Darkness. Absolute, heavy, and suffocating.
Min Luan expected a flash of light, perhaps a dizzying swirl of colors indicative of burning hypnotic incense. Instead, the transition was instantaneous and seamless.
A sudden rush of cold, stagnant air hit him like a physical blow. The cloying scent of ancient dust, rotting silk, and dried blood filled his lungs. When his vision adjusted, the wooden walls of the shop were gone.
He stood inside a massive, decaying martial arts pavilion. Moonlight filtered through shattered roof tiles, casting pale, skeletal shadows across the cracked stone floor. Massive wooden pillars, carved with faded dragons, sagged under the weight of the rotting ceiling. Torn martial banners bearing the insignia of a forgotten sect fluttered in the freezing draft.
A translucent blue window suddenly shimmered into existence directly in his line of sight.
[Welcome to the Trial Realm.]
[Current Scenario: The Undead Hall.]
[Rule: Internal Force Sealed. Participants must rely on pure physical technique.]
[Objective: Survive for 10 minutes or find the exit.]
Min Luan swallowed hard, his pulse hammering a frantic rhythm in his throat. He looked down at his hands. He could see the dust coating his fingernails. He pinched his own arm—hard.
A sharp spike of pain shot through him.
"Ancestors above," he whispered, his voice trembling in the hollow pavilion. "This... this isn't an illusion. My dantian is empty. My Internal Force... it's completely sealed."
For a man who had practiced basic martial arts just to augment his stamina for merchant travels, feeling his internal energy vanish was terrifying. He was reduced to a mere mortal.
He took a hesitant step toward the grand double doors at the far end of the hall. The silence was agonizing, broken only by the howl of the wind and a sudden, dry rustling sound.
Shuffle. Drag. Shuffle.
Min Luan froze. His breath plumed in the freezing air.
From the shadows behind a weapon rack, a figure stumbled into a patch of moonlight. It wore the tattered, rotting robes of an ancient sect disciple. Its skin was desiccated and gray, drawn tight over sharp bones. Its eyes were milky, sightless voids. Yet, unlike a mindless beast, it held its hands up in a perfectly recognizable, if stiff, martial arts stance.
It was an Undead Novice Disciple.
It turned its milky eyes toward Min Luan. Its jaw unhinged with a sound like snapping dry twigs, and it lunged.
It didn't just run; it executed a flawless, linear stepping technique, closing the distance with terrifying, unnatural precision.
"AHHHHH!!!"
Min Luan didn't attempt to use formal technique. Blind panic took over. As the undead disciple reached out with a clawed hand to rip his throat out, Min Luan wildly threw his leg out in a desperate, heavy, completely unrefined kick.
His thick merchant boot slammed into the creature's hollow chest. The undead disciple, brittle from centuries of decay, was thrown backward. It crashed hard against a shattered weapon rack, and with a sickening shuck, impaled the back of its neck onto the splintered shaft of a broken spear. The creature spasmed once, twice, and went entirely still.
Min Luan stumbled back, his chest heaving as adrenaline surged violently through his veins. He stared at the motionless corpse, shock warring with the primal thrill of survival.
But before he could even process the kill, a drop of thick, putrid fluid hit his cheek. He looked up.
Clinging to the rotting rafters, completely upside down, was a second undead disciple.
Before Min Luan could even draw breath to scream, the creature dropped.
It slammed into him, a crushing weight of rotting meat and bone. Min Luan hit the ground hard, the breath blasting from his lungs. A sharp, agonizing flare of unspeakable pain erupted in his right shoulder.
The creature's jagged teeth sank deeply into his flesh. It wasn't just a sensation of pressure; Min Luan felt the distinct, horrifying feeling of fangs slicing through his silk robes, piercing his skin, tearing through muscle, and grinding against his collarbone.
Hot blood—his blood—sprayed across the dusty stone.
"GET IT OFF! EXIT! EXIT! GET ME OUT!" Min Luan shrieked, a primal, guttural sound of pure agony. He kicked wildly, thrashing against the cold stone floor, but the creature was too heavy, its grip too absolute.
The undead disciple bit down harder, ripping its head back to tear the muscle free.
The pain reached a crescendo that shattered Min Luan's consciousness.
Light exploded in his retinas.
Min Luan tore the silver helm off his head with a violent wrench, throwing himself out of the obsidian chair. He collapsed onto the shop's wooden floorboards, rolling onto his back, thrashing and screaming.
He frantically clawed at his right shoulder, tearing the green silk of his robes to expose his skin.
It was whole.
There was no blood. No jagged tear in his flesh. No bone exposed to the air.
He lay there on the floor, drenched in a cold, shivering sweat, his face the sickly color of old parchment. His chest heaved as he gasped for air, his eyes wide and unblinking. Though his shoulder was physically intact, the phantom pain still throbbed vividly in his mind, a haunting, agonizing echo of the teeth grinding against his bone.
But as his heart rate began to slow, Min Luan realized something else. The raw, desperate adrenaline of the trial hadn't faded—it had crystallized.
He looked down at his leg. In his mind's eye, he vividly recalled the frantic kick that had killed the first undead. But it no longer felt like a sloppy, panicked movement. Through the extreme life-and-death pressure of the Undead Hall, his brain had organically analyzed the strike. He suddenly understood exactly how his hips had pivoted, how his heel had planted, and how kinetic force transferred.
It wasn't a magic trick. It was genuine, brutal combat experience burned deeply into his physical muscle memory. If he stood up right now and threw that kick again, he knew with absolute, unshakable certainty that it would be flawless.
"That..." Min Luan gasped, his voice a hoarse, broken rasp as he stared at the unassuming black chair. "That wasn't an illusion. I felt the teeth. And... my body... it remembers the fight."
Behind the counter, Yuan Bi leaned back in his bamboo chair. A faint, dangerous smirk played on his lips. A series of notifications glowed brightly in his peripheral vision.
[Trial Failed. Participant: Min Luan.]
[Participant Retains: Passive Battlefield Experience, Minor Technique Refinement.]
[Host EXP Gained: +10 Shop EXP.]
[Shop Level Progress: 10/100 to Level 2.]
[Milestone Reached: First Dungeon Blood Drawn.]
[Host Reward Generated: +15 Days of Pure Internal Force.]
"I told you," Yuan Bi said, his voice quiet but carrying a weight Min Luan couldn't comprehend. "Quality demands a premium. You owe me seven stones."
Min Luan didn't argue. He didn't complain about the price. He simply staggered to his feet, his knees knocking together so hard they audibly clicked. He pushed the remaining glowing stones across the table with shaking hands. He looked at Yuan Bi not with pity, but with a profound, primal mixture of absolute terror and overwhelming, burning greed.
Without another word, Min Luan stumbled out the door.
Outside, a small crowd had gathered in the street, drawn by the muffled, horrifying shrieks echoing from within the shop.
"What happened to him?" a passing swordsman asked, eyeing the pale merchant. "Did the shop boy cheat you? Did he poison you?"
Min Luan paused. He looked at the gathered martial artists—the arrogant youths, the hardened mercenaries, the curious onlookers. He looked at them, and then he looked back at the dark doorway of the Origins Dungeon Hall.
When he spoke, it was with a haunting, hollow clarity that sent a shiver down the spine of everyone listening.
"It's real," Min Luan whispered, clutching his perfectly uninjured shoulder. "The pain. The experience. Gods help me, it's all real."
By evening, the mockery in the West District had died entirely. The rumors that swept through the teahouses and training yards shifted from derisive laughter to a dark, shivering curiosity. A 2nd rate fighter had gone in and come out screaming. Now, a wealthy merchant had done the same, but the whisper on the wind was that his martial aura had sharpened.
Inside the Origins Dungeon Hall, the sun finally dipped below the horizon, plunging the shop into shadows. The four obsidian chairs hummed with quiet, patient power.
Yuan Bi sat in the dark, closing his eyes as he accepted the System's reward. He felt the heavy, warm surge of newly condensed Origin Internal Force pouring into his perfectly restored dantian, expanding his reserves by half a month's worth of bitter training in a single instant. It was intoxicating.
He looked out at the street, watching the silhouettes of fighters pacing back and forth outside his door, their terror warring with their blinding ambition.
"Finally," Yuan Bi murmured to the silence, his eyes flashing with predatory anticipation. "Business