Cough!
Cough!
Cough!
Liam stumbled back into the house, shoulders trembling with each rasping breath.
He reached for his side bag, fingers fumbling with the worn flap before yanking out a slim jade bottle.
A single pill clicked into his palm.
He tossed it into his mouth without hesitation.
In seconds.
Warmth bloomed down his throat almost immediately, washing through his body like a slow-burning tide.
His pale complexion flushed with life again, and he exhaled long and deep, sinking down onto the edge of the bed with a tired grunt.
The bag slid from his fingers and landed beside him with a muted thud.
He braced both hands on his thighs and leaned back, his long white hair cascading behind him in loose, silken waves.
"Fucking bastard," he muttered, voice dry, head tilted to the ceiling.
"He gave me a system, a dump truck of information, and then just left me with a goddamn migraine."
"An extremely painful migraine!" he added with a wince, smacking the side of his head a few times like a broken puppet.
His features twisted, brow furrowed, eyes squeezed shut as he pressed two fingers into his temple and started massaging in small circles.
"Sigh... One step at a time. One step at a damn time. This pain's temporary. And honestly..." He drew in another breath, slower this time. "...it was probably worth it."
With a grunt, Liam pushed himself upright, then strode toward the field of spiritual plants just outside the house.
His steps were long, graceful in a way that hinted he'd moved through far worse terrain.
Reaching the edge of the field, he paused, his eyes scanning across rows of emerald-hued herbs glinting under the morning light.
"The information was packed," he said aloud, rubbing the side of his head with one hand, "and weirdly enough... it's all incredibly simple."
A low chuckle slipped from his lips as he raised his gaze. "To create a dungeon, I need dungeon points. And to get points, I need items with essence of heaven and earth, even a little bit counts."
He let out a hum, lifting his right hand and swiping it lazily through the air.
A soft, greenish Qi burst forth like mist, sweeping over the spiritual field.
In seconds, the entire crop shimmered, lifted into the air, and floated gently toward him in a loose formation.
"Which basically means... anything monks use regularly," he mused. "Luckily, I've got a good haul right here. Wonder how many points all this'll fetch?"
Without waiting, Liam extended his hand forward.
From his palm, an odd golden glow began to pulse.
It spread out, encasing the hovering plants.
The moment it touched them, they blinked out of existence.
He blinked too.
"Spatial movement?" he wondered aloud, brows raised. "Or... direct conversion?"
A crisp chime sounded.
[Ding]
[First batch of points converted.]
[Panel feature activated.]
Liam's expression remained neutral, as if he'd half-expected it.
With a flick of his fingers, a translucent panel shimmered into view before him, thin, blue, and semi-lucid under the gentle sunlight.
[Dungeon of Myriad Realms]
[Permission Level]: 1
[Dungeon Slot]: 1
[Points]: 300
"A clean interface," Liam muttered, resting his chin on one hand. "Nothing more, nothing less."
His eyes scanned the panel briefly, then shifted into thought.
"From what I've been told... points are the core currency. They're used to create dungeons, ranked from tier one to tier five."
He murmured the classifications under his breath:
"Tier one—Qi Refining Realm."
"Tier two—Foundation Building."
"Tier three—Golden Core."
"Tier four—Nascent Soul."
"And tier five—Void Transformation."
"Classic cultivation progression. Like something straight out of a novel," he said with a lopsided smile.
But the smile faded, replaced by something quieter, a trace of longing, perhaps. "Still… the idea of chasing immortality... it does tempt you. Even me."
He chuckled dryly and shook his head. "For now though, I just want strength. Enough strength that worldly nonsense won't reach me."
There was no dramatics in his tone.
No grand proclamation.
Just a personal truth spoken aloud.
"A selfish goal, really. I'm not trying to save the world. Not trying to play hero. Most of the time..." He paused, voice dipping to a near whisper. "...I just want to make sure i survive."
With a quiet flick of his hand, the glowing panel dispersed into the air like scattered mist, leaving behind only the quiet courtyard, and Liam's wandering thoughts.
"I hate overthinking things," he muttered and turned on his foot.
He returned to the bedroom, his steps brisk now, and with a swift gesture, the entire bed slid to the side, revealing a hidden compartment carved into the wooden floorboards.
Crouching down, Liam unlatched it and retrieved a small, weathered blue pouch tied at the top with a faded red string.
He held it up for a moment, thumb brushing the worn leather.
"My savings," he whispered. "You've served me well, little buddy. Time to cash you in."
He sniffed lightly but kept his expression firm.
Tier one dungeons required a thousand points to build.
And inside this pouch, his carefully hoarded treasure, were over four thousand low-grade spiritual stones.
That should be enough.
Right?
He stared at the pouch, brows twitching.
The conversion rate hadn't been mentioned anywhere.
He'd have to figure it out on his own.
"Come on," he muttered.
Holding the pouch steady in his hand, that same golden energy surged once more, wrapping around the leather bag like liquid fire.
One moment it was full, bulging.
The next, it was limp.
Completely empty.
The weight vanished from his palm.
Liam stood there, holding the now-floppy bag like a gutted fish, his other hand trembling slightly.
His lips pressed together. "It's for the greater cause," he whispered through clenched teeth.
And yet, he gripped the empty bag just a little tighter.
It took a while for Liam to settle down.
His breathing was shallow at first, fingers twitching slightly as he sat hunched over the empty leather bag like it had personally betrayed him.
It couldn't be helped.
That was everything, years of scraping, saving, resisting temptation, all sacrificed in one go.
Gone, just like that, swallowed by a shimmering pulse of golden energy.
"Alas..." he muttered, dragging a hand down his face. "I'll be rich soon. I promise… to myself."
With a weary sigh, he collapsed onto the edge of the bed and waved the panel open again.
The soft chime echoed, and the translucent blue screen shimmered into view before him.
His brows lifted as he scanned the new numbers. "More than enough… this is good!"
A relieved laugh slipped out as tension drained from his shoulders.
The burden of uncertainty lifted, scattered by digits on a glowing interface.
And just like that, he made his decision. No point in waiting.
According to what had been dumped into his brain earlier, a dungeon wasn't something he placed physically on the land like a building or tower.
It wasn't tangible like that.
Instead, it would form within him, a space forged inside his own spiritual sea.
An independent dimension with its own laws, its own logic.
He didn't have to worry about how those internal mechanics worked, not exactly.
The system would handle the internal structure and rules.
His job?
Find monsters, trap them, and throw them in.
That simple.
Of course, for now, only Qi Refining realm beasts could be added into a tier 1 dungeon.
But once added, they'd be bound by the dungeon's rules: they'd drop loot when killed, and even respawn over time depending on their strength.
"There's another way to get monsters inside," he murmured to himself. "Buy eggs from the market… they'll hatch inside the dungeon, fully grown. If I get lucky and land a Foundation Building monster, that's it, instant power boost."
His eyes gleamed with anticipation.
It was one of the rare system tips nestled in the flood of information he'd received, a neat shortcut buried in the mess.
Even if he couldn't place the monsters directly into the dungeon yet, he could still store them as reserves in the system's internal space.
But that wasn't even the wildest part.
No, the true gem of the dungeon system was this: it allowed the user, him, to bind with the cultivation strength of a monster and make it his own.
No need for endless meditation, exhausting spirit stone purchases, or wandering into dangerous ruins for scraps of treasure.
He could grow stronger just by building up his dungeon.
It was madness.
He didn't have to play the same game as everyone else anymore.
From now on, he'd take the path of a well-fed turtle, slow, steady, and utterly safe.
"Hahahaha! Splendid! Absolutely splendid! I should start calling myself the Turtle Immortal!" Liam cackled, one hand holding his stomach while the other slapped the bed.
He couldn't remember the last time something felt so right.
Still, big dreams didn't change the fact that his wallet was currently hollow.
Without funds, he couldn't buy eggs or barter for creatures.
Legal avenues were out of the question for now… but there were other channels.
Less-than-legit ones.
He mulled over that plan a bit longer, gaze flickering under the sunlight.
Soon enough, he initiated the dungeon creation.
The points on the panel dropped, leaving behind several hundred as buffer. Then...
Boom.
He didn't hear it. He felt it.
Like a ripple through his soul, a resonance that hummed in the back of his skull.
Something shifted deep within, his spiritual sea vibrating, stretching, reforming. And then... presence.
A new space.
An entire world had taken root inside his consciousness.
In cultivator terms, the space within the mind was called the Divine Thought Sea or the divine mind.
The heart, meanwhile, housed the Sea of Qi and Mana.
Two domains, separate yet equally vital.
"The head covers the heaven, the heart covers the will," Liam murmured, recalling an old aphorism. "The path to go against the sky… is to refine them both."
A crooked smile pulled at his lips as he closed his eyes and dove inward.
Within his divine consciousness, the emptiness he'd always known was no longer alone.
Something new sat there,na single glowing speck that pulsed gently, like a heartbeat in the void.
He focused on it.
The world zoomed in.
Suddenly, clarity.
A wide stretch of land unfolded before him, about one kilometer across.
Its proportions were unnaturally precise, width, length, depth, all synchronized.
Hovering just above the landscape was a faint, translucent membrane.
A shimmering layer of energy that protects the whole place.
"The rules bubble," Liam whispered, awestruck.
His pupils dilated as he stared.
He'd read of things like this, fragments of rule comprehension pursued by Nascent Soul cultivators in ancient books.
And now, here it was.
Not a fragment… but an entire domain governed by rule formations.
He couldn't look away.
For a long moment, he simply stared, motionless, his thoughts blank, staring towards the film bubble covering the floating land.
But then, something clicked.
He wrenched his gaze away as his chest felt tight all of a sudden.
His brain felt like it had been dunked in cold water and fire at once.
Concepts he couldn't grasp before now unfolded like paper cranes in his mind.
Techniques he'd fumbled with suddenly made sense.
The veil over his spiritual arts lifted, just like that.
"Amazing..." he gasped, bolting upright.
His mind raced as he snapped his attention back inward, desperately trying to catch another glimpse, another surge of insight.
Nothing came. The rush had passed.
He blinked, disappointed but not surprised.
Maybe there was a limit to how many times he could comprehend the dungeon's rules in quick succession.
But still. That one glimpse had been more than worth it.
With a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, Liam reached into his robe and pulled out a pale jade slip.
He pressed it to his forehead, letting the thoughts flow into it.
It was the second-order inheritance of a Spiritual Puppeteer, a relic he'd picked up purely by luck years ago.
He'd never dared use it until now merely due the lack of talent..
"If it weren't for this," he muttered, "I'd be stuck as a low-tier spiritual farmer for life. No future, no breakthrough. But now…"
Now he could pursue a dual path.
Thanks to that glimpse of rule comprehension, the inheritance was no longer vague or obscure.
The once-distant insights had solidified into something usable inside his mind, allowing him an easy access.
Cross-legged on the floor, he settled into a focused state, eyes closed, hands resting on his knees.
For a low-level cultivator like him, even a tiny sliver of rule comprehension was a treasure trove.
If the Spiritual Planter path had a second-grade inheritance available to him, he might've broken through on both paths right now.