The night the heavens forgot to breathe, a nameless star fell over the Ten Lands.
On the outskirts of the Tianlong Family's remote branch estate—where once-mighty dragon murals had faded and ancestral bells gathered dust—an infant's first cry trembled through old cedar beams. The elders called it an omen. The servants called it a storm. The heavens called it a return.
Within a lantern-lit chamber, the matriarch Tianlong Meiyu held the swaddled child with trembling hands. The babe bore a faint, luminescent mark at his heart—an embryonic dragon coil, delicate as silk. When Meiyu pressed her ear to his chest, she heard no heartbeat. Instead, an ancient bell tolled from a forgotten sky.
"His name shall be Adiren," she whispered. "Adiren Tianlong."
Beyond the estate walls, the Ten Lands sprawled—ten vast continents teeming with sects, clans, and legacy beasts. Above them, the Nine Heavens stirred, beyond that, the 3000 Dao Worlds, the chaotic Rift Realm, and the silent God-Demon Universe awaited.
That night, a sealed jade chamber deep beneath the ancestral mountain awakened. Nine jade rings rotated around an ancient dais, glowing faintly. Between them, a sliver of light gathered, then whispered, then spoke:
"Count your eons… and wake."
No answer came. Then a distant memory surfaced: a throne of obsidian stars, a face blurred by epochs, a hand raised in creation then struck down, sealed, erased.
"O Supreme One, return not as thunder, but as dew." The voice seeped through the rings, flowing through stone, dust, and wind—until it reached the infant with the dragon coil.
His eyelashes fluttered. A door clicked deep inside him.
Years passed without mercy. The Tianlong branch family was but a shadow of its former glory, with cracked banners and broken statues. Adiren grew quiet and observant, moving like a moonlit echo in the empty courtyard.
On a cold morning at twelve, the patriarch's nephew sneered, tossing a practice sword at his feet. "Show me the Tianlong spirit, moon-prince," he mocked.
At that moment, a translucent panel shimmered before Adiren's eyes: the Face-Slapping System.
Face-Slapping System
User: Adiren Tianlong
Event: Direct Contempt Detected
Severity: Trivial
Conversion Efficiency: 3%
Reward: +1 Tempered Breath
Passive Unlocked: Minor Qi Conduction
Current Cultivation: Spirit Root (23%)
Hidden Stat: Fortitude +1
"Transform derision into strength. Use scorn as your stepping stone."
Adiren's palm flicked gently—not striking, but resting on the boy's shoulder. The system's glow pulsed. Breath flowed through him like water remembering its mountain.
The nephew lunged, clumsy and graceless. Adiren stepped aside with effortless grace, the courtyard stones remembering feet long gone. A silent respect stirred in unseen witnesses.
That night, as bamboo whispered in the frosted air, Tianlong Meiyu asked, "How long will you endure?"
Adiren answered, "As long as the root does."
A distant bell tolled through realms unseen. A shadow stirred.
"Do you remember me?" it asked.
"No," Adiren said. "But I will."
Far above, in the lowest layer of the Nine Heavens, a masked woman watched the flicker of light from the mortal world.
"He returns as dew," she whispered.
"Dew evaporates."
"Only when the sun rises."
And below, in the estate's forgotten courtyard, the journey of Adiren Tianlong—the lost Supreme Progenitor—began.