Gu Chengming paid no mind to the Hundred Bones Resonance muttering away inside his head.
In moments like these, gacha game players were usually presented with two options.
Option A: take the advice, swap to a more powerful character, and play it safe by chasing raw strength.
Option B: hold firm, then in the subsequent story arc break through the so-called "ceiling" and unlock that character's True End.
For Gu Chengming, did this even require deliberation?
He kept his expression respectfully neutral toward the Elder while inwardly shaking his head with a quiet laugh.
Sigh. Old Hundred, you really are something else. Great to farm, sure — but how do you manage to have such an easy-to-trigger bond storyline on top of everything?
With that thought, Gu Chengming mentally crowned the Hundred Bones Resonance the best cultivation method to pursue in all of the Wenjian Sect. (Provisional.)
And Yu Wenqiu's words had, quite unintentionally, just pointed him toward the final step of that pursuit.
"Thank you for the guidance, Elder."
Gu Chengming's expression was sincere. He showed not a flicker of displeasure at Yu Wenqiu's dismissal of the Hundred Bones Resonance, and instead followed her lead smoothly: "This disciple understands the weight of the matter. It's only that I have been cultivating the Hundred Bones Resonance for some time now and have used it as my foundation — switching abruptly might cause some disruption."
Hearing this, Yu Wenqiu found she couldn't very well press him further.
It wasn't in her nature to force her will upon others. She had laid out all the risks plainly; how he chose to walk his own path was ultimately his affair.
"Very well."
Yu Wenqiu gave a small nod, her tone returning to its usual languid ease:
"Body tempering can't be rushed regardless. If you're set on persisting, then persist. But as for the mental cultivation method..."
She paused, her gaze sweeping over Gu Chengming as though gauging something:
"Once you've settled on your primary body-tempering method, come find me. At that point I'll select the most compatible mental cultivation method for you based on your method's characteristics."
"Cultivation method and mental method must complement each other to go the distance. Pair them carelessly and you'll be working twice as hard for half the result."
That Yu Wenqiu was willing to personally oversee the selection of a "compatible" mental method for him was no small favor.
Gu Chengming understood immediately, and bowed once more: "This disciple is deeply grateful for the Elder's kindness and will keep it firmly in mind."
"All right, off with you."
Yu Wenqiu waved her hand and picked up the story scroll she hadn't finished, clearly issuing him his walking papers:
"Don't interrupt my reading."
Gu Chengming cradled his newly acquired Tinglanjian — the Wave-Listening Sword — and made no further delay, turning to withdraw from the Hidden Sword Pavilion.
By the time he returned to the small courtyard tucked in the remote corner of the Outer Gate, the sky had nearly darkened to dusk.
Gu Chengming latched the courtyard gate behind him, shutting out the noise of the outside world.
Zheng —
The long sword left its scabbard.
The Wave-Listening Sword lived up to its reputation as a graded spirit artifact. The blade was a deep, luminous blue along its entire length, and the moment it rested in his hand it carried with it a refreshing coolness that seeped straight to the bones.
"A fine sword."
Gu Chengming murmured his admiration and gave his wrist a light flick, spinning a practiced sword flourish.
[The Huiyuan Sword Art can feel this sword and likes it immensely — likes it beyond all reason.]
[It hopes you'll use this sword to try out the sword forms.]
Gu Chengming was naturally happy to oblige.
He ran through the foundational sword art he had long since memorized cold, right there in the courtyard.
With the Wave-Listening Sword in hand, and the Huiyuan Sword Art's fully automatic guidance layered on top, the sword light flowed like silk.
When the set was complete, Gu Chengming came to a stop with sword drawn back and held upright, feeling a pleasant ease throughout his entire body, his spiritual energy circulating in smooth, effortless rounds.
"It really does suit me."
He ran his palm along the cold blade and returned it to its scabbard, setting it on the stone table.
With that done, Gu Chengming poured himself a cup of cold tea — but didn't drink it.
Instead he sat quietly watching the ripples shifting in the cup, letting his thoughts sink deep.
The sword situation was resolved. Next — it was time to deal with the Hundred Bones Resonance.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance is still muttering.]
[Emperor Gu, you absolutely cannot be taken in by that evil cultivator's honeyed words! She's clearly just jealous of your potential — she wants you to practice those trash methods and blend into the crowd!]
Gu Chengming began carefully replaying in his mind every word Yu Wenqiu had said.
"After Hundred Bones in Full Resonance comes body-and-spirit co-vibration, drawing the rhythms of heaven and earth into oneself — this was the deluded fantasy of the founder in a moment of mental confusion, and no one has ever managed to cultivate it."
In Gu Chengming's ears, those words translated naturally into:
This method has an unimplemented hidden realm. That realm is set as theoretically existent but practically unachievable — and if you achieve it, you'll break the system's standard settings and earn a unique achievement.
In games, the "no one has ever managed it" setting was almost always left specifically for the player to shatter.
Why couldn't anyone else do it? Because their "affection rating" wasn't high enough.
But Gu Chengming was different. Whether it was the Primordial Imperial Merit or the current state of the Huiyuan Sword Art, both had already transcended the original limits of their respective methods.
Which meant — if affection was high enough, or if a specific condition was triggered, was that so-called "deluded fantasy" realm actually achievable?
The more he thought about it, the more viable the logic seemed.
The reason the Hundred Bones Resonance was currently stuck at the Hundred Bones in Full Resonance stage wasn't that it had genuinely hit its ceiling — it was that even it, on some subconscious level, believed the realm of "drawing heaven and earth's rhythm into oneself" didn't exist.
Because if the Hundred Bones Resonance truly believed itself to be a supreme divine art, why would it be worried about him switching to another body-tempering method?
The Hundred Bones Resonance needed someone — someone more resolute than itself, more "blindly certain" than itself — to tell it: that isn't a fantasy.
With that thought, Gu Chengming drew a slow, deep breath and settled his mood.
"Old Hundred."
[The Hundred Bones Resonance startles slightly, a touch aggrieved.]
[Emperor Gu, are you really going to believe that woman and switch to another body-tempering method?]
Gu Chengming ignored the question entirely. Instead he shook his head, and said with absolute seriousness:
"It's time for us to break through."
[The Hundred Bones Resonance goes completely still.]
[It feels your resolve — and in that instant, every last shred of its grievance dissolves.]
[The Hundred Bones Resonance sweeps away all its earlier despondency in one stroke.]
[Right! It's time to break through!]
Of course, reaching that realm still required some basis and reference material.
In the cultivation world, while sudden enlightenment was the shortcut to breaking through bottlenecks, all such enlightenment was built upon a vast foundation of systemic understanding.
Gu Chengming returned to his meditation chamber and, rather than rushing to flip through texts, first stilled his mind and connected with that grey-misted space within his sea of consciousness.
But the moment he opened the Myriad Wonders Assembly, a single message made him pause.
[A Yunyue Sect Elder was ambushed en route — suspected top-tier brigand cultivator attack!]
Gu Chengming's heart gave a jolt. He quickly sent his divine sense diving in.
The post was written with vivid, dramatic flair. The poster claimed to be an independent cultivator who had happened to be passing by at the time.
[That day I was harvesting medicinal herbs in the Cangwu Mountain Range when suddenly sword-qi blazed across the sky in every direction, blotting out the sun. A Yunyue Sect flying vessel was snared by a sudden fog array, and then a massive hand of spiritual energy came crashing down from above. That Elder Liu Changfeng — a cultivator of the Fourth Realm — seemed utterly helpless against the brigand cultivator...]
[Elder Liu Changfeng's whereabouts are currently unknown, feared dead and dissolved into the Dao. The Yunyue Sect has already issued a kill order on the two unidentified brigand cultivators.]
Reading the description, Gu Chengming's expression turned quietly peculiar.
"That shouldn't be... what I'm thinking it is. Right?"
He shoved the message to the back of his mind, collected himself, and began posting inquiries in the Myriad Wonders Assembly.
Half an hour passed, however, with barely any response.
Most replies were vague guesses that could go either way.
It seemed there was a reason the Hundred Bones Resonance was so obscure. This method — simple to begin, nightmarish to advance — simply had no one willing to spend time researching it.
"Fine. I'll have to figure it out myself."
Gu Chengming closed out of the Myriad Wonders Assembly, straightened his robes, and pushed open the door.
If online couldn't provide the answers, he'd look offline.
The Wenjian Sect had stood for thousands of years. Among the boundless sea of texts in the Scripture Library, there had to be some trace of what he was looking for.
The Wenjian Sect's Scripture Library.
As a key location of the sect, the Scripture Library was bustling as always.
A fair number of disciples recognized him — after all, a First Realm, sixth-layer cultivator defeating a First Realm, eighth-layer opponent, turning her own methods back against her and stomping a Yunyue Sect genius into the dirt — that kind of feat was enough to make a name ring throughout the Outer Gate.
The disciples who recognized him greeted him with a blend of admiration and warmth.
"Good day, Senior Brother Gu!"
"Greetings, Senior Brother Gu!"
Once someone took the lead, the surrounding disciples crowded around in a wave of cheerful hellos.
An outer disciple who had been sorting the shelves was the first to react, quickly setting down his work and stepping forward to bow respectfully:
"What brings Senior Brother here to the Scripture Library today? Are you looking for a particular cultivation method?"
Gu Chengming's expression was warm and unhurried. He returned each greeting with a nod — neither distant nor overly familiar — and the composed ease he carried only made the surrounding disciples admire him more.
Those twenty-five Charisma points were really pulling their weight.
"My thanks to everyone for your kind welcome."
Gu Chengming gently declined the guide's offer: "I'm just browsing — looking for some casual reading to pass the time. No need to trouble yourselves."
Having shooed off the enthusiastic fellow disciples, Gu Chengming walked directly toward the most out-of-the-way corner of the Scripture Library.
What was stored there wasn't anything like divine arts or secret manuals — it was travelogues written by cultivators of past generations who had wandered the world, unofficial histories and miscellaneous gossip of the cultivation world, and various fragments of dubious authenticity.
Gu Chengming brushed dust from the shelves with a casual sweep of his hand, letting his gaze pass over the yellowed spines one by one.
A Pictorial Guide to Strange Beasts of the Nine Provinces. Notes on the Customs and Landscapes of the Southern Wasteland. A Hundred Ways to Eat Spirit Herbs...
He bore with it patiently, flipping through volume after volume.
Searching for clues was like panning for gold in sand — it demanded tremendous patience and no small amount of luck.
Half an hour later, Gu Chengming had in hand an old book called Treatise on Body Tempering, which recorded a wide variety of body-tempering accounts and personal insights, along with numerous annotations left by readers who had passed through the book before him.
After flipping through it for a while, he did indeed find a section of insights related to the Hundred Bones Resonance — exactly four characters:
"Peerless divine art!"
The annotations below were almost unanimously "Seconded," "Never encountered a body-tempering method this superior," and "A method simple to enter with an exceptionally high ceiling — highly recommended for cultivators of modest means."
[The Hundred Bones Resonance, upon seeing this, is immediately very pleased with itself.]
Seeing that, Gu Chengming's feelings became somewhat complicated. Somehow this all reads like sarcasm, doesn't it?
He turned another page and found one more annotation, written in a tone of profound anguish:
"A pack of scoundrels, conning people into practicing this garbage method — family wealth utterly drained with no way to advance further. Be warned. Be warned."
[The Hundred Bones Resonance erupts in righteous fury.]
Gu Chengming:
He tucked the book back onto the shelf.
Another half hour passed. He opened a volume called Treatise on Bone, which also contained cultivation guidance related to the Hundred Bones Resonance.
This one was considerably more serious in tone — the whole text was a scholarly exploration of the relationship between bone density and the efficiency of spiritual energy conduction.
The author appeared to be an alchemist, who had analyzed in exhaustive data the comparative qualities of different demon beast bones.
However, by the end, the author's conclusion was:
"The human skeleton is inherently frail. Better to replace the bones entirely. If one could replace every bone in the body with a True Dragon's bones, the body-tempering ceiling of many cultivation methods could be broken."
— Which is about as useful as saying nothing at all.
After working through a dozen or so ancient texts — all either preposterous legends or completely impractical theories — Gu Chengming began to feel a genuine headache coming on.
"Is there really no path forward?"
He leaned back against the bookshelf, watching the sun dip further toward the western horizon through the window, a thin thread of disappointment rising in his chest.
If there really was no way forward, he might have no choice but to rely on the Myriad Mysteries Convergence Method to nudge his intuition and brute-force his way through on sheer willpower alone.
That approach carried an obviously far greater chance of failure.
Gu Chengming drew a slow breath. His gaze fell to the very bottom shelf — to a corner half-buried beneath a stack of thick volumes, its title nearly invisible.
He reached in and pulled it free.
It was a thick, heavy tome bound in the hide of some unidentified beast. The cover bore only five large, plain characters:
Miscellaneous Records of the Great Qian.
"Great Qian?"
Gu Chengming paused slightly. That name was anything but unfamiliar to him.
The Great Qian was no ordinary mortal kingdom. It was a colossal entity situated thousands of li from the Wenjian Sect, occupying the richest central territory of the Nine Provinces. Though called a dynasty, the Great Qian's imperial family was itself a powerful cultivation lineage, and the court was never short of great cultivators.
They governed cultivators through law and suppressed sects with dragon-qi — their power so vast that even the Nine Provinces Alliance formed by the Wenjian Sect and the other great sects had to yield them three points of deference.
More importantly...
A distant memory surfaced in Gu Chengming's mind.
Before crossing over, in the game Immortal Gate, apart from the traditional sect cultivation route, there had been another core gameplay mode beloved by players:
The court career path.
Unlike the free and unbound life of the sects, the Great Qian's officialdom gameplay was all about immersing yourself in the mortal world. Players could sit for the imperial examinations, rise from a humble county magistrate, and climb rung by rung to the apex of power.
Along the way, you didn't just handle cases involving demon incursions — you also had to scheme and navigate the intricate web of factions in the imperial court.
Back then, the game forums buzzed constantly not about sword technique combos, but about "High-EQ Phrases for Civil Servants," "The Art of Gift-Giving," and "A Hundred Interpretations of Great Qian Law."
By the end, cultivation had become the side hobby, and passing the civil service examination was the real game.
With a nostalgic sort of curiosity, Gu Chengming opened the Miscellaneous Records of the Great Qian.
The book wasn't an official history — it was something more like a personal notebook, recording the various strange incidents, court secrets, and folk legends that had accumulated over three centuries of the Great Qian dynasty.
At first, Gu Chengming flipped through it casually, treating it as light reading to pass the time.
The book recorded how a certain Minister of Revenue had been impeached by the Censorate for taking a fox spirit as a concubine; how in a year of severe drought in the capital, the Imperial Preceptor had opened a ritual altar only to draw down a heavenly tribulation that struck himself; and an introduction to the Great Qian's unique "official-qi" cultivation system —
An official beloved by the people could gather the collective vow-power of ten thousand souls, becoming impervious to the ten thousand laws, with evil and demons retreating before them.
As he read on, Gu Chengming reached the middle-to-later portion of the book, where a chapter titled Old Anecdotes of the Music Bureau caught his attention.
This chapter recorded various affairs from the Great Qian Ministry of Rites' Bureau of Music.
The Bureau of Music oversaw all rites and music throughout the realm, and was responsible for the music and dance at major ceremonial occasions such as sacrifices and court audiences.
In a section concerning "the music reform of the late Emperor's reign," Gu Chengming's eyes caught a name — Pei Ming.
"Former Vice Minister of Rites Pei Ming possessed unrestrained natural talent, with mastery of music and particular excellence with the ancient zither. Yet his temperament was eccentric, and he was known for startling pronouncements."
"Pei Ming held that all things in heaven and earth possessed their own rhythm — the sound of wind, rain, and thunder, even the sound of qi and blood flowing through the human body, could all be rendered as music. If one could find the resonant frequency shared by all creation, one could draw the power of heaven and earth into the body, and the physical form would achieve sagehood."
Gu Chengming's fingers froze mid-page.
The sound of qi and blood flowing through the human body?
Resonance?
This description... how was it so uncannily similar to the core concept of the Hundred Bones Resonance?
"Pei Ming was not only a master of music, but an unconventional body cultivator. He cultivated no spiritual energy, refined no golden core, and spent his days obsessively using various instruments to vibrate his own bones. It was common to see him on stormy nights of rain and thunder, standing bare on a mountaintop, using his body as a bell to resonate with the sound of lightning, letting out an inhuman howl."
"His colleagues all considered him mad. Censors even impeached him for 'erratic behavior unbecoming of an official.'"
"Yet Pei Ming was undisturbed. He once declared: 'What you all cultivate is longevity. What I cultivate is my true self. The great body is a zither, the bones are its strings, the qi and blood are its wind. Tune it right, and you can play the music of the Great Dao!'"
The body as zither, the bones as strings... wasn't that precisely the Hundred Bones Resonance's principle of tendons and bones resonating in the marrow's depths?
The book continued:
"Later, Pei Ming was stripped of his rank and exiled three thousand li for matters that cannot be recorded."
"On his journey into exile, Pei Ming disappeared without a trace. He left behind only a fragmentary manuscript titled Records of the Grand Sound in Silence, which subsequently wandered the jianghu and was never found again."
Gu Chengming felt as though he had found a treasure. Though the book contained no direct cultivation manual, in the latter half of this anecdote the author — who seemed genuinely fascinated by Pei Ming's theories — had recorded in detail some of Pei Ming's specific ideas from the Records of the Grand Sound in Silence on the subject of "drawing in the rhythm of heaven and earth."
"...Pei Ming once said: to draw in the rhythm of heaven and earth, brute force will not suffice. One must first seek one's body's own 'base tone.'"
"The bones of a person vary in length and thickness, and their natural resonant frequencies differ accordingly. In ordinary cultivation, people tend to force spiritual energy in by brute flooding — like feeding peony petals to an ox. The proper path is to first still the mind and listen inward, seeking out that faintest, most elusive sound of bone-resonance."
"Use that sound as your guide, and adjust the rhythm of your breathing so that the speed of your qi-blood flow synchronizes with the bone-resonance. When Hundred Bones reach Full Resonance, regard your own body as one vast resonance chamber."
"At that point, reach outward toward the sounds of the world. The rhythm of wind through the treetops. The rhythm of water wearing stone. Even the rhythm of the stars in their turning... Find the point that harmonizes with your own frequency, and trigger it in an instant!"
"Like zither and lute sounding in harmony, like bell and drum calling and answering. The power of heaven and earth will then flow along this resonance, pouring into the body without obstruction, cleansing the tendons, tempering the marrow, and reshaping the golden form!"
Gu Chengming felt something like a bolt of lightning split through his mind. Every confusion he had encountered while cultivating the Hundred Bones Resonance resolved itself in that single instant of clarity.
No wonder Yu Wenqiu had said the later realms were the founder's fantasy — because by the conventional logic of cultivation, this method of practice was simply incomprehensible.
But for Gu Chengming... wasn't this just tuning a radio?
His expression shifted toward unmistakable excitement.
The method for the breakthrough had been found.
Several days later. The Wenjian Sect.
A damp, cold mist had settled over the back mountain of the Huiyuan Gate.
Relying on the ever-expanding intelligence and trading network of the Myriad Wonders Assembly, the series of bounties Gu Chengming had posted had quickly received responses.
"Buying lightning-struck wood at a premium — the older the better."
"Seeking an obscure spirit plant called Echo-of-the-Empty-Valley Grass, dead or alive."
"Urgently need the intact throat-bone of a Second Realm demon beast, the Earthquake Mang-Bull — complete specimens preferred."
Gu Chengming now stood in his study, the desk before him covered with all of these materials.
The Miscellaneous Records of the Great Qian lay open to one side, the page about Pei Ming tuning his body to rhythm read and reread until every word was carved into his memory.
"The theory is correct and the logic is sound."
Gu Chengming's fingers tapped lightly against the tabletop, producing a quiet, rhythmic knock:
"The lightning-struck wood is to purify the bone structure and strip away errant frequencies. The echo grass is to widen the meridians and form a resonance cavity. The throat-bone is to set the pitch."
[The Hundred Bones Resonance falls into a rare silence.]
A long moment passed.
[It speaks with some hesitation: this method — isn't it a little too dangerous?]
"If it works, we'll be reborn entirely."
Gu Chengming said it with a smile:
"With Old Hundred by my side, what do I have to fear?"
[The Hundred Bones Resonance, hearing this, feels a surge of heroic spirit — its last shred of hesitation swept clean away.]
[Then we gamble!]
[It is, after all, the Primordial Imperial Merit — boundless, the source of ten thousand Daos, sovereign over nine heavens and ten earths, peerless throughout all creation!]
[Emperor Gu, strike without restraint! Even at the cost of damage to its own Dao foundation, it will guard your heart-pulse!]
Gu Chengming gave a slight nod and said nothing more.
He closed his eyes and steadied his breathing.
Inhale like silk — long, continuous, unbroken. Exhale like an arrow — brief, forceful, sharp.
As his breathing rhythm shifted, the qi and blood within him began to oscillate at an extraordinarily strange frequency.
Thrum... thrum... thrum...
The sound of his heartbeat.
At first it was barely perceptible, but as Gu Chengming sank his divine sense fully into his own body, searching for that barely-traceable "base tone," the heartbeat began to amplify — growing heavier and heavier until it pounded like a war drum.
Hummm —
Answering it: the thirty-six pieces of lightning-struck wood arranged around him.
Drawn by the flow of qi, the wood began to tremble faintly, emitting a low, deep drone.
The sound wasn't harsh, but it seemed to bypass skin entirely, striking directly upon bone.
Pain.
The pain of bones grinding and compressing against each other as they shuddered.
Gu Chengming's face went bloodless in an instant, cold sweat pouring from him like rain, but he clenched his jaw and held perfectly still.
The frequency wasn't enough yet.
"A little faster..."
He whispered inwardly, forcing the qi and blood to accelerate.
BUZZZ — CRACK — BUZZZ — CRACK —
The droning grew louder and louder. In the end it merged into a single continuous wave — a visible wall of sound that bounced, layered, and amplified within the narrow array space.
Crack.
A soft sound.
The bones of Gu Chengming's forearm, under the high-frequency vibration, split open with a hairline fracture.
But it was only the beginning.
As the resonance deepened, the terrifying force of that vibration spread through every limb and bone in his body. Ribs, spine, leg bones — every single bone wailed, every single bone shook, as though they might shatter completely at any moment.
And still, the so-called "rhythm of heaven and earth" remained impossibly out of reach.
He had barely touched the threshold and already his body was on the verge of total collapse.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance is seized by sudden terror.]
[Emperor Gu! This path is wrong! This isn't body tempering — this is shattering yourself into dissolution!]
[Better to preserve the green mountains. Even without this breakthrough, there will still be firewood to burn. Let's not break through today!]
The Hundred Bones Resonance, which had spoken of "life and death" so freely day in and day out, only now discovered it wasn't nearly as cavalier about those things as it had imagined.
"Don't say that!" Gu Chengming ground out through clenched teeth. "The worst case is serious injury, a few months of bed rest. I won't die."
"Didn't we agree to stand together at the summit of the immortal realm? If we stop now, what becomes of sweeping through all ages?"
[The Hundred Bones Resonance watches you, drenched in blood, bones cracking inch by inch — and still you refuse to let go.]
[In this moment, every last fragment of its self-doubt melts away before the sheer ferocity of your will.]
[It thinks: to hell with having no way forward!]
[If Emperor Gu says there is a path —]
[Then even if the heavens collapse and the Great Dao shatters, it will carve that path open for you!]
BOOM —!
Deep within the sea of consciousness, the golden light that represented the Hundred Bones Resonance ignited without reservation.
It no longer hoarded its own origin. No longer weighed the so-called consequences. Every insight gathered since its birth, every last scrap of its power — even that pitiable sliver of "selfhood" — was thrown into this wager without exception.
Gu Chengming's skin began to split. Blood misted outward like a fine spray, dyeing him red from head to toe.
Every bone in his body shattered at once — but in the very instant of shattering, that blazing golden torrent seized every fragment, compressing them, wrapping them, reshaping them.
Between destruction and rebirth.
Hummm —
A strange sound suddenly rang out inside Gu Chengming's mind.
No — not his mind.
Between heaven and earth.
The wind had stopped. The rustling of the bamboo grove fell silent.
And then — Gu Chengming heard it. He heard the pulse of the earth beneath his feet. He heard the breathing of the distant mountains. He heard the turning of the stars overhead.
The sound was vast, boundless, encompassing all things.
It was the music of the Great Dao.
— Found it.
Gu Chengming no longer needed to consciously guide anything. No longer needed to agonizingly maintain the frequency.
Because in this moment, his body, his flesh and blood, his every heartbeat — had already synchronized with the rhythm of heaven and earth.
ROARRR —
The surrounding spiritual energy seemed to be drawn in, surging toward the small courtyard from every direction.
It forced its way through every pore of Gu Chengming's body, and those newly reborn bones, scoured by this vast flood of spiritual energy, rapidly became crystalline and translucent, suffused with a soft jade-like luminescence.
Shattered bones, recast and reborn — a complete transformation of body and spirit!
Time passed — how long, it was impossible to say — and Gu Chengming slowly opened his eyes.
The candles in the room had long since guttered out. He lowered his head and looked at his own hands.
No dramatic swelling of muscle. No earth-shaking visions.
But with just the lightest clench of his fist, he could hear a dense, perfectly synchronized chiming rise from within — like a hundred bells ringing as one.
That was — Hundred Bones in Full Resonance, body and spirit co-vibrating.
At the same moment, a line of text appeared before him.
[CG Unlocked!]
[CG / The Path Carved Open for You]
In the next instant, the CG sequence unfolded.
Golden flames wreathing the body. White hair lifting in the wind. Fists wrapped in white cloth. The shattered firmament crumbling like dust.
In the blaze of ten thousand blazing rays, a slow glance back —
Upon the ruins, a road opens skyward.
At the same time, a line of small golden text appeared as annotation below:
[When the false is taken as real, the real becomes false. Where nothing is treated as something, something is nothing.]
[The throne of Emperor may be empty, the legend may be a lie.]
[Yet it shall burn its body as the torch, and render its soul as fuel —]
[To lay down for you a road to the heavens.]
[Current Affection Rating: 100/∞ (Undying Devotion)]
Gu Chengming stared at the infinity symbol where the affection rating cap should have been, a large question mark forming over his head.
What do you mean your affection rating has no upper limit?
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