"Ahhhhh!"
Ye Chenxue threw her head back and screamed, a raw, piercing sound that vibrated the very material used to make their carriage.
Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the pain stopped.
A soft, visible ripple of silver light expanded outward from her body, washing over the interior of the cabin. As the light faded, both Lu Feng and Han Lin stared in absolute amazement. The transformation was physical.
The exhaustion, the gaunt hollows of her cheeks, and the lingering scars of her past abuses had been entirely wiped away. Her skin now glowed with a flawless, porcelain radiance, and her features had smoothed out, making her look younger, softer, and breathtakingly beautiful—a true heroine reborn from the ashes.
Han Lin was completely stunned, her hands pressed against her cheeks as tears of sheer awe welled in her eyes. Once again, her young master had proven himself right. He hadn’t disappointed either of them, and more than that, they now had a genuine, living cultivator as an official ally.
Ye Chenxue sat up slowly, her breath coming in short, amazed pants. She looked down at her hands, then raised her eyes to Lu Feng, her voice stuttering over the sheer magnitude of what she was feeling.
"Y-Young Master Lu..." she rasped, her eyes shining with an unholy light. "The... the remaining essence from that medicine... it’s too vast. It’s actively rewriting my meridians. It’s pushing me... it’s pushing me straight past the Qi Condensation Stage and directly into the Blood Condensation Stage! And my core... it isn’t just healed."
She placed a trembling hand over her stomach, her voice dropping to a whisper of pure disbelief. "My old core was an Ice River Dantian. But now... it has mutated. It has evolved into the Heavenly Frozen Sea Dantian. It is a very High grade Dantian... its capacity is tenfold what I had before!"
Lu Feng nodded slowly, a polite, encouraging smile on his face, but internally, he wasn’t listening to a single word she said about her phoenix core. His entire consciousness had been violently hijacked by a series of golden text lines that were currently exploding across his vision.
[Ding!]
[Investment Return Successful!]
[Resource Invested: 1x Heaven-Mending Rebirth Pill.]
[Multiplier Applied: 10,000x!]
[Reward 1: 10,000x Heaven-Mending Rebirth Pills deposited into Inventory.]
[Reward 2: Physical Resonance Triggered. Host’s mortal limitation broken!]
[Awakening Divine Dantian...]
[Type: Primordial Chaos Bead.]
Lu Feng’s eyes widened. ’The Primordial Chaos Bead?’
In all his years of reading the most obscure, forbidden archives and ancient legends of the cultivation world, he had never once encountered a name like that. The system interface quickly scrolled down, providing a brief, terrifying description that made his blood run cold.
[Description: An apex-grade cosmic core that exists outside the laws of Heaven and Earth. The Primordial Chaos Bead does not simply cultivate; it devours. It is capable of absorbing the raw Qi essence of the universe at an infinite rate, and if the Host desires, it can forcefully siphon and assimilate the spiritual essence directly from the dantians of other cultivators.]
It wasn’t a cultivation core. It seemed to be a black hole. It was a predator’s tool, a divine anomaly that would allow him to treat the entire world as a resource to be harvested.
Lu Feng opened his mouth, desperately wanting to ask Ye Chenxue if she had ever heard of such a terrifying concept in the archives of her high-grade sect. But before a single syllable could form on his tongue, his entire body suddenly locked up.
Every muscle in his frame went completely rigid, turning as hard as stone. A sudden, monstrous pressure exploded directly in the center of his lower abdomen, as if a dying star had just been forcefully crammed into his navel.
The pain wasn’t like Ye Chenxue’s burning mending process. Lu Feng’s was an unnerving, unbearable sensation of his physical entirety being ripped apart and rearranged to accommodate an ancient, cosmic entity.
His vision instantly swam with colors of deepest violet and void black. His breath caught permanently in his throat, and without even the ability to let out a scream, his consciousness fractured under the sheer weight of the agony.
Lu Feng’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed sideways onto the seat, completely passing out.
"Young Master!" Han Lin shrieked, lunging forward as his body went limp.
But she never reached him.
The exact moment Lu Feng lost consciousness, the Primordial Chaos Bead finished its first rotation within his flesh. It took its very first breath of the mortal world, and it found the surrounding atmosphere utterly insufficient.
A violent, catastrophic vortex of pure, gray-colored Qi essence erupted from Lu Feng’s unconscious body like a supernova. The sheer atmospheric pressure of the divine awakening didn’t just push the air away—it detonated.
BOOM!
The entire wooden structure of their carriage exploded into a million splinters and shattered iron pieces. The heavy roof was launched into the sky, and the thick wooden walls vanished into a cloud of sawdust as a shockwave of raw, chaotic energy ripped outward, tearing the carriage completely away from the leather harnesses of the iron bulls ahead.
~~~~~
When Lu Feng’s eyes slowly blinked open, the familiar view of their splintered, cramped wooden coach was entirely gone. Instead, he found himself staring up at a spacious, polished mahogany ceiling adorned with cheap, gilded carvings. He lay flat on a soft velvet bench, wrapped tightly from the neck down in a sheet of clean, white linen.
His vision, usually slightly blurred in his left eye due to his naturally mismatched irises, was suddenly crystal clear. The world didn’t just look sharper; it felt like it had been stripped of a dull film he hadn’t even known was there. He rolled his head to the side, his eyes wandering the interior of this unfamiliar, larger carriage in search of the familiar faces he knew.
He didn’t have to look far.
"Young Master!"
Han Lin’s voice was a mixture of absolute terror and hysterical relief. The moment she saw his eyelids flutter, she practically threw herself across the carriage, landing on her knees right beside his bench. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, her hands trembling as she hovered over him, entirely unsure of whether she should hug him or check him for broken bones.
A few feet away, Ye Chenxue remained seated on the opposite bench. Though her posture was rigid and refined, the heavy cloud of concern masking her incredibly beautiful, reborn features was unmistakable. The moment their eyes met, a subtle, almost imperceptible sigh of relief escaped her parted lips.
Lu Feng blinked, his throat feeling slightly dry. He tried to sit up, but the restriction of the tightly wrapped linen made him pause. He looked at Han Lin, then at the broader, more luxurious layout of the cabin.
"Where... what are we doing in another carriage?" Lu Feng asked.