Zhen Wu's consciousness flickered like a candle in the wind.
Pain.
Humiliation.
The laughter of the crowd pressed against his ears. Each jeer drove deeper than any blade could.
"Fourth Grade! Another waste from the Wu family!"
"Did you see how weak his flame was? Barely a spark!"
"The heavens truly have no eyes. Why give resources to trash like this?"
His legs trembled. The awakening formation beneath his feet still pulsed with residual true will, but it no longer mattered.
The ceremony had concluded. His fate was sealed.
Zhen Wu wanted to lift his head, wanted to shout that he would prove them wrong. But the words died in his throat.
His vision blurred.
The stone platform tilted sideways.
He collapsed.
The moment his knees struck stone, something else stirred within the depths of his sea of consciousness.
Words appeared in the darkness.
[DETECTING FRAGMENTED SOUL...]
[ANALYSIS COMPLETE]
[SOUL AGE: 642 YEARS]
[SOUL INTEGRITY: 1%]
[STATUS: CRITICAL - IMMINENT DISPERSAL]
The text scrolled past with clinical precision.
[SEARCHING FOR COMPATIBLE VESSEL...]
[VESSEL LOCATED]
[DISTANCE: 8466 ZHANG]
[COMPATIBILITY: 99%]
[WARNING: TARGET VESSEL CONSCIOUSNESS CURRENTLY ACTIVE]
[WARNING: MERGER WILL RESULT IN ORIGINAL CONSCIOUSNESS SUPPRESSION]
[INITIATING EMERGENCY SOUL TRANSFER]
[ESTIMATED TIME: 3 SECONDS]
[TRANSFER CANNOT BE CANCELLED]
Three seconds passed.
[TRANSFER COMPLETE]
[SOUL MERGER: SUCCESSFUL]
[HOST CONSCIOUSNESS SUPPRESSED]
[RESIDUAL MEMORIES ACCESSIBLE]
[NEW HOST IDENTITY: ZHEN WU]
[AGE: 17]
[CULTIVATION: BODY REFINEMENT REALM, FIRST LAYER]
[SPIRITUAL ROOT: FOURTH GRADE - COMMON FIRE ATTRIBUTE]
[STATUS: STABLE]
The system messages faded.
Zhen Wu opened his eyes.
His body went still.
The trembling stopped. His breathing, previously ragged and uneven, smoothed into a slow, measured rhythm.
His fingers relaxed.
Then he stood up.
The movement was smooth. Unhurried. Utterly devoid of the previous panic.
Around him, the laughter began to falter.
"Wait, what's he doing?"
"Is he still conscious? I thought he fainted."
"Look at his face! He is grinning. "
Zhen Wu tilted his head slightly, gazing out at the crowd. A devious smile that could not contain his emotions appeared on his face.
In the highest balcony, Supreme Elder Feng's eyes narrowed.
Something was wrong.
That boy's demeanor had changed completely. The desperate, humiliated boy from moments ago had vanished. It was as if the person controlling the body was a completely different person.
Zhen Wu turned his attention inward, examining the newly awakened spiritual root.
Fourth Grade. Basic fire attribute. Single path resonance.
Growth potential capped at Core Formation if he was extraordinarily lucky.
A faint smile crossed his lips, dry and humorless.
Seventeen years old. Fourth Grade spiritual root. A declining branch family in an outer sect.
He'd been given worse starting positions before, though admittedly not many.
In his heart, Zhen Wu understood a fundamental truth that most cultivators never grasped.
Talent mattered less than people believed.
Resources mattered. Time mattered. The willingness to do whatever was necessary mattered most of all.
If this body had Fourth Grade potential, he would extract every fragment of value from it.
If the path ahead required decades to advance a single realm, so be it.
Impatience killed more cultivators than failed tribulations ever did.
His thoughts stilled as text appeared again in his field of vision.
[PRIMORDIAL AWAKENING FORMATION DETECTED]
[FORMATION STATUS: RECENTLY ACTIVATED]
[TRUE WILL: 100%]
[SCANNING HOST BODY...]
More text scrolled past.
[DETECTING MASSIVE DISCREPANCY]
[HOST SOUL QUALITY: HEAVEN-DEVIANT]
[HOST SPIRITUAL ROOT: FOURTH GRADE]
[INCOMPATIBILITY RATIO: 1,847:1]
[WARNING: Current spiritual root insufficient to support soul's cultivation potential]
Zhen Wu's pupils shrank slightly.
Heaven-Deviant soul quality. An incompatibility ratio approaching two thousand to one.
The formation's residual true will was still active, still potent.
[OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFIED]
[ANALYSIS: Formation's true will can be redirected to force re-awakening using host's true soul as foundation. Estimated outcome: First Grade or higher spiritual root manifestation.]
[QUERY: INITIATE FORCED RE-AWAKENING SEQUENCE?]
[WARNING: This action will be public. All observers will witness the process.]
[ACCEPT: Y/N]
Zhen Wu stood motionless. Around him, the crowd's murmuring grew louder.
"Why isn't he leaving?"
"Did the awakening damage his mind?"
"Supreme Elder, should we remove him from the platform?" A guard spoke out, uncertain.
Zhen Wu considered the information with cold precision.
A forced re-awakening. Using his soul as the catalyst.
The result would almost certainly be First Grade, possibly higher depending on integration efficiency.
But it would be witnessed by thousands.
Every elder. Every disciple. Spies from every rival sect would be present.
Questions would follow. Investigations. Suspicion.
In his previous life, Zhen Wu had built his foundations through obscurity. That caution had served him well more times than he could count.
But that strategy assumed adequate starting resources.
This body possessed neither resources nor time.
The Wu family was a declining branch. Without exceptional talent, he would spend decades fighting for scraps.
Wasting precious years before acquiring enough resources to truly begin cultivation.
He had already lost too much time.
The path of obscurity had merit, but only when you could afford patience.
In this situation, obscurity meant stagnation.
Stagnation meant death, or worse, mediocrity stretching across centuries.
His decision crystallized instantly.
"Yes."
The word was barely audible above the crowd's noise.
[ACKNOWLEDGED]
[INITIATING HIJACK OF PRIMORDIAL AWAKENING FORMATION]
[ACCESSING FORMATION CORE...]
[ACCESS GRANTED]
[REDIRECTING TRUE WILL TO HOST]
[WARNING: FORMATION CONTROL SEVERED FROM SUPREME ELDER AUTHORITY]
[BEGINNING FORCED RE-AWAKENING IN 3... 2... 1...]
The formation erupted.
Before, it had been a gentle golden glow.
Now it blazed with dazzling intensity.
The carved lines shone brilliant yellow. The entire platform shook violently.
The crowd's murmuring cut off as if severed by a blade.
Then someone screamed.
Yellow light shot skyward in a pillar that pierced the heavens themselves.
True will from across the mountain range began to converge, drawn toward the formation like iron to a lodestone.
The air itself grew thick. Oppressive. Saturated with raw power that made mortal observers' skin prickle with fear.
Zhen Wu stood at the center, perfectly still.
On the highest balcony, Supreme Elder Feng's face drained of color.
"A re-awakening?"
He shot to his feet. His spiritual sense surged outward in a desperate attempt to find answers.
Nothing.
The formation didn't respond to his commands.
It had been completely severed from sect authority, hijacked by something he couldn't identify.
"What in the heavens.."
The words died as the light intensified further.
New text appeared in Zhen Wu's vision.
[RE-EVALUATING SPIRITUAL ROOT]
[PREVIOUS ASSESSMENT: FOURTH GRADE - FIRE ATTRIBUTE]
[UTILIZING HEAVEN-DEVIANT SOUL AS FOUNDATION...]
[CALCULATING OPTIMAL ROOT CONFIGURATION...]
[WARNING: SOUL CONTAINS MULTIPLE ATTRIBUTE AFFINITIES ACCUMULATED OVER CENTURIES]
[INTEGRATING ALL COMPATIBLE ATTRIBUTES...]
The yellow light condensed.
It compressed inward until it formed a sphere spinning at Zhen Wu's chest.
Inside that sphere, something took shape.
Not a flame. Not any traditional element.
Something that resembled an endless void.
[NEW SPIRITUAL ROOT MANIFESTING]
[SPIRITUAL ROOT GRADE: SUPREME QUALITY]
[PRIMARY ATTRIBUTE: UNKNOWN]
[SECONDARY ATTRIBUTES: UNKNOWN]
[TERTIARY ATTRIBUTE: UNKNOWN]
[CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN]
The sphere detonated.
A shockwave rolled across the platform like an invisible wall.
Every youth still standing was thrown backward. Some tumbled head over heels before crashing into the stone floor.
Outer disciples in the lower tiers stumbled, gasping as pressure crushed down on their chests.
Inner disciples braced themselves, eyes wide with shock.
The elders remained seated, but several gripped their armrests tightly.
A few of the older ones had gone pale, recognition dawning in their eyes.
When the light faded, Zhen Wu stood exactly where he had been.
His hair, which until now had been jet black, was now pure white.
His eyes had shifted from dark brown to pale, washed out gray.
The crowd was silent.
Thousands of people packed into the arena, yet not one of them spoke.
Zhen Wu looked down at his hands slowly.
Body Refinement realm still, but the quality of his meridians had changed fundamentally.
Each cell had been refined. Each meridian was now wider, stronger.
[FORCED RE-AWAKENING COMPLETE]
[CULTIVATION POTENTIAL MAXIMIZED]
[WARNING: SOUL FOUNDATION HAS BEEN SPENT]
[CURRENT SOUL FOUNDATION LEVEL: MORTAL]
[RECOMMENDATION: REGAIN SOUL FOUNDATION LEVEL]
The text faded from his vision.
Zhen Wu raised his head slowly.
His gray eyes swept across the silent crowd, cataloging faces, noting expressions.
In the highest balcony, Supreme Elder Feng stared at him.
The old man's eyes were narrowed. Suspicious.
Zhen Wu took a single step forward.
The crowd parted.
He began walking.
He walked into the crowd as if nothing had happened, his audacity was shocking.
Behind him, chaos erupted.
"What just happened?!"
"Did you see his spiritual root? The formation couldn't even classify it!"
"It estimated Supreme Quality... and the attributes are all unknown!"
"That's impossible! Even Heaven Grade roots can be identified by this formation!"
"His hair turned completely white!"
"Supreme Elder Feng, what just happened?"
Thousands of voices rose at once, shouting questions, demanding answers, speculating wildly.
"Silence!" Suddenly Supreme Elder Feng's voice rose out, silencing the crowd.
"The matter of today must remain a secret. Anyone who dares to speak of what happened today will be considered a traitor and punished accordingly." Supreme Elder Feng was quick and decisive.
Although Supreme Elder Feng's expression was calm and composed, it couldn't fool Zhen Wu, he knew exactly what he was thinking.
'Now the crucial part will come, either I will be executed in the coming days, or the Elders will try to educate me into becoming the sect leader, if they can't do that I will be executed.'
'If I play my cards right, I can get resources for my cultivation from the sect, and they will be more than willing to do so. After all, a spiritual root of supreme quality is rare even in the immortal world.'
'However, what I am worried about is if they decide to replace my soul and take over my body. Normally, with my Heaven Deviant Soul Level it won't be a problem, but my entire foundation was used for the re-awakening process.'
'Speaking of spiritual root, I too am wondering why the attributes are unknown, even to this system. As far as I am concerned there are no records as to what this white sphere spiritual root could be. '
Zhen Wu was extremely nervous, even though on the outside he seemed not to care about anything, there were a lot of variables that could go either way.