Volume 1: The Pre-Awakening Vanguard
Chapter 1: The Clock is Ticking
The hum of the old, unbalanced ceiling fan in the Jiangnan University dormitory was a rhythmic, irritating wobble that had once driven Lin Feng crazy during his college years. Now, it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
Lin Feng stared blankly at his hands. They were smooth. The skin on his palms was soft, free of the deep, jagged scars left by the spatial blades of the Abyssal Rift. There were no chemical burns from low-grade qi-replenishing fluids, no calluses from gripping a cracked alloy spear for seventy-two hours straight without sleep.
With a trembling hand, he reached for the cheap, plastic-cased smartphone resting on his messy particle-board desk. He pressed the power button. The screen illuminated, casting a pale blue glow over his face.
*June 16, 2036. 09:56 PM.*
"Ten years..." Lin Feng whispered. His voice was hoarse, cracking slightly under a wave of sudden, suffocating emotion before his expression hardened, turning as cold as an arctic winter. "I actually went back. The Great Awakening hasnât happened yet."
In his past life, Lin Feng was a statistical cosmic joke. When the hidden fault lines of Earth fractured exactly one year from nowâreleasing a subterranean ocean of dormant spiritual energy that threw modern-day Huaxia into a chaotic era of magic, mutated beasts, and ruthless martial factionsâhe had been an unawakened civilian. By the time he managed to force open his meridians using dangerous, black-market techniques, the world had already been carved up by multi-billion-dollar cultivation conglomerates and ancient hidden clans.
He had survived as a "Scavenger," a bottom-tier mercenary who ventured into cleared dimensional rifts to haul out monster carcasses and scrap metals. He was the meat-shield. The disposable peasant. His life had ended in the dark, crushed under a collapsing cavern ceiling because a corporate young master from the Zhao Group wanted to hoard a Tier-4 Spiritual Core and intentionally triggered a structural collapse to eliminate witnesses.
Lin Feng remembered the agonizing pressure of the stones crushing his chest. He remembered the arrogant, indifferent look on the young master's face as he boarded an armored tactical helicopter, leaving thirty scavengers to suffocate in the dark.
But now, the timeline was wide open. The world was still normal. People were still studying for university exams, scrolling through social media, and worrying about corporate job interviews, entirely oblivious to the fact that the physics of their universe were about to rewrite themselves.
Lin Feng closed his eyes and took a deep, deliberate breath, shifting his internal awareness backward into his own body. He winced. His current physical state was painfully weak. His lungs felt tight from a sedentary college lifestyle, his muscles were soft, and his meridians were completely clogged with the calcified impurities of modern processed foods and pollution. He had zero qi. He didn't have a flashy "Regressor System" giving him daily login rewards, nor did he inherit a divine artifact from the future.
What he *did* have was something far more dangerous: a perfect, photographic memory of the *Nine Heaven Circulation Scroll*.
In the late stages of his previous life, Lin Feng had excavated a crumbling jade slip from a high-risk tomb in the broken mountains of western Huaxia. The scroll was a legendary, mythic-tier cultivation manual, but it came with an infuriating, absolute condition: it could only be learned by someone whose body possessed completely unawakened, pristine meridians. To a veteran scavenger with mutilated, scarred qi channels, it was a cruel mockery. To a regressor sitting in a college dorm room a year before the apocalypse, it was the ultimate weapon.
"Thirty-six days," Lin Feng muttered, standing up so abruptly that his cheap plastic chair scraped loudly against the linoleum floor. "Thirty-six days until the first localized leak. The Spiritual Seed at the West District construction site."
He checked his bank account on his phone. *342 Yuan.* Less than fifty dollars. He was broke, he was physically fragile, and he had no social standing.
"It doesn't matter," Lin Feng said, his eyes burning with an unbreakable, terrifying focus as he tied the laces of his worn-out sneakers. "This time, I start from absolute zero. And I will never lose again."
By 10:30 PM, Lin Feng had left the university campus behind. While his roommates were likely playing competitive online video games or sleeping, Lin Feng was walking down the humid, neon-lit streets of Jiangnanâs older industrial district.
The air here smelled of wet asphalt, cheap street food, and diesel exhaust. To anyone else, it was just a gritty, lower-class neighborhood scheduled for urban renewal. But Lin Fengâs eyes didn't see the crumbling concrete storefronts; they saw the invisible topography of the earth. He was tracking the fault lines. Even now, a year before the grand rupture, infinitesimal micro-currents of ancient spiritual energy were beginning to seep through the deepest bedrock of the city.
He stopped in front of a high, rusted chain-link fence covered in faded green construction tarps. A large, weather-beaten sign hung from the gate: *JIANGNAN WEST DISTRICT COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT â PROPERTY OF ZHAO REAL ESTATE.*
Lin Fengâs fists tightened inside his pockets. *The Zhao Group.* Even now, their name haunted him. In this era, they were just a massive, influential real estate and tech conglomerate. In a year, they would become one of the premier warlord factions of New Huaxia, using their early acquisition of land to monopolize the richest spiritual nodes in the province.
According to his memory, during the excavation of this specific commercial complex's deep underground parking garage, a group of night-shift laborers would accidentally crack open a pocket of crystalline bedrock. Inside was a single, premature "Spiritual Seed"âa dense concentrate of pre-awakening qi capable of instantly cleansing a mortalâs body and opening their primary meridians without the violent, agonizing side effects of standard awakening.
The Zhao Group wouldn't discover what it was until weeks later, dismissing the early workers' reports of "glowing blue moss" as chemical contamination. But Lin Feng knew better. That seed was his ticket to building an unshakeable, flawless foundation before the rest of the world even realized there was a race to run.
"Hey! Kid! What do you think you're looking at?"
A sharp, abrasive voice cut through the quiet hum of the street lamps.
Lin Feng turned his head slightly. Walking out from a small wooden guard shack near the construction gate was a burly man wearing a stained orange safety vest and a cracked hardhat. He was holding a heavy, industrial-grade flashlight in one hand and a half-empty bottle of cheap liquor in the other. His eyes were bloodshot, and he walked with a heavy, arrogant swagger.
"This is private property," the guard spat, shining the bright LED beam directly into Lin Fengâs eyes. "University brats shouldn't be wandering around here at night. Get lost before I call the local precinct for loitering."
Lin Feng didn't blink against the light. His mind instinctively calculated the guard's stance, his weight distribution, and his reaction time. In his past life, Lin Feng could have snuffed this man out with a flick of his wrist. But right now? His current body was thin, his muscles lacked explosive power, and a direct physical confrontation with a man twice his size would result in unnecessary injuries.
He needed access to this site legally, consistently, and without drawing the attention of the corporate higher-ups.
Instead of fighting, Lin Feng let his shoulders drop, deliberately adopting the timid, non-threatening posture of an impoverished student looking for work. He lowered his gaze, shielding his eyes with his hand.
"I'm sorry, Uncle," Lin Feng said, his voice smooth, polite, and entirely devoid of the killer instinct hidden beneath his skin. "I didn't mean to cause trouble. I saw the hiring flyer posted near the bus stop last week. I'm looking for the night-shift foreman. I need a job."
The guard lowered the flashlight slightly, his sneer turning into a look of skeptical amusement. He scanned Lin Fengâs thin frame, his faded clothes, and his cheap shoes. "A job? You? Kid, this isn't a convenience store. We're hauling reinforced rebar and clearing deep mud down there. A stiff breeze looks like it could snap you in half."
"I can handle it," Lin Feng replied, keeping his voice steady and earnest.
"I don't need high pay. I just need a night shift. I can work the graveyard hours that the older workers hate."
The guard paused, the mention of "graveyard hours" hitting a chord. The night shift at the West District site was notoriously brutal, unpopular, and understaffed because the subterranean excavation kept hitting unexpected pockets of cold, foul-smelling water that gave the men full-body chills.
"You really want to break your back for pennies?" the guard muttered, taking another swig from his bottle. He chuckled darkly. "Fine. Old Man Liu is inside the maintenance shed near the cement mixers. He's short three laborers because half the crew quit yesterday claiming the pit is cursed. Go tell him Big Qiang sent you. But if you pass out from exhaustion on your first hour, don't expect anyone to carry you out."
"Thank you, Uncle Qiang. I won't cause any trouble," Lin Feng said with a respectful bow.
As he walked past the rusted gate and stepped onto the gravel path of the dark construction site, the submissive look on Lin Feng's face instantly vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating grin.
He was inside. The countdown had begun.