Chapter 2: Sign-In System
The moment Rhain read the word 'Integrating', the world turned white.
Agony, far beyond the beating he had endured, far beyond the memory assimilation, detonated inside his very cells.
A strangled, guttural scream tore from his bloodstained lips.
It felt as if he had been submerged in a vat of boiling acid.
It started from his dantian — a point below his navel that the borrowed memories identified as the core of a cultivator's power.
In the original Rhain's body, the dantian had been a pathetic dried-up well barely capable of holding a trickle of Essence.
Now something was pouring into it. Not filling it — remaking it.
The trickle became a river. The river became an ocean. The dried well cracked, shattered, and reformed as something vast and dark and endlessly hungry.
Rhain's back arched off the stone floor, his fists clenched tightly, his face distorted with pain, and dark veins like spider web appearing on his entire body.
His Essence pathways, the network of channels that carried cultivated energy through a cultivator's body, had been blocked and withered from years of neglect and poor nutrition. Now they were being blasted open.
Not gently. Not carefully.
The Abyssal Sovereign Physique did not negotiate with weakness. It eradicated it.
Every single bone in his body fractured simultaneously. They shattered into microscopic pieces before being forcibly fused back together, denser, heavier, and practically unbreakable.
His muscles shredded themselves to the microscopic level, only to regenerate instantly, weaving together tightly like cords of steel.
But the most terrifying change was happening in his dantian.
It imploded, condensing into a point of absolute, infinite darkness.
A void.
A yawning abyss that hungered for energy.
Ten minutes.
The integration process lasted for ten agonizing minutes.
Ten minutes of having his humanity stripped away and rebuilt into something monstrous.
When the pain finally receded, Rhain slumped forward, his chest heaving. His clothes were soaked in sweat, as if he had just woken up from a nightmare.
But as he slowly opened his eyes, the world was different.
The faint, ambient Aetheric Essence in the air, which he could never feel before, now brushed against his skin like a cool, rushing current.
He looked down at his hands.
The bruised, broken knuckles were fully healed. The sickly pallor of his skin was gone, replaced by a healthy, resilient tone.
He opened the System interface.
The status readout had changed.
Rhain Voss. Essence Awakening — Level 1.
Cultivation Realm in this world was divided into Essence Awakening, Essence Condensation, Spirit Manifestation, Core Formation, Dominion Lord, Sovereign Throne, Void Lord, Heaven's Chosen, Dao Lord, and World Sovereign.
Kael had only taken the first step in the long journey of cultivation.
Crackle.
The air around his hand actually distorted slightly. A faint, oppressive pressure radiated from his skin—a natural suppression aura that shouldn't be possible for anyone beneath the Spirit Manifestation realm.
Rhain let out a slow, steady breath and asked in his mind.
"System, How strong is the Sovereign-Grade physique?"
The System did not answer.
It was not the kind of system that answered.
But a faint shimmer of light flickered before his eyes once more.
[Location Sign-In available: Azure Cloud Sect — Outer Disciple Quarters. Sign In?]
Rhain hesitated for exactly one second.
Yes.
[Sign-In Reward: Uncommon-Grade Essence Gathering Pill x1.]
A faint flash of light illuminated the dark room, and one small, jade-green pill materialized, dropping neatly into his open palm.
It was perfectly round, exuding a rich, medicinal fragrance that instantly cleared the stench of the cell.
Rhain recognized the pill from the original's memories. It was a pill that outer disciples would gladly maim each other for. A single pill contained enough refined energy to equal a full month of natural Essence absorption for a normal cultivator.
And he had one now.
Rhain didn't hesitate. He sat back down on the relatively clean portion of the floor, crossing his legs into a lotus position.
He tossed the jade-green pill into his mouth and swallowed.
The moment the pill hit his stomach, it dissolved into a torrent of pure, concentrated Essence.
For a normal cultivator, absorbing this energy would require hours of careful meditation, slowly guiding the volatile energy through their pathways to avoid internal injury.
Rhain didn't need to guide anything.
The Abyssal Sovereign Physique activated entirely on its own.
The yawning void inside his dantian spun like a miniature black hole. The torrent of Essence from the pill was instantly devoured, torn apart, and refined with a brutal, terrifying efficiency.
It didn't stop there.
The physique acted like a vacuum. The ambient Aetheric Essence in the filthy cell, and the corridors beyond it, was violently pulled toward him. The air visibly rippled as the energy rushed into his pores.
The absorption rate was monstrous. It was hundreds of times faster than what any disciple in this pathetic sect could achieve.
Crack!
A faint popping sound echoed from within his body.
The first barrier of the Essence Awakening realm had been shattered effortlessly.
Within two minutes, the energy from the pill was completely refined and integrated into his dantian.
Rhain opened his eyes. The dark grey irises glimmered with a faint, abyssal light in the shadows of the room.
Essence Awakening Level 1 peak.
He had achieved in two hours what the original Rhain Voss had failed to do in three years.
This was also when his Abyssal Sovereign Physique required far more resources to breakthrough than a normal cultivator.
If it were someone else, he would have already reached second level of the realm.
He raised his hand, feeling the distinct flow of power running through his newly forged pathways. It was a meager amount of Essence in the grand scheme of Aethermere, but compared to the mortal frailty he possessed hours ago, it was the strength of a god.
He stood up and walked to the door.
His dark grey eyes — darker than the brown they'd been, darker in a way that seemed to swallow the dim light — caught his reflection in the cracked water jug's surface.
The face was still the original Rhain's. Young.
But the expression on it was entirely new.
That was the expression of a predator.
"This life," he said, looking at his own reflection, "will be different."