nothingness, or whether Adam's body had simply reacted badly to it — no one could say. But after drinking it, Adam had fallen into a coma and had not woken since, not even upon arriving at the new domain.
When he finally opened his eyes, the spoiled young noble Adam Buda was gone.
In his place lay Zhao Hai — an ordinary homebody from the planet Earth.