In the dark night, Wang Yue slowly opened his eyes, looking at the electronic calendar in the bedroom that was glowing faintly. His mind was temporarily unable to process what was happening.
Had he truly reincarnated and returned, or had he just had an incredibly long dream?
This was a world of spiritual energy resurgence (Lingqi Fusu), magnified a thousandfold. However, since the spiritual energy returned a few hundred years ago, the human race wasn't the only one to benefit.
The birds, beasts, and even the aquatic life in the rivers, lakes, and seas gained an even greater advantage because they were closer to nature.
Fortunately, in addition to the Martial Arts research that began only after the spiritual energy resurgence, humans had powerful technology as a fallback. This allowed them to barely stand their ground against the Beast Clans and carve out their own territories.
Jinling was a large city located near the outer edge of the human territory, dominated by three great families: the Wang, Su, and Chen families.
Wang Yue was one of the grandsons of the current Wang Family Head, the only boy in the second branch of the main Wang family line.
Three years before the current time Wang Yue found himself in, a Secret Realm appeared near Jinling.
Secret Realms were phenomena that only emerged after the spiritual energy resurgence. Their origin was unknown, and their appearance was completely random.
The reason humans were able to stand against the naturally strong Beast Clans was largely due to these Secret Realms. They not only contained a large amount of natural treasures but also many Martial Arts inheritances.
The reason those top-tier cities and Martial Arts Holy Lands in the human territory were so prosperous was that they had obtained complete or relatively complete Secret Realm inheritances. Martial artists in other cities like Jinling only received scraps handed down by those Holy Lands or top-tier families.
Unfortunately, Secret Realms appeared extremely rarely—fewer than a thousand had appeared in several hundred years, and less than half of those fell into human hands.
Therefore, when that particular Secret Realm appeared, it immediately drove the three great families of Jinling into a frenzy. While tightly sealing off the news, they sent out all their elites, gathering almost every male member over the age of ten from the three families to enter and explore. This wasn't because the three families favored men over women, but because the three family heads at the time were all strongly patriarchal. In their view, exploration and fighting were men's work; women were only needed to stabilize the rear.
As a result of this expedition, they were never heard from again. Not only did no one return, but the Secret Realm itself also vanished.
Wang Yue, who was twelve at the time, was originally on the exploration list, but he luckily stayed behind because he had fallen seriously ill.
In Wang Yue's generation of the three Jinling families, males were already scarce compared to females, and there were no male children younger than him. The outcome was that, except for him, every male member of the three great families was wiped out by that "Secret Realm."
After all the male members disappeared, the influence of the three families was greatly diminished. Luckily, each family still had a Heavenly Origin Realm (Tianyuanjing) master to hold the fort (Cultivation stages: Body Tempering - Qi Condensation - Soul Nourishing - Earth Pass - Heavenly Origin - Return to Truth - Transcendence…), and they all maintained an intricate relationship with a certain Martial Arts Holy Land. This barely kept them from being swallowed by outside forces, allowing them to continue controlling Jinling City.
However, misfortunes never came singly.
If Wang Yue hadn't dreamt it, then three years from now, Jinling City would face a catastrophic disaster.
It was a massive Beast Tide, with an endless number of beasts, including more than ten terrifying beasts in the Return to Truth Realm.
With the power of Jinling City and its three families, it was naturally impossible to withstand such a Beast Tide, so they sought help from the nearest top-tier city, Tianhai.
The people from Tianhai did arrive, but they made a truly insolent demand: Jinling was a place known for beautiful women, especially within the three great families, which were full of them.
The demand put forward by the powerful figure from Tianhai was that after helping Jinling repel the Beast Tide, the three families must submit to their faction, and on top of that, be subjected to slave status.
The purpose was self-evident.
As a result, the beautiful women of the three great families chose death over dishonor, deciding to perish with a part of the beast horde.
Wang Yue didn't die that time either. Just as he was rushing toward the beast horde with his grandmother, mother, and sisters, an unnamable power suddenly snatched him away.
Then, his life of utter darkness began.
It truly was without sunlight—he was imprisoned in a place saturated with extreme Yang energy and was forced to practice a cultivation technique that was Supreme Yang, Supreme Firm, and incredibly profound. Every day, he could do nothing but cultivate.
The mysterious person also didn't provide any food. If he didn't cultivate, he would quickly die.
Wang Yue, who carried the family's last hope, was naturally unwilling to die like that, so he began to cultivate diligently, hoping to one day escape.
While the cultivation method progressed extremely quickly, its side effects were not small.
Initially, when he started practicing, only a certain part of his body became larger and stronger, but as time passed, his body would grow hotter and hotter, almost burning him alive.
Whenever this happened, he would faint, and upon waking, the pure Yang energy he had cultivated would completely vanish, forcing him to start all over again.
This cycle repeated countless times. It seemed like only a few decades or centuries had passed, yet it also felt like thousands or tens of thousands of years. Wang Yue had no way to judge.
Unwilling to continue like this forever, he spent every day, apart from cultivating, constantly thinking and experimenting.
Wang Yue naturally understood the principle that "Yin cannot arise alone, and Yang cannot grow alone," but knowing was one thing. To fully comprehend all the mysteries within it was something no one could achieve.
Until one day, he achieved sudden enlightenment, and then he was struck by lightning.
In the instant the Chaos Heavenly Thunder struck, he understood: what he had comprehended was the Great Dao of Yin and Yang.
This was one of the most fundamental Great Daos of the universe, almost impossible for a mortal to possess, especially for an individual with his solitary Yang body. That was why the laws of the universe had sent down Heavenly Thunder to strike him.
And then, he returned to the present.
Rebirth, or waking from a dream?
Wang Yue still couldn't tell the difference, but the habits cultivated over countless years instinctively led him to sit cross-legged and begin running that cultivation method.
In an instant, the pure Yang energy swirling freely between heaven and earth immediately gathered into a vortex, like a tornado, desperately boring into his body.
Wang Yue's original cultivation of Layer Five of the Qi Condensation Realm began to frantically break through as this pure Yang energy poured in.
Layer Six of the Qi Condensation Realm
Layer Seven of the Qi Condensation Realm
...
As his cultivation level increased, the object beneath Wang Yue's groin also stood up like a pillar and grew larger and longer until it was much thicker and longer than that of a grown man before it finally stopped changing.
At this point, Wang Yue's cultivation also reached the peak of Layer Nine of the Qi Condensation Realm, just one step away from entering the Soul Nourishing Realm.
Wang Yue immediately stopped. Although he could easily step into the Soul Nourishing Realm if he continued cultivating, his countless past experiences told him that once he entered that realm, the thing below would not go soft. How then could he go out in public?
He was now certain that he had truly reincarnated and not merely had a dream.
But more questions immediately followed.
First, although Jinling was on the outer edge of the human territory, it wasn't on the absolute border. How could a Beast Tide suddenly appear there three years from now?
Second, the three Jinling families clearly had ties to a Martial Arts Holy Land, so how dare the family from Tianhai covet Jinling? And why was the Martial Arts Holy Land completely silent when Jinling faced disaster?
Of course, these questions could be slowly uncovered later. The immediate priority was how to deal with the Beast Tide three years from now.
Following the family's cultivation method step-by-step was clearly not an option. Even if the current pillar of the Wang family, his grandmother Liu Ruoshi, were to forcefully break through at all costs, she would at most reach the early stage of the Return to Truth Realm in three years, which would be impossible against over a dozen beasts in the same realm.
Wang Yue forcibly cultivating this set of Pure Yang techniques himself, however, wouldn't be an issue. Even though the pure Yang energy here was ten million times thinner than in that dark place, the power of this cultivation method was such that not just three years, but even half a year of practice would be enough for him to easily crush those mere dozen or so Return to Truth Realm beasts.
However, the side effects of this technique were too great, and he needed to find a solution first.