Lin Qi's life continued its peaceful, comfortable rhythm. The Three Commandments of the Doodled Prophecy (Chapter 29) had stabilized the political realm, and everyone was busy striving for "Chaotic Simplicty."
One afternoon, Lin Qi was shaving. He hadn't used a mirror in weeks, relying instead on his accurate touch. Today, he found a small, cheap, handheld metal mirror discarded by a traveling merchant.
He held the mirror up to check his reflection. The surface was flawed, warped, and scratched.
The Problem of the Flawed Reflection
Lin Qi looked at the flawed mirror. He didn't see himself clearly; the scratches and warping distorted his image. He frowned, recognizing the aesthetic imperfection.
He decided that the simplest way to fix the image was to straighten the surface. He didn't have a file or a polishing cloth; he just had his hand.
Lin Qi took his thumb and pressed it firmly against the center of the warped mirror, intending to physically flatten the cheap metal.
The sealed Core of Infinite Density immediately perceived the intent: correct the fundamental flaw in the reflective medium. G-EVS's original power, the Dao of Perfect Form Recalibration, was triggered.
The power surge did not merely flatten the metal; it instantly reformed the mirror's atomic structure. The mirror didn't just become flawless; it became an instrument of Absolute Truth Reflection, capable of displaying not just the physical image, but the entire, unfiltered spiritual history of the subject.
The Moment of Recalibration
As the mirror achieved its perfect form, Lin Qi's simple human reflection instantly vanished, replaced by a blinding, overwhelming spiritual image.
For the first time since his reincarnation, the mirror reflected the raw, absolute truth of his sealed soul: The Grand-Emperor Void-Smasher.
The reflection was a terrifying figure: a massive, stern, armored being whose eyes contained swirling nebulae and whose body radiated an aura of cosmic dominance. The image was accompanied by a brief, thunderous surge of pure G-EVS memory:
The overwhelming sensation of shattering stars.
The iron will of commanding legions.
The chilling, vast loneliness of the Void.
The surge lasted only a fraction of a second—a massive overload that should have vaporized the entire town.
Lin Qi, however, was not vaporized. He simply felt a sudden, sharp, intense headache—the physical result of the raw memory briefly bypassing the seal.
Lin Qi instantly recoiled, dropping the mirror with a cry of pain.
CRASH!
The flawless mirror shattered into a hundred pieces on the cobblestones, the intense spiritual backlash from the memory surge having been too much even for the perfectly recalibrated metal.
The Fleeting Aftermath
Lin Qi rubbed his temples. He was back to his normal self—clumsy, naive, and completely devoid of cosmic knowledge.
"Ow," he muttered, looking at the broken pieces. "That was a terrible headache. And look, I broke the mirror. I guess I'm too clumsy to shave."
He looked at his hand, which still faintly throbbed. He paused, frowning.
"Wait... for a second there... I thought I remembered... something about smashing a really big rock?"
The fleeting, vague memory of annihilating an entire moon during a tantrum immediately dissolved, replaced by the far more pressing concern of whether he had saved enough money for dinner.
Meanwhile, miles away, at the Shrine of the Empty Seat, every high-level cultivator, including Wu and Lianhua, felt the massive, single Cosmic Tremor—the pulse of the Grand-Emperor's momentary recall.
"The Master has initiated the Mudra of Self-Recall!" Princess Lianhua cried, dropping her brush. "He briefly shed his mortal disguise to remind us of his terrifying power! He shattered the spiritual barrier between the realms with a single thought!"
Sect Master Wu looked up at the sky, trembling. "He is preparing to reveal his true self! The shattering of the mirror is a sign: The Illusion of Mortality is Broken!"
Wu immediately scribbled the new, apocalyptic maxim:
> "If a mirror cracks, it is not a sign of bad luck. It is a sign that the Master has grown tired of his disguise and has briefly remembered his power to shatter the stars."
>
Lin Qi, completely unaware of the spiritual panic he had caused, picked up the broken pieces of the mirror and threw them into the nearest rubbish bin, deciding that shaving was too much trouble.