The Origins Dungeon Hall stood like a relic at the neglected edge of the West District — a skeletal, dilapidated building entirely indifferent to the vibrant empire beyond its threshold. It flew no grand, rune-stitched banners. No armored guards stood at attention. No radiating spiritual aura announced its existence.
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, chest heaving as though he had just sprinted the full length of the Chrysoprase Empire. His usually immaculate hair was a matted ruin; his expensive green merchant robes were streaked with dried sweat and grime. His eyes — once dull and comfortably complacent — now burned with a red, fanatical light.
"I'm going back!" he barked, his voice cracking. "This time... this time I kill two of them!"
Yuan Bi didn't 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 that last death finally clicked in my meridians!"
"It's always different," Yuan Bi replied flatly, waving a frayed paper fan. "The outcome, however, remains remarkably consistent. You enter, your Internal Force is sealed, you get sloppy, you scream, and you die."
Min Luan froze. A flash of phantom agony crossed his face — the ghostly sensation of rotting teeth closing around his throat. He swallowed hard, hands trembling, but the intoxicating rush of genuine combat experience etching itself into his muscles was a drug he could no longer refuse.
He shoved the stones across the counter. "Just take the damn things."
With a practiced, unhurried motion, the stones vanished into Yuan Bi's spatial ring. Min Luan didn't waste a breath. He pivoted, threw his heavy frame 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 helmet. "So fast," he murmured to the empty room. No hesitation. No fear. Only the raw, gnawing hunger to conquer the nightmare.
Outside the Shop
Footsteps on the dusty cobblestones slowed. The small, hesitant cluster of onlookers from earlier had swelled into a tightly packed crowd. They huddled near the entrance, pressing against grime-streaked windows and the open double doors.
"What's the story?" a wandering swordsman asked, newly arrived, adjusting his bamboo hat. "I've watched that fat merchant's son die and wake up four times today."
"At least," another cultivator whispered, eyes wide. "Five stones for the daily registration, two for each extra hour — that's eleven spiritual stones in a single morning. 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 remained fixed on Min Luan's slumped, motionless body. "Whichever it is, watch his aura when he wakes. That isn't the look of a man being swindled. 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. A hidden inheritance. A pocket dimension. An ancient training ground. In Pyradine City, the promise of martial power was a roaring flame — and its citizens were all desperate moths.
Then the crowd at the door violently parted, shoved aside by thick, muscular arms.
"Out of the way, trash!"
The temperature seemed to drop as two figures entered. 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, arrogance radiating from him like heat from a forge. Behind him followed a burly, scarred guard — a First-Rate martial expert, silent and stone-faced.
The crowd outside held its breath. They recognized those robes. "You," the young man said, his voice dripping with aristocratic condescension as he fixed his gaze on 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. "You don't rise to greet 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 rippled from the doorway. Offending the Wu heir in the West District was tantamount to begging for broken kneecaps.
A flicker of murderous fury crossed Wu Feng's face. His hand twitched toward the hilt of his sword. "You have some nerve, crippled shopkeeper." He swept his gaze around the spartan room — his lip curling at the strange black seats and the sweating, motionless form of Min Luan. "What is this? Some cheap illusionist's trick? Rumors say you're handing out martial enlightenment. Turn over the artifact powering this array, and I might leave you with your life."
Yuan Bi didn't blink. This was the perfect moment to unveil the reward for reaching Shop Level 2. He raised a single, lazy finger and pointed at the empty air above Min Luan's head.
"Watch."
[System Acknowledgment: Shop Level 2 Benefit Unlocked.]
[Activating: Spectator Array.]
A faint distortion rippled through the space above the sleeper. Ambient Qi flooded the room and rapidly condensed, weaving together into a shimmering, translucent projection screen.
The image that formed was of a decaying martial arts pavilion — dark, blood-stained stone floors, rotting timber pillars, and a shadow moving through it all with terrifying, predatory grace.
The crowd outside gasped, crushing against the doorframe. They watched in real time as Min Luan — the "soft" merchant's son — frantically parried the razor-sharp claws of an Undead Novice Disciple. Then he executed a sharp, clean kick — a technique that looked entirely unnatural on his unconditioned body — and shattered the corpse's knee.
Wu Feng's arrogance faltered. His eyes widened. He could feel the faint echoes of killing intent radiating from the projection. "What... what is that?"
"The Undead Hall," Yuan Bi said, his voice detached. "Internal Force is sealed upon entry. You fight with your physical body and technique alone. Real pain. Real growth. Temporary death. Every encounter — survived or lost — burns combat experience directly into your muscles."
"Impossible," the young master scoffed, though his eyes never left the screen. "No array can simulate death without shattering the soul."
Yuan Bi simply tapped his wooden table. "System. Force Exit."
FLASH.
The projection dissolved in a harmless burst of Qi. Min Luan exploded upright in his obsidian seat, a violent, guttural gasp tearing from his lungs. He didn't simply wake — he *convulsed*, clawing at his throat, eyes wide with absolute terror.
He ignored the recoiling crowd entirely. He spun on Yuan Bi with furious, bloodshot eyes. "WHY?! I HAD HIM! I BROKE HIS KNEE! WHY DID YOU PULL ME OUT?!" Yuan Bi nodded toward the jade-robed guest. "Demonstration."
Min Luan's rage hit a wall. He looked at the Wu heir, his merchant instincts briefly wrestling down the adrenaline, then looked back to Yuan Bi. "...I didn't die. That run shouldn't count against my 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 counted out two more stones for his final hour.
The atmosphere in the shop reached a fever pitch. Wu Feng watched Min Luan willingly pay to be put through agony a second time. If a soft-bellied merchant could glean enlightenment here, then surely a genius of the Wu Clan would conquer it.
"Guard," the young master said. "Pay him."
Eleven high-quality spiritual stones hit the counter. Moments later, Wu Feng had claimed the second obsidian chair. The helm descended. His body went slack.
"Spectator Array," Yuan Bi commanded softly.
The screen returned. The crowd watched the young master materialize inside the Undead Hall. They saw his confident smirk crumble into sheer panic the instant he realized his vast reserves of Internal Force were sealed. He was just a boy with a sharp piece of metal.
An Undead Disciple dropped from the rafters.
They watched Wu Feng sprint. They watched him swing his sword in wild, desperate arcs — his "flawless" techniques exposed as profoundly sloppy without the crutch of overwhelming Qi. They saw the scream form on his face before the sound reached them.
"AAAAAAHHHH!"
Wu Feng burst out of the seat and scrambled backward across the floor like a frightened crab. "It tried to eat me! The damn thing bit my face!" Unrelenting laughter erupted from the street. "Look at the 'Young Master'!" a mercenary howled. "Screamed louder than a toddler thrown in a cellar!"
Wu Feng's face burned scarlet. For one volatile moment, he looked ready to order his guard to slaughter them all. Then he stopped. His breathing slowed. He stared down at his dominant hand, replaying in his mind the sloppy sword swing that had gotten him killed — and he saw it. He understood precisely why it had failed. The life-and-death pressure of the Hall had exposed the microscopic flaws in his wrist alignment that years of pampered training had buried.
He didn't leave. He sat back down. He went back in. Again. And again.Hours passed. The sun began to dip, casting long, bloody shadows across the West District.
When Wu Feng finally emerged for the last time, he bore no resemblance to the pristine aristocrat who had shoved his way through the door. He looked like a battered veteran dragged out of a losing war. His breath came in ragged pulls, but his aura had sharpened into something quietly dangerous.
"Again," Wu Feng rasped, reaching for his pouch.
"No," Yuan Bi said, closing his ledger. "Three hours is the maximum. The mind can only endure so much simulated death before the soul begins to fracture. Come back tomorrow. Now, leave."
Wu Feng looked as if he might draw his sword — but the subtle, crushing weight of the System's Violator Warning pressed against his spine like a mountain, and his hand stilled. He turned and walked out without another word, but his expression made one thing clear to everyone watching: he would be back at sunrise.
The moment he disappeared, the crowd surged forward."Line up," Yuan Bi said, raising one hand. "Single file. Order, or permanent bans. Choose."
The chaos vanished instantly. Cutthroat cultivators snapped into a neat, dead-silent 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, stretching his limbs, feeling the potent current of Origin Internal Force coursing through his rebuilt meridians. "No. I'm going to be busy."He ushered the next customer in, then crossed to the fourth obsidian chair. He sat. He lowered the helmet.
Darkness. Then the smell of copper and rot.
Yuan Bi stood in the Undead Hall. Unlike his customers, he was the Host. His power was not sealed. As he drew breath, the roaring river of his Internal Force answered his will like a loyal current.
A corpse lumbered toward him, its jaw hanging by a thread of gristle. Yuan Bi didn't flinch. He moved with surgical calm, stepping cleanly inside the creature's guard.
One strike — his fingers sheathed in a razor-thin layer of condensed Qi — drove straight through the eye socket and out the back of the skull. The corpse collapsed. A soft chime. A clean warmth poured into his meridians, distilling the kill into refined power. Yuan Bi narrowed his eyes. "So this is how it feels."
He looked past the shattered weapon racks, into the deeper shadows of the pavilion's inner sanctum. Something else was moving there. Not a novice — this carried the dense, suffocating pressure of a martial arts master who refused to stay dead. And it was watching him.
Yuan Bi smiled. The Qi around his fists flared like pale fire.
"Good," he whispered. "Let's see what else my shop is hiding."