Volume 1: Wind Rises from Song Mountain
At high noon, sunlight filtered through the branches and leaves, casting its rays upon a smooth, gray stone nestled at the base of a tree trunk.
"Ah, the rain has finally stopped."
The warmth of the sun awakened the slumbering Chen Yang.
"I slept for... hmm, five days this time."
Whenever it rained, Chen Yang would fall into a deep slumber. He disliked the damp scent of rainy days.
The rain and mist would make the otherwise clear Spiritual Qi feel heavy and humid.
Chen Yang looked around at the unchanging scenery.
"Come to think of it, this is my twentieth year in this world."
In his previous life, after enduring nearly half a year of relentless, high-intensity work, Chen Yang finally found release on one exhausting night.
When he woke up, he was already lying here.
But his identity as a transmigrator was bizarre to an absurd degree.
He was neither human nor beast. He was a stone.
Twenty years ago, nourished by Spiritual Qi, this stone unexpectedly gained sentience. It was at that exact moment that Chen Yang's consciousness took up residence inside it.
Like all transmigrators, Chen Yang was initially thrilled.
Because of the presence of Spiritual Qi, he knew that Cultivation was possible in this world.
Moreover, as a transmigrator, he figured he would naturally have some sort of golden finger.
So for the first few days, Chen Yang constantly searched for where his cheat might be hidden.
A status panel? No.
A system buddy? None appeared.
An ancient emperor's primordial soul attached to him? Even less likely.
As the days passed, Chen Yang finally came to a conclusion.
He probably didn't have a cheat at all.
He was just a lucky stone that had gained sentience.
Aside from breathing in and out Spiritual Qi, he couldn't do a single thing.
He couldn't even manage the most basic movements. He could only lie here quietly.
After accepting reality, Chen Yang wasn't overly frustrated or bitter.
On the contrary, he felt this new identity was quite nice. It suited him perfectly.
Thinking back to his previous life-the endless overtime, his manager's manipulation and empty promises, the crushing weight of loans, and the unsolicited expectations from relatives and friends.
That kind of life had left him suffocating, to the point where he had once contemplated ending it all.
Now that he was a stone, he no longer had to worry about that mess.
He only needed to absorb Spiritual Qi every day and sleep when he was tired.
It was simple, comfortable, and beautiful.
So, in a way, becoming a stone that did nothing but lie flat perfectly aligned with Chen Yang's ideal state of being.
It didn't take him long to fully embrace his new identity.
And just like that, he lay there for twenty years.
At first, he could only stay awake for less than two hours a day. Once his time was up, drowsiness would pull him into a deep sleep.
Later, through the steady accumulation of absorbing Spiritual Qi over the years, his waking hours gradually increased.
Now, he could stay awake for over ten days straight while maintaining a clear consciousness.
Over the course of twenty years, he had lost count of how many times he had watched Demon Beasts devouring each other, spirit birds hunting their prey, and ghosts consuming one another.
In the past, the Chen Yang who was accustomed to a harmonious society would have definitely found the laws of survival in this world too cruel.
But now, after the baptism of time, Chen Yang felt not a single ripple in his heart when watching these slaughters.
"That is just the way of the world."
"If you don't eat, you starve to death."
"If you don't eat them, they will eat you."
The weak are prey to the strong. This was the survival law of this world.
Everything he saw was merely the living beings adapting to the natural order of heaven and earth. There was nothing to be surprised about.
The sunlight dried the water stains on Chen Yang's body. Once the lingering moisture dissipated, he began to gather and absorb Spiritual Qi.
The scattered Spiritual Qi drifting in the surroundings was drawn in, congregating toward Chen Yang's position.
As a sentient stone, Chen Yang currently possessed two abilities.
The first was breathing in the Spiritual Qi of heaven and earth.
He knew how to do this the moment he arrived in this world, just as a human is naturally born knowing how to breathe.
After five continuous years of breathing, Chen Yang became able to look inward at himself.
He saw a space wrapped in a thin white membrane in the central region of his body.
The ambient Spiritual Qi he absorbed was gradually converted there into spiritual power he could use.
Back then, the stored spiritual power only filled about one-third of the entire space.
After another ten years of accumulation, the small space for storing spiritual power was filled.
The very moment it filled up, Chen Yang fell into a deep sleep.
Ten days later, Chen Yang woke up again, distinctly feeling the changes within himself.
First, his internal spiritual storage space had expanded to more than twice its original size.
Second, his consciousness had grown more solid. He could perceive things from farther away, and more importantly, he could use it to command the spiritual power inside his body!
He realized he had accomplished a realm breakthrough.
Chen Yang immediately began to experiment. He soon discovered that as long as he channeled his internal spiritual power, he could draw the surrounding Spiritual Qi of heaven and earth toward him.
The concentration of the gathered Spiritual Qi would become much denser-roughly three times its original level.
This was his second ability: Qi Gathering.
Breathing in such an environment drastically improved his efficiency in converting spiritual power.
The awakening of his Qi Gathering ability brought changes to Chen Yang's quiet life of lying flat.
Due to the higher concentration of Spiritual Qi, the vegetation in the area surrounding Chen Yang was deeply nourished, growing wildly as if injected with hormones.
Aside from these ordinary plants, the dense Spiritual Qi also gave birth to a tiny spiritual plant.
It was an emerald-green four-leaf herb, growing just a palm's width away from Chen Yang.
At first, Chen Yang didn't notice anything special about it. That was until one morning, when the spiritual plant secreted a drop of milky-white Dewdrop Spirit Liquid from the center of its four small leaves.
Chen Yang sensed an extremely pure energy within this Dewdrop Spirit Liquid.
When the Dewdrop Spirit Liquid appeared, its weight pressed down on the tiny spiritual plant, causing it to lean exactly toward Chen Yang. The drop slid down the leaf and landed right on him.
Chen Yang drew it into his body and spent five days digesting it. The result was a pleasant surprise.
The spiritual power generated by this single drop of spirit liquid was equivalent to two full months of his normal breathing.
"Wow, if I could get a drop of this every day, my spiritual power would rise like a rocket!" Chen Yang thought.
Unfortunately, the production of this spirit liquid had a cycle-roughly one drop every three months.
But Chen Yang didn't try to force it.
He maintained his lying flat mentality: if there was some, he'd use it; if not, he would just absorb Spiritual Qi slowly.
The peaceful days ticked by. Up to now, with the help of the Dewdrop Spirit Liquid, Chen Yang had filled more than half of his spiritual power space.
The only problem that had troubled Chen Yang over these twenty years was that while he had seen all sorts of novel living beings, he had never once seen a human.
Judging by his environment-a woodland backed by endless mountain ranges-Chen Yang speculated that he might have been born in some remote, uninhabited land.
However, the Demon Beasts and ghosts here didn't seem particularly strong. None of them knew any techniques, relying purely on physical brawls when they fought. This didn't seem like the depths of the legendary Hundred Thousand Mountains either.
He even began to wonder if he had been born into a world without humans at all.
Unable to figure out an answer, Chen Yang eventually gave up thinking about it, choosing not to burden himself with unnecessary worries.60Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS7ciIkuEx2
and then Add to home screen.