Chapter 350 - 5 First Resonance

Chapter 350: Chapter 5 First Resonance

Ash walked back to the western dormitory wing under the slanting golden light of the late afternoon sun.

The campus pathways were still busy. Newly awakened students moved in small groups, comparing results in low, excited voices. The subtle segregation had already begun. Near the central fountain, a cluster of A-Rank students laughed among themselves while a hovering administrative drone guided them eastward. Each of them carried a sleek matte-black spatial case that looked far more advanced than the plain pouches issued to the lower ranks.

Ash moved through the crowds with his usual easy smile. He returned every greeting without slowing down.

"Hey, Ash."

"See you at training."

"Don’t work too hard."

He nodded to each person, voice warm and light. Only when the heavy, slightly scuffed door of his single dorm room in the western wing slid shut behind him did the polite expression finally fade.

He locked the door. Then he engaged the privacy shield. A soft blue shimmer covered the walls and windows. Only then did he allow himself to exhale a long, shaky breath.

He looked at the standard-issue spatial pouch resting in his hand. Even this ordinary item carried a quiet reminder of how much the world had changed. In the early decades after the portals opened, spatial storage devices could only be created by Martial Emperors who possessed rare spatial talents. Each pouch or ring was a personal masterpiece, limited in number and treated as a family heirloom. After centuries of reverse-engineering alien technology and relentless scientific progress, the process had been fully industrialized. Specialized machines now produced spatial pouches and mid-grade spatial rings in large quantities. What had once been a treasure reserved for the powerful was now standard academy issue.

Ash set the pouch on the cheap synthetic-wood desk.

The western wing was older. The paint on the walls was peeling slightly at the corners. The ambient energy arrays built into the walls hummed with a faint, irregular vibration — nothing like the silent, perfect flow in the eastern villas. The bed was narrow. The mattress was lumpy. The single window looked out onto a quiet side courtyard instead of the manicured gardens the higher ranks enjoyed.

None of it mattered.

He sat cross-legged on the bed and closed his eyes.

The shift into his mindscape was gentle yet absolute. It was as easy as breathing.

The sensation of the lumpy mattress disappeared. The faint, irregular hum of the dormitory’s outdated energy arrays vanished. In their place stretched an endless expanse of soft, star-flecked darkness. There was no floor, no ceiling, no horizon — only depth in every direction.

At the center of that depth floated the Boundless Origin Martial Soul.

It was not a weapon. It was not a beast. It was not a glowing diagram or any of the forms described in textbooks.

It was a vast, swirling nebula of primordial light.

Countless threads of silver, gold, violet, and deep indigo energy coiled and uncoiled in slow, hypnotic patterns. There were no edges. No matter how far Ash extended his perception, the nebula simply continued, as though it occupied a space larger than the mindscape itself. Tiny motes of light drifted within it like distant stars. The entire structure pulsed with a deep, steady heartbeat that he could feel echoing inside his own physical chest.

Even now, without any conscious effort, the nebula was drawing in the ambient cosmic energy that saturated the academy grounds. Thin streams of blue-white light continuously flowed toward it from every direction and vanished into its depths without the slightest sign of resistance or fullness. The absorption was quiet, endless, and absolute.

A passive effect made itself known almost immediately.

As the nebula drank the surrounding energy, a warm, gentle current began circulating through Ash’s soul. It was subtle at first, then steadily more pronounced. Impurities he had never been aware of were being slowly dissolved. In the physical world, a faint, almost invisible wisp of gray mist exhaled from his pores and instantly dissipated into the air. The edges of his consciousness felt clearer, denser, and more resilient. The current never stopped. As long as ambient cosmic energy existed in the environment, the Boundless Origin would continue this quiet work of nurturing and refining his soul without requiring any input from him.

Ash floated in place for a long time, simply watching the beautiful, terrifying expanse of his own soul.

Then the complete package of instinctive knowledge that had been imprinted during the awakening rose into full clarity, ordered and precise.

The first and primary function was Multiversal Self-Resonance.

The ability allowed him to temporarily loosen the space-time restrictions of his own universe and extend a thread of resonance toward the souls of his parallel selves across the multiverse. The stronger and more stable the resonance he managed to form, the more completely he could create a perfect copy of whatever that version possessed — innate talent, skills, knowledge, combat experience, comprehension, specialized techniques, even entire paths such as scientific insight or Taoist arts. He did not extract or steal. He created a perfect duplicate and brought it back into himself. The original parallel self remained completely unaffected. Only the most powerful versions might sense a faint, fleeting ripple for a few seconds before it vanished without explanation or trace. The process consumed mental energy in proportion to the strength of the target and the completeness of the copy.

The second function was Soul Devouring.

After killing a target, he could absorb their martial soul or, if they possessed none, their ordinary soul. Everything they had accumulated would be permanently copied into him. Each successful absorption followed by complete digestion would increase his mental power and soul power while further refining the quality of his own soul. There was no stated upper limit.

Ash felt a slight, cold chill at the sheer ruthlessness of the ability. He quickly shelved his hesitation. In a universe where humanity fought for survival against alien leviathans, morality was a luxury. Pragmatism was a necessity.

The third function was Dual Cultivation Resonance.

When he dual cultivated with a partner, the Boundless Origin would automatically form a perfect resonance with her soul and martial soul. He would be able to permanently copy her abilities and talents. In return, her soul and martial soul would be refined and elevated in rank and quality. Both sides benefited.

He already understood the complete mechanics of this function. A faint, amused smirk touched his lips in the mindscape. He had no immediate intention of using it. Yet. He didn’t even have a partner.

The fourth function Future Parallel Sight, remained locked behind a clear barrier of insufficient strength: the ability to actively seek out parallel universes that were extremely similar to his own and observe possible futures of himself. He understood the concept perfectly, but he instinctively knew that the moment he tried to reach for it, an invisible, immovable wall would stop him and issue clear warning signs. He was simply not strong enough yet. His mental strength and cultivation realm were far from enough. He even felt that Multiversal Self-Resonance itself would severely drain his mental strength when he tried to use it.

Ash stared at the swirling nebula. A slow, incredulous smile spread across his face.

"E Rank," he said softly inside the mindscape. "They actually looked at this and decided it was E Rank."

The testing pillar had only been designed to measure from F to S. When his soul began absorbing without any saturation point, the internal sensors had overloaded and defaulted to the lowest fail-safe error code. The truth was closer to something the system had never been programmed to display — something that would have required a string of X’s after the E if such a rank had existed. EXXXXXXXX Rank.

His thoughts turned practical and cold.

In one month, the academy would hold the Genesis Apex Assessment, the first major martial examination for the newly awakened students. Performance in that exam would determine final class placement, monthly resource allocation, and, most critically, access to the high-tier support pipelines controlled by United Earth. The top ten percent would receive Quintessence Fluid — a liquid energy resource so dense that a single drop was worth a hundred mid-grade crystals.

The initial awakening rank carried weight, but it was not final. History contained many examples of "unpolished diamonds" — students who awakened mediocre martial souls or no martial soul at all, yet possessed monstrous innate talent for pure martial cultivation. These individuals could rise through sheer comprehension speed, physical aptitude, and battle instinct, sometimes surpassing those born with high-grade souls.

Ash needed to become one of those people in the eyes of the academy.

The Boundless Origin had no saturation point. As he advanced, the amount of cosmic energy required to fuel each breakthrough would become astronomical. Ordinary E-Rank stipends would never keep pace. Only the super-elite ranks received the continuous high-density energy supply his soul demanded.

The problem was that Ash himself was mediocre. He could not rely on his current foundation to produce miracles in the upcoming examination. Therefore, he needed to borrow the talent of a version of himself who was not mediocre.

He needed the talent of a supreme martial genius.

Ash focused on the Boundless Origin and formed a clear, deliberate intention.

I want the innate martial talent, cultivation comprehension, battle instincts, and foundational martial physique of a parallel self who stands at the absolute peak of pure martial genius.

He reached out with his mind and activated his martial soul.

The activation was instinctive and overwhelming.

There was no gradual rising sensation. One moment Ash’s consciousness was seated calmly inside the mindscape. The next it burst outward from his body like a compressed spring released at full force. He felt himself shooting upward at a speed that defied ordinary understanding. Layers of reality peeled away around him in rapid succession. Dimensional membranes tore like thin paper. The space-time fabric of his own universe offered almost no resistance — the Boundless Origin simply carved a clean, effortless path straight through it.

Then he was outside.