Pain was the first thing. Not the sharp, clean pain of a cut, but a deep, grinding agony that radiated from his core, as if his very soul had been run through a millstone. Every ragged breath felt like swallowing shards of glass.
Zhang Wei—no, that wasn't right—Lin Feng forced his eyes open. The sky above was a vibrant, impossible cerulean, streaked with clouds that glowed faintly with internal light. This was not the smog-choked dusk of his last memory. The smell of diesel and rain was gone, replaced by the cloying sweetness of rotting vegetation and a metallic tang he couldn't name.
He tried to sit up. A wave of nausea and blinding pain from his lower abdomen forced him back down with a choked gasp. He was lying on a heap of... refuse. Discarded spirit herb husks, shattered training dummies, and other unidentifiable waste.
Where...? The truck... it swerved...
The memories slammed into him: the screech of tires, the blinding headlights, the crushing impact. His own mortality, sudden and absolute.
And then, a torrent of other memories, foreign and vivid, flooding his fractured mind. A boy named Lin Feng. A mediocre talent in the Azure Frost Sect. Endless drills, sneering seniors, a desperate hope to form his first Qi thread. Then, the sparring match with Disciple Hao, a sadistic grin, a deliberately brutal kick aimed not to defeat, but to shatter his nascent dantian. The feeling of his spiritual foundation crumbling. The dismissal from the outer disciple barracks. Being dragged and dumped here, in the Stagnant Ravine, the sect's dumping ground, to die as uselessly as he had lived.
Transmigration. The word surfaced from his modern mind, a concept from the webnovels he'd read to escape his own mundane life. It was impossible. And yet, the evidence was in the pain, the alien sky, and the ghostly memories haunting his skull.
"Heh... still clinging on, trash?"
A shadow fell over him. Lin Feng turned his head, wincing. It was a lanky disciple with a cruel face, the same one from the memories who had helped dump him here.
"The elder said to clear the ravine of filth," the disciple sneered, nudging Lin Feng's ribs with a boot. "Looks like we missed a spot. You're blocking the new shipment of slag from the forging hall."
Lin Feng tried to speak, to curse, to beg. Only a wet rasp came out. His new body was broken. His old world was gone. Despair, cold and heavy, began to sink into his bones, heavier than the physical pain.
Is this it? A second death, even more pathetic than the first?
As the disciple raised his foot, aiming for a kick that would likely end him, a sharp, authoritative female voice cut through the ravine's damp air.
"Enough."
The disciple froze, foot hovering. Lin Feng managed to tilt his head. Standing at the rim of the ravine was a woman. She looked to be in her mid-thirties in mortal years, but her eyes held a depth that spoke of centuries. Her hair was swept up in a severe yet elegant knot, pinned with a simple jade hairpiece. She wore the grey and silver robes of an Elder, an Alchemy Hall insignia embroidered over her heart. Her beauty was stern, austere, like a perfectly carved glacier.
"E-Elder Zhu!" the disciple stammered, bowing deeply, his face pale. "This lowly one was just... disposing of inactive waste."
Elder Zhu Yan's gaze swept over the disciple with disinterest before settling on Lin Feng. There was no pity in her eyes, only a detached, analytical assessment, as one would look at a cracked alchemy vessel. "That 'waste' still bears the sect's robes. His death, when it comes, will be recorded. Not expedited by the likes of you. Leave."
"Y-Yes, Elder!" The disciple scrambled away, shooting a venomous glance at Lin Feng.
Silence returned, broken only by Lin Feng's ragged breathing and the distant calls of spirit cranes. Elder Zhu Yan continued to look down at him for a long moment. He saw it then—not cruelty, but a profound, weary loneliness that mirrored the desolation of the ravine. She was a widow, the memories supplied. Her husband, a fellow alchemy elder, had perished decades ago in a secret realm. She had buried herself in her work ever since.
"Fate is unkind," she murmured, more to herself than to him. "To grant the spark of life, only to let it gutter out in the mud." She turned to leave, her robes whispering against the stone.
In that moment, as the embodiment of his only fleeting chance at salvation turned away, a searing, electric pain erupted behind Lin Feng's eyes. It was different from the bodily agony. It was pure, invasive information.
BRZZT.
A rectangular, semi-transparent blue screen materialized in the center of his vision, shimmering with lines of glowing text. It was clean, modern, utterly alien to this ancient world.
[Host consciousness stabilized. Soul-matrix integration complete.]
[Scanning host condition...]
[CRITICAL INJURY DETECTED: Dantian Fracture. Meridian Blockage. Spiritual Root: Low-Grade Earth.]
[Survival probability in current environment: 0.3%]
[Initiating emergency protocol...]
[Accessing forbidden archive... 'Matriarch Conquest System'... unlocked.]
Lin Feng's heart, or what felt like it, seized. A system? Like in the stories?
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION SUCCESSFUL.]
[Welcome, Host Lin Feng. Your path to the pinnacle begins.]
[Core Directive: To ascend, you must form unbreakable bonds with the pinnacle existences of this world—its sovereign Matriarchs. Through connection and ultimate union, you shall inherit their strength, their legacy, and their destiny.]
[Mandatory Tutorial Quest issued to ensure host survival.]
The text scrolled, cold and logical.
[TUTORIAL QUEST: THE FIRST STEP]
[Target Identified: Zhu Yan.]
[Title: Elder of the Alchemy Hall. The 'Alchemy Widow'.]
[Cultivation: Late-Stage Core Formation.]
[Conquest Difficulty: C (Tutorial Adjusted).]
[Profile: Stern, disciplined, devoted to the Dao of Alchemy. Harbors deep-seated loneliness and unresolved grief related to her late husband's unfinished research. Current project is stagnant. Values competence, discretion, and subtlety.]
[Objective: Achieve 'Full Conquest' (Emotional & Physical Union).]
[Stage 1 (Foundation) Sub-Objective: Gain her unique attention. Move from 'discarded waste' to 'person of note' within her sphere.]
[Reward upon Completion: Complete physiological reconstruction (Dantian/Meridians). 'Verdant Flame Affinity' Boon. Cultivation Base advancement to Late Qi Refining.]
[Failure: System deactivation. Host termination within 72 hours.]
The screen pulsed softly. Lin Feng stared, his mind reeling. The pain, the despair, the impossible situation—it all coalesced into a single, sharp point of focus. A system. A way out. A path to power beyond his wildest dreams.
But the cost... The method...
His gaze lifted from the shimmering screen, past the rotting husks and shattered stone, to the retreating back of Elder Zhu Yan, now a dozen paces away. She was a mountain of a woman in this world—an Elder, a Core Formation expert, centuries old. He was less than an ant in the mud.
Yet, the system had given him a blueprint. Not just of power, but of her. Her loneliness. Her stagnant research. It wasn't about force. It was about... strategy. About offering something she needed.
'Values competence, discretion, and subtlety.'
A plan, audacious and desperate, began to form in his modern mind—the mind of a strategist. He needed to speak. Now.
Gathering every ounce of will, ignoring the fire in his dantian, Lin Feng pushed his voice past his broken ribs.
"Elder... please..."
His voice was a paper-thin whisper, but it carried in the quiet ravine. Elder Zhu Yan paused, but did not turn.
Lin Feng swallowed blood. He had one shot. The system said 'unfinished research'. The memories of the original Lin Feng were fuzzy, but he recalled gossip. Elder Zhu's late husband was obsessed with stabilizing the volatile "Morning Sun" pill formula. A problem of erratic energy release... a problem of chemical stability.
He wasn't an alchemist. But Zhang Wei had been a project manager for a pharmaceutical startup. He knew about catalysts. He knew about controlled reactions.
"The... the Morning Sun furnace..." he croaked, each word a lance of pain. "The third vent... the heat is asymmetrical... it stresses the Moonlight Grass before fusion..."
He had no idea if he was right. It was a guess, based on the fragmented memories and the system's hint of 'stagnant project'. A desperate gamble.
Elder Zhu Yan went utterly still. Then, slowly, she turned. The detached curiosity in her eyes was gone, replaced by a sharp, piercing focus. It was the look of a master artisan who had just heard a discordant note in a symphony only she could hear.
She walked back, her steps deliberate. She looked down at him, this broken thing in the filth, who should know nothing of high-level alchemy.
"What," she said, her voice devoid of all previous weariness, cold and clear as mountain ice, "did you just say?"
In Lin Feng's vision, the system interface flickered.
[Stage 1 (Foundation) Sub-Objective Updated:]
[Gain her unique attention: IN PROGRESS.]
[Interest Level: 1%.]
A single percent. It was a foothold. A crack in the glacier.
Lin Feng met her gaze, his own blurred with pain but burning with a newfound, desperate fire. The conquest had begun.