「An unconscious iceberg campus belle, a wealthy villain swooping in to take advantage, and a Dragon King bodyguard arriving too late—plus it actually worked out? This plot is such a goddamn cliché.」
「But sure enough, just as I suspected… This world really is a high martial arts setting straight out of a mindless power fantasy novel!」
It was almost like Sun Qian was having a split personality. He watched the events unfolding in the simulated world, along with his other self, and couldn't help but sigh in bemusement.
He'd been transmigrated to this world for eighteen years, yet it was only now that he was starting to catch a glimpse of its hidden secrets.
Clearly, there was a lot more going on beneath the surface than met the eye.
This unexpected revelation only piqued his curiosity about how the rest of the simulation would play out.
As for the drunk, unconscious campus belle Liu Yue lying outside in the cold, in the real world?
Who cared about some woman when he had a badass simulator to play with?
No rush. Let her lie there a little longer.
Enraged, the Destined Protagonist Ye Fan checked the nearby surveillance footage and saw that Liu Yue had been picked up by you half an hour earlier. He flew into a blind fury, hijacked a motorcycle, and tore off in a desperate chase.
But as a transmigrator, you'd obviously seen this coming a mile away. You'd already made preparations beforehand, telling your driver to call some local authorities in Magic City. Every traffic light along the route from the hotel turned red. Ye Fan, stuck on his motorcycle in the middle of a traffic jam, was about to run a red light when several traffic cops in reflective vests walked over and impounded his ride…
「So the me in the simulation actually has a mind of his own. He's not some brain-dead villain like the ones in those trashy novels?」
「If I knew there was a so-called Dragon King bodyguard who's probably the Destined Protagonist lurking around, why the hell would I just sit around and let him show up unimpeded?」
「Only an idiot wouldn't set up some roadblocks for him.」
Sun Qian watched the next sequence of events in the simulation and couldn't help but chuckle out loud.
But the next second, when he saw what happened in the simulation, the smile froze instantly on his face.
At the Magic City Hotel, you began trying to detoxify Liu Yue. The Destined Fate Energy within her body started to boil and churn, undergoing some kind of transformation—only to be forcefully siphoned and plundered by something inside you…
You felt your spinal column grow scorching hot, as if molten lava were surging through it. Something extraordinary began to happen to your body, and the bloodcurdling screams of ghosts and gods suddenly echoed in your ears…
The "curse" that had been placed upon you was broken. You awakened the Supreme Imperial Bone. Your physical body began to transform, finally crossing the threshold into cultivation…
Curse!Supreme Imperial Bone!
Staring at these two unfamiliar terms flashing across the simulator, Sun Qian's frozen expression turned dark, his eyes glinting with a cold, sharp light.
So that's why, all these years, no matter how hard he tried to cultivate the Sun Clan's techniques, no matter how he tried to gather spiritual energy to temper his body, he'd always failed. The spiritual energy he managed to condense would just dissipate into thin air, without rhyme or reason…
It turned out he'd been cursed. A curse that had prevented him from awakening his Supreme Imperial Bone—and from cultivating at all.
Who the hell would go to such lengths to curse him?
After all, not even the Sun Clan's ancestor, an Eighth-Rank Heavenly Human, had been able to detect the curse.
Could the one who cast it be another Heavenly Human of the same rank?
Or… could it be someone who had reached the legendary Ninth Rank—an Earth Immortal?
But publicly speaking, the only Earth Immortal in the entire Qianyuan Empire was none other than the Qianyuan Emperor himself!
Why would he do something like this?
To someone at that level of power, he, the second son of the Sun Clan, was nothing more than an ant—easily crushed to death with a flick of the finger. So why go through all the trouble of casting a curse?
And what exactly was the Supreme Imperial Bone? How did he end up with such a physique?
Did the Sun Clan know about this all along…?
One question after another popped into Sun Qian's mind, pressing down on him like a mountain and making him feel almost suffocated.
In that moment, he felt like an ant trapped inside a box, forever unable to see what lay beyond its walls.
If it weren't for the sudden appearance of the Villain Simulator, he would have gone to his grave never knowing the hidden secrets of his own body. He would have spent his entire life never being able to take a single step on the path of cultivation.
「But Liu Yue, this Destined Heroine… She was able to break my curse and give me a chance to cultivate again. And she just happened to show up right in front of me like this. Isn't that way too coincidental?」
Sun Qian stared ahead with a complicated look in his eyes, muttering to himself.
Then he turned his attention back to the simulated world.
According to the simulation, the Destined Protagonist Ye Fan was still an hour away from arriving. There was plenty of time.
You were shocked by Liu Yue's specialness, but even more shocked by the fact that you'd been cursed—and that the curse was now broken, allowing you to cultivate at last. What's more, you'd awakened a powerful forbidden power within your body. Overwhelmed with joy, you began to cultivate the Sun Clan's Ancient Dragon Elephant Scripture. In the span of mere breaths, you mastered the first layer. Your body began to transform, and you stepped into the first realm of cultivation: Mortal Transcendence.
「That fast? He went straight to the peak of Mortal Transcendence in the blink of an eye!」
Sun Qian's eyes widened in disbelief. The Ancient Dragon Elephant Scripture was an ancient body-tempering technique of the Eighth-Rank Heavenly Human level. Once mastered, it allowed one to go toe-to-toe with opponents of the same rank. It was also the standard cultivation method passed down exclusively to the Sun Clan's direct descendants—one of the top-tier body-tempering techniques in the entire Qianyuan Empire.
Even his elder brother Sun Shou, the heir to the Sun Clan and hailed as a genius of the empire, had spent months just getting started in Mortal Transcendence.
But he'd done it in mere breaths?
The cultivation talent of this body was absolutely terrifying!
The first realm, Mortal Transcendence, allowed one to transcend mortal limits, tempering the body with spiritual energy until one could exert a thousand jun of force, with skin and flesh tough enough to block blades and withstand fire and water. As soon as you began cultivating, you condensed the Strength of One Elephant, reaching the peak of Mortal Transcendence. You also discovered that cultivating while detoxifying Liu Yue made your progress exponentially faster…
Half an hour passed in the blink of an eye. You broke through to the second realm of cultivation: Spirit Attraction, successfully condensing spiritual energy within your body…
...Liu Yue woke up. You knocked her out again…
...At this moment, the Destined Protagonist Ye Fan was still on his way…
...Another half hour passed. You broke through to the third realm of cultivation: Profound Connection. The spiritual energy in your body condensed into a Spiritual Lake. You felt that with your Supreme Imperial Bone activated, even a powerhouse of the Divine Ability Realm wouldn't be able to touch you. You guessed that your lightning-fast cultivation speed was definitely due to the Supreme Imperial Bone—and that Liu Yue most likely possessed some kind of special physique as well…
...At this moment, the Destined Protagonist Ye Fan was still on his way…
...You suddenly noticed that part of the Destined Fate Energy within Liu Yue had been forcefully siphoned away by your Supreme Imperial Bone, temporarily granting you a boost of Destined Fate…
...
「By the time he gets here, the party'll be long over.」
「But I never expected my Supreme Imperial Bone to be this overpowered. It not only accelerates my cultivation speed, but can even plunder other people's fate energy.」
「Now I finally understand why someone went to the trouble of cursing me. This kind of powerful physique—even those ancient sacred bodies from legends can't hold a candle to it!」
As Sun Qian read through the contents of the simulation, instead of feeling joy, he felt a chill run down his spine.
It was too fast.
Way too fast.
With the Supreme Imperial Bone awakened, he was basically exploding in power at a rocket-like pace.
At this rate, it would take him less than a few years to reach the Heavenly Human Realm—maybe even the Earth Immortal Realm!
But the question was… would the person who cursed him just sit back and watch him rise to power unimpeded?
Having broken through to the third realm of Profound Connection, you began to grow intoxicated by your newfound power, losing some of your rationality. Just then, you felt a sudden, searing pain emanating from your Supreme Imperial Bone, followed by a wave of bone-chilling cold, as if something terrible was about to happen…