Midnight.
The warehouse was cold, silent, and pitch-black. Lin Hao sat in the center of the vast concrete floor, a solitary statue. He was not waiting. He was anticipating.
His laptop was closed. His phone was dark. His eyes were closed, his internal senses fixed on the System interface only he could see, and the clock only he cared about.
His current balance was 510 UP. It was the leftover pittance from his God-Tier Gongfa upgrade, and he had guarded it all day.
11:59:59
00:00
The clock ticked over. Day 4 of the new era.
Lin Hao's will, already honed, struck. The tithe came before the reward.
[Daily Boost: Increase Global Reiki Density (0.01%)]? (Cost: 50 UP)
The price had, as expected, scaled with his impending payout. It was a 10% investment. He paid it without a thought.
[Deducting 50 UP. 460 UP Remaining.] [Ascension Bonus: ACTIVE. Your next daily UP gain will be 3,200 UP.]
A quiet, satisfied hum resonated in his chest. His future was secure.
And then, his present arrived.
[Daily UP Generation: Active.] [Ascension Bonus: Applied (x2).] [You have received 1,600 UP.]
The numbers on his interface exploded. His meager 460 UP was swallowed by a tidal wave of new power.
[Upgrade Points (UP): 2060]
Two thousand and sixty.
He felt the old, familiar rush, the thrill of the exponential loop. This was real wealth. This was the power to shape his destiny, to protect his family. The 5,000 UP cost to heal his father, which had seemed like an impossible mountain just days ago, was now... tangible. He would have that in two days.
He was surging. He was winning.
His cultivation realm was still locked. He knew that. But the lock had to be shorter now. He immediately opened the [$Self Upgrade$] tab, a surge of optimism in his chest.
[Cultivation: Level 6: Marrow Cleansing (Purification)] [Upgrade: Level 7: Viscera Fortification (Internal Shield)]? (Cost: 100 UP)
He was ready. He had the money.
[Upgrade FAILED.] [Weekly Cultivation Upgrade: LOCKED (2 days, 21 hours remaining)]
The red, flashing text was a brick wall.
The elation from his 2,060 UP payday vanished, replaced by a cold, familiar spike of frustration.
He was stuck. Stuck at Level 6. Stuck as a "hero." Stuck, while the "Prodigies" like Chen Long were, without a doubt, using their family's resources to climb, unhindered, toward his level.
His two-realm lead was a ticking clock.
"If I can't build up," he hissed into the darkness, "I will build deep."
He couldn't upgrade his realm, so he would upgrade his engine. He had 2060 UP. He had two "unlocked" paths.
He checked his Talent first.
[Talent: Level 2: Waste Root] [Upgrade: Level 3: Inferior Root]? (Cost: 1,000 UP)
A thousand points. He could afford it. He looked at the next rung on the ladder, just to see the climb.
[Talent: Level 3: Inferior Root] -> [Upgrade: Level 4: Common Root]? (Cost: 5,000 UP)
He winced. Five thousand. The talent path was a black hole for UP. It was a passive, long-term, glacial investment. It was the "responsible" choice, but it wouldn't make him feel stronger tonight.
He was frustrated by his slow progress. He needed a win.
He looked at his other path. The active one.
[Object: 'Azure River Divine Chant' (Gongfa, Mid-Grade Spirit Tier)] [Upgrade: High-Grade Spirit Tier Gongfa]? (Cost: 1,000 UP)
A thousand points.
He had a choice. 2060 UP. He could buy the Level 3 Talent (1,000 UP) and the High-Grade Gongfa (1,000 UP) and be left with almost nothing.
He weighed his options. His realm was locked for two more days. Two full days of practice.
A talent upgrade (Talent) was passive; it would make his baseline absorption better, a slow, background improvement. A technique upgrade (Gongfa) was active; it would make his conscious practice a hundred times more efficient.
He wasn't going to sit and wait. He was going to train. He would make these 48 "locked" hours more productive than Prodigy's entire month.
He would take the active path.
"Confirm."
[Deducting 1,000 UP. 1,060 UP Remaining.]
The blueprint in his mind, the 365-node "Azure River," didn't just evolve. It shattered.
It was replaced.
A new, divine, impossibly complex map of his own body flooded his consciousness. It wasn't 36 or 365. It was a web of 1,080 micro-pathways. It was an interlocking, three-dimensional, perfect system.
The "Azure River Divine Chant" was gone. This was the "Azure Ocean Divine Chant."
It was a technique so profound, so superior, he knew with absolute certainty that no "Guardian Family" on this planet had ever seen anything like it.
He was sitting in the dark, a Level 6 cultivator with a Level 2: Waste Root, in possession of a High-Grade Spirit Tier Gongfa. He was a cannon, loaded with a tactical nuke, built on a chassis of plywood.
He didn't care.
He took one breath, following the new, perfect, 1,080-node path.
The warehouse dimmed.
It wasn't a metaphor. The faint, swirling river of blue Reiki in the air didn't just form a vortex. It vanished.
It was all, in one, single, silent, violent instant, inhaled.
THUMP.
His Dantian, his energy center, which had been a warm, swirling vortex, felt like it had just been struck by a bolt of pure, compressed lightning. A hot, dense star of power ignited in his abdomen.
He opened his eyes. The air in the warehouse was thin, empty, dead. He had just, in one breath, consumed all the available spiritual energy in a 12,000-square-foot space.
He looked at his remaining 1,060 UP.
He was a "brute." He was "locked."
And he was now practicing a cultivation technique that the "prodigies" couldn't comprehend in a thousand years.