The void vibrated...
If there had ever been light here, it had long since died, strangled beneath the weight of silence and time.
The air here was stagnant and even the flow of qi itself seemed afraid to breathe.
This was the Dark Dimensional Prison... the graveyard of gods, the end of all motion.
At its center sat a figure, cross-legged upon a shattered slab of celestial stone.
His hair was once black as ink, but now shimmered faintly like starlight, flowing around him as if gravity had long forgotten him. Faint golden runes crawled across his bare chest, blinking as though they too had grown tired of their endless duty.
For twenty thousand years, he had sat unmoving.
But not dead.
A low murmur began to echo... at first it was faint... then rasping... and kept growing, until it was laughter.
"Hahaha... hahahahahahahaha!"
The laughter grew into a storm. It thundered through the void like the roar of collapsing heavens.
Fang Chen opened his eyes.
They glowed with the color of molten gold.
"Twenty thousand years... twenty thousand years of silence, of emptiness, of torment. Zhao Yun… you truly believed you could bury me in this darkness forever?"
His voice was terrifyingly calm and ancient.
The seals around his body began to crack.
Every rune that broke released a ripple of ancient power that made the entire dimension tremble.
He rose slowly as the space beneath his feet trembled with black dust floating upward as if drawn to his presence. The faintest smirk appeared on his lips.
"You sealed Fang Chen — Immortal of Ten Thousand Desires, Master of the Nine Heavens' Elixirs, Savior of Kings, and..."
He paused as his smirk widened into a grin so mischievous it almost looked divine.
"...and admittedly, the greatest lover to have ever existed under the heavens."
A deep rumble of power gathered around him causing the fragments of the prison quiver as golden qi coiled from his hands like living serpents.
"Do you know what twenty thousand years without the touch of a woman does to a man, Zhao Yun?"
The void responded with silence.
Fang Chen tilted his head back and screamed with a voice that echoed like thunder.
"IT MAKES HIM STRONGER!"
The seals exploded.
Crimson lightning surged from his body as the Dark Prison began to collapse. Runes shattered, worlds broke apart, and the void split open like glass under the might of his laughter.
"HAHAHAHA! YES! YES! FINALLY! I DID IT! MY TECHNIQUE IS COMPLETE! AFTER TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS, FANG CHEN IS FREE!"
The laughter became almost manic, echoing through the infinite dark like the cry of an unhinged god.
Then suddenly... silence.
His eyes narrowed in satisfaction as he exhaled.
"Well... perhaps now I can finally stretch my legs... and other parts."
A radiant golden light enveloped him. His body trembled as he raised a hand to the air. Ancient sigils formed at his fingertips, rotating in perfect synchronicity.
"Soul Severing Art: Essence of Rebirth."
His physical body began to glow, burning from the inside out as he chanted in the ancient language of the Immortals. His voice deepened, echoing through countless planes.
"By will, I abandon flesh. By essence, I transcend prison. By desire... I find life again."
The light consumed everything.
His soul tore free, turning into a golden wisp that carried immeasurable qi and memories of eternity. It ripped through the collapsing void like a comet and pierced the boundary between realms.
Reality itself screamed.
He soared through the heavens with his soul cutting through time and space, past celestial rivers, forgotten continents, even the moon that hung indifferent in the cosmos.
As he descended, the golden light dimmed. The once-boundless immortal energy began to compress.
"Strange... this realm feels... different," his echoed faintly through the wind of the modern world as he muttered. "Where are the spiritual mountains? The sects? The... wait, what is that?"
Below him were strange metallic beasts with glowing eyes moving along dark stone paths.
The air smelled like burnt oil, not incense. Buildings stretched into the clouds but were made of glass and steel, not jade.
"Ah... so much ugliness... and yet—"
He paused as his soul drifted above a bustling city street. Hundreds of mortals walked below and most were staring at glowing rectangles in their hands while others were speaking into strange objects by their ears.
"—the women are still beautiful."
Then his soul trembled...
He felt a sudden and irresistible tug, pull at his essence.
He turned his gaze and saw it: a faint aura... a flicker of compatibility.
Somewhere below, inside a dimly lit school building, a young man sat slumped over his desk, half-asleep as a teacher droned about cultivation systems.
His aura was weak but oddly harmonious with Fang Chen's soul.
"Heh... this vessel will do."
The golden soul twisted into a spiral and descended like a streak of lightning.
---
Inside the classroom, Huan Chen yawned and tapped lazily at his wristband system.
The holographic projection showed his cultivation progress: < 0.001% >
The teacher's voice droned on. "—and that concludes why spiritual qi requires an authorized system interface for stable control—"
The lights flickered.
Huan Chen blinked, glancing up as the air pressure in the room dropped.
Then —
BOOM.
A flash of gold.
The glass shattered inward as a streak of divine energy slammed directly into his chest.
The students screamed.
Huan Chen's eyes rolled back as his body convulsed, glowing faintly. Symbols of ancient origin danced across his skin before vanishing.
His head tilted forward as smoke rose faintly from his hair.
The teacher froze. "H-Huan Chen...? Are you... all right?"
Then came a low and smooth voice, filled with a charm that didn't belong to a mortal.
"Heheheh... this... feels... amazing..."
Huan Chen lifted his head and his eyes glowed gold for a heartbeat before fading. His lips curled into a smile so lazy, so confident, it made even his teacher step back unconsciously.
"Ah... flesh. Warm, soft, wonderfully... alive and free. How I've missed this."
He looked down at his hands while turning them over as if admiring divine treasures.
"Not bad... a bit scrawny, but serviceable... so long as my cultivation is still intact."
Then, from the back of his mind, another voice screamed.
> "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?! GET OUT OF MY BODY!"
Fang Chen blinked. "Huh?"
He frowned slightly. "Did I... forget to evict the soul of this vessel first?"
> "You think?! This is MY body! Who are you?! What's happening?!"
Fang Chen sighed dramatically.
"Ah, great. I've been trapped for twenty thousand years, and the first body I find comes with a tenant."
> "I'm serious! Get out!"
"No can do, little one. Fang Chen has returned — and this body shall now be my new domain! Though..."
He looked down again while tugging at his school uniform with visible disdain.
"...I will admit, these robes are rather ugly."
> "They're not robes! It's a school uniform!"
"A what? Bah, no matter."
Fang Chen smirked inwardly while stretching his fingers.
"Huan Chen, was it? Congratulations. You've just become the host of the most handsome, most talented, and most sexually irresistible immortal in history."
> "...what?"
"Also, don't worry — I'm quite generous. You can keep some of the control... like the duration of 100 breaths per day, as long as you don't interfere when I seduce women."
> "WHAT KIND OF DEAL IS THAT?!"
Fang Chen grinned inwardly.
"The kind mortals dream of."