Lu Chen descended into the underground cavern on the eighth night before the Crimson River deadline.
He had not cultivated underground since the Mistveil transmission.
The System’s warning had been clear — the Chaos Origin Pearl’s energy leakage was detectable through the cavern’s amplified qi field, and every session risked broadcasting his location to the Shenwu retrieval division.
But tonight, he was not here to cultivate.
He was here to explore.
The first cavern had been thoroughly mapped over the past two weeks.
Lu Chen knew every pillar, every carving, every crack in the ancient stone.
He knew the cultivation platform’s residual array patterns and the four carved figures that watched from the darkness with their empty, patient eyes.
What he had not yet investigated was the sealed stone door on the cavern’s northern wall.
It sat behind the largest pillar, half-hidden in shadow, and it was different from every other surface in the cavern.
The walls were rough-hewn dark stone.
The pillars were carved granite.
The door was smooth, black, and featureless, with a single handprint indentation at its center that glowed faintly with the same golden light as the floorboard seal in the main hall above.
Lu Chen had noticed the door on his first night in the cavern.
He had avoided it until now because the System’s scan returned nothing but static.
**[Scan result: Insufficient data.]**
**[Door composition: Unknown material.
Not stone.
Not metal.]**
**[Energy signature: Dormant.
Activation mechanism: Blood-locked.]**
**[Warning: Energy density beyond door exceeds first cavern by factor of 5.]**
Five times the first cavern’s density.
The first cavern was already ten times the surface.
That meant the space behind the door contained spiritual qi at fifty times the ambient level of Cloudmist City.
Lu Chen pressed his palm against the handprint indentation.
The golden light flared.
The door did not open.
**[Access denied.]**
**[Blood-lock requires Foundation Establishment realm to activate.]**
**[Host current realm: Qi Gathering Stage 7.]**
**[Deficiency: 1 major realm below threshold.]**
Lu Chen pulled his hand back and stared at the door.
Foundation Establishment.
He needed to break through an entire major realm to open a door that was sitting thirty meters below his childhood home.
The irony was not lost on him.
He turned away from the door and examined the wall surrounding it.
The carvings here were different from the four Emperor figures on the pillars.
These were smaller, more detailed, and they depicted a sequence of events that Lu Chen could partially interpret.
The first panel showed a world engulfed in fire.
The second showed four figures descending from a tear in the sky.
The third showed the four figures standing in a circle around a cracked sphere that pulsed with light.
The fourth panel was damaged, but Lu Chen could make out the outline of a fifth figure — smaller than the other four, standing alone, surrounded by swirling energy that looked like chaos given form.
**[Carving analysis: Pre-War historical record.]**
**[Age: Estimated 1,000,000+ years.]**
**[Subject: Unknown cosmic event.]**
**[Restricted data: Full interpretation requires higher realm comprehension.]**
One million years.
The carvings were older than the Eastern Continent’s recorded history.
Older than the Azure Heaven Empire.
Older than the concept of kingdoms and clans and cultivation sects.
And they were buried beneath a declining frontier family that the rest of Cloudmist City considered irrelevant.
Lu Chen pressed his fingers against the fourth panel, tracing the outline of the small, solitary figure.
The Chaos Origin Pearl in his dantian pulsed once, sharp and urgent, as if it recognized something in the carving that Lu Chen could not yet see.
**[Ancestral resonance detected.]**
**[Source: Fourth panel carving.]**
**[Resonance strength: Faint.]**
**[Note: Host’s Chaos Body constitution matches energy signature of fifth figure.]**
**[Restricted data: Full analysis requires Foundation Establishment realm.]**
Lu Chen stepped back from the wall.
The fifth figure was him.
Or someone like him.
Someone with a Chaos Body, standing alone in a world of fire, surrounded by energy that no one else could control.
The carving was a million years old.
And it was waiting for him.
**[New task issued.]**
**[Objective: Reach Foundation Establishment Stage 1.]**
**[Deadline: 7 days.]**
**[Reward: Second underground level access + Pre-War inheritance fragment.]**
**[Failure penalty: Crimson River scouts arrive before host is prepared.]**
Seven days.
He needed to break through an entire major realm in seven days while concealing his energy from the Mistveil Observers above and preparing for the Crimson River soldiers approaching from the southeast.
Lu Chen looked at the sealed door one more time.
The golden handprint glowed faintly in the darkness, patient and ancient and absolute.
He turned and climbed the staircase back to the surface.
The mist was thick over Cloudmist City.
The compound was silent.
And somewhere in the darkness beyond the eastern frontier, twelve Crimson River scouts were riding toward a city that did not know it was about to become a battlefield.
Lu Chen sat on his bed and closed his eyes.
Seven days.
He would need the underground cavern’s fifty-times qi density.
He would need to risk the Mistveil detection.
He would need to break through faster than any Qi Gathering cultivator in the Eastern Continent’s recorded history.
The Chaos Origin Pearl spun in his dantian, hungry and patient and impossibly old.
It had waited a million years for this.
Lu Chen could wait seven more days.
If you enjoyed this chapter, please add this novel to your library
and vote to push it up in the rankings.
Jaynovel
Author’s Ebook on Payhip: jaynovel