Chapter 11: Freedom

“Shit!”

Bang!

“Shit!”

Bang!

“Shit!”

Bang! Bang!

Inside a pitch-black concrete room, the thud of impacts echoed alongside low, guttural grunts. Zhang Yu gritted his teeth through waves of searing pain as he forced himself to complete a second round of the Body-Refining Thirty-Six Forms.

With a heavy thump, he collapsed to the floor, gasping for air in ragged bursts.

His arms and legs trembled uncontrollably. Zhang Yu felt like every inch of this body had hit its absolute limit. Not a single muscle wanted to move.

And yet, just when he thought he could rest, that dreadful chill returned—and with it, the voice inside his mind.

“Please adhere to the ritual contract. Strive to fulfill your wish. Do not slack off or delay intentionally. 10.”

“Damn it!” Zhang Yu cursed inwardly. “I’m already at my limit!”

“I can’t move another muscle!”

“I still have school tomorrow!”

But no matter how he protested or explained, the countdown never stopped. It ticked down mercilessly, without pause or pity.

As the timer approached zero, Zhang Yu could only grit his teeth and curse again. Stumbling, swaying, he dragged himself upright to resume training.

Normally, when training alone, most people can’t push themselves to their true limits.

Only under the strict watch of a master, a teacher, a coach—only with someone supervising—can one be driven to their utmost edge again and again.

Zhang Yu was no exception. Left to himself, he’d have given up after one or two rounds of the Body-Refining Thirty-Six Forms, called it a night, and crashed.

But the ritual’s power… it was like a demonic drill instructor, watching him at all times, threatening him with death, forcing him to train without even a second’s slacking.

Third round…

Fourth round…

Fifth round…

All the way to the tenth round!

Under relentless coercion, Zhang Yu pushed through ten full repetitions of the Body-Refining Thirty-Six Forms!

By the end, his flesh screamed like it was being torn apart, then throbbed like he was being stabbed with needles, and finally numbed to the point where he couldn’t even feel his hands and feet anymore.

Meanwhile, every last drop of Mana in his body was forced out, funneled into repairing his torn and aching muscles.

When the tenth round ended, Zhang Yu felt utterly drained—physically, spiritually, magically. Like a rag wrung out ten thousand times, not a single drop remained.

He just wanted to lie there forever, too tired to move a finger.

To his relief, the deathly voice did not return. It must have judged that he’d truly given his all and reached his limit.

During the grueling training, Zhang Yu had also begun to piece together the nature of the ritual power.

“It’s like an artificial idiot. No real intelligence—just follows preset rules…”

He’d seen similar things in Kunxu’s movies, TV shows, and news reports.

Powerful artifacts often housed Artifact Spirits, like embedded AI—capable of limited cognition. The strongest of these could even rival human intelligence.

Now, with the pressure momentarily lifted, Zhang Yu could finally breathe and assess the results of his labor.

Yes—after completing the tenth round, he clearly sensed an upgrade in the technique.

In that instant, his understanding and perception of the Body-Refining Thirty-Six Forms deepened. Details he hadn’t noticed or understood before flashed through his mind like lightning.

And in the Feathered Tome, what had been “Body-Refining Thirty-Six Forms Lv.1 (0/10)” now read: “Body-Refining Thirty-Six Forms Lv.2 (0/20)”.

“Just 20 more rounds to reach level 3?”

“At this rate, I could push it to level 10 in no time!”

Zhang Yu knew that within the Qi Refining Realm, martial techniques and Daoist arts could only be cultivated to level 10.

“At that point, even without acupuncture or Performance-Enhancing Supplements, my training effects would rival—no, exceed—Bai Zhenzhen and the others.”

“If I keep this up, it’s not impossible to have the strongest body in the whole grade.”

The thought filled Zhang Yu with a burst of energy. The pain didn’t seem quite so overwhelming anymore.

“Terrifying… my potential is absolutely terrifying. Once the Evil God forced it out of me, I’m basically a rocket.”

With dreams of a better future warming his chest, Zhang Yu—having driven his body to its absolute brink—slowly drifted into sleep.

…

He didn’t wake until five the next morning, as if pulled from slumber by long-ingrained habit.

But his body felt like it had been dismantled and haphazardly reassembled. Every bone and joint ached. Even opening his eyes felt like a chore.

Awake but unwilling to move, Zhang Yu wanted nothing more than to sleep a little longer—even if it meant lying on the cold concrete floor of an unfinished building.

“Five more minutes… just five more…”

But the moment he thought of resting longer, that same dreadful voice surfaced again from the depths of his mind.

“Please adhere to the ritual contract. Strive to fulfill your wish. Do not slack off or delay intentionally. 10.”

“Goddamn it!” Zhang Yu’s eyes snapped open. He listened carefully. When the voice continued, confirming it wasn’t a hallucination, he could only curse under his breath and sit up, grumbling.

Right then, it hit him: the situation was even worse than he’d imagined.

“So… anything related to school, cultivation, college entrance exams, jobs—in other words, anything tied to learning, training, working, or making money toward my second wish—I can’t slack off even a little?”

“Twenty-four-hour surveillance, huh.”

Exhausted, Zhang Yu dragged himself back to his rental room.

Sticky with sweat and grime, he quickly paid 323.4 in water fees, took a five-minute shower, then hurried toward the bus stop.

He glanced up at the display screen on the stop.

“Next bus in ten minutes?”

Leaning on a pole, Zhang Yu muttered, “Might as well rest a bit. At least that cursed thing hasn’t told me to train during this wait.”

He immediately regretted the thought.

A bone-deep chill spread through his chest. That nightmare-inducing voice rang out again.

“Please adhere to the ritual contract. Strive to fulfill your wish. Do not slack off or delay intentionally. 10.”

“Son of a—” Zhang Yu gritted his teeth. “It’s monitoring my thoughts now? Just

thinking

of something productive without acting on it… gets me punished?”

And so, amid confused, curious, or admiring stares from the people around him, Zhang Yu—worn out and aching—started another round of Body-Refining Thirty-Six Forms right there at the bus stop.

“Hup!”

Bang!

With one final punch, drenched in sweat, Zhang Yu collapsed again.

Seeing the bus approaching from afar, he sighed in relief. “Finally.”

Today’s bus even had an empty seat for him, which lifted his spirits a bit.

“Time to rest for real.”

“Maybe just a quick nap. No way it’ll make me train on the bus… unless it’s Breathing Techniques…”

The moment he thought of Breathing Techniques, Zhang Yu felt a chill crawl up his spine.

“Please adhere to the ritual contract. Strive to fulfill your wish. Do not slack off or delay intentionally. 10.”

Sure enough, the countdown began again, forcing Zhang Yu to operate the basic Breathing Technique as he sat on the moving bus.

Breathing exercises on a bus sounded easy and efficient, but Zhang Yu had tried it in the past—and always given up.

First, the noise made it nearly impossible to concentrate.

Second, and more importantly, he was just too exhausted. Waking up so early every day left him drained. Whenever he found a seat, all he wanted was a short nap. He couldn’t muster the energy to breathe properly, let alone cultivate.

Each time he tried, he ended up nodding off in the middle of it.

But now, under the ritual’s unrelenting pressure, he had no choice but to endure. Fighting sleepiness with every breath, Zhang Yu absorbed the Qi of the world around him, one inhale and exhale at a time.

And it was then that he fully understood:

This wasn’t ordinary twenty-four-hour supervision—it was a death march.

As long as this thing remained in him, all leisure, slacking, fun, rest, and joy… would be stripped away.

No weekends. No vacations. No freedom. Every second of his life was now dedicated to studying, training, working—until he fulfilled his second wish.

Zhang Yu wrapped his arms around his head.

“I’ve become a learning machine, a laboring ox… with no time to myself. This is my life now—a lifetime of grind, until the pressure breaks me.”

He cried out in his heart, “Even if I become immortal, what’s the point of living a few hundred more years if every extra year is just more suffering?”

“Oh heavens!”

Passengers all around turned to look at the boy curled up in his seat, clutching his head in anguish.

But Zhang Yu no longer cared. As the countdown began again—“Please adhere to the ritual contract…”—he straightened his posture, forced down his sorrow, and resumed his Breathing Technique.

And yet, in that moment, a fierce resolve was born in his heart.

Up to this morning, Zhang Yu had been drifting—his goals shaped more by inherited memory and momentum than conviction.

Sure, he wanted to get into a prestigious university, join a major sect, master the Immortal Path—but it all felt distant, vague.

Now, he had a real goal. One he would pursue no matter how many times he stumbled.

He would become powerful enough to

rip this ritual out of his soul

.

Zhang Yu wanted… freedom.