Chapter 361 - 16: A Frightened System 2

Chapter 361: Chapter 16: A Frightened System 2

Now he understood.

Basically, cultivators were drunk on pleasure.

It was not a matter of discipline. It was that the experience of being rebuilt, cell by cell, while the whole room turned around him, was the most pleasant thing that had ever happened to him. Nothing in his life had ever felt so good. Not a perfect episode. Not a long, hot bath after a day of training. Only the goddess’s hands at the pillar had come close.

He wanted more of it, and he wanted it right now.

It isn’t even a bad habit, he told himself. It’s literally good for me.

He was fairly sure a person was not supposed to sound that cheerful while rationalizing something. He decided not to think about it.

The corridor on the third floor of the east wing was full of students. They stood in small groups in the hallway, leaning against doorframes, talking in low, excited voices. At first he took it for a crowd gathered to look for the culprit. It took him a moment to realize that nobody was angry.

"The array crew overloaded this whole block," one boy was saying. "My circulation was going at double speed. It’s like cultivating in a rainforest."

"Mine too," said a girl. "I haven’t felt this good since the awakening. Whoever that was, I want to thank them."

"Or hit them," someone else muttered.

"Or both," the first boy agreed, and a ripple of laughter went through the group.

Ash walked straight through the middle of them, nodding politely at a girl who stepped aside. A few heads turned. Someone whispered, "Isn’t that the guy from the cafeteria?" Somebody else whispered something about transfer students.

One student near the end of the corridor glanced at him a second longer than the others. The look was not recognition—not yet—but there was a faint, puzzled curiosity in it, as if something about Ash felt slightly off in a way the boy could not name. Ash kept his eyes forward, reached his door, and slid inside as quickly as a man can without actually running.

The door clicked shut behind him. The noise of the corridor dimmed to a murmur.

The room was just as he had left it: the damp towel over the chair, the faint smell of old iron that had not quite aired out, a handful of dull gray crystal dust on the desk. He locked the door, set the privacy shield, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, folded the towel and hung it properly on the rack. He was an adult now. He had a martial soul.

Then he sat down in the middle of the floor and closed his eyes.

He felt that his mental energy had recovered to somewhere around seventy percent over the course of breakfast—enough to begin a few more cycles at least. He sorted the nine channels in his mind, checked the energy valves, and drew a long, slow breath to start the first loop of the 9-Cosmic Star Body Refinement Technique.

Then something unexpected happened.

He felt it immediately. ⅇ

Something—or someone—had invaded his soul.

It was not a sound or a sight. It was a touch, small and quick and unmistakably foreign, like a drop of cold water falling into the center of a warm pool. Ash’s eyes snapped open. Every instinct he had borrowed from the Martial Saint lit up at once. His body tensed, ready to lash out in any direction.

But before he could move, text appeared in front of him.

[Suitable host found.]

He froze.

[Merging initiated.]

[1%... 2%...]

The numbers climbed slowly, glowing a pale, polite blue in the middle of his vision. Ash stared at them. He did not yet understand what was happening, but he had read a lot of novels, and a small, excited part of his mind had already begun to whisper a single word.

A System.

Then the text flickered.

[Wait.]

[Wait, what the hell?]

The percentage stopped at 3%. The blue text shook once, as if something behind it had begun to tremble.

[What kind of freakish monster did I encounter?!]

[I am so sorry for offending you, senior! I am only but a wandering system looking for a suitable host. I had no idea I would meet someone with such a powerful soul. Obviously you do not need my help at all. I will take my leave right now!]

[I will leave a small gift. Please accept it as compensation for disturbing you. Goodbye, senior! Please forgive this humble one!]

Ash felt the foreign presence in his soul recoil. It was a frantic, sliding, panicked sensation, like a startled cat trying to find the door in the dark. It scrabbled against the edge of his martial soul for a single second, then tore itself free and bolted. Something small and cold flashed through his mind, and then the room was silent again.

Ash sat on the floor with his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open.

He went through the events in his head, one by one. A system had arrived. It had found him, tried to merge with his soul, and run into the Boundless Origin Martial Soul. As soon as it had attached itself to the thing, it had been so terrified that it had apologized and fled in less than ten seconds.

It was, he decided, one of the funniest things that had ever happened to him.

He started laughing. It began as a snort and became a full-bodied, helpless laugh. He fell backward onto the floor with his arms spread wide, looking at the ceiling.

"A freakish monster," he wheezed. "It called me a freakish monster. It called me senior."

It took him a long minute to stop. When he did, he wiped his eyes and lay still. A small, practical thought wandered into his head.

He should and could have stopped it.

He was fairly sure of it. When the system had tried to merge, he had felt the faint, exploratory edge of it against his soul. If he had pushed back with the Origin instead of sitting there gawking, he could have pinned it in place. Whatever it was, it had been afraid of him before he had even moved. A system was a rare and valuable thing, if the novels were to be trusted, and he was still in a weak state. His mental energy was only at seventy percent, his foundation was half rebuilt, and he needed all the help he could get to reach his limits quickly. Letting it go felt a little like watching a free meal walk out the door.

Too late now, he thought.

Yet a quieter conflict lingered beneath the regret. Had the Boundless Origin simply reacted on instinct... or had it rejected the system on purpose? For a brief moment it had almost felt as if the martial soul itself had decided the visitor was not worthy to stay. The thought was both comforting and slightly unsettling.

He lay there a moment longer, and then the regret slipped off him as easily as a coat. There was no point in mourning something he had never had. Besides, it was hard to feel too sorry for himself when he considered what had just happened. A mysterious entity—one of the strange powers that wandered the multiverse looking for hosts—had touched his soul and been terrified. It had not been a single clever resistance, or a skill, or a technique. It had simply met his martial soul and run for its life.

If that was what the Boundless Origin looked like to a stranger from the other side, he could not wait to see what it could do when it was properly grown.

Every martial soul evolved. It was one of the first things the academy taught, and one of the few things everyone agreed on. With every major breakthrough, a person’s martial soul grew and changed with them, gaining new forms and awakening new abilities. His would do the same. Or at least he hoped.

The Boundless Origin could already reach across into the multiverse, swallow souls, and stretch a thin hand into the future. He had no way of knowing what it would look like after the Martial Apprentice Realm, or the next realm after that. He found that he was grinning at the ceiling again.

Then a faint chime sounded in his mind, and he sat up.

The system had left a gift.

A small panel unfolded in the air in front of him—a clean rectangle of pale blue light, lined with thin silver borders. It did not feel threatening. It felt, if anything, apologetic. A short block of text sat at the top.

[Status Panel]

[A basic record of the host’s growth. Displays the host’s name, level and realm, martial soul, abilities, strength, speed, endurance, mental strength, soul strength, cosmic energy, and techniques. Data updates in real time.]

Ash read the description twice.

"A status panel," he said.

It was not flashy. It was not a skill or a weapon or a secret treasure. But the more he thought about it, the more useful it seemed. He had been tracking his progress by feel—a vague sense of a body growing stronger and a soul growing clearer—and that was no way to run something this important.

With the panel, he could watch the numbers move. He could see exactly where he was strong and where he was weak, what had improved overnight and what had stalled. It was a perfect record-keeping tool, and he did not even have to remember to write anything down.

He had the oddest feeling, in the back of his head, that it would be convenient for other people as well. For anyone who happened to be keeping track.

He looked at the pale blue light hanging in the air and smiled.

"Thanks, Frightened System," Ash said to the empty room. "I’ll take good care of it."