Three weeks passed in what felt like both an instant and an eternity to Wei Heng. For a being who had lived for ten millennia, twenty-one days was less than a blink. Yet, in that short time, the world had begun to shift according to his grand design, the first ripples spreading from the stones he had cast.
He was no longer in his parents' cramped apartment. He now stood in the center of a spacious, minimalist loft in a newly developed, high-security residential tower overlooking the Min River. He had purchased it under a shell corporation, one of several he'd established using his newfound millions. The 7.2 million yuan from his Stardust Corporation investment was a pittance compared to the capital he would need for the coming war, but it was enough to secure a proper base of operations. This loft was not a home; it was a command center.
Wei Heng sat cross-legged on a simple mat in the center of the living room, the floor-to-ceiling windows offering a panoramic view of Fuzhou's glittering nightscape. He was deep in meditation, circulating the refined Qi through his newly forged meridians. The last of the water from the Spring of Restoration had been consumed a week ago. His body had undergone a fundamental transformation. He had broken through the initial stage of Qi Condensation and was now solidly in the Foundation Establishment realm.
His senses were razor-sharp. He could hear the hushed conversations of people on the street thirty floors below, smell the faint scent of rain on the wind miles away, and feel the subtle ebb and flow of the city's energy. His Spiritual Sense, once a feeble probe, could now scan the entire building with ease. He was still a shadow of his former self, but he was no longer a powerless teenager in a fragile vessel.
He picked up a burner phone and dialed a number. It was answered on the first ring.
"Sir," Gao Qiang's voice was deep, respectful, and held a new undercurrent of confidence.
"Report," Wei Heng said, his tone flat and professional.
"The 'Unmoving Mountain Foundation Method' is progressing. I can feel the Qi in my body now. It's like... a warm river. I followed your instructions and tested my strength. I can lift the back of a delivery truck with one hand," Gao Qiang's voice was filled with a sense of awe at his own power. "The orphanage received the money. Director Chen cried for an hour. They're fixing the roof next week. Thank you, sir. I... I will not fail you."
"Good," Wei Heng replied. "Do not grow complacent. Your strength is still crude. Continue to build your foundation. I will give you your next instructions when you are ready."
He ended the call. Gao Qiang was a perfect first choice: loyal, motivated, and possessing a simple, straightforward desire to protect. He was a shield, and Wei Heng would temper him until he was unbreakable.
But a shield was not enough. A mastermind needed information. He needed an eye that could see the hidden currents of the digital world, a voice that could whisper in the web. He needed his Oracle.
Wei Heng moved to a state-of-the-art computer terminal set up in the corner of the loft. The screen illuminated his face, reflecting the cold, calculating light in his eyes. He pulled up a file encrypted with a key that only he could decipher.
Target Profile: Mei Ling.
Codename: Oracle.
Age: 18.
Current Occupation: Unemployed. University dropout.
Known Affiliations: None.
Original Timeline Awakening: Latent S-Rank Technopath.
Original Timeline Fate: Deceased. Suicide. Died from psychic feedback and mental collapse six months from today.
He remembered Mei Ling from his first life. She had been a ghost story, a legend in the dark web. A hacker who could crash national servers with a thought, a digital phantom who was never caught because she wasn't using a computer; she was the computer. Her power, however, was a double-edged sword. The constant, unfiltered flood of global data had driven her insane. She couldn't distinguish her own thoughts from the endless noise of the web. Her death was a quiet tragedy, a brilliant light that had burned itself out.
'A weapon that powerful cannot be allowed to self-destruct,' Wei Heng thought. 'Her power is a torrent. She needs a dam. She needs a framework. She needs cultivation.'
Finding her was the first challenge. In the original timeline, she was only discovered posthumously when the authorities investigated her apartment. But Wei Heng knew a secret. He remembered a minor, insignificant event from a year ago: a "ghost" data breach at Fuzhou University's network. A few encrypted files were accessed and then deleted, leaving no trace. The university's IT department wrote it off as a glitch. Wei Heng knew it was Mei Ling's first uncontrolled power surge. He cross-referenced the university's student records from that time with public residential data, a simple task for a mind that could process information at superhuman speeds. Within minutes, he had an address.
The apartment complex was in one of the oldest parts of the city, a place the modern boom had forgotten. It was a maze of crumbling concrete, stained with years of rain and neglect. The air was heavy with the smell of damp and decay. He found apartment 4B on the top floor. The door was old, the paint peeling.
He knocked. A sharp, precise rap.
There was a scuttling sound from within, then silence. He waited patiently. After a full minute, the door creaked open a few inches, held by a rusty chain. A single, bloodshot eye peered out at him.
"What do you want?" a girl's voice whispered, raspy and filled with paranoia.
"Mei Ling," Wei Heng stated, his voice calm and steady, cutting through the tension. "I'm here to help you with the noise."
The eye widened. The door slammed shut, but he heard the chain rattling as she fumbled to undo it. It swung open to reveal a girl who looked like a ghost. She was painfully thin, with dark circles under her eyes and tangled, unwashed hair. The room behind her was a chaotic mess of old computer hardware, tangled cables, and stacks of instant noodle cups. The air was stale and suffocating. Multiple monitors glowed with scrolling lines of code and random data streams.
"How... how did you know about the noise?" she stammered, her body trembling.
"I know many things," Wei Heng said, stepping inside without being invited and closing the door behind him. He ignored the mess, his focus entirely on her. "I know that you hear things. Not just sounds, but data. Whispers from every phone, every computer, every satellite passing overhead. I know it gives you crippling headaches. I know you feel like you're losing your mind."
Mei Ling shrank back, wrapping her arms around herself. "Are you from the government? The Association?"
"No," Wei Heng said, his voice softening slightly, not with pity, but with the tone of a master physician diagnosing a patient. "I am someone who understands what is happening to you. What you have is not a mental illness. It is an awakened ability. A power that you have no idea how to control."
He gestured to the glowing monitors. "You are a receiver with no filter. You are drowning in an ocean of information. I am here to offer you a way to build a dam. To build channels. To control the flow."
"That's impossible," she whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "It's a curse. It's eating me alive."
"It is not a curse," Wei Heng stated with absolute certainty. "It is a gift you haven't learned how to unwrap. I can teach you. I can give you a mental cultivation technique, a method to structure your own mind. It will allow you to build walls, create filters, and organize the data. You will be able to turn the noise down, or even off. You will be able to focus on a single stream of information, to pull a single secret from anywhere in the world. The power will become your tool, not your tormentor."
He looked directly into her eyes, his own gaze as deep and steady as a thousand-year-old well. "I am giving you a choice, Mei Ling. Continue on this path and let the noise consume you until there is nothing left. Or, come with me. Pledge your loyalty to me, and I will give you the one thing you desire more than anything else in this world: silence."
Mei Ling stared at him, her breath catching in her throat. This boy, who looked no older than she was, spoke with an impossible authority. He knew her deepest, most terrifying secret. He wasn't afraid of her. He wasn't calling her crazy. He was offering her a lifeline, a solution she had never dared to dream of. The world saw her as a broken, paranoid recluse. He saw her as a weapon to be honed. For the first time in a long time, she felt a flicker of something other than fear. It was hope.
She looked around her chaotic, suffocating room, a prison of her own making. Then she looked back at the calm, confident boy who stood in the middle of it all like an anchor in a storm. Her decision was made.
"I... I accept," she whispered, the words tasting of salvation.
Wei Heng gave a single, sharp nod. The Oracle had been secured. The second pillar of Aegis was now in place.