"YES!"
The word echoed through the cave chamber like a muffled thunder. Lin Wei did not need to wait long to understand what would happen next.
The blood.
All the blood spilled on the ground, that dark and thick liquid, began to move. It did not flow. It was pulled. As if Lin Wei were a magnet, the serpent's blood lifted from the ground and shot toward him.
It entered through his pores.
The sensation was indescribable. Strange. It was as if thousands of cold worms crawled under his skin at the same time. It did not hurt, but it was not pleasant either. It was invasive and wrong. His body absorbed something that did not belong to him.
The blood kept coming. From the ground, from the corpse, from every crevice where it had accumulated. Drop by drop, until not a single red stain remained in the cave. The dead serpent now looked like a dry shell, completely drained.
Then the pain came.
Lin Wei fell to the ground with a muffled groan. It was as if thousands of invisible needles pierced every inch of his body, the skin, the muscles, the organs, and the bones.
As if something was being rewritten inside him. Cell by cell. He clenched his teeth so hard he thought they would crack. He wanted to scream, but the pain stole his voice.
It lasted a minute. Only a minute.
When it ended, Lin Wei remained on his knees, panting, sweat running down his dirty face. But something was different.
He noticed it first in the darkness.
The cave, which before had been an impenetrable blackness except for the crack of light in the ceiling, was now… clear.
He could see every detail of the stone walls, the veins of minerals shining in the rocks. Everything in shades of gray and green, like a filtered night vision, but perfectly sharp.
It was a kind of night vision.
Then came the perception of his own body. He moved his arms. Moved his left leg. Twisted his torso.
The pain was gone.
Not reduced. Gone. The broken ribs, the cracked bones, the bruises, everything had disappeared.
He stood up without effort, feeling his muscles respond with a strength that was not there minutes ago.
A new screen appeared before him.
[Devouring Completed]
[Main Bloodline Absorbed: Purple Mist Serpent (Rank 1)]
Lin Wei stared at the silver letters with a smile that slowly grew. He really had a system. It was not a hallucination, it was not a dream. He was alive, healed, and now possessed something that could change everything.
"Status."
The word came out naturally, as if he already knew it would work.
The screen changed.
[Bloodline Devouring System — Status]
Name: Lin Wei
Age: 16
Race: Hybrid
Bloodline: Purple Mist Serpent (Rank 1)
Cultivation: Rank 1 (Initial)
[Passive Abilities]
Night Vision, Poison Resistance
[Active Abilities]
Poison Mist, Beast Mode
Lin Wei read each line three times.
Hybrid. He was no longer human. Or at least not completely.
The absorption of the bloodline had transformed him into something mixed, part man, part serpent. The name of the race made that clear.
Cultivation, Rank 1. That was the first realm. The same level as a low-rank monstrous beast.
He did not know exactly how that compared to human cultivation realms, whether it was equivalent to the Body Refinement Realm or something different. But it did not matter now. He had power.
He focused his gaze on each ability, and the descriptions appeared.
[Poison Resistance: Your body has developed natural resistance to toxins. In addition, you now possess functional venom glands in your organism.]
[Night Vision: You can see in total darkness like a serpent. Perception of heat and movement in low-light environments.]
Then the actives.
[Poison Mist: Unique ability of the Purple Mist Serpent bloodline. Your body can release a toxic mist through the pores.]
[Beast Mode: Unique ability of the Hybrid race. Allows partial or total transformation into the form of the beast whose bloodline was absorbed.]
Lin Wei lowered his hand, and the screen disappeared.
He stood there, in the middle of the foul-smelling cave, with the rotting body of a giant serpent beside him, and laughed.
It was not a laugh of pure joy. It was a laugh of relief, of disbelief, of something that had broken inside him and was now beginning to come back together. He had woken up in a broken body, trapped in a cave, without hope.
Now, less than two hours later, he was healed, possessed power, and had a system that promised more.
System. He stopped laughing and frowned.
"System? Are you there?"
Silence.
"System? Can you talk?"
Nothing. No mechanical voice, no screen appearing in response. He waited a few seconds and asked again. The same silence.
The system was mute, apparently. He thought. Or simply without its own consciousness.
That was better. Systems with their own intelligence were complicated in the novels he read, they always came with conditions, mandatory missions, or worse, an annoying personality. A cold system, without its own will, was easier to deal with.
He took a deep breath and looked around. The cave was still there, with its rotten smell and its only exit in the ceiling. But now he was no longer broken. Now he had strength.
His eyes rose to the crack of light in the ceiling, about five meters above. Before, it seemed impossible. Now, for some reason, he felt he could reach it.
Without thinking much, Lin Wei bent his knees and jumped.
His body rose as if it had no weight. The wind passed by his ears. In less than a second, he was already three meters off the ground and still rising.
Five meters.
He clenched his right hand and punched the opening.
The sound was a dry explosion. Stone chipped. Cracks spread across the ceiling like spiderwebs. The crack opened into a hole the size of a bucket, and pieces of rock began to fall.
Lin Wei fell back to the cave floor. The stones followed him, hitting his shoulders, arms, and head. He did not move. He did not need to. The fragments of rock hit his skin and simply… did nothing. As if they were foam balls. His body was harder now. Much harder.
He raised his head and saw the sky.
It was no longer a crack. It was an open hole, with sunlight entering in a golden beam that cut through the cave's darkness. Stones still fell from the edges, but the opening was already large enough to pass through.
Lin Wei jumped again. This time, he did not punch. When he reached the height of the hole, he extended his hands, grabbed the edge firmly, and pulled himself out.
The light hit him like a blow. After countless days of darkness, the sun seemed blinding. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the warmth on his face. The wind. The smell of earth and leaves.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the forest.
Tall trees, dense canopies, and ground covered with dry leaves. He was in a small clearing, surrounded by rocks and vegetation. Behind him, the hole he had just opened in the cave ceiling. Ahead, a path between the trees led somewhere.
He turned and looked at the hole once more. Down there, in the dark, was the dry corpse of the serpent that gave him power. It had saved him without knowing. He did not know if he should feel gratitude toward a dead beast, but he would do one thing.
"I will remember you, especially now that we are the same species." He murmured, his voice low.
"Without you, I would still be down there, waiting for death."
He then turned his back and began to walk.