The heart failed without warning.
There was no dramatic moment, no final words, no sudden revelation. One moment, he was a seventeen-year-old high school student sitting alone in his room, staring at unfinished homework and an unopened message from a classmate. The next, a sharp, crushing pain seized his chest, breath vanished from his lungs, and the world tilted violently out of focus.
He collapsed.
The ceiling light blurred into a dull halo. His fingers twitched once, twice, then fell still.
In the final instant before consciousness faded, a single thought surfaced—not fear, not regret, but confusion.
So… this is how it ends?
Then everything went dark.
—
Darkness did not last.
Instead of oblivion, awareness returned with a strange heaviness, as if his thoughts were wrapped in thick layers of mist. There was no body, no breath, no heartbeat—only perception, drifting in a boundless void where time seemed meaningless.
Memories surfaced slowly.
A normal life. School. Exams. Dreams that never had time to grow.
And then—something else.
Fragments that did not belong to a modern world.
Endless skies dyed in ash-gray clouds. Mountains so vast they pierced the heavens. Beings who moved stars with a gesture, who spoke laws into existence, who treated worlds as chessboards.
Those memories were not imagination.
They were his.
Realization struck like silent thunder.
He was not simply dead.
He was being reborn.
—
Pain arrived next.
Not sharp, not sudden, but crushing and constant—like being compressed into a space far too small. His consciousness trembled as senses formed around it, fragile and incomplete.
Warmth. Darkness. A rhythmic pulse surrounding him.
A womb.
He did not panic.
Some instinct deeper than emotion told him resistance was pointless. Instead, he withdrew inward, letting the strange current carry him forward.
Time passed in a way that defied measurement.
Then, with a violent contraction and a sudden flood of cold air, the pressure vanished.
Sound exploded into existence.
A baby's cry echoed through a stone chamber.
His cry.
—
The world revealed itself slowly, as if unveiling a painting layer by layer.
Ash-colored clouds hung permanently in the sky, casting a muted, oppressive light over the land. Even as an infant, he sensed it—a weight pressing down on everything, thick with invisible laws.
This was not Earth.
This was a cultivation world.
He lay wrapped in coarse cloth, cradled by unfamiliar arms. Around him, voices murmured in a language he somehow understood instinctively.
"It's a boy."
"The bloodline reacted… did you feel it?"
"So weak… but strange."
He did not open his eyes.
He did not need to.
Deep within his newly formed consciousness, memories surged fully into place, no longer fragmented.
This was not his first rebirth.
It was his second.
—
Once, long ago—though "long" had little meaning—he had awakened in this very universe after his death on Earth. That life had been his first step into cultivation.
He had not been born exceptional.
He had become exceptional.
Through countless trials, brutal survival, and relentless comprehension, he climbed realm after realm. While others specialized in a single path, he learned them all. Sword Dao, Pill Dao, Formation Dao, Space, Time, Karma, Life, Death—nothing was beyond his grasp.
Eventually, the heavens had given him a name.
Nine Lives Sage.
Not because he reincarnated repeatedly—but because his existence alone defied fatality. He had mastered so many survival techniques, resurrection methods, and immortal concepts that killing him became an act of futility.
In that life, he reached the peak.
He created something that should not have existed.
The Immortal Sage Technique.
A cultivation method born from absolute comprehension—one that anchored existence not to flesh, soul, or timeline, but to concept. As long as the Dao of Immortality existed, so would he.
And yet…
He could not cultivate it.
His foundation had already been built—perfect, flawless, complete. There was no room left to reconstruct himself around that Dao.
When he attempted to step into the realm beyond Heavenly Immortal—beyond Dao itself—he failed.
Not because he was weak.
But because perfection left no path forward.
—
So I chose to begin again.
That decision echoed calmly through his infant mind.
This rebirth was not an accident. It was not punishment.
It was strategy.
This body was weak. Frail. Barely capable of holding spiritual energy. But that was precisely what he needed.
A blank foundation.
And something else.
As his consciousness settled fully into the newborn body, a familiar sensation stirred—compressed, dense, and terrifyingly efficient.
His greatest inheritance.
A natural ability forged from his first life's absurd comprehension.
Life-Level Compression.
Within any given realm, he could instantly grasp techniques, Daos, and laws appropriate to that level—as if they were extensions of himself.
There was a price.
The higher the realm, the heavier the compression. Understanding would no longer be effortless. It would become a battle against existence itself.
But for now…
This was more than enough.
—
Days passed.
He opened his eyes for the first time.
The world was muted and harsh. Stone walls carved with primitive formations. Flickering spirit lamps. Cultivators with shallow auras moving in and out of the chamber.
This was not a powerful clan.
Barely a third-rate family.
Yet his blood stirred faintly in response.
Interesting…
He felt it clearly now.
This body did not belong to a random household.
He had been reborn into the distant past—into the body of an ancestor of his own future family.
A weak beginning.
But one with potential.
Voices spoke nearby.
"The child hasn't cried since the first day."
"His eyes… they're too calm."
"Do you think—"
"Enough. He's just a newborn."
They did not understand.
No one could.
—
He did not rush cultivation.
That mistake had destroyed countless geniuses in his previous life.
Instead, he observed.
He memorized the circulation of spiritual energy in the air. He listened to the faint resonance of the world's laws. He felt how this Ashen Sky World suppressed growth while sharpening comprehension.
A harsh world.
A good world.
By the time he was three months old, he already understood this era's cultivation framework. It was primitive compared to the peak civilizations he once knew—but the foundations were compatible.
Very compatible.
This world can support the Immortal Sage Technique.
That was enough.
—
One night, beneath an unmoving sky, he finally acted.
As the household slept, his breathing slowed into a subtle rhythm. His fragile body resonated faintly with the surrounding spiritual energy—not absorbing it, not circulating it, merely acknowledging it.
A test.
The air trembled almost imperceptibly.
Within his consciousness, countless techniques aligned instantly, compressed into clarity.
He smiled.
Not outwardly.
Internally.
This life…
I will cultivate immortality properly.
The heavens remained silent.
But somewhere far beyond the Ashen Sky World, invisible laws shifted—just slightly.
And fate, long stagnant, began to move once more.