Dia woke up at three in the morning.
He wasn't woken by noise, but by a strange feeling. It was hard to describe—a feeling like someone was calling his name from far away, and like something was touching his soul. It was light, subtle, like a feather falling on the surface of the water, but the ripples spread across the entire sea of consciousness.
He opened his eyes; it was dark inside the tent. Xiaoyu was asleep in the chair beside him, holding Afu in her arms. In another corner, a few children were huddled together, breathing lightly. In the distance, he could hear the sentries changing shifts, the wind whining through the barbed wire, and a baby crying in some tent.
Everything seemed normal.
But Dia knew something was different.
He sat up, and the wound on his left arm no longer hurt. He unwrapped the bandage, using the faint moonlight to take a look—the wound had completely healed, leaving no scar, only four faint pink marks, like mosquito bites. He moved his fingers and could feel the strength flowing through his arm, fuller and smoother than before the injury.
But this was not the reason he woke up.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
There was a scent in the air. Not the fragrance of flowers, not the smell of earth, nor the scent of blood. It was an older, deeper scent, as if it rose from the depths of the earth, carrying memories that had been asleep for billions of years. It was like the scent of the spiritual energy tide that night, but stronger and clearer.
He opened his eyes.
The world had changed.
Not that it had truly changed, but the way he saw the world had changed. The tent's canvas was no longer just canvas—he could see the fiber texture, the direction of every cotton thread, every weave intersection, even tiny cracks inside the fibers. Moonlight passed through the canvas, and he could see the path of the light, how each beam scattered, refracted, and dimmed in the air.
He looked down at his hand. The veins beneath his skin were clearly visible, blood flowing through them, red blood cells rolling in the plasma. Muscle fibers were neatly arranged, each one trembling slightly. His bones were ivory-white, their surface lined with fine patterns like the rings of a tree.
He raised his head and looked outside the tent.
And then he saw it.
Spiritual energy.
Countless tiny points of light floated in the air, like fireflies, drifting slowly through the sky. They rose from the ground, fell from the sky, emanated from every living being, intertwining into a vast, invisible web. The points of light came in different colors—some white, some golden, some pale blue, some emerald green. They twirled, collided, merged, and separated in the air, like a silent symphony.
Dia held his breath.
This was the spiritual energy Zhao Tieshan had mentioned.
He could see it.
No, not just see it. He could feel it—every point of light that landed on his skin struck him like a drop of warm water, faint, fleeting, yet undeniably real. He could feel the spiritual energy passing through his pores, entering his meridians, flowing along the widened channels, ultimately converging in his dantian.
There was a vortex in his dantian.
Small, faint, yet undeniably there. Spiritual energy surged from all directions, drawn into the vortex, compressed, transformed, becoming a purer, more concentrated form of energy. This was his spiritual core—the foundation of a cultivator, as Zhao Tieshan had said.
Dia stretched out his hand, trying to grasp a point of light. This time, the point of light did not slip through his fingers. It landed in his palm, merged with his skin, becoming a strand of warm energy that flowed along the meridians of his arm to his dantian.
He could control it now.
No need for mental guidance, no need for focused attention. It was as natural as breathing, as instinctive as a heartbeat. Spiritual energy flowed through him without deliberate control, just as blood circulated without conscious effort.
He stood up and walked out of the tent.
The moonlight was bright, illuminating the quarantine zone as if it were daytime. But Dia saw more than just the moonlight. He could see the components of each shaft of moonlight—the reflection from the sun, the blue light scattered through the atmosphere, the red light absorbed upon reflecting from the ground. He could see the dust floating in the air, each particle's shape, size, and density. He could see the figures inside distant tents, not just as vague silhouettes, but as clear, three-dimensional, deep images—he could see their skeletal structures, the flow of spiritual energy within them, the beating of their hearts.
His field of vision continued to expand.
One hundred meters, two hundred meters, five hundred meters, one thousand meters. The entire quarantine zone was within his view—each tent, each person, every path, every tree. He could see the streets beyond the barbed wire, the collapsed buildings, the abandoned vehicles, the zombies wandering in the darkness.
He could see the spiritual energy within the zombies.
Unlike humans, the aura inside zombies is black, murky, and decayed. They have no dantian, no meridians; the aura is just haphazardly piled up inside their bodies, like a pool of stagnant water. But at the location of their heart, there is a black core from which all the black aura radiates.
That is the zombie's weakness.
Dia's gaze penetrated the zombie's body and saw that core—about the size of a fist, covered in cracks on the surface, like a stone about to shatter. If that core could be smashed, the zombie would die completely.
His gaze continued to extend.
Two thousand meters. Three thousand meters. Five thousand meters.
The outline of the city unfolded before his eyes, like a huge, intricate model. Every building, every street, every intersection. He could see the places that were destroyed, the places still burning, and the places already covered by mutated plants. He could see people hiding in basements, people trapped in rubble, people waiting for rescue on rooftops.
Ten kilometers.
He could see the edges of the city. There lay the military defense lines—tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, layered fortifications. Soldiers patrolled, some observed from high vantage points with binoculars, others operated drones. Their expressions were serious, fatigued, but they had not given up.
Twenty kilometers.
Farther away, there were more mutated animals. Packs of mutated dogs roamed the streets, and something even larger—Dia saw a giant mutated cat, as big as a small car, crouching on the roof of a building, its eyes like two red lights flickering in the dark. It contained a massive amount of aura, more than ten times that of an ordinary mutated animal. Its dantian—yes, it had a dantian—contained a solidified aura core, akin to a cultivator's golden core.
Fifty kilometers.
Dia's head began to ache.
Expanding his vision to this range, the inflow of information had already exceeded what his brain could process. Every street, every building, every living being, every wisp of aura—all the information surged into his consciousness simultaneously, like a flood, trying to drown his reason.
He needed to learn to filter.
Not all information was important. He only needed to focus on things that were threatening, meaningful, or patterned. The rest could be ignored.
He learned.
Vision contracted to a ten-kilometer range. Within this range, he could simultaneously monitor all the key information—the distribution of zombies, the positions of mutant animals, the gathering places of survivors, the flow direction of spiritual energy. His brain processed this information not with language, not with images, but in a more direct, more essential way—like intuition, like instinct, as naturally as breathing.
This is the Eye of Law.
It's not simple clairvoyance, not just a telescope. It is insight—insight into the essence of all things, insight into the flow of energy, insight into structural weaknesses. It allowed Dia to see another side of the world, the hidden, real, essential world beneath appearances.
He stood under the moonlight, sensing this entirely new world.
Then he heard that voice.
It didn't come from outside, but echoed in his mind. Ancient, distant, like it came from the end of time.
"...You have finally seen it."
Dia did not panic. He waited for the voice to continue speaking.
"The Eye of Law… has awakened. Now, what you see is the true world."
"Who are you?" Dia asked in his mind.
Silence.
A long silence.
Then the voice spoke again, clearer than before, whispering as if directly into his ear.
"I am you. Or rather… I am your future self."
Dia furrowed his brow.
"My future self?"
"Time is not linear," the voice said. "Past, present, and future exist simultaneously. I am the trace you leave along the river of time, the memory deep within your soul. When you are strong enough, you will understand."
"What do you want to tell me?"
"Cultivate. Become stronger. Protect those who need your protection," the voice paused, "and… be careful of those lights. Those lights falling from the sky. They are not just spiritual energy. They are also… seeds."
"What kind of seeds?"
But that voice did not respond again.
It disappeared, as if it had never existed. Only Dia was left standing alone under the moonlight, watching the colorful lights floating in the air.
Seeds.
What seeds?
He looked up at the sky. The colorful ribbons of light flowed slowly behind the clouds, brighter and more vibrant than in previous days. They seemed alive, breathing, pulsing, waiting.
Dia closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
When he opened his eyes again, the Eye of Law had automatically closed. The world returned to normal—tents under the moonlight, sentries in the distance, shadows on the ground. But the information remained in his mind, etched like words on stone, never fading.
He knew he had changed.
Not just physically, but in a deeper, essential way. His perspective was different, his cognition was different, his mode of existence was different. He was no longer just an eighteen-year-old orphan, no longer just a survivor struggling in a post-apocalyptic world. He was the owner of the Eye of Law, someone who could see through the essence of all things.
What this identity meant, he still did not know.
But he knew one thing—from today onward, he was no longer the one being protected.
He was the protector.
Dia turned and walked back to the tent. Little Rain was still asleep, Afu curled up in her arms, a bit of drool at the corner of her mouth. The other children were also asleep, some talking in their dreams, some turning over, some quietly crying.
He sat down, closed his eyes, and began to cultivate.
This time, the feeling of cultivation was completely different.
He could see the flow of spiritual energy, sense which energy was suitable for absorption, which needed to be filtered. He could see the meridians in his body and precisely control the direction and speed of the spiritual energy. He could see the vortex in his dantian, see it spinning, expanding, solidifying.
Spiritual energy surged from all directions, passing through the canvas of the tent, through his skin, into his meridians. More than ten times faster than before. His dantian greedily absorbed every wisp of spiritual energy, the vortex spinning faster and more steadily.
He felt the barrier of realms.
Qi Practicing Stage, first layer.
According to Zhao Tieshan, ordinary people need at least a week to sense spiritual energy and a month to reach the first stage of Qi training. But he had taken less than four days from awakening to now.
Yet he was not satisfied.
The spiritual energy continued to pour in, and his dantian continued to expand. He felt the barrier loosening, breaking, like a wall being struck by a flood, the cracks widening.
Then, the barrier shattered.
Second stage of Qi training.
Spiritual energy rushed into his dantian like a breached dam. The whirlpool spun to its limit and then stabilized, twice as large as before. He could feel his strength increasing—not doubling, but multiplying several times. His muscles were firmer, his reflexes sharper, and his senses more acute.
He opened his eyes.
The tent was still dark, but everything was as clear as daylight to him. He could see every eyelash on Xiaoyu's face, every crease on Afu's clothes, every stitch on the tent fabric.
He lowered his gaze to his hands, clenched his fists, then let them loose.
Power flowed in his palms, warm, steady, reliable.
This was the first time he truly felt his own strength.
Not fear, not despair, not helplessness.
But power.
The power to protect others.
Dia stood up and walked out of the tent. The eastern sky was beginning to lighten—a new day was about to begin. On the distant horizon, a rainbow-colored light band shimmered in the morning glow, as if marking a new chapter for the world.
He looked towards the isolation area; there were still lights on in Zhao Tieshan's tent. The old soldier was probably studying his notebook again, exploring more cultivation methods.
Dia decided to find him.
He needed to know more—about spiritual energy, about cultivation, about this collapsing world. Zhao Tieshan knew only so much, but he was a starting point. And Dia needed to learn everything he could, as fast as possible.
Because he knew time was running out.
Those lights—those seeds—were beginning to sprout.
And he had to become strong enough before they grew.
Dia took a step and headed toward Zhao Tieshan's tent.
The morning wind blew past, carrying the scent of blood and smoke, as well as a new, subtle, hopeful aroma.
That was the scent of change.
The scent of power.
The scent of a new era.
And he, standing at the starting point of this new era, opened eyes that could see through everything.