Chapter 60: The System Is Gone?

"Fine. If that’s what you wish for."

Yu Mei led them to the nearest restricted zone without delaying. It was behind a curtain of pale, unnaturally still mist. Lin Feng hesitated for a moment infront of the entrnace. If the swamp didn’t take of the restrictions, then he was doomed.

Then gathering his courage he decided to enter. The moment Lin Feng stepped through, the watch token on his wrist went completely silent. There was no warning. The swamp honoured it’s word. He thought with relief.

Yu Mei followed him with clear reluctance. The three bound beasts preferred to stay where they are currently. Inside, the chaos of the open swamp fell away and residual flows ran cleaner here. NSpirit herbs grew in clustered patterns and pale spirit stones jutted from root walls like exposed bone, glowing with soft, concentrated light. Old Orchid Veil marks scarred some of the larger formations, but the wards around them were dormant.

"Remember to take only what you need," Yu Mei said quietly. "No more."

Lin Feng nodded and got to work. He pried free a handful of high grade spirit stones and two small residual jades. The quality was obvious,far purer than anything he had forced from residual fields.

He found a natural hollow near the center and sat. The first spirit stone dissolved into his meridians like warm liquid light. The contrast was shocking. Residual hostility always fought him on the way in, this qi simply eased in to him, clean and obedient. His foundation drank it greedily.

The second stone went down easier than the first. The third made his circulation roar.

It felt good. Too good. Before he fully registered the decision, his hand was already reaching for another cluster of higher grade stones glowing deeper in the wall.

The swamp’s warning hit like a spike driven through his wrist.

Pain lanced up his arm. The suppressed token flared red hot for a single breath, and a heavy, wordless pressure settled across his shoulders,the swamp’s equivalent of a hand closing around his throat.

Enough.

Lin Feng froze, teeth clenched, and forced his hand back. He still had four stones and one jade left in his palm. The clean qi already inside him churned restlessly, demanding more.

He swallowed them anyway. The effect was immediate and violent. Pure spiritual energy slammed through his meridians far faster than residual hostility ever had. His foundation, tempered on anger and killing intent, could not process the volume cleanly. Bottlenecks that should have taken weeks shattered in sequence. Qi level 5 tore open into Level 6. Level 6 peaked and cracked under the pressure, surging him into early Level 7 with a sensation like his meridians were being forced wide by molten wire.

Blood burst from his nose and mouth. His vision whited out. The last thing he felt was the swamp’s presence withdrawing in what almost felt like irritation, and Yu Mei’s voice shouting his name.

Then nothing. He woke to the smell of damp bark and old blood. Lin Feng’s eyes opened slowly. His body felt heavy and distant, like it belonged to someone else. Qi circulated through his meridians in thick, unstable floods far stronger than before, but it was jagged , leaking and felt wrong. Every breath sent small spikes of pain along pathways that had been forced open too quickly.

He was in a secondary root hollow. Outside the entrance, the light suggested several days had passed. Yu Mei sat against the opposite wall, eyes closed in light meditation, the three bound beasts positioned around the perimeter like sullen statues.

The moment he stirred, her eyes opened.

"You were unconscious for four days," she said. "You stopped breathing twice. Thankfully the swamp let me drag you out. Barely."

Lin Feng tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. His foundation felt cracked, overstrained. NHe reached for the System on instinct. But there was nothing this time.

Cold fear cut through the physical pain.

He tried again, forcing the mental command harder. Still nothing. Yu Mei watched him without speaking.

Lin Feng’s voice came out rough. "It’s gone quiet."

"I don’t know what that means," she said, "but you look worse than after the water beast nearly killed you."

He closed his eyes and forced himself to think. The spirit stones had given him a brutal shortcut to early Level 7. The power was there, he could feel the denser qi, the wider meridians. But the method that actually made him stronger, the loop of provocation and residual hatred, had been buried under a landslide of clean, incompatible energy.

The System wasn’t gone. It was locked behind the mess he had forced into his own foundation.

He needed residual hostility. Enough of it to scour the clogged pathways clean and remind his cultivation what it actually ran on. Lin Feng opened his eyes and met Yu Mei’s gaze.

"Help me up. I need a residual field. A strong one. Now."

She studied him for a long moment, then stood and offered her hand.

"You’re an idiot," she said flatly.

"Yeah i agree."

"We have another problem anyways to deal with." She says and points behind him.

Behind him he heard the sounds of low growls and screeches and knew right away that the beasts are using the situation to break through.

But why didn’t they escape when i was unconscious? He thought.

Then it clicked. Eventhough he was unconscious he was brimming with absolute pure Qi, the sheer amount of power was enough to quell any rebellion they put up, but now that days have passed and Lin Feng is awake, his foundation is more or less stabilized and with the system being unresponsive they can now test his limits.

"ARHHHH!" Lin Feng screamed as the pressure was becoming too much for him. He can’t hold all three of them at the same time, he got to let one go, otherwise all of them will break out. "

"Yu Mei! Hold them." He said

Yu Mei nods and puts her hands on the ground. Using her elemental power she brought mud from all over to surround the Ironback Marsh Reaver and manages to tightly bound it’s leg with it.

"Good job." He said.

Lin Feng tried to focus on the other two. The Water Beast in particular put up a fierce fight so he had to put more of his will and focus on controlling it, that he didn’t notice immediately that the Skypiercer Eagle manages to break out of his control.

"Lin Feng. Look out!!" Yu Mei screamed