The rain had softened to a drizzle, but the storm inside Li Wei was just beginning.
The information from the legacy memory was a torrent, but his mind, sharpened by years of forced focus, grasped the essentials. The "Primordial Sovereign Scripture"was not a gentle guide; it was a set of divine commands for the universe. It did not request energy; it laid claim to it.
Sitting in the mud, he ignored the cold and began. He did not draw the energy in. He commanded it.
According to the scripture, he focused his will, envisioning a vortex of chaos spinning within his dantian. The weak, watery spiritual energy of the ravine, which had always been so elusive, now rushed toward him not like a gentle stream, but like a river pulled toward a drain. It was raw, unfiltered, and violent.
The moment it entered his meridians, the scripture's true nature revealed itself. It did not gently refine the energy. It devoured it. The orderly strands of spiritual qi were torn apart into their most basic, chaotic components before being forced into his body as pure, dense, grey Primordial Chaos Qi.
It was agonizing. His meridians, accustomed to a trickle, felt like they were being scoured with molten sand. But his Primordial Chaos Body, now awakening, drank it in, the cells screaming not in pain, but in long-denied satisfaction.
He felt the two colossal Heavenly Seals inside him—one a complex, glowing lock around his bloodline, the other a dark, heavy chain on his bones. As the Chaos Qi flooded his system, it bypassed his cultivation base and surged directly toward the smaller of the two seals—the one on his Divine Dao Bone.
With a silent, internal crack that resonated through his entire being, a single rune on the seal shattered.
The effect was instantaneous.
A wave of comprehension washed over him, so profound it stole his breath. The world looked different. He could see the flaws in the structure of the ravine wall, the weak points in the flow of energy around him. This was the power of the Divine Dao Bone—not just comprehension, but the perception of fundamental truth.
Emboldened, he redoubled his efforts. The scripture' vortex spun faster, pulling in energy from the very air, the soil, the decaying plants around him. He was no longer cultivating; he was devouring the ravine itself.
He guided the next wave of Chaos Qi toward the first seal on his Ancient God Bloodline.
CRACK!!!
Another rune shattered. This time, a wave of pure, physical power erupted through him. He felt his muscles knit tighter, his bones hum with strength. A faint, golden hue tinged his skin for a moment before receding. A trickle of his true, divine blood was now free to circulate.
With these two minor seals broken, the dam was breached. The energy that had been consumed for sixteen years was now his to command.
His cultivation level, so stagnant for so long, exploded.
Qi Gathering Level 1.
Qi Gathering Level 2.
Qi Gathering Level 3.
He felt his spiritual power swell to a point he had never dreamed of, but it was wild, turbulent, and unstable. The memory imprint warned him: a foundation built too fast on Chaos would crumble. With immense effort, he wrestled control, ceasing the devouring process. He spent the next hours not advancing, but compressing and tempering the raging energy within him, solidifying his foundation at the 3rd Level.
He looked inward. Two runes were gone. One on each of the two great Seals. The memory informed him that each seal was composed of 108 such runes. The path was longer and more arduous than he could have imagined.
But for the first time, there was a path.
A fierce, cold smile touched his lips. Wei. Greatness. Might. It was no longer a mockery. It was a prophecy he would now fulfill.
---
The dawn was breaking as Li Wei walked back into the Verdant Sword Li Clan compound. He was still clad in his torn, muddy robes, but he walked with a straight back and a calmness that was entirely new.
He didn't have to look for Li Jun. His cousin found him, a cruel smirk already in place.
"Look what the spirit-beasts dragged in!" Li Jun announced, drawing a crowd. "The Great Li Wei, covered in the filth that suits him. Did you finally decide to give up and roll in the muck where you belong?"
Li Wei stopped and looked at him. Not with anger, or shame, but with a dispassionate gaze, as if examining a mildly interesting insect.
"Move, Li Jun," he said, his voice quiet but carrying a new, steely core.
Li Jun blinked, then laughed. "Or what? You'll sweep me away? I am at the 4th Level of Qi Gathering, you worthless—"
He never finished the sentence.
Li Wei didn't assume a stance. He didn't chant a technique. He simply took a single step forward, and with it, released a fraction of the spiritual pressure from his 3rd Level foundation.
But it was not the pressure of a normal 3rd Level disciple. It was the pressure of Primordial Chaos Qi, heavy and ancient.
The smirk vanished from Li Jun's face, replaced by wide-eyed shock and then strain. It felt to him as if a mountain had silently settled onto his shoulders. His knees buckled. With a grunt of sheer effort, he managed to stay standing, but his body trembled violently, his face turning red.
The surrounding disciples fell dead silent, their eyes wide with disbelief.
"You… you…" Li Jun gasped, unable to form a coherent sentence under the weight.
Li Wei leaned in close, his voice for Li Jun's ears only. "You are right. I am mighty. Remember that the next time you speak my name."
He relaxed his pressure, turned, and walked away, leaving a trembling, humiliated Li Jun and a courtyard full of stunned clansmen in his wake.
The Great Irony was over. The era of Greatness had begun.