The silence in Li Wei's hut was a fragile shell, shattered by the war inside his skull.
[APEX: HOST'S ACTIONS HAVE RAISED OUR PROFILE TO 78%. PROBABILITY OF DIRECT ADMINISTRATIVE INTERVENTION NOW AT 23%. ASSIMILATION PROTOCOLS ADVISE IMMEDIATE CESSATION OF ALL NON-ESSENTIAL ACTIVITY.]
[ZERO: NON-ESSENTIAL? SURVIVAL IS ESSENTIAL! THAT WANG PUNK WAS A RESOURCE. WE LEARNED HIS TECHNIQUE'S FLAWS. THAT'S DATA! DATA IS POWER! HOST, WE NEED MORE. THIS HUT IS A DATA-DESERT.]
Li Wei blocked them out, focusing on the physical world. His body was a wreck. The confrontation had cost him precious calories, and the congee was a drop of water in a desert. The System's warnings about "critical physical condition" were not abstract. He could feel a fine tremor in his hands, a deep-seated weakness in his bones.
Observation, he thought, clinging to the scientific method. This body is my primary instrument. A damaged instrument yields flawed data. Hypothesis: I require a higher-grade energy source to repair it.
He stood, his legs unsteady, and left the hut. The night air of the Verdant Cloud Sect was cool, thick with the scent of pine and the faint, ever-present hum of spiritual energy—a hum he could sense but not absorb, like a deaf man watching an orchestra.
His destination was the one place he hoped held answers without requiring Qi to access: the Sect's Outer Archive.
It was a sprawling, three-story wooden structure, ancient and smelling of dust and old paper. An elderly, wizened attendant dozed at the entrance, not even bothering to open his eyes as Li Wei passed. The Outer Archive was for foundational texts and basic histories, deemed beneath the notice of true cultivators. For Li Wei, it was a potential goldmine.
He bypassed the sections on "Introductory Qi Circulation" and "The Five Elemental Theory." They were useless to him. Instead, he went to the most neglected corner: Historical Records and Folklore.
He pulled a heavy, leather-bound tome from the shelf. "Annals of the Fallen Star Dynasty." As his fingers touched the brittle pages, the System flickered to life.
[SCANNING TEXT... TRANSLATING ARCHAIC LINGUAGE PROTOCOLS...]
The text on the page blurred, and a clean, translated summary appeared on his mental screen.
[...RECORD 7,842: THE ERA OF THE SCHEMATIC SAGES. A CULTIVATION PATH NOT OF QI, BUT OF CONCEPT AND PRINCIPLE. THEY SPOKE NOT OF REALMS, BUT OF COMPREHENSION. THEIR STRENGTH LAY NOT IN DESTROYING MOUNTAINS, BUT IN UNDERSTANDING WHY THE MOUNTAIN STOOD...]
Li Wei's breath hitched. This was it. A confirmation.
He devoured the text. It spoke of cultivators who could "un-weave" formations by understanding their underlying logic, who could "debug" flawed cultivation techniques. They were called heretics, reality-devils. Their end was described in vague, apocalyptic terms.
[...THE HEAVENLY DAO JUDGED THEIR KNOWLEDGE A CORRUPTION. A GREAT RESET CLEANSED THE WORLD. THE SCHEMATIC SAGES AND THEIR WORKS WERE SCRUBBED FROM EXISTENCE. ONLY FRAGMENTS IN UNOFFICIAL RECORDS REMAIN...]
[ZERO: SCRUBBED FROM EXISTENCE? SOUNDS LIKE SOMEONE'S A CONTROL FREAK. HOST, THIS IS OUR ORIGIN STORY!]
[APEX: THIS DATA IS FORBIDDEN. ACCESSING IT MARKS US FOR PRIORITY ASSIMILATION.]
Suddenly, the System flared, a new alert screaming in crimson.
[WARNING! DETECTING DATA FRAGMENT - LEGACY OF THE SCHEMATIC SAGES. COORDINATES: 12.7 METERS NORTH-NORTHEAST. ELEVATION: -2.3 METERS.]
A waypoint, a glowing dot on a mini-map only he could see, appeared in his vision. It pulsed, leading him deeper into the archive, towards a section of collapsed shelves and rotting scrolls deemed unfit for storage.
His heart hammered against his ribs. This was no longer just reading; it was a treasure hunt.
He followed the signal, pushing aside a rotten bookshelf with a grunt of effort. Behind it, nestled in a crevice in the stone foundation, was a single, blackened jade slip. It was cracked and looked utterly inert, its spiritual energy long since faded.
To any cultivator, it was trash. A dead storage medium.
But when Li Wei's fingers brushed against it, the System went wild.
[DATA FRAGMENT DETECTED! LEGACY PROTOCOL 'SCHEMA OF REASON' - FRAGMENT 1/???]
[ATTEMPTING TO DECRYPT... ENERGY SIGNATURE TOO FAINT.]
[INSUFFICIENT SYSTEM POWER. BOOTSTRAPPING REQUIRED.]
[ZERO: IT'S LIKE TRYING TO POWER A STARSHIP WITH A POTATO. WE NEED JUICE, HOST! A SPIRIT STONE, A PILL, ANYTHING WITH A CONCENTRATED ENERGY SIGNATURE!]
[APEX: THE FRAGMENT IS CORRUPTED. INTERFACING POSES AN EXISTENTIAL RISK. RECOMMEND DESTRUCTION.]
Li Wei clutched the jade slip. It was cold and dead in his hand, but it represented everything. It was the first piece of a puzzle that explained his own existence. He would not destroy it.
He needed power. Not Qi, but raw, processable energy. The kind that could fuel a scan, a decryption, a single step on his path.
As he slipped the jade fragment into his robe and turned to leave, a shadow fell across the doorway.
It was not the elderly attendant.
It was Su Lian.
She stood there, silhouetted by the moonlight, her flawless features impassive, but her icy eyes were sharp with an unnerving intensity. They flickered from his face to the disturbed shelves behind him.
"The Outer Archive is closed to disciples after the second bell," she stated, her voice as cool and clear as a mountain stream. "What business does a Qi-blocked cripple have with forgotten histories and collapsed shelves?"
Her spiritual pressure, though restrained, filled the small space. It was a tangible force, a weight on the air that made it hard to breathe. It was pure, ordered, and stable—the absolute antithesis of everything he was.
[SCANNING... ENTITY: 'SU LIAN'. CULTIVATION: PEAK FOUNDATION ESTABLISHMENT. BLOODLINE: AZURE PHOENIX (DORMANT). AFFINITY: HEAVENLY DAO STABILIZATION. WARNING: HOST'S PARADOXICAL NATURE CREATES UNSTABLE INTERFERENCE WITH THIS ENTITY.]
Li Wei met her gaze, his mind racing. A lie would be transparent. The truth was impossible.
He chose a third path: deflection through truth.
"I was looking for answers," he said, his voice even. "The world operates on certain principles. I am merely trying to understand them."
Su Lian's eyes narrowed slightly. "Principles? You refer to the Dao?"
"The Dao is a principle," Li Wei conceded. "But there are others. The principle of cause and effect. The principle of resonant frequency. The principle of... information decay." He gestured vaguely at the rotting scrolls around them.
A flicker of something—not understanding, but a profound curiosity—crossed her face. It was the look of a master mathematician hearing a fascinating, unsolvable problem.
"The elders are discussing you, Li Wei," she said, changing tack. "Some call you a demon in human skin. Others say you've stumbled upon a lost demonic technique." She took a step closer, and the air around them wavered. The dust motes in the moonlight seemed to freeze in place for a split second. "I see no demonic Qi. I see... nothing. A void where a cultivator's aura should be. How did you break Wang Jun's Gale Palm?"
[APEX: SHE IS A PROBE. A SENSOR OF THE HEAVENLY DAO. DISENGAGE.]
[ZERO: SHE'S ALSO OUR BEST SHOT AT GETTING A HIGH-GRADE SPIRIT STONE. PLAY IT COOL, HOST. BE MYSTERIOUS. BE ATTRACTIVE!]
Li Wei held his ground, the blackened jade slip feeling like a burning coal against his chest. "I didn't break his technique," he replied, the cold smile returning to his lips. "He broke it himself. I simply showed him where the fault line was."
He saw her breath catch, just for an instant. He had presented her with a concept her world's logic could not easily process.
Before she could respond, he bowed slightly. "Senior Sister Su. The archive is closed. I will take my leave."
He walked past her, feeling the unsettling static of their proximity, a sensation like reality itself was groaning under the strain. He didn't look back.
Su Lian stood in the doorway for a long time, watching the spot where the enigma named Li Wei had vanished into the night. She unclenched her fist, not realizing she had tightened it. On her palm, a single, perfect snowflake had formed out of condensing atmospheric moisture, a phenomenon utterly impossible on this warm, clear night.
Far above, in the vault of heaven, a single star flickered, its light dimming for a heartbeat as if a cosmic eye had blinked.
In his hut, Li Wei stared at the dead jade slip in his hand.
[ZERO: WE NEED POWER, HOST. AND I'VE GOT A BAD, BEAUTIFUL, TOTALLY INSANE IDEA.]
To be continued...