'Waking up with a splitting headache was definitely not on my agenda today. Neither was waking up as the most notoriously tragic figure in the Douluo Continent.'
Yu Xiaogang rubbed his temples, staring at the grand, vaulted ceiling of what his newly integrated memories identified as a junior researcher's quarters in the Spirit Hall archives. He was twenty-something, entirely ordinary in appearance, and blissfully unaware of the political landmines waiting to detonate his life. Well, the original Xiaogang was unaware.
'So, I am Yu Xiaogang... before the Bibi Dong tragedy. Before the heartbreak, the exile, and the lifetime of being ridiculed as a cripple.' He let out a long, shuddering breath, the tension leaving his shoulders. 'Thank god. I can actually avoid that entire mess.'
As the panic subsided, a profound warmth blossomed in his chest, radiating through his meridians like liquid gold. The cheat he had been promised was integrating. He closed his eyes, feeling the Essence of the Grandmaster taking root in his very soul.
It was an overwhelming sensation. His stats, his skills, his physical attributes, and his spirit power—everything that could grow was being instantaneously pushed to its natural peak, accelerating to his theoretically most able state. For a moment, the world held its breath. The suffocating bottleneck at level 29, the cursed shackle of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon clan's negative mutation, shattered like fragile glass.
He didn't just break through; his martial soul, the infamous pig-like Luo San Pao, bathed in a blinding inner light. The benign mutation that had been starved of energy was suddenly fed by an endless reservoir of potential. He felt the bloodline purify, shifting from a stunted creature into a majestic, ethereal Golden Divine Dragon.
'Calm down. Hide it.' Xiaogang immediately suppressed the surging aura, reigning the majestic dragon back into the depths of his sea of consciousness before it could alert the Titled Douluo residing in the upper echelons of Spirit Hall.
'That was close...' He exhaled, pulling up his newly formed mental space. According to the essence's integration, he now possessed an archived and indexed library of everything he knew, a literal dimensional archive in his mind. He mentally sifted through the shelves, finding rows of knowledge from his past life, including a specific file he mentally labeled as "fanfics all.docx", containing endless theories, plots, and ideas on how to manipulate this world's mechanics.
Any new skill, attribute, power, or ability he gained would near instantaneously mature to its most potent state. It was a terrifyingly overpowered ability. But Xiaogang wasn't interested in dominating the continent or fighting wars.
'I just want to be a salted fish. Read some books, do some research, and enjoy a quiet life.'
But there was a catch. A massive, looming catch that made his newly accelerated heart skip a beat. The integration had come with a warning: he was the anomaly, but the timeline was actively trying to correct itself. In exactly one month, certain key individuals would regress. They would awaken with memories of the original plot—the tragedies, the wars, the betrayals.
'If Bibi Dong or Flander regresses... they will come looking for me. Either to kill me, save me, or drag me into their drama.' He rubbed his chin, eyes narrowing. 'I have one month of a head start.
One month to become so deeply entrenched in my own hidden strength that even a regressor won't know what hit them.'
He needed to remain unknown, perfectly blending into the background as a mediocre researcher, while secretly exploiting his cheat to solve every problem that came his way.
Getting dressed in the simple, unassuming grey robes of a Spirit Hall archivist, Xiaogang stepped out of his room. The archives were a labyrinth of towering bookshelves, smelling of old parchment and dust. It was the perfect hiding spot.
"Xiaogang! You're late."
He turned to see Elder Li, a hunched, elderly Spirit Emperor who managed the lower archives.
The old man was perpetually grumpy, his cultivation stalled for decades due to a flawed meditation technique.
As Xiaogang looked at Elder Li, another facet of his Essence activated. At will, he could get a general sense of someone's potential, as well as identify individuals destined to be great or terrible. Xiaogang's eyes flashed with a faint, imperceptible gold.
'Potential: Exhausted. Destiny: Obscure, likely to die of spirit power deviation in three years.'
Xiaogang felt a pang of sympathy. Elder Li had always been kind to the original Xiaogang, sharing rare books and protecting him from the mockery of the combat-oriented disciples.
"Apologies, Elder Li. I was caught up in a breakthrough in my theories," Xiaogang replied smoothly, slipping perfectly into his role. He walked over to the desk where the old man was sorting through a pile of decayed bamboo slips.
"Theories won't save you if a spirit beast sneezes on you, boy," Li grumbled, clutching his chest as a spasm of pain crossed his face. The flawed circulation was acting up again.
Xiaogang didn't hesitate. With his abilities pushed to their natural peak, his understanding of spirit power manipulation was flawless. He reached out, casually placing a hand on the old man's shoulder under the guise of steadying him.
"Careful, Elder. Here, let me help you sit."
As his hand made contact, Xiaogang injected a microscopic, hyper-refined thread of his newly purified golden spirit power into Li's meridians. Thanks to his cheat, anyone he trained or guided would be able to grow in ability extremely quickly. He didn't just heal the blockage; he subtly re-routed the old man's stagnant spirit power, correcting the decades-old flaw in a fraction of a second.
Elder Li gasped, his eyes widening as the chronic, agonizing pressure in his chest vanished. A surge of long-dormant spirit power rushed through his newly cleared pathways.
"What... what just happened?" Li whispered, looking down at his hands, which were trembling with newfound vitality.
"You must have finally pushed past that bottleneck you were telling me about last week,"
Xiaogang lied smoothly, giving the old man a warm, unassuming smile. "Congratulations, Elder. I'll take over the sorting today. You should go meditate and consolidate your realm."
Elder Li stared at him, bewildered but too overwhelmed by the sudden rush of power to question it. "I... yes. Yes, you're a good boy, Xiaogang. Thank you."
As the old man hurried away to the secluded meditation chambers, Xiaogang turned back to the towering shelves of the archive. A small, satisfied smile played on his lips.
'A thousand ways to solve a problem,' he thought, letting his spiritual sense expand, cataloging every book, scroll, and hidden text in the massive library in mere seconds. 'I can fix flaws, condense perfect spirit rings, and create techniques that this world hasn't even dreamed of. But I won't do it in the light.'
He pulled a blank scroll from the desk and picked up a brush. The regressors were coming in a month. They would be looking for the pathetic, helpless Yu Xiaogang.
They were going to be very, very disappointed.
For now, he would play the part. He would smile, bow, and bury himself in books. But in the shadows of the archives, he would quietly build an insurmountable foundation. If trouble insisted on finding him—and in this world, it always did—he would ensure that the trouble simply disappeared without a trace, leaving the world none the wiser about the monster hiding in plain sight.