The night was ink-black, scattered with stars.
Inside Gu Chengming's room, however, the lamps blazed bright.
On the table sat an exquisite jade vial, its smooth surface catching the candlelight in warm, shifting gleams.
He pulled the stopper free. Tiny motes of golden light drifted out.
This was the Spiritlink Bone-Tempering Dew — a body-cultivation elixir of elder-grade quality.
If this stuff ever hit the open markets outside, rogue cultivators would be beating each other's brains in just to get their hands on it.
Gu Chengming drew a slow, steadying breath and composed himself.
He bathed, changed into clean robes, lit incense, and washed his hands. As a modern soul, he didn't put much stock in such ceremonial fuss — but this was, after all, his attempt to finally break through the entry barrier of the Hundred Bones Resonance, which had been tormenting him for ages. A little ritual felt warranted.
Once everything was in order, Gu Chengming carefully poured out the already-diluted spirit liquid from the jade vial.
The liquid was a strange pale gold, thick and viscous as honey.
The moment the first drop touched his skin, Gu Chengming couldn't suppress a shudder.
Cold.
A bone-piercing, soul-permeating cold — like someone had shoved a fistful of crushed ice down the back of his neck on a sweltering summer day.
But an instant later, that icy chill detonated into a raging wildfire.
"Hssss——"
Gu Chengming sucked in a sharp breath. Wasting no time, he slathered the spirit liquid frantically across his entire body with both hands, paying special attention to his spine. As the liquid seeped in, he felt as though his skin were being pierced by countless tiny needles.
Well — what else would you expect from an elder-grade elixir?
Gu Chengming ground his teeth and forced himself through the discomfort, settling into the cultivation stance for the Hundred Bones Resonance.
He stood facing due east, toward the Zhen trigram position, feet planted shoulder-width apart, grounded firmly on the Kun-earth bearing.
His spine ran ramrod straight, reaching toward the Qian-heaven above. He set his heart-method into motion.
The familiar tearing agony came rushing back — but this time, beneath that domineering pain, there was a layer of soft warmth acting as a buffer. The Spiritlink Bone-Tempering Dew was working.
Drawing the Yin of the earth through Bubbling Spring, ascending the Du channel.
He sank his focus downward. He could almost feel the heavy, icy turbid qi from deep within the earth being forcibly drawn up through the Yongquan acupoint at his soles, surging in reverse along the great Du channel that ran like a dragon up his back.
Simultaneously, drawing the Yang of heaven through Double Towers, descending the Ren channel.
With each breath, the free-floating pure spirit qi of heaven and earth was inhaled through his throat and down into the Chonglou acupoint, transforming into a torrent of pure Yang heat that rolled downward along the Ren channel on his chest.
Yin and Yang. Rising and falling.
Two diametrically opposed currents — and at last they collided with a thunderclap at the Shanzhong acupoint in the center of his chest.
Hold the mind at Shanzhong — drive the Kan and Li qi to churn like cloud and water boiling mercury over fire!
The pale gold spirit liquid coating his body seemed to come alive in that moment, dissolving into countless golden threads that seeped into his meridians.
Like the finest catalyst. Like the most resilient coolant. The threads forcibly kneaded those two wild, warring qi currents together.
Inside his chest, it was as if a great cauldron had been lit.
The resonance-qi rose, billowing — born!
A qi unlike any he had felt before stirred to life within the Shanzhong acupoint.
This was the core of the Hundred Bones Resonance — the Resonance-Qi.
Gu Chengming dared not be the least bit careless. He immediately guided this newborn resonance-qi, and like a great whale surging to drink the sea dry, drove it thundering into the Zhenshu point at the base of his skull.
"BOOM!"
A deep, muffled explosion rang out inside his mind.
The Dazhui acupoint — the great confluence of all Yang meridians — was now flooded by the resonance-qi, and searing pain erupted. Even with the elixir shielding his body, the sensation of his bones straining to burst sent his face contorting, cold sweat pouring off him like rain.
His spinal vertebrae let out a teeth-aching series of grinding creaks, as if they might give out entirely.
When the resonance-light packed into his spine had built to the point of explosion — the resonance-qi detonated!
That tremendous force slammed, at last, into his coccyx.
"Hmmmmmm——"
A sound — impossibly low, impossibly deep — rumbled out from within Gu Chengming's body, passing straight through him.
It was nothing like the bright, crisp ring of metal on metal. It was more like an ancient, long-silent cracked bell, struck for the first time in a thousand years by a great wooden mallet.
The shockwave rebounded and rippled through every last bone in his body!
With that single "toll," a shockwave visible to the naked eye radiated outward from his coccyx in an instant, sweeping through all two hundred and six bones in his body.
Gu Chengming trembled from head to foot, his legs shaking like leaves, barely holding his footing.
The resonance-tone settled, seeding itself in the Dantian.
The Bone-Shaking Resonance Ignition — was complete!
"Hahhh..."
Gu Chengming exhaled a long, turbid breath.
He'd done it.
As that "resonance seed" fully consolidated within his Dantian, the system chime arrived right on schedule.
[Congratulations! Entry into the Hundred Bones Resonance achieved.]
[Constitution +1]
[Current Constitution: 4]
[Status: Blood Essence Deficiency (Current HP cap permanently reduced by 30% and continuing to decay daily. Estimated remaining lifespan: 380 days)]
Staring at that soaring lifespan count, Gu Chengming was genuinely moved.
What a journey. He'd finally graduated from "could drop dead at any moment" to "barely scraping by for a year" — a true upgrade to the ranks of the marginally-living.
Right after that, the system interface refreshed again, and a new line of text appeared.
[Romance target selected: Hundred Bones Resonance]
[Affection: 5 / Stranger]
[The Hundred Bones Resonance stirs slowly to wakefulness, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, still somewhat dazed. But once it pieces things together, wild elation takes over.]
[It's back! After so many long years buried and gathering dust in forgotten stacks of old texts, it has finally seen the light of day again — returned, at last, to the world of the living!]
Reading the system's description, Gu Chengming was hit by an overwhelmingly powerful sense of déjà vu.
That tone... those lines...
Why did the Hundred Bones Resonance's personality feel strangely, disturbingly familiar?
[The Hundred Bones Resonance turns its attention toward you, musing: so this is the disciple fortunate enough to cultivate it after all these years?]
[It looks you up and down — your meridians, your bones — and a slight frown crosses its brow.]
[This aptitude... is rather abysmal.]
[Clogged meridians, brittle bones, qi and blood thin and adrift — a truly sorry sight.]
[It sighs, with the air of someone deeply disappointed but resigned.]
[No matter. Born again into the world, it must make do with whatever shelter it can find. Let it first see what is so special about this boy.]
[The Hundred Bones Resonance attempts to seize control of your body, intending to run twelve full cycles on its own authority — to demonstrate its might.]
[Allow this?]
[Yes / No]
"...What the—"
Staring at the semi-transparent option box that had just popped up in front of him, Gu Chengming was caught genuinely off guard.
This was the first time the system had ever offered concrete branching choices beyond the basic "select romance target" operation.
Now THIS was proper galge energy!
He savored the moment for a beat — then chose, without a second's hesitation:
[No].
Not for any complicated reason. Simply because the veteran galge instincts of a seasoned player told him, in a moment like this, you always secure the initiative.
He hadn't fully mapped out this new target's personality yet — but from those few lines of inner monologue alone, one thing was crystal clear:
The Hundred Bones Resonance was absolutely the dominant, self-congratulatory type.
With a target like that, the worst thing you could do was roll over and comply from the start.
If you played the meek, agreeable pushover, they'd just treat you as a convenient errand-boy. Sure, affection might tick up a little — but only a little, and you'd almost certainly never unlock the real core storyline.
Against this archetype, you had to hold the initiative. You had to project deliberate coolness — even outright indifference — to snag their attention and stoke their competitive pride.
In the parlance of the craft: play hard to get.
[You refuse the Hundred Bones Resonance's request.]
[The Hundred Bones Resonance, incensed by your impertinence, lets out an incredulous laugh.]
[It thinks: this little wretch really doesn't know what's good for him. But it says nothing, merely snorts, crosses its arms, and watches from the sidelines.]
Fine by him. Let it sulk. He'd deal with it later.
With nearly a full year of lifespan now on the clock, the crushing urgency in Gu Chengming's chest eased considerably.
And so, over the days that followed:
Gu Chengming ignored it completely. He didn't practice the Hundred Bones Resonance even once.
Day in and day out, without fail, he picked up that battered wooden sword and worked his way through the most basic forms of the Huiyuan Sword Art in the courtyard, huffing and puffing away.
"..."
It was during this stretch that — partly thanks to the lingering boost from the You Yuyao incident, and partly from these days of diligent, grinding practice — the Huiyuan Sword Art's affection rating surged forward and finally cleared the ninety mark.
[Huiyuan Sword Art Affection: 90 / Adoration]
[It no longer feels small. Because it knows — in your hands, it is the strongest.]
[It is willing to give you everything. Even to burn through its own potential, just so that every sword stroke you make is flawless.]
Gu Chengming stood in the courtyard, wooden sword in hand, breathing steady and even.
After these days of quiet accumulation — and especially since the affection had hit ninety — he felt as though something had shifted between him and the sword in his hand. A subtle, strange connection.
No longer mere sword-swinging. Something more like... resonance.
He raised his hand slowly and extended a single thrust.
The strike was unremarkable on the surface — no flashy flourishes, not even particularly fast.
But in the instant of its release, the air around him seemed to freeze for just a heartbeat. The blade's path was utterly natural, utterly traceless.
An effortlessly stunning sword strike.
It lasted only a moment. It was only the most fundamental of forms. But the artistic conception behind it — that was absolutely, undeniably real.
And the Hundred Bones Resonance, which had been standing to one side with arms folded, waiting for something to mock — had also caught this.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance is struck dumb. This boy's aptitude is thoroughly unremarkable — so how did he just produce a strike like that?]
[Had it misjudged him?]
[No. Wait. That's not right!]
[The Hundred Bones Resonance has a flash of insight, and constructs a startling "truth" in its imagination.]
[It has noticed: the boy's attitude toward that sword art is excellent. He polishes the wooden sword carefully every day and speaks of it with clear esteem. And the power that wretched sword art displays in his hands far exceeds anything reasonable.]
[Compare that to itself — a higher-tier method — and yet, because the boy treats it with cold indifference and has barely acknowledged its existence for days, it is still stuck hovering at the entry level.]
[A bold hypothesis takes shape in its mind: could it be... that the degree to which this boy favors a given technique directly governs how fast he cultivates it, and how powerful it becomes in his hands?]
[The more he likes a technique, the stronger it becomes; the less he likes it, the more useless it is?]
Gu Chengming read through the system's full play-by-play of the Hundred Bones Resonance's inner monologue, and stood there completely stupefied.
"..."
Was this cultivation method a little too frighteningly perceptive?
The thing was — the logic it had constructed was completely wrong every step of the way, and yet the conclusion it had stumbled onto was... actually half-correct?
Because Gu Chengming genuinely did get stronger by farming affection.
[Hundred Bones Resonance Affection +5]
[Current Affection: 10 / Stranger]
Gu Chengming: "..."
Damn. So you're a power-chaser at heart, huh!
Ruled by the little head after all?
Then, a clamorous flurry of noise erupted in his mind.
The Hundred Bones Resonance, bursting with impatience, began transmitting its inner monologue directly at him.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance attempts to seize your attention.]
[The Hundred Bones Resonance begins pitching its own virtues.]
[On the path of body cultivation, there are those who pursue unyielding ferocity — shaking mountains with raw force; and those who pursue supple endurance — deflecting a thousand-jun weight with subtle technique. Both are lower paths.]
[But the Way of the Hundred Bones Resonance is not mired in the brute strength of flesh and skin, nor confined to the pliancy of sinew and membrane.]
[Its mystery runs deep within the hundred bones themselves. Through the resonant harmony of sinew and skeleton, it seeks the supreme realm of uniting form and spirit — drawing the rhythms of Heaven and Earth into the self.]
[Cultivate to full mastery, and the body becomes as a great bronze bell: one toll, and ten thousand methods cannot touch you, all evil retreats — this is the path that reaches Heaven!]
It was like a salesman who had been dying to pitch his product, furiously listing every last selling point, desperate to hook Gu Chengming's interest and boost his "affection."
Gu Chengming listened to the rapid-fire pitch with quiet amusement.
But... this seemed like a good opening, didn't it?
Since you're already throwing yourself at the opportunity, I won't stand on ceremony.
And so, he put away the wooden sword, sat cross-legged, and settled into the cultivation posture for the Hundred Bones Resonance.
Thanks to the five affection points the Hundred Bones Resonance had just granted him, Gu Chengming was surprised to find that his comprehension of the technique had genuinely deepened.
The meridian pathways that had seemed impenetrably obscure before were now, inexplicably, becoming legible.
The flow of qi and blood through his body was noticeably smoother than before. The tearing pain was still there — but significantly reduced.
Cultivation proceeded with unexpected ease.
From the Hundred Bones Resonance's vantage point, however, this scene read entirely differently.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance is ecstatic!]
[It can feel it! That fluency, that attunement — the boy's cultivation speed is clearly much faster than it was at his initial entry!]
[Just as it theorized: the moment his affection for it increases, his cultivation speed receives a massive boost!]
[The Hundred Bones Resonance thinks: so this is his golden finger?]
And precisely because of this self-confirming euphoria, the Hundred Bones Resonance's affection ticked upward again.
[Hundred Bones Resonance Affection +3]
[Hundred Bones Resonance Affection +2]
As the affection climbed, Gu Chengming found cultivation growing even smoother.
The resonance-qi circulated faster within him, and the efficiency with which it tempered his bones rose in tandem.
Which, of course, only further validated the Hundred Bones Resonance's misunderstanding.
[Hundred Bones Resonance Affection +5]
And just like that, a deeply strange feedback loop was born.
The more Gu Chengming practiced the Hundred Bones Resonance, the more it believed the speed boost was an effect of rising affection, so its affection climbed higher.
The higher the Hundred Bones Resonance's affection, the stronger the feedback and bonuses it gave him, and the faster his cultivation advanced.
The faster his cultivation advanced, the more certain the Hundred Bones Resonance became in its theory, and the faster its affection soared.
After a single hour of cultivation, Gu Chengming opened his eyes and checked the system panel.
[Hundred Bones Resonance Affection: 20 / Stranger]
It was already... twenty?
This was way too easy to farm!
[The Hundred Bones Resonance tells itself: after all these years, it is finally going to become a peerless cultivation method.]
[It was always true. The Hundred Bones Resonance has never been inferior to anything.]
[Gu Chengming — break through for me!]
Reading that last line, Gu Chengming finally cracked. He'd figured out where that uncanny sense of familiarity had been coming from all along.
Holy hell — where did this [power-fantasy] web novel protagonist come from?
Goddammit, how do you even romance a target like this? The manual never covered this!
....
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