The Origins Dungeon Hall stood quietly at the neglected edge of the West District, a skeletal, dilapidated building that seemed entirely indifferent to the sprawling, vibrant empire beyond its threshold. It had no grand, rune-stitched banners snapping in the wind, no armored guards standing at attention, and no radiating spiritual aura to signal its importance.
Yet, inside its warped wooden walls,a youth was beginning to lose his mind.
"AGAIN!"
BANG!
Two glowing spiritual stones slammed onto the wooden counter with reckless, trembling force.
Min Luan stood there, his chest heaving as if he'd just sprinted from one end of the Chrysoprase Empire to the other. His usually immaculate hair was a matted bird's nest, his expensive green merchant robes were stained with dried sweat and grime, and his eyes—once dull and comfortably complacent—now burned with a wild, jagged, fanatical light.
"I'm going back!" he barked, his voice cracking from overuse. "This time… this time I kill two of them!"
Yuan Bi didn't even look up from the blank ledger he was lazily pretending to read. "You said that the last three times, Min Luan."
"This time is different! My footwork is faster! The enlightenment from the last death finally clicked in my meridians!"
"It's always different," Yuan Bi replied flatly, casually waving his frayed paper fan. "The result, however, remains remarkably consistent. You enter, your Internal Force is sealed, you get sloppy, you scream, and you die."
Min Luan froze. A visceral flash of phantom agony crossed his pale face as he remembered the sensation of his throat being crushed by rotting teeth just moments ago. He swallowed hard, his hands shaking, but the intoxicating high of genuine, passive battlefield experience permanently etching itself into his muscles was a drug he couldn't walk away from.
He shoved the spiritual stones closer to Yuan Bi. "Just take the damn money."
With a practiced, elegant motion, the stones vanished into Yuan Bi's spatial ring. Min Luan didn't waste a single second. He pivoted, threw his heavy frame back into the black obsidian seat, and slammed the pulsing silver helm over his head. The absolute stillness of the System's sensory deprivation claimed him instantly.
Yuan Bi leaned back, watching the rhythmic pulse of the headgear. "So fast," he murmured to the empty room. There was no hesitation anymore. No fear. Only the raw, gnawing desire to conquer the nightmare and seize the heavens.
Outside the Shop
Footsteps on the dusty cobblestones began to slow. The small, hesitant handful of onlookers from earlier had quietly swelled into a tightly packed crowd. They huddled near the entrance, peering through the grime-streaked windows and the open double doors.
"What's the story here?" a newly arrived wandering swordsman asked, adjusting the bamboo hat on his head. "I've seen that fat merchant's son die and wake up four times today."
"At least four," another cultivator whispered back, his eyes wide. "Five for the daily registration, and six for the maximum three hours... That's eleven spiritual stones in a single morning. The absolute daily limit. Is he secretly emptying his family's treasury, or has he gone stark raving mad?"
An old man nearby, leaning on a wooden staff, stroked his silver beard, his sharp eyes narrowing as he observed Min Luan's slumped, motionless body. "Whichever it is, look at his aura when he wakes up. That isn't the look of a man being scammed. Every time that boy opens his eyes, his killing intent is a fraction sharper. He's found something in there worth losing his soul over."
The whispers intensified, buzzing like a hive of agitated hornets. Hidden inheritance. A pocket dimension. An ancient training ground. In Pyradine City, the promise of martial power was a roaring flame, and the citizens were all desperate moths.
Suddenly, the crowd at the door violently parted, shoved aside by thick, muscular arms.
"Out of the way, trash!" a harsh voice barked.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop as two figures entered the shop. Leading the way was a young man in vibrant, jade-green silk robes, intricately embroidered with silver clouds. A high-grade spiritual sword hung at his hip. His posture was as straight and sharp as a spear, and arrogance radiated from him like heat from a forge. Behind him followed a burly, scarred guard at the Foundation Establishment realm, silent and stone-faced.
The crowd outside leaned in, holding their breath. They recognized the robes.
"You," the young man said, his voice dripping with cold, aristocratic condescension as he stared at Yuan Bi. "Are you the owner of this shop?"
Yuan Bi remained seated, his fan moving in a slow, rhythmic arc. "I am."
The young man's eyes flared with immediate offense. "You don't stand to greet me Wu Feng, heir of the Wu Clan?"
Yuan Bi finally looked at him, his dark gaze infuriatingly calm. "Does the Wu Clan pay extra spiritual stones for standing? If not, my legs prefer the chair."
A collective gasp echoed from the doorway. The Wu Clan was a prestigious martial family; offending their heir in the West District was tantamount to begging for broken kneecaps.
A flicker of genuine, murderous rage crossed young master Wu Feng's face. His hand twitched toward the hilt of his sword. "You have some nerve, crippled shopkeeper." He glanced around the spartan room, his lip curling in disgust at the strange black seats and the motionless, sweating form of Min Luan. "What kind of cheap illusion trick is this? Rumors say you're handing out martial enlightenment. Hand over the artifact powering this array, and I might leave you with your life."
Yuan Bi didn't panic. He didn't even blink. This a good chance to display the reward for leveling up the shop to level 2, thanks for Min luan and those few fellows efforts. He simply pointed a lazy finger toward the empty air directly above Min Luan's head.
"Watch."
[System Acknowledgment: Shop Level 2 Benefit Unlocked.]
[Activating: Spectator Array.]
A faint distortion appeared in the space above the sleeper. Ambient Qi in the room rapidly condensed, weaving together to form a shimmering, translucent projection screen. It wasn't a perfect, crystal-clear image, but the gritty fragments were more than enough.
The projection displayed the interior of a massive, decaying martial arts pavilion. Dark, blood-stained stone floors. Rotting timber pillars. And a shadow moving with terrifying, predatory grace.
The crowd outside gasped in unison, pressing tightly against the doorframe as they glimpsed Min Luan's consciousness. The fat merchant was frantically parrying the razor-sharp claws of an Undead Novice Disciple, his face twisted in a mask of absolute, desperate survival. They watched in real-time as Min Luan executed a flawless basic kick—a technique that looked entirely unnatural on his unconditioned body—shattering the corpse's knee.
Wu Feng's arrogance faltered, his eyes widening as he stared at the screen. He could feel the faint echoes of the killing intent radiating from the projection. "What... what is that?"
"That's the Undead hall he's exploring in," Yuan Bi said, his voice smooth and detached. "Internal Force is sealed upon entry. You fight purely with your physical body and technique. Real pain. Real growth. Temporary death. Surviving or dying forces passive battlefield experience directly into your muscles."
"Impossible," the young master scoffed, though his eyes never left the screen. "No array can simulate true death without shattering the soul."
Yuan Bi simply tapped his wooden table. "System. Force Exit."
FLASH.
The projection vanished into a burst of harmless Qi.
Min Luan shot upright in his obsidian seat, a violent, guttural gasp tearing from his lungs. He didn't just wake up; he convulsed. He clawed frantically at his neck, coughing, his eyes unfocused and wide with absolute terror.
The crowd outside recoiled, several men drawing their weapons. "He's out!" someone shrieked. "Did something follow him!?"
Min Luan ignored them all. He sat in the chair, shivering violently, before spinning on Yuan Bi with furious, bloodshot eyes. "WHY?! I HAD HIM! I BROKE HIS KNEE! WHY DID YOU PULL ME OUT?!"
Yuan Bi casually nodded toward the jade-robed young master. "Demonstration for the guest."
Min Luan's rage hit a brick wall. He looked at the Wu family heir, his merchant instincts briefly overriding his adrenaline, then looked back to Yuan Bi. "…I didn't die. So that run doesn't count against my time limit. Let me go back in."
"Pay the fee again," Yuan Bi said, extending a hand. "Interruptions are part of the mortal experience."
"You're a heartless vulture, Yuan Bi!" Min Luan cursed, though he immediately reached for his pouch, his fingers trembling as he counted out two more stones for his final hour.
The atmosphere in the shop shifted from cautious curiosity to a blinding fever pitch.
Wu Feng watched Min Luan willingly pay to be tortured again. The young master's pride, highly volatile and easily threatened, was ignited. If a useless, soft-bellied merchant's son could survive this and glean enlightenment, surely a recognized genius of the Wu family would conquer the entire dungeon in a single sitting.
"Guard," the young master snapped, holding out his hand. "Pay him."
The burly guard stepped forward, slamming eleven high-quality spiritual stones onto the counter—the full price for the daily registration and the maximum three hours.
Moments later, Wu Feng had shoved a rogue cultivator out of the way and taken the second obsidian chair. The helm lowered over his head. His body went entirely slack as he vanished into the stillness of the dungeon.
"Spectator Array," Yuan Bi commanded softly.
The shimmering screen reappeared, this time floating above the young master. The crowd outside practically climbed over one another to watch.
They saw the young master arrive in the Undead Hall. They saw him stand confident, an arrogant smirk on his face as the freezing wind whipped around him. Then, they watched the realization hit him. They saw his confident expression shatter into sheer panic as he realized his vast reserves of Internal Force were completely sealed. He couldn't enhance his speed. He couldn't project sword aura. He was just a boy with a sharp piece of metal.
An Undead Disciple dropped from the rotting rafters.
The crowd watched Wu Feng sprint. They watched him swing his sword wildly, his foundational techniques revealed to be incredibly sloppy without the crutch of overwhelming Qi to fix his mistakes.
They saw the scream before they heard it.
"AAAAAAHHHH!"
Wu Feng exploded out of the obsidian seat, tearing the helm off and scrambling backward on the floor like a frightened crab. His expensive jade robes tangled in his legs. "It tried to eat me! The damn thing bit my face!"
Cruel, unrelenting laughter erupted from the street.
"Look at the 'Young Master'!" a mercenary howled.
"Screamed louder than a toddler left in a dark cellar!"
"His sword forms are garbage! My grandmother swings a broom with better footwork!"
Wu Feng's face burned a deep, shamed scarlet. He looked at the laughing crowd, his hand trembling on the hilt of his real sword. He looked ready to order his guard to slaughter them all.
But then, something strange happened.
Wu Feng stopped. His breathing slowed. He looked down at his dominant hand. In his mind, he replayed the sloppy sword swing that had gotten him killed. He suddenly realized why it was sloppy. The extreme life-and-death pressure of the Undead Hall had forcefully highlighted the microscopic flaws in his wrist alignment. The enlightenment was already blooming in his mind. If he swung his sword right now, it would be flawless.
He didn't leave. He stood up, dusted off his expensive robes, and looked at the black seat with a mixture of absolute terror and burning obsession.
He sat back down. He went back. Again. And again.
Hours passed. The sun began to dip, casting long, bloody shadows across the West District.
Wu Feng emerged for the final time. He was no longer the pristine, arrogant aristocrat. He looked like a battered war veteran. His breath came in ragged, hyperventilating sobs, his eyes completely bloodshot, his hands shaking so hard they rattled against the armrests.
But his aura was terrifyingly sharp.
"Again," Wu Feng rasped, reaching for his pouch.
"No," Yuan Bi said flatly, closing his ledger.
"I'll pay fifty stones! A hundred! Let me stay longer! I almost killed the second one!"
"No."
"I'll give you whatever you want! Do you know who I am?!"
The crowd gasped. A hundred spiritual stones for a single extra hour? That was pure, unadulterated madness.
Yuan Bi didn't even blink. He met the young master's furious gaze with the cold, immovable presence of a mountain. "The rules are written on the board. Three hours maximum per participant. Eleven stones per day. The mind can only endure so much simulated death before the soul fractures. No entry for you until tomorrow. Now, leave."
Wu Feng stood there, his face twisted in a snarl. He looked as if he might draw his sword and strike the shopkeeper down. But the aura in the shop—the subtle, crushing, absolute weight of the System's 'Violators will be suppressed' warning—held his hand firmly in check. He could feel it pressing against his spine.
He turned and walked out, shoving through the crowd, but his expression said what everyone already knew.
He would be back at sunrise.
As Wu Feng departed, the crowd surged forward, a tidal wave of desperate martial artists clamoring for their turn, shoving spiritual stones into the air.
"Me next! I have the eleven stones!"
"Fifty stones! Let me skip the line!"
Yuan Bi raised a single hand.
"Line up. Single file. Order, or permanent bans for everyone involved. Choose."
The chaos vanished instantly. Cutthroat cultivators who would normally kill each other in the street over a low-grade spirit herb were suddenly standing in a neat, dead-silent, polite row.
Min Luan, nursing a phantom headache at the counter, leaned over. "…You're going to be the richest man in the empire, Yuan Bi."
Yuan Bi stood up, stretching his limbs, feeling the thick, potent rush of Origin Internal Force coursing through his rebuilt meridians. "No. I'm going to be busy."
He ushered the next customer into a seat. Then, he walked to the fourth obsidian chair—the one hidden slightly in the shadows, away from the others. He sat down and lowered the helm over his own head.
Inside the Dungeon
Darkness. Then, the smell of copper, ancient dust, and rot.
Yuan Bi stood in the center of the Undead Hall. The freezing wind howled through the shattered roof.
Unlike the customers, Yuan Bi wasn't here for a simulation. He was the Host. As he breathed in the stagnant air, he felt the roaring, torrential river of his fully restored Internal Force responding to his will. His power wasn't sealed.
From the shadows, a corpse lumbered toward him, its jaw hanging by a thread of desiccated skin.
Yuan Bi didn't flinch. He didn't draw a weapon. He moved with a terrifying, surgical precision. He stepped inside the creature's guard, his movement a blur of perfectly executed martial footwork.
One strike—his index and middle finger extended like a spear, coated in a razor-thin layer of condensed Qi—drove straight through the creature's orbital socket and out the back of its skull.
The corpse collapsed, instantly lifeless.
A notification chimed in his mind, and a faint, clean warmth flowed into his meridians, converting the kill directly into pure, refined power. Yuan Bi narrowed his eyes, feeling the gears of his own cultivation grind forward. "So this is how it feels on the inside."
He looked past the shattered weapon racks, into the deeper, impenetrable shadows of the pavilion's inner sanctum.
Something else was moving in there.
It wasn't a novice. It was something faster. Something that didn't drag its feet, carrying the distinct, heavy pressure of a martial arts master who refused to stay dead. It was watching him.
Yuan Bi smiled faintly, his dark eyes reflecting the pale moonlight filtering through the roof.
"Good," Yuan Bi whispered, his Qi flaring around his fists like pale fire. "Let's see what else my shop is hiding."