The air in the room rippled faintly, as if the walls were breathing.
Yue Zihan sat cross-legged on the marble floor, sweat running down his jaw. His veins pulsed with dull light — sometimes red, sometimes blue, sometimes both — flickering like two stars at war under his skin.
"Calm," he muttered. "Focus. Control."
He tried to gather the silver-gray Chaotic Qi into his dantian, to compress it into something orderly.
The result was an explosion of pain that almost knocked him over.
"—or not," he hissed. "Maybe chaos doesn't like rules. Who could've guessed?"
Then the voice came again.
Zihan blinked. "Oh, wonderful. The voices in my head have branding now."
[Notice:] Host's physical structure is currently unfit for opening of the meridians. Recommend stabilizing the Vessel before further cultivation.
Progress: 2.3%
Estimated failure rate: 80%.
Consequences: Being useless.
"Eighty. That's generous," Zihan muttered. "You must be new."
[Sarcasm Detected.] Adjusting tone module…
…Done.
Would you like me to congratulate you for not dying yet?
He laughed under his breath. "Yes, please. I live for your approval."
His body trembled again. The Chaotic Qi didn't flow — it surged, every pulse clashing with his mortal meridians. It felt like lightning wrestling with water inside his chest.
"Yield to chaos," he recited, remembering the manual. "Don't resist."
[Correction:] The Primordial Body does not yield. It adapts.
Difference: Yielding is death; adapting is dominance.
He drew a slow breath. "Good advice. You almost sound useful."
He focused inward again.
Instead of trying to trap the Qi, he listened to it — the constant roar, the endless, shapeless hum. Slowly, the rhythm began to match his heartbeat.
It didn't obey.
It acknowledged.
[Stabilization Progress: 9.7%.]
Warning: Meridians adapting beyond mortal thresholds.
Side effects may include hallucinations, arrogance, and god-complex tendencies.
He grinned through the pain. "Arrogance? I was born with that one."
A Flicker of Control
The light from his body dimmed. The wild energy condensed into a single faint glow at his core — unstable, imperfect, but his.
[Vessel Formation: Stage One Achieved.]
You may now withstand partial chaotic resonance without liquefying.
Reward: 1 System Insight Token.
Zihan blinked. "Liquefying? That was an option?"
[Statistically, yes.]
He laughed weakly, wiping sweat from his chin. The ground around him had cracked, thin trails of smoke curling from the lines.
His muscles ached, but the core inside him throbbed steady and solid — the heartbeat of something ancient learning to coexist with him.
"I didn't explode," he said. "Progress."
He had officially awaken his body for cultivation