Location: The Imperial Palace – The Hanging Gardens
The air in the garden didn't just freeze; it became heavy, as if the atmospheric pressure had suddenly multiplied by ten.
Lady Yun, the Emissary from the Myriad Beasts Mountain, stood amidst the swaying spirit-flowers. She didn't draw a weapon. She didn't take a combat stance. She simply unfolded her hands from her sleeves, and the space around her began to warp.
To Aris's Abyssal Eye, she didn't look like a cultivator. She looked like a dense knot of high-frequency energy that the local reality was struggling to render.
"You speak of 'visas' and 'management'," Lady Yun said, her voice sounding bored. "Typical Lower Realm arrogance. You conquer a speck of dust and convince yourself you own the universe."
She took a step forward.
"Let me show you the difference between a Frog in a Well and a Hawk in the Sky."
The Realm Gap
"Nox," Aris commanded. "Test the waters."
The Eclipse Hound roared, launching himself from the shadows. Nox moved faster than sound, a blur of violet smoke and teeth aimed directly at Yun's throat.
Lady Yun didn't flinch. She simply raised a single finger.
"Beast Art: Cage of the Skylark."
PING.
Nox slammed into an invisible barrier. It wasn't a wall; it was a cage made of compressed air currents. The harder Nox thrashed, the tighter the currents bound him, cutting into his smoky hide.
"A Void Variant," Yun observed, analyzing the struggling beast. "Impressive potential, but poorly raised. It lacks a Dao Heart. In the Middle Realm, we would use this creature as a mount for a Disciple, nothing more."
Aris narrowed his eyes underneath his mask. Nox was Level 48. He had eaten a Divine Beast. And this woman trapped him with a finger?
"Lin Chen," Aris ordered. "Flank."
The Shadow-Knight moved instantly. He utilized Shadow-Walk to appear directly behind Lady Yun, swinging the corrupted divine sword Solstice at her neck.
CLANG.
The blade stopped inches from her skin. It hit a layer of blue light that shimmered like fish scales.
"And a corrupted Hero," Yun sighed, shaking her head. "A Shadow Puppet. Efficient, but fragile."
She flicked her wrist.
A shockwave of blue Qi exploded from her body. It hit Lin Chen like a physical hammer, shattering his shadow-armor and sending him flying through the garden wall, burying him in the rubble of the outer palace.
She turned her gaze to Aris.
"Is that it? Your pet and your puppet?"
The System Failure
Aris stood his ground. He wasn't afraid. He was calculating.
She is Level 65, Aris thought. But her Qi density is three times higher than the Soul Warden. Why?
[System Analysis: Target utilizes 'Middle Realm Qi'.]
[Data Quality: Superior.]
[Note: Lower Realm Qi is 'Gaseous'. Middle Realm Qi is 'Liquid'.]
"I see," Aris murmured. "It's a hardware issue. My server is running on dial-up, and she's on fiber optic."
He raised his hand.
[Action: Root-Admin Severance.]
[Target: Lady Yun.]
[Command: Disconnect from World Tree.]
He tried to ban her. He tried to cut off her energy supply like he did with Lin Chen.
Error.
[System Notification: Target Not Found.]
[Target is not connected to 'Great Qin World Tree'.]
[Target is drawing energy from 'Internal Nascent Domain'.]
Aris's eyes widened slightly. His ultimate hack—the ability to turn off an enemy's power—failed.
Lady Yun laughed. It was a cruel, mocking sound.
"Trying to manipulate the ambient Qi?" she guessed, sensing the fluctuation. "Foolish child. A Nascent Soul of the Middle Realm generates its own energy. We do not borrow from the world. We are the world."
She raised her palm. The clouds above the capital began to swirl, forming a massive, ethereal claw made of blue energy.
"Beast Art: The Azure Claw."
The claw descended. It was the size of a building.
The Reality Check
Aris realized then that the tutorial was over.
He couldn't hack her because she wasn't part of his system. He couldn't overpower her because his stats were lower.
"If I can't delete you," Aris whispered, his violet eyes glowing with a dangerous light. "I'll just have to crash you."
He reached into his inventory.
He didn't pull out a weapon. He pulled out the Wings of the Moderator.
"Equip."
The wings of hard-light burst from his back. But instead of keeping them pure white, Aris flooded them with Abyssal Qi. The white light turned into a glitching, strobing violet-and-grey static.
[Hybrid Mode: Chaos-Order Fusion.]
Aris launched himself upward.
He didn't dodge the claw. He flew through it.
The Moderator Wings acted as a "law-breaker," destabilizing the structure of the Qi claw, while the Abyssal energy devoured the essence. Aris carved a hole through the attack, emerging unscathed on the other side.
Lady Yun's eyes widened for the first time. "That aura... that isn't cultivation. That is... Celestial Authority?"
Aris appeared in front of her.
"Reverse Refinement: Touch of the Underworld."
He didn't use Qi. He used the Key to the Underworld, channeling the raw entropy of death into his fist.
He punched her in the stomach.
It wasn't a martial arts strike. It was a conceptual attack. Death is the one universal constant that exists in every realm—Lower, Middle, or Upper.
BOOM.
Lady Yun coughed up blood—bright, glowing blue blood. She was launched backward, crashing into the white jade table and shattering it to dust.
She scrambled to her feet, clutching her stomach. Her perfect composure was gone.
"You..." she gasped, looking at the grey energy eating away at her dress. "You use the power of Entropy? That is forbidden by the Alliance!"
"I'm not in your Alliance," Aris said, landing softly.
He walked toward her.
"And you made a mistake, Lady Yun. You assumed that because I am in the 'Novice Village', I am a novice."
The Glimpse of the Infinite
Lady Yun wiped the blood from her lip. Her eyes shifted from arrogance to genuine wariness. She realized this boy wasn't a cultivator. He was an anomaly.
"You think defeating me means anything?" she spat. "I am merely a scout. A messenger!"
She stood up, her aura flaring, trying to suppress the necrotic damage.
"Do you have any idea how vast the cosmos is, Aris Thorne?"
She pointed at the sky.
"This world—the Qin Empire, the Iron-Thunder Empire, the Frost-Blood Kingdom—it is all just one Mortal Plane. We call it Sector 994."
Aris stopped walking. "Sector 994?"
"There are three thousand Mortal Sectors," Yun shouted, her voice trembling with the magnitude of the truth. "Above them are the Thirty-Three Middle Realms. And above those are the Nine Upper Heavens."
She laughed, a desperate, hysterical sound.
"You are a king of an anthill! In the Myriad Beasts Mountain, we have disciples younger than you who are Spirit Severing stage! We have Elders who can eat stars! If you kill me, you invite the wrath of a faction that owns entire solar systems!"
Aris stared at her.
The System Interface flickered in his vision.
[World Map Updated.]
[New Data Integrated.]
[Current Map Coverage: 0.0001%.]
Aris didn't feel fear. He felt... hunger.
He looked at the map in his mind. The Qin Empire, which had seemed so huge, shrank until it was a tiny dot in a sea of stars.
"Three thousand sectors," Aris whispered. "Thirty-Three Realms."
He looked back at Lady Yun.
"Thank you," Aris said sincerely.
"What?" Yun blinked, confused by his reaction.
"For telling me how much loot is out there."
The Capture
Aris vanished. Ghost-Step.
He reappeared behind her. Before she could react, he slapped a Suppression Talisman (crafted with Abyssal Ink) onto her back.
"Seal."
The talisman didn't just suppress her Qi; it injected a "System Loop" into her meridians, forcing her energy to cycle endlessly without releasing, paralyzing her.
Lady Yun stiffened and fell to the ground, immobilized.
"You... you maniac!" she screamed, her face pressed into the dirt. "Release me! My Soul Tablet will shatter if I die! The Mountain will know!"
"You aren't going to die," Aris said, crouching down beside her.
He grabbed her hair and lifted her head to look at him.
"You are my new Encyclopedia. You are going to tell me everything about these Middle Realms. The factions, the power levels, the resources, the trade routes."
Aris stood up. Nox limped over, shaking off the effects of the air cage. Lin Chen dragged himself out of the rubble, his armor cracked but his will unbroken.
"Take her to the West Pavilion," Aris ordered. "Put her in the Soul-Siphon Array. Keep her alive, but drain her Middle Realm Qi. I want to analyze it."
As his minions dragged the screaming Emissary away, Aris looked up at the bruised, violet sky.
He had conquered the Empire. He had thought he won the game.
But now he realized he had just finished the Tutorial. The real game—the game of stars and gods—hadn't even started.
[Abyssal Nexus: End of Chapter Status]
Host: Aris Thorne
Level: 57
Status: Humbled / Hungry.
[New Questline Unlocked: The Ascension Path]
* Objective 1: Secure the Four Divine Beasts (to stabilize the Qin Sector).
* Objective 2: Upgrade the World Tree to handle 'Middle Realm' data.
* Objective 3: Build a 'Void-Ship' capable of traversing the starry sky.
[World Knowledge]
* Current Location: Sector 994 (Lower Mortal Plane).
* Known Factions: Myriad Beasts Mountain (Middle Realm).
* Scale: The universe is massive. Aris is currently a Level 50 in a world where the level cap might be 1000.