The rumbling beneath Lián Zhen's feet intensified as the Earth Shattering Sect's vanguard approached. Fifty massive figures rode atop constructs of living stone, each one towering twenty feet high and crackling with the primal energy of the earth itself. Their leader, a man whose muscles seemed carved from granite, raised a war hammer that could have served as a building's foundation pillar.
"Zhen Taishan of the Earth Shattering Sect greets the demon child!" the giant bellowed, his voice causing small avalanches in the distant mountains. "Your rampage ends here! **Mountain's Judgment: Tectonic Devastation!**"
The very ground began to crack and shift. Massive stone spears erupted in a complex pattern designed to impale anything caught within a mile radius, while simultaneously creating a formation that would channel the earth's own spiritual energy to crush any survivor. It was a technique that typically required the coordination of an entire sect's elders, yet Zhen Taishan was performing it alone.
This was no ordinary master—this was a Transcendent Realm cultivator, someone who had stepped beyond mortal limitations.
Lián Zhen stood in the center of the devastation, stone spears whistling past him with enough force to level mountains. But his attention was focused inward, on the symphony of power that continued to evolve within his soul.
[New Target Acquired: Zhen Taishan (Transcendent First Layer)]
[Technique Analysis: Earth Dominion Scripture (Heaven Grade)]
[Warning: Target's cultivation exceeds safe absorption parameters by 847%]
[Recommendation: Tactical retreat advised]
"Retreat?" Zhen laughed, and the sound carried impossible harmonics that made reality itself seem to vibrate. "I haven't even started playing seriously yet."
The stone spears reached him—and stopped. Not blocked by any visible barrier, but simply frozen in space as if they had encountered something more fundamental than matter. Zhen reached out and touched one of the massive projectiles, and it dissolved into motes of golden light that flowed into his body.
[Emergency Evolution: Absorption capability expanding to accommodate higher-grade targets]
[Warning: Spiritual foundation may become unstable]
[Proceeding anyway…]
"**Synthesis: Absolute Dominion**."
Zhen raised his hand, and the entire landscape began to change. Not just the surface, but layers upon layers of bedrock extending miles into the earth's core. Where Zhen Taishan's technique had tried to impose the earth's will upon the world, Zhen's synthesis did something far more profound—it convinced the earth that *he* was its will.
Mountains rose from flat plains. Valleys carved themselves into existence. Rivers changed their courses to flow uphill, defying gravity through sheer spiritual authority. The very concept of "ground" and "sky" became negotiable in his presence.
Zhen Taishan's constructs of living stone turned to face their creator and bowed.
"Impossible," the giant whispered, his granite features showing genuine fear for the first time in centuries. "You're just a child. Your cultivation can't be more than—"
"Cultivation?" Zhen's voice carried the weight of continents. "I stopped measuring power in such limited terms about ten minutes ago."
He gestured casually, and Zhen Taishan's technique—which should have been impossible to counter, let alone reverse—turned against its creator. The formation that was supposed to crush enemies instead lifted the giant into the air and held him suspended like a fly caught in amber.
[Technique Absorbed: Earth Dominion Scripture (Complete)]
[Bonus: Geological manipulation unlocked]
[Universal Resonance: 18%]
[New Quest Update: 73/1000+ cultivators defeated]
"Please," Zhen Taishan gasped, his Transcendent Realm cultivation somehow unable to break free from techniques that a mere village boy had improvised on the spot. "I yield. I yield!"
Zhen considered this for a moment. Then he smiled—and it was not a kind expression.
"I don't accept surrenders during educational demonstrations."
⸻
**The Cascade Effect**
What happened next would be debated in cultivation academies for the next thousand years. Witnesses described it differently—some said Zhen simply pointed at the captured giant, others claimed he spoke words in a language that predated human speech. A few insisted he did nothing at all, that Zhen Taishan simply… unraveled.
But those with the highest spiritual perception saw the truth: Lián Zhen had somehow reached into the very foundation of the man's cultivation and begun absorbing not just techniques, but the underlying principles that made them possible. The earth-element spiritual root, the lifetime of accumulated qi, the dao insights, the battle experience—all of it flowed into Zhen's infinite void like water into a bottomless well.
[CRITICAL ABSORPTION IN PROGRESS]
[Warning: Absorbing entire cultivation base may cause dimensional instability]
[Target's memories, personality, and life experiences being filtered…]
[Integration at 34%… 67%… 89%… Complete]
When the process finished, Zhen Taishan hung motionless in the air—alive, but somehow… less. Still a powerful cultivator by any reasonable standard, but no longer the force of nature he had been moments before.
Lián Zhen, on the other hand, had grown. Not just in power, but in presence. He now stood six inches taller than he had an hour ago, his features refined by exposure to Transcendent-level qi. His eyes held depths that spoke of geological time, and when he moved, the earth itself seemed to shift slightly to accommodate him.
"Thank you for the lesson, Senior Zhen," he said politely, lowering the giant to the ground with a gesture. "I've always wondered what it felt like to move mountains with a thought."
The remaining members of the Earth Shattering Sect stared in horror as their most powerful elder—a man who had trained for over eight centuries—nodded respectfully to a boy who couldn't be more than sixteen years old.
"It… it was my honor, Young Master," Zhen Taishan said, and the terrifying thing was that he meant it. Some part of his original personality remained, but it was now colored by absolute certainty that Lián Zhen was his superior in every meaningful way.
[Achievement Unlocked: First Transcendent Absorption]
[Reward: Unlock Advanced Synthesis Options]
[New Ability: Memory Integration - Can access absorbed techniques at master level instantly]
[Universal Resonance: 23%]
The implications hit Zhen like a physical blow. He hadn't just absorbed Zhen Taishan's power—he had absorbed eight centuries of training, battle experience, and cultivation insights. In his mind, he could now remember learning the Earth Dominion Scripture as a young man, could recall the feeling of breaking through to each new realm, could access the strategic knowledge gained from ten thousand battles.
And yet, somehow, he was still himself. The infinite void that was his true nature had taken all of this foreign experience and made it his own without losing his core identity.
"Fascinating," he murmured, flexing his fingers and watching stone flowers bloom from his fingertips. "I wonder if this works with other elements too."
As if summoned by his curiosity, the night sky suddenly blazed with artificial stars. The Celestial Fire Sect had arrived, and they were demonstrating exactly why fire cultivators were considered the most destructive force in the cultivation world.
Three hundred masters descended from above, each one wreathed in flames of different colors—azure fire that burned cold, crimson fire that consumed spiritual energy, white fire that could melt through defensive formations, and at their center, a figure whose flames were so intense they appeared black against the night sky.
"Yan Feixue of the Celestial Fire Sect," the figure announced, her voice carrying the crackling authority of a forest fire. "I've come to test whether the demon child can handle heaven's judgment."
Unlike the previous challengers, she didn't waste time with words or warnings. The moment she finished speaking, her body exploded into a miniature sun that cast shadows for hundreds of miles in every direction.
"**Heaven's Wrath: Solar Prominence**!"
The technique was beautiful and terrible—a pillar of stellar fire that connected earth to sky, hot enough to turn sand to glass and stone to vapor. It was the kind of attack that could level cities and boil seas.
Zhen didn't try to absorb it. Instead, he studied it.
[Analyzing Technique: Solar Prominence (Peak Heaven Grade)]
[Estimated Absorption Time: 12.3 seconds]
[Risk Assessment: Moderate - may cause temporary combustion of physical form]
[Recommendation: Counter with synthesized technique]
"Counter?" Zhen shook his head, walking directly into the pillar of solar fire. "That would be wasteful. Do you have any idea how rare peak Heaven Grade techniques are?"
The flames struck him and… stopped. Not absorbed instantly like the previous attacks, but held in stasis around his body like a frozen explosion. Zhen's skin began to glow with the same stellar radiance, but instead of being consumed, he seemed to be savoring the experience.
"Twelve point three seconds," he said conversationally, even as temperatures around him reached levels that should have been instantly lethal. "That's how long it will take me to fully understand your technique. During that time, I suggest you show me everything else you know."
Yan Feixue's perfect composure cracked. "What are you?"
"I'm a student," Zhen replied, his voice somehow audible despite standing in the heart of a miniature star. "And you're my teacher. So please—teach me everything."
⸻
**The Festival of Flames**
What followed was less a battle than a masterclass in fire cultivation. Yan Feixue, driven by a mixture of fear and fascination, began unleashing technique after technique. Each one was more impressive than the last—the Thousand Phoenix Formation that filled the sky with firebirds, the Infernal Prison that could trap opponents in cages of living flame, the Stellar Convergence that channeled the power of distant suns.
And through it all, Lián Zhen stood in the center of the conflagration like a student taking notes. Each technique that struck him was analyzed, understood, and absorbed. But more than that, he began to see the connections between them, the underlying philosophy that unified all fire cultivation.
"Your sect's founder was brilliant," he said as the Stellar Convergence technique reached its crescendo around him. "But he made one critical error in his fundamental assumptions about the relationship between flame and void."
With a gesture, he demonstrated. The techniques that had been striking him from all directions suddenly reversed, flowing back to their sources but transformed. The fires that had been trying to consume him now served him, and through him, began to serve their original casters.
The three hundred masters of the Celestial Fire Sect found themselves surrounded by their own techniques, but refined and perfected beyond anything they had imagined possible. Their own flames bowed to them in acknowledgment of their mastery.
"This is what your techniques could become," Zhen said, his body now wreathed in flames that existed in colors beyond the normal spectrum. "This is what they were meant to be."
[Mass Absorption Complete: 127 Fire-Element Techniques Integrated]
[Bonus: Complete Understanding of Fire Dao Principles]
[New Synthesis Available: Primordial Fire Authority]
[Universal Resonance: 31%]
Yan Feixue stared at him with an expression that mixed awe, terror, and something that might have been gratitude. "You're not just absorbing our techniques. You're… perfecting them."
"Of course," Zhen replied, as if this should have been obvious. "Why would I want inferior copies when I can have the ideal versions?"
The night sky began to lighten slightly—dawn was still hours away, but the spiritual disturbances caused by the battles were affecting the natural order. In the distance, more sects were approaching. Zhen could sense them: the Void Walker Sect with their space-element techniques, the Time's End Sect with their temporal manipulation arts, the Divine Beast Tamers with their contracted spiritual creatures.
Each one represented centuries of accumulated knowledge and power. Each one was coming to stop him.
Each one was about to make him stronger.
[Quest Update: 423/1000+ cultivators defeated]
[Time Remaining: 3 hours, 47 minutes]
[New Milestone Available: Defeat representatives from 10 major sects - Reward: Fourth Circle Unlock]
"You know," Zhen said to the assembled cultivators, many of whom were now staring at him with expressions ranging from worship to existential terror, "I'm starting to understand why the Void Emperor disappeared. This is incredibly addictive."
In the distance, space began to ripple as the Void Walker Sect prepared their signature entrance. Reality folded in on itself, and figures began stepping out of tears in the fabric of existence itself.
Lián Zhen cracked his knuckles and smiled. Space-element techniques were something he'd been particularly curious about.
"I wonder," he said to no one in particular, "what happens when you synthesize spatial manipulation with geological control and stellar fire authority?"
The universe was about to find out.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice that still remembered being a simple farm boy wondered if he was becoming exactly the kind of monster the cultivation world needed to fear.
The voice was quickly drowned out by the symphony of infinite power singing in his soul. There would be time for philosophical concerns later.
Right now, there were more techniques to collect.