The heavy burden in his heart slowly emptied. His body felt light. Worries, regrets, sorrow slowly melted away.

When he drifted away in a vivid sky, an extreme sensation of relaxation passed down his spine. His icy heart felt engulfed with warmth. The fatigue from old age gradually faded.

He felt like he could drift away in the sky and reach heaven.

He no longer felt like his body shackled him.

Like a spirit, he wondered the endless sky, where clouds gathered and took shape of a deity.

With wide empty eyes, he witnessed the undertaking; the majestic vision in front gratified him.

He felt blessed.

Rays of light passed through his spirit.

As a guide, the rays showed him a path.

He chased after the lights.

But at the end of the path, what awaited him was darkness.

“New infants have been born,” The women’s voice echoed throughout the darkroom.

“Waah,” “Waah,” “Waah,”

They could hear the screams of the infants from afar, inside a cave-like chamber, wrapped in wooden texture, and lighted by candles.

Candles emitted purples flames which spread throughout the chamber.

“How many test subjects were born this year?” the woman asked. She wore tight black innerwear, a purple robe, a snake - encircling her right arm, and an enticing face indicating she was in the peak of one’s youth.

“The ritual produced about 10,000 test subjects,” the women who responded had an aged face and a grieving voice.

Biting her lips, she smiled and uttered, “I wonder—how many would survive? And how many new talented would I get to devour?”

Pointing her hands, she commanded few servants, “Bring me the toxin.”

Few servants carried a bucket loaded with grey liquid. The liquid had a milky texture and emitted an alluring smell.

She lifted her hand towards the bucket. The snake in her hand crawled slowly towards the bucket.

The snake had black skin with purple stripes.

While its body encircled her hand, its head slowly bowed towards the bucket. The snake opened its mouth and sucked the liquid.

The bucket was wide enough for a mortal to slumber in it, and it was 1 meter high, full, yet the snake quickly depleted the bucket.

After consuming all the liquid, its fang shone like silver.

The woman brewed a sinister smile, “Now, let’s begin.”

He felt light and invigorated like a newborn.

Unable to move his body but only his arms. He felt peculiar and questioned himself, “What happened? Where am I? My room should be bright, filled with lights and quiet, but what’s this?”

He could not properly move his head, but he could see a black surface above, the purple lights, and hear the babies’ cries around.

It wasn’t quiet.

“Waah,” “Waah,” “Waah,”

He shouted, “Shut up,” but the words that came out of his mouth were, “Waah.” “Waah.”

He noticed his puny fists.

“What?”

He struggled to arrange his thoughts and tried to remember what happened? He remembered looking at the view of his kingdom and going to sleep after some discussion and slightly recalled drifting through the skies like a spirit, but then he could not remember much.

‘I see I died that night,’ He assumed.

He took some time to accept that fact.

‘Then, am I in heaven or hell?’ he asked himself.

He recalled his puny hands, crying voice. The realization of turning into an infant suddenly hit his head.

“Ha-ha”

He laughed inwardly. Deep inside, he hoped for the situation not to be a dream. Many times had he heard about the cycle of reincarnation from the monks. So, he clung to the belief that he reincarnated.

“I see, a new life. I wonder how it would be? When I got tired of living, I received a new beginning. I wonder what kind of life I would live.”

Suddenly the cries of the infants from his left faded gradually,

Previously he could hear many cries, but now merely a few were left.

He could not look at what was transpiring.

‘Did their parents take them?’ ‘I see, a new life, new parents, I wonder what parents I would have?’ Deep in his heart, the roots of excitement grew.

Suddenly a woman showed up in front of him. She wore a purple robe.

She pointed her hand had towards him. On her hand, he saw a snake gazing fiercely towards him. A chill passed down his spine. His small eyes bulged. He panicked and tried to scream.

Hiss!

The snake crawled fiercely and bit his tiny neck.

Its fang penetrated his soft skin.

Veins popped around the penetrated area, slowly its color changed. It shifted from black, blue, purple, and grey.

The snake injected some liquid in him.

Argh! Argh!

He suffered intense pain. Thus screamed, yet to no avail.

His consciousness soon faded,

The snake retracted its fang and returned into the women’s hand.

He had lost consciousness by then.

“Humph, why do I have to feed all these infants? Dumping all their work on me, wait and see, I will rise above those old geezers someday,” she murmured while moving on to the next child.

Under the calm slumber, he felt intense pain again, which woke him.

But he lost consciousness again,

The process went on,

Periodically he would wake up and sleep again,

He had lost the sense of time.

Not knowing how much time had passed.

In reality, a year had already passed, the sect used this method to nurture newborns.

First, they would artificially create infants, not by natural birth.

Second, they would inject toxins inside them. The poison’s functioned as a life preserver and strengthened inner talent.

If under normal circumstances, any child suffered the pain caused when injecting the toxin, it would without a doubt lead to their demise, but the offsprings produced here were unique.

Every month after an infant was born, they would inject the toxin. Once the toxin infiltrated them, the infants did not require any food or water to survive. It would also speed up the growth process.

But such a process had many drawbacks,

Most of the infants raised using such means would lose their own will. Their capability to think would cease to exist, but this was more convenient for them; being a cult, they would gain mindless soldiers, ready to follow any command.

Another side effect was deformity. Most infants raised this way suffered many problems, such as some had a low bone density, some were very skinny, some lacked body parts.

There were still more side effects.

He woke up, this time naturally rather than because of pain, unlike before.

Light entered his eyes, as his vision returned and his upper body rose.

He lay on a bed-like structure, created from black wood, with white clothes on top.

He glanced at his hands. They were bigger than before.

Looking around, he noticed more children just sleeping in an identical bed to his and in a similar state,

He thought of what happened and recalled seeing a snake. Then the rest was blank.

He sought to assess his situation and swiftly got out of his bed. The soil beneath his leg was neither too soft nor too rigid. It was more like dried mud.

He could stand up perfectly; his body also did not feel weak.

“Humm, I see another one woke up,” One servant patrolling saw him.

He heard the servant’s voice but could not understand the language. He tilted his head, merely gazing at the servant.

The servant was taken back by this.

Most kids, who would wake up, would remain in their bed, just laying over there while opening their eyes.

They would barely have any intelligence to think. After someone noticed the child had woken up , then, they would take them to complete further procedures,

But to his shock, there was a youth who left his bed and now was intensely staring at him.

The servant shook his head, thinking, ‘No, I must be overthinking.’ he then glanced at the child’s black eyes and felt a slight chill.

The servant walked towards the child and grabbed his hands, and started leading him.

He did not understand what was going on and went with the flow like a piece of wood drifting along the river.

Thus followed the servant with little thinking,

They left the room and entered a hallway.

In the hallway, he spotted a desk and a man sitting behind the desk.

“Here, another child has woken,” said the servent.

From the wardrobe beside the desk, the man took out some clothes and gave them to the servant.

The servant dressed the child. The kids who were just born could not understand the concept of dress up, so it was the responsibility of the servants to take care of them.

The cloak was a loose white robe and a headband. In the headband, the man recorded the number ‘101‘.

The servant gently kept his hand on 101 shoulders and escorted him.

At the end of the hallway, there was another man, sitting behind his counter.

The servant pushed 101 a bit forward.

“Pew, another one, it’s frustrating this time of the year,” The man exclaimed while nodding his head, then he glanced at the boy in front, “Eh, is this kid staring at me?”

The child watched the individuals in front, studying his surrounding, seeking to estimate out where he was.

Let me register him. The man looked at the records and said, “He woke up rather fast compared to others in his group, but he looks average. According to the data, he should be number 101, out of 10,000.”

“I now register him as number 101.”

The man pointed a wooden brush towards him, gently moving it near his eyes, then withdrew it again.

101‘s eyes observed the encounter. The man drove the brush in unique patterns, once horizontal, occasionally vertical, occasionally circular, but his eyes pursued it precisely.

“Ho, he can keep up,” the man said with a thoughtful voice. He slowly placed the brush on the counter,

101‘s eyes pursued it until the man placed it down. Once the brush was down, his gazes changed from the brush to the man’s eyes spontaneously, maintaining direct eye contact.

“Interesting,” the man laughed, “Take him to the left.”

With an astonished expression, the servant asked, “Sir, but what about further inquiries?”

Shaking his head, he responded, “No need, I have organized children for years. Now, I can identify when a child belongs in the left-wing. Take him.”

“Very well,” the servant nodded and replied

At the end of the hallway, there were now only two passages; one towards the right, the next towards the left.

The servant took 101 towards the left.

While walking, 101 inspected his environment.

When the man and the servant talked earlier, he could not understand their language.

When the man had pointed the brush towards him, his eyes instinctively had followed it, but later he realized it was some test.

He began evaluating the scene. When he woke up, he saw 100‘s of kids around him. Most were asleep; his number was 101. He thought that was most likely because he was the 101st child to wake up. He could not understand the language, but the numbers seemed familiar to him.

Next was his body structure; he did not recall how long he had fallen asleep for; looking at his body structure, it was like 6-8 years old; his height was less than half of the servant beside him.

‘Did I sleep for over six years?’ he thought in his mind, ‘being able to move perfectly, immediately after waking up after that long? Is it even possible?’

He shook those concerns, as it was impossible to figure everything out with little information.

Then he thought about where he was? Some sect? No, no righteous sects wouldn’t raise children this way. A demonic cult? No, they would not waste their time nurturing children. Then the woman he saw. A snake encircled her hand. It was weird. He had never seen a martial art that could control snakes. Demonic cultivators had unique traits that could separate them from regular people. The people here were different, unlike the people of his world.

“Wait? Am I even in the same realm?” a sudden thought appeared in his mind. He again shook his thoughts.

They arrived in a room.

It was a vast room; the ceiling was over 20-meter-high; inside the room, there were more children, each of them wore a headband with a number plate on it.

The servants divided them into groups.

It was like a classroom, filled with supervisors and pupils.

Most kids had expressionless faces, with barely any light in their eyes. They were listening.

“Here one more,” the servant exclaimed.

One professor took 101 and accompanied him towards a group,

There was a middle-aged man who taught the kids basic stuff.

Starting from the very beginning, none of them understood the concept of language, so they were teaching using signs and portraits.

He understood the concepts quickly. Frankly, it was way too easy for him. His mind was that of a 200-year-old.

But he used every opportunity to learn. From the manner of how food, ears, nose, hand, left, right were pronounced, he used the information to grasp the concept of their language little by little.

In his previous life, he learned over 40 languages in his 200-year-old lifetime to carry out proper communications and avoid fraud.

After a few hours, the class was over.

The servants gave them a meal.

They placed it in an oval white bowl. Inside there rested a scoop of thick black liquid.

He felt extreme skepticism, but other children drank without hesitancy. What knowledge could they have about the things people could mix in food?

If he did not drink it now, it would look suspicious. With no choice, he calmly drank it.

After gulping it, he felt strength circulating through his body, his hunger disappeared. The drink itself felt tasteless.

The servants then escorted the children to their room.

He had a narrow room.

The room had candles, a wooden bed with soft clothes over it. Number 101 touched the edges of the room; they were made up of stones.

They had created the entire place out of stone.

“Could it be? Yes, there is a high possibility; this place is most likely made underground.”

He sat on his bed, taking a meditative posture.

He set aside all his thoughts.

The sole thing he cared about right now was, “New body.”

“A healthy body.”

Such a body was something he craved his entire life as he obsessed over martial arts but could never perform it himself.

He was born with his bone weak as a glass.

But this time, he had a healthy body. He had awaited such a day to arrive for years; he prayed every day and night.

He had memorized the entire awakening process. He would try it every day with a glimpse of hope that his martial spirit might awaken.

He absorbed the surrounding essence, but abruptly,

He coughed out blood from his mouth,

Cough! Cough!

His body felt dizzy.

He left the bed, but incapable of standing, he fell.

The realization of what had just happened hit him like a boulder.

When a mortal with no talent seeks to cultivate, the body would reject it and cause severe dizziness.

The realization hit him hard like the sky had just fallen to the ground.

“Why?”

This realization shattered his desires.

This realization shattered his dreams.

Tears from his eyes dropped to the ground.

He felt like despair had engulfed him.

He cursed his life.

Just when he thought he had got a second chance.

“Why? Why? Why do I have to suffer this way?” he screamed in agony.

He punched the ground in anger.

His hand had broken, yet he kept hitting.

“No, I won’t fall.”

He stood up, rubbed away his tears.

“No.”

Images flashed on his mind. The vision of people looking down at him. His children looking at him with pity.

“Not this time,” He vowed.

“No, I will get stronger, so what? If I cannot cultivate, I have two hands, two legs, a vigorous body, which itself is a dream for many. No matter the means, this time, I will truly rise.”

He clenched his fist, eyes glistered with resolve, and gave emergence to hope in his heart.

Next day,

“What happened to your fist?” the servant asked.

Sigh, “What the point in asking a kid who cannot even speak?”

Number 101 could not yet understand the language accurately.

“Your hand, give it to me,” the servant spoke while pointing towards his fist.

He understood what the word “hand” meant and grasped his motive.

He raised his fist.

The servant cradled the boy’s hand. A spider came out of his sleeves.

Number 101 panicked but did not express it.

It was a yellow spider with black stripes.

The spider bit his broken hand and injected its venom.

The pain gradually faded. Number 101 could no longer see the swelling in his hands.

The servant had just healed his hands.

He sent 101 back to his class, and later, he went to inspect his room.

He found nothing suspicious.

When he looked closely, there was little blood on the floor.

‘Did that kid punch the ground till his hands got broken? Could it be an additional side effect that causes mental instability? I should inform the higher-ups,'