Sevrin's soul was submerged in a boundless void, drifting aimlessly up and down.
He couldn't recall how long he had been floating in this endless realm of darkness.
He could only vaguely remember the last image he saw before falling into this place... a massive cargo truck barreling straight toward him.
"So..."
Sevrin murmured in a daze, "My life was ended by a car accident?"
At that thought, his notoriously fiery temper flared. Even with his consciousness clouded, he still cursed out in a desperate rage:
"Which son of a bitch drank too much dog piss and drove like he was blind? Don't let me turn into a ghost, or I'll definitely hunt you down and finish you..."
As Sevrin's indignant cursing grew more heated, an impatient voice suddenly drifted from the depths of the void:
"Zng, do you think this pathetic brat will survive?"
The voice sounded both incredibly distant and right next to him.
"Who's talking?! Pathetic brat... who are they calling that?"
Before he could think further, another raspy, aged voice echoed from afar:
"Patience, Butler. This beggar boy probably just fainted from a fright by some foul creature in the mountains. Once he drinks my decoction of soul-calming and heart-tonifying soup and sleeps through the night, he will surely wake up."
"Another voice. A beggar... are they talking about me?"
Floating in the vast void, Sevrin couldn't help but feel that these voices were referring to him.
He muttered confusedly, "What's going on? Am I not dead? How did I become a beggar?"
In his haze, a suspicion took root.
Had he... transmigrated?
A soul transmigration?
The voice from the void spoke again:
"As long as he wakes up. The Master still wants to see him."
As the sentence ended, all sound vanished.
Simultaneously, Sevrin's consciousness began to fade rapidly, falling into a death-like slumber moments later.
After a long time, a sudden warmth appeared, enveloping Sevrin's consciousness.
Then, following a wave of vibrations that surged from weak to intense, his hazy consciousness suddenly snapped into clarity.
The blurry void that had blanketed his vision in every direction shattered like dreamlike bubbles, vanishing into thin air.
In its place, a dim lamp, a bed, a door, a table, and a chair flickered into view within Sevrin's slowly opening, weary eyes.
The bed was beneath him; the table and chair sat by his bedside; the lamp rested on the table; and the door stood three paces beyond the foot of the bed.
Enclosing all of this were four drab, earthen walls, stained and peeling with age.
"I..."
Lying on the bed, Sevrin struggled to lift two skeletal hands that looked more like chicken claws. He stared at them, wide-eyed and dazed. "How did I... turn into such a scrawny dog? Did I... actually transmigrate? Is this one of those 'borrowing a corpse to return a soul' situations?"
In that moment, he finally accepted the reality that he had likely transmigrated.
He was so certain because, from childhood to adulthood, Sevrin had never been this thin or frail. Even if he only ate plain rice and drank boiled water, his body would usually pack on fat and muscle relentlessly.
Because of this, the tall, burly, and powerfully built Sevrin was always the one bullying others; no one ever had the chance to bully him.
Even as an adult, his profession was inextricably linked to "meat."
Specifically... he was a pork seller.
Indeed, before his transmigration, he was an authentic pork vendor at a wet market.
Just then, a mysterious, burning current suddenly exploded deep within Sevrin's soul.
BOOM!
Accompanied by a violent tremor that rippled through his entire body, an incredibly crude, illusory interface abruptly manifested before his eyes.
At the very top of the interface, several bold characters were inscribed:
[Study Hard, Progress Every Day]
Beneath those black characters were rows of extremely concise text:
[ Host: Sevrin
Level: None
Mastered Skills: None
Special Traits: None
Expert Shards: None]
"I get it!"
Lying on the bed, gasping for breath, Sevrin cracked a grin. "So this is the legendary [System]."
As an ordinary pork vendor, Sevrin wasn't exactly highly educated.
But regardless, having devoured over a hundred different web novels, he was well aware of the System, the standard-issue starter kit for any transmigrator.
Only... what exactly were the functions of this obscurely named [Study Hard, Progress Every Day] system?
"Level and skills, I generally get those. But what the hell are traits and shards?"
Just as Sevrin was pondering this, a stout little old man with snow-white hair and a matching beard suddenly pushed open the door to the mud-brick room and strolled over to the bedside.
As the old man approached, his aged eyes met Sevrin's curious gaze head-on.
"Oh? You're awake."
The old man cracked a grin. "Not bad, not bad. You've only been down half a night and your soul is already back in its shell, looking full of spirit. Seems my medicinal broth is as potent as ever. Hmm... I'll have to let the Butler know."
With that, he slowly ambled back toward the door.
Sevrin barely noticed the old man's departure.
The moment the stout elder had entered his field of vision, an illusory information interface had materialized within his consciousness:
[ Character Name: Unknown
Level: None
Mastered Skills: "Five Animal Yale"
Special Traits: None
Expert Shards: None ]
Curiously, when Sevrin's gaze lingered on the "Yale" skill within the old man's personal status box, it expanded into a large block of information:
「"Five Animal Yale": Total of three layers. Subject has mastered all three layers. Would you like to learn this technique, Yes / No? 」
Driven by curiosity, he chose to learn in a daze.
BUZZ!
In a flash, a massive surge of text-based information flooded Sevrin's conscious mind.
Miraculously, he understood the true essence of this foreign information instantly.
Essentially, with just a single glance at the old man, Sevrin had learned the other's cultivation technique without the slightest hitch.
It wasn't a crude, superficial understanding either; it was as if he had studied and contemplated it hundreds of times until it was completely etched into his very marrow.
As for the content of the technique, it summarized as taking the tiger, deer, bear, ape, and crane as teachers, imitating their movements.
Through year after year of diligent and tireless practice to nourish essence and gather Qi, one could eventually achieve abundant breath, sharp senses, robust internal organs, and longevity.
In short, this "Five Animal Yale" was a health-preservation technique.
Coincidentally, it was exactly what the severely weakened Sevrin needed most right now.
Once he had fully mastered the Yale, a slight change suddenly appeared on Sevrin's previously empty personal interface.
The change was subtle: the entry for "Five Animal Yale" had suddenly appeared in his skill slot.
Furthermore, as soon as the entry manifested, another prompt expanded within Sevrin's vision:
「 Would you like to promote "Five Animal Yale" from Layer 0 to Layer 3, Yes / No? 」
"Huh?!"
Sevrin's brow twitched. "I can do that too?"
With a quick thought, he experimentally selected [ Yes ].
BUZZ!
Instantly, the nearly extinguished essence within Sevrin's body surged out of thin air, boiling over as it expanded with violent force, eventually reaching a level far beyond that of an average person.
Along with it, his fading vitality and frail physique were transformed in a flash. From his initial state of withered exhaustion, he surged into a state of glowing health without any transition period at all.
It could be said that while Sevrin hadn't gained much in terms of raw combat power, his physiological lifespan and internal organ vitality now completely outclassed his previous life. Back then, he had looked burly and strong, but in reality, he had always been in a state of "sub-health" due to frequent late nights and poor eating habits.
"Phew..."
Exhaling a long breath of turbid, foul air, Sevrin immediately sat up from the tattered bed.
He looked down, inspecting his ragged clothes and his small, scrawny frame, then shook his head with a sigh.
"Talk about a Hell-mode start."
Transmigrating into a penniless, powerless beggar who couldn't even solve the basic problem of food was truly rotten luck. It was fortunate that after crossing over, he had inexplicably gained a seemingly powerful System to back him up; otherwise, he really wouldn't know how he'd survive the road ahead.
"From the looks of it, this system seems to allow me to rapidly learn other people's techniques. And once I've learned them, I don't need any training at all to hit max level. Tsk, tsk, tsk."
Sevrin rested his hands behind his head and leaned back against the bedframe, a relaxed smile on his face. "If this ability really has no limits, wouldn't that make me completely invincible?"
While it was impossible to determine if the System's forced learning and leveling abilities had limits, that didn't stop him from dreaming about the future.
As the saying goes: if you have money, feast; if you don't, drink cold water.
A day passes whether you're miserable or happy, so why not choose to be happy? Sevrin was exactly that kind of person, someone who could find entertainment anywhere, under any circumstances.
Thus, he didn't waste a single brain cell wondering about the System's origins or its hidden agenda. If he had that kind of free time, he'd much rather spend it looking for a bit of fun.
THUD... THUD... THUD...
Just then, the faint sound of approaching footsteps echoed from outside.
Sevrin glanced up and saw the stout old man returning. Behind him followed an ugly middle-aged man dressed in ash-blue robes.
"Oh? This pathetic brat can already sit up on his own. Looks pretty spirited, too," the robed man said with a laugh to the old man. "Zng, your medicine is formidable! One dose and the boy is thoroughly cured."
Zng himself found it strange.
He knew perfectly well he'd only poured a bowl of calming broth down the beggar's throat and hadn't even fed him a few spoonfuls of porridge. How could the boy sit up so quickly? Where did his strength come from?
But like the old fox he was, he simply stroked his short beard and improvised:
"Haha, Butler, there is much you don't know. To ensure this beggar recovered quickly, I intentionally added several extra herbs. Looking at him now, the medicinal effect seems quite spot on."
"Impressive," the middle-aged man praised, giving a thumbs up. "Don't worry, Zng, I'll put in a good word for you with the Master."
"Haha, my thanks to the Butler," Zng replied. "If there's nothing else, Butler, I shall..."
"Go on, go on," the Butler waved him off. "Go to the accounting office and collect your payment."
Zng said no more, gave a smiling cupped-hand salute, and turned to leave.
Once Zng was gone, the Butler tucked his hands behind his back and looked at Sevrin, who had been quietly observing him. He spoke with cold indifference:
"Hey, brat. What's your name?"
"Sevrin."
The Butler nodded, then beckoned with his hand. "Come, follow me. My Master wishes to see you."
With that, he walked out the door without looking back.
Sevrin didn't hesitate. He swung his legs off the bed, slipped into his tattered shoes, and followed the man out of the mud-brick room.
Stepping outside, he discovered that the small earthen hut was surrounded on all sides by a derelict, weed-choked garden.
A cool breeze brushed past, and the night was hazy. Under the thin, veil-like moonlight and the sudden cawing of a crow from somewhere in the shadows, Sevrin felt the place had a distinctly eerie, ghostly atmosphere.
"What are you dazing off for? Hurry up!"
The shout came from a distance.
Sevrin looked up and saw the Butler standing about thirty meters away, surrounded by over a dozen burly men in uniform holding clubs. A few among them even gripped dark, heavy blunderbusses.
Every single one of these men, evidently thugs or estate guards, had their eyes locked on Sevrin, as if fearing he might try to bolt.
Seeing this, Sevrin understood immediately.
Whatever mysterious "Master" had saved him certainly hadn't done so out of the goodness of his heart. It was highly likely he had some sinister, hidden agenda. Otherwise, why would his subordinates maintain such a hostile stance?
But right now, he was under their roof and had no choice but to play along.
The Butler and these thugs had absolutely no techniques in their skill slots. He was like a clever cook with no rice, there was no way to boost his strength further at the moment. He could only take it one step at a time.
With a silent, wry smile, Sevrin walked toward the Butler.
Seeing how cooperative he was, the Butler gave a satisfied nod and turned to lead the way again.
Following behind the group, Sevrin trekked through the abandoned garden, passed rows of black-tiled buildings and deep green pavilions, and finally entered a sprawling mansion.
"Master, the person is here."
Following the Butler's respectful announcement, Sevrin strolled into a courtyard deep within the estate.
The moment he entered the courtyard, his eyes were drawn instinctively to its center.
There sat an oversized armchair, and seated firmly within it was a tall, powerfully built old man with a grizzled beard, clad in ink-black ancient robes.
Behind the old man stood an eerie, massive wooden stake, stained with mottled patches of blood.
In a fleeting trance, Sevrin thought he saw several vengeful wraiths circling that blood-stained stake, wailing in silent agony.
HISS!
Sevrin was internally stunned. "This old man is no ordinary character."
Upon seeing him, Sevrin had the unsettling sensation that the man... wasn't entirely human. He felt like a tiger that had achieved spiritual sapience, a vicious tiger-demon lurking in that armchair, licking its claws and fangs, coiled and ready to pounce on anything within the courtyard at any moment.
Furthermore, Sevrin noticed that those wraiths didn't dare approach the old man, even though he was inches away; they only dared to hover around the bloody stake.
"Is it an illusion?"
Sevrin shook his head and blinked. When he looked again, the blurry specters he had glimpsed were gone. Only the robust old man, who resembled a fierce tiger more than a human, remained seated motionless in his chair.
So... this imposing old man must be the "Master" the Butler had mentioned.
"I am Geo Huin."
After a brief introduction, the brawny elder fixed his gaze on Sevrin, who stood quietly at the courtyard entrance. He spoke slowly: "Little friend, do you know... why I chose to save your life?"
Sevrin remained silent, offering no answer to Huin's question.
In truth, he hadn't even processed what the man said. Sevrin's attention was currently entirely captivated by Geo Huin's personal interface:
[ Character Name: Geo Huin
Level: Mainstream Martial Arts → Vitality Circulation
Mastered Skills: "Tiger Claw Blade-Fist"
Special Traits: [Level 1 Robust Physique][Level 1 Sharp Nails]
Expert Shards: None ]
Level, skills, and traits, Huin actually possessed all three.
For Sevrin, this was nothing short of an unexpected windfall. Feeling extremely insecure and worrying about his lack of self-defense capabilities, Huin had essentially delivered himself right to his doorstep.
It was perfect.
Secretly delighted, Sevrin discreetly shifted his gaze toward the "Tiger Claw Blade-Fist" in Huin's skill slot.
Just like before, as he focused on the entry, it immediately expanded into a flow of information:
「"Tiger Claw Blade-Fist" consists of six layers. Subject has mastered all six layers. Would you like to learn this technique, Yes / No? 」
Without a moment's hesitation, Sevrin chose [ Yes ].
Instantly, a flood of information, far more massive and complex than that of the "Five Animal Yale", erupted deep within his mind. In that heartbeat, Sevrin thoroughly grasped every mystery and essence of the technique, becoming as familiar with it as if he had practiced it thousands of times.
Judging by the core principles of this technique, it was entirely different from the gentle, mild nature of the Five Animal Yale.
Every bit of its content was designed for the most effective way to kill, not for health or longevity.
The former focused on nourishing Qi and essence to dig out potential and preserve life; the latter focused on refining essence to temper the body, triggering an invisible "Force" that could be both rigid and supple.
According to the records of "Tiger Claw Blade-Fist", reaching the second layer was enough to trigger this so-called "Internal Force."
Once this invisible, intangible, and mysterious Internal Force was manifested, the practitioner would step into the first realm of the Mainstream Martial Arts system, [Force Burst].
Based on the information within the technique, an individual at this stage could easily suppress ten ordinary men unskilled in martial arts through raw Internal Force alone, without needing any complex maneuvers.
This level of combat power was already equivalent to the elite fighters and martial artists from Sevrin's previous life.
But according to the data Sevrin received, this was merely the first step of the Mainstream Martial Arts system.
Furthermore, if one cultivated the "Tiger Claw Blade-Fist" to the fourth layer, they could enter the second realm of the system, [Force Circulation].
A practitioner at this realm could transform Force into Qi, making it flow like thick, surging mercury throughout the interior and exterior of the entire body. Through specific breathing and vibration techniques, they could continuously temper and strengthen their skin, muscles, tendons, and bones. This allowed their physical strength to grow incessantly, eventually reaching a staggering three or four hundred kilograms.
Upon mastering the final two layers of the "Tiger Claw Blade-Fist", one would reach the third realm of the system, [Vitality Circulation].
Those who enter this realm can push the mysterious Force-Qi, which flows through their tendons, bones, skin, and muscles, along with the invisible Force that erupts outward from the physique, to an even higher level.
Furthermore, a martial artist at this stage can integrate the relationship between their Qi, Force, and Body, organizing them into a perfect Vitality Circulation system. This triggers a massive, frantic output of physical strength, allowing them to wield several thousand kilograms of immense power.
Such strength can easily crush a human skull, rip out internal organs, or even tear a spine straight out of a body.
Terrifying... simply demonic.
While possessing such titanic strength, the practitioner's physique also reaches a level of robustness akin to ancient hardwood and a flexibility comparable to aged rubber.
Consequently, for a third-realm martial artist, as long as they are not surrounded by a forest of blades or a volley of arrows, no amount of ordinary men attacking together could harm them in the slightest.
And the Huin currently facing Sevrin happened to be a fearsome existence at exactly this level.
Of course, relying on the System's seemingly limitless learning and leveling abilities, Sevrin felt no fear toward him. If Sevrin wished, he could ascend to the exact same level of strength in an instant.
But...
Sevrin discreetly glanced at the dozen or so burly men flanking Huin, standing silently with their blunderbusses, and cursed inwardly:
"They even have proper firearms. This world... is going to be a headache."
Unlike the relatively peaceful "Five Animal Yale".
Sevrin suspected that with a technique like "Tiger Claw Blade-Fist", which was clearly several levels higher in power, the commotion caused by a breakthrough would definitely not be small.
If he drew Huin's attention and triggered the rifle squad to open fire on him, wouldn't it be game over?
"From the looks of it..."
Sevrin pondered silently, "I can only stay my hand for now."
Just then, a laugh laced with killing intent rang out, cutting through his thoughts.
"HAHAHA! What is this? Why are you silent?"
Huin said with a beaming smile, "Are you a mute?"
"Master."
Sevrin collected his emotions and spoke calmly, "I suspect you saved my life because you need me to do something for you."
"Correct."
Huin stroked his beard and spoke unhurriedly, "I have a grandson, nineteen years old. Since birth, he has been afflicted with a severe malady. This ailment cannot be cured, only mitigated. Every six months, we must find someone with a specific destiny to assist in his treatment; only then can his life be forcibly extended."
"This person with a specific destiny you're talking about."
Sevrin pointed a finger at himself, "Is it me?"
"Mhm."
Huin looked Sevrin up and down, nodding slightly. "It is you."
"Then how is he treated?" Sevrin spread his hands. "I haven't studied any medical arts."
"HAHAHA! Rest assured."
Huin threw his head back and laughed. "The method of treatment is extremely simple. At the crack of dawn when the Great Sun rises in the east, while your consciousness is clear and your soul is at its peak activity, we take a large serving of your heart's hot blood for my grandson to drink. That will complete the treatment."
"Ah..."
Sevrin showed no fear at all. Instead, he let out a mocking laugh. "So, your grandson has been drinking human blood for nineteen years? He's drunk more than thirty people to death?"
"That's about right. Enough, no more idle chatter."
Huin said calmly, "The sun will rise in two hours. Within these two hours, no matter what you want to eat, drink, or play with, even if you want a bed of gold and silver, fine wine to bathe in, or delicacies to burn for fuel, I can satisfy you. I will let you walk your final path well. So... do you have any requests?"
However, facing Huin's inquiry, Sevrin calmly shook his head:
"I need none of those. I only want to know one thing."
"Oh..."
Huin's tiger-like brows twitched. "Speak then. What is it?"
"I only want to know..."
Sevrin said in a deep voice, "In what manner do you intend to take my heart's blood?"
"Interesting."
Huin shook his head and chuckled. "Someone like you, so concerned with the details of your own death, is a first for this old man. Fine, good! I shall satisfy you."
Stopping his laughter, his voice turned heavy and somber:
"In two hours, you will be bound with ropes to that wooden stake, your clothes pulled back to reveal your chest. At that time, my grandson will personally step forward and drive a hollow bronze tube into your heart to suck out the circulating blood within."