A week passed quietly on the Evergreen Sect's Miscellaneous Peak.
From the outside, nothing seemed to have changed. The mountain remained the quietest of the sect's many peaks, a place shrouded in gentle mist and cool silence. The forests whispered with the rustling of leaves, the occasional cry of a spirit bird drifting through the air. Moss-covered paths wound between abandoned courtyards where weeds grew stubbornly through cracked stone tiles. An old bell tower leaned slightly to one side, long since crooked, as if it had grown tired of standing upright when no disciples were around to care.
With only a single person residing there, the peak often looked abandoned, like a forgotten relic of the past. But appearances could be deceiving.
Inside one small courtyard, change was brewing.
Li An sat cross-legged on the stone floor, his posture steady as a mountain. The early morning breeze tugged gently at his long black hair, which now spilled down his back like a river of silk. His robe was carelessly tossed aside on the steps, leaving his torso bare, faint sunlight highlighting skin that gleamed faintly with vitality. The hollow, half-starved look he'd carried when first arriving was gone. In its place, lean muscle had returned—defined not by bulk, but by balance and precision, like a sword freshly sharpened.
Yet, curiously, there was no cultivation aura swirling around him. No dazzling qi waves. No surging pressure. He wasn't pulling energy from the heavens with desperation or hammering away at bottlenecks.
No—he was meditating in his own way.
For seven days and nights, Li An had turned inward. He hadn't rushed to claw back power; instead, he had quietly explored his new body. Patiently. Methodically. Every morning, he mapped his body muscle by muscle, tendon by tendon, tracing the flow of qi through his meridians and learning how each tiny piece responded to his will. Where most cultivators closed their eyes and brute-forced breakthroughs, he treated his flesh like a stranger he had to befriend.
"Why run with a borrowed body," he had mused to himself once, "if you'll only trip over your own feet?"
And so, his days passed.
Sometimes he focused on nothing more than the tension in his left shoulder, until he could feel every hidden knot release. Other times, he concentrated on his fingers, commanding them to flex and relax in harmony with his qi until even his fingernails felt attuned to his will. Slowly, this vessel ceased to feel foreign. Slowly, it became his own.
By now, his breathing was deep and steady, like the slow rhythm of the tide. Each inhale was a tide rising, steady and full. Each exhale was a tide retreating, leaving clarity in its wake. Birds had grown bold enough to perch on the courtyard walls, tilting their heads at the strange man radiating calm but no danger. A little spirit squirrel had even started stealing nuts from his courtyard every evening, dashing in and out while Li An pretended not to notice.
He did notice, of course. But he let the little thief be. "Good neighbors shouldn't be stingy," he thought with amusement.
Now, as dawn broke over the mountains, painting the mist gold, Li An finally stirred. His eyes opened slowly.
And they gleamed—not with the dull resignation of a cripple, but with sharp brilliance, steady and cold.
He sat in silence for a moment longer, enjoying the weight of his body and the clarity of his mind. Then, almost lazily, he spoke.
"System."
The mechanical chime rang immediately in his head, as clear and toneless as ever.
[System Activated]
[Host: Li An]
[Age: 23]
[Cultivation: 9th Stage Qi Refining Realm]
[Spirit Roots: Lower-Middle Grade Roots]
Options Available:
• Multiply (0 slots available)
• Fuse
[Currently in Multiply: Aurora Technique ×178, Space Jumping Slash ×168, Lower-Middle Grade Roots ×168]
Li An raised an eyebrow. "Ninth stage already, huh? Just one step short of Foundation Establishment."
He rubbed his chin, not looking entirely happy. "That's… a little fast. Shouldn't I at least struggle a bit? Or cough blood dramatically?"
He had expected progress, yes. His path had already been carved once before, so regaining cultivation should've been easier the second time around. But this—this was like sliding downhill with no brakes.
"Ah… of course." His gaze drifted toward the misty treetops. "Evergreen Sect. You're basically a giant qi-battery."
Indeed, the Evergreen Sect wasn't just any sect. It was one of the continent's great powers, its peaks saturated with formations that drank qi from heaven and earth like rivers into a lake. Even abandoned, the Miscellaneous Peak still pulsed faintly with these ancient veins of energy. Normally, hundreds of disciples would share it. Now?
Li An smirked. "All mine."
No wonder he'd rocketed through the stages like a drunk ox tumbling downhill.
Still, a faint bitterness touched his lips. "If I had my original root, I'd already be Foundation Establishment. Maybe even Core by now…"
Back then, his root had been a dragon vein—something that swallowed the world. Now he was left with what? Six measly streams trying their best.
He sighed, then grinned. "Well, no use complaining. Let's see how far these little streams can run."
His eyes flicked to the panel.
"System, remove the spirit roots from the slot and fuse."
[Affirmative.]
The response was flat.
The effect was anything but.
It struck him like a celestial hammer. One heartbeat he was calm, sitting cross-legged in quiet serenity—then suddenly his entire body convulsed as his dantian exploded with pressure. One hundred and sixty-eight spirit roots sprouted at once, writhing and twisting inside him like wild weeds fighting for space.
His breath hitched, his eyes bulged, and his hair flew upward as though caught in a storm.
"W-Wait, wait—! Not all at once! Moderation, System, moderation!"
The courtyard trembled. The stone tiles beneath him groaned. Above, the mist swirling over Miscellaneous Peak thinned as qi was sucked away in visible torrents, spiraling into Li An's body. The air grew sharp and dry; even the spirit birds cried out, wings thrashing as their qi-rich branches suddenly went barren.
Inside his dantian, the chaos was worse. The roots didn't sit quietly—they writhed, collided, and tangled violently, a nest of snakes trying to devour one another. Pain lanced through his body as if something were burrowing into his very bones.
"Th-this… feels like— nghhh—being stuffed at a banquet with no exit! Who eats one hundred and sixty-eight plates at once?!"
The System, of course, gave no answer.
Then the fusion began.
First fusion—
The trash-grade roots slammed together in groups of five, twisting and collapsing into themselves. A thunderous pressure rattled through his meridians, and Li An swore he heard faint crunching inside his body. One after another, they reforged, flimsy strands hardening and brightening.
From 168 lower middle-grade roots → 33 Middle-Grade Spirit Roots.
Li An wheezed. "Thirty-three already? Ughh… feels like my insides are grinding beans with a millstone…"
No reprieve. The System pushed further.
Second fusion—
Those thirty-three middle-grade roots quivered, then began slamming into each other, once more in sets of five. Sparks of qi flared, making his entire body twitch and jolt. His vision blurred white; every breath was like swallowing fire.
Five fused into one. Then another five. Then another. The number dwindled, condensed, purified.
From 33 Middle-Grade Roots → 6 Upper-Middle Grade Spirit Roots.
Li An groaned, his back arching, fingers digging into the stone floor hard enough to leave marks. Sweat poured down his chin, dripping onto the cracked tiles below.
When it finally ended, his body sagged forward, then almost toppled backward. Only sheer stubbornness kept him upright.
His chest heaved, robe plastered to his back, long hair sticking to his damp face. His eyes flicked open, staring blankly at the sky above.
For a long moment, he didn't speak. His heart hammered in his ears, his dantian burned like molten iron—yet he was still here.
"…I'm alive?"
A beat passed. Then, a hoarse laugh bubbled out, his lips curling into a crooked grin.
"System… next time, a warning, please. Just a little one. I thought I was being digested alive! If I were any weaker, Miscellaneous Peak would be using me as fertilizer right about now."
The System, predictably, said nothing.
"Figures."
Li An chuckled breathlessly, pushing himself upright again. Qi still hummed violently through his meridians, eager to surge forward, trembling on the edge of Foundation Establishment. But Li An simply sat back down cross-legged, forcing his breathing to slow.
A faint smile tugged at his lips, wry and amused.
"…At this rate," he muttered, "I'll be the first cultivator to break through while complaining the whole way.