151: Chapter 148 Conspiracy 151: Chapter 148 Conspiracy Please support the official release
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“It seems I’ve really traveled through time—”
In the luxuriously decorated carriage, Zong Shou watched expressionlessly as he looked at a round mirror before him.
The reflection showed a boy not yet of age, about thirteen, with a pale complexion.
However, his facial features were rarely handsome and exquisitely peerless.
A pair of narrow phoenix eyes shone with a radiant light.
Yet, at this moment, they were filled with a bitter and helpless expression.
Not long ago, he still distinctly had an ordinary face, the kind that absolutely couldn’t be found in a crowd.
Unexpectedly, upon waking from that dream, his body had transformed into that of a handsome man.
Though slightly sickly and frail, he was without a doubt exceptionally handsome, far surpassing those famous top male celebrities on TV in his past life.
All he lacked was the demeanor.
Yet at this moment, Zong Shou felt no joy at all, only an overwhelming sense of disorientation.
He felt like a fish that had been free to swim in the vast ocean but was suddenly transported onto dry land.
In this world, aside from the life-threatening strangeness, there was also a profound sense of fear and loneliness.
Unwilling to give up, Zong Shou pinched his face harder, only to feel a surge of pain.
He naturally didn’t find any traces of plastic surgery on his face.
“—There’s pain, am I not dreaming?
But what exactly is my identity now?
And this place, where am I?”
‘Zong Shou’ was the name of this body’s former self.
In his previous life, he had another name, which was now meaningless in this situation.
Muttering to himself, Zong Shou sighed and looked away, filling his chest with despair.
He had completely given up on the idea of returning or ‘waking up from this dream’.
In fact, he had been in this world for several days.
Almost every time he woke from sleep, he would repeat the actions just described.
Today was the seventh day.
Looking at the decor inside the carriage, it seemed to be from ancient China, yet it was not exactly that.
Opening the curtain further, he saw vast fields stretching endlessly, lush and green, making his chest feel expansive and the air fresh and comfortable, nothing like the polluted world of modern times.
However, looking down, he noticed that although the carriage had wheels, it was floating three feet above the ground.
The sixteen single-horned horses in front were walking on air and could move up and down.
Thus, though the carriage was massive, just the cabin itself was about forty square meters, capable of moving smoothly over any complex terrain.
At this moment, no one directed it; it rushed straight ahead towards the distance.
The slashes and sword scars on both sides of the carriage were of great concern to him.
Zong Shou only felt a wave of dizziness and slumped onto the sofa cushioned with velvet.
Then with just a slight stir of thought, a series of fragmented memories appeared in his mind.
All of them broken and incomplete.
They contained many characters, quite a few faces, and then there was an imposing giant mountain that pierced the clouds, a huge academy occupying half of an island in a lake.
It felt both unfamiliar and familiar, with a vague sense of fear.
His emotions were indeed bizarrely complex.
The deepest preserve in his mind held the only intact memory.
Countless mysterious characters came together there, forming a complete book.
These characters were completely different from any language in his former world.
Yet, they felt extremely familiar, almost like he had mastered them in his past life.
“Indeterminate Spirit Emperor Technique?
And this demon language.
Could this really be the Divine Emperor World?”
Zong Shou’s lips twitched involuntarily, his face filled with utter confusion.
— “Divine Emperor” was a global online game sensation that began in 2012.
No one knew which gaming company had developed it, and all of its accompanying gaming equipment had also appeared suddenly on the market.
It seemed that overnight, the entire planet had moved from 2D and 3D online games to an era of virtual holographic realms.
Whether it was that academy, that mountain, or these demon clan characters in his mind, he had seen them all within Divine Emperor in his previous life.
Right, he remembered that at the end of his previous life, his last conscious moment had been within the “Divine Emperor” game.
In the Cloud Realm, the Seven Emperors vied for supremacy.
Alone with only a sword, he had fought against numerous foes.
But at the last moment, a sudden surge of electricity had passed through his body, and he had lost all consciousness.
When he woke up again, he was in a different body.
Everything around him was no longer the familiar Earth.
So now, was he in the game, or in a real world?
Or perhaps, was there a connection between this world and “Divine Emperor”?
His mind spun again, and Zong Shou simply dropped all thoughts, refusing to think any further.
In this carriage, where he had nothing particular to do, Zong Shou took out a three-foot Green Steel Sword and began to practice his swordsmanship in the relatively spacious carriage.
His steps moved forward and backward, shifting and turning in coordination with his body, making the sword light shimmer within the not too large, not too small space of the carriage.
Just like in his previous life, every sword form, every step was precise to the extreme, almost reaching perfection.
However, after only half a moment of practicing this basic swordsmanship, Zong Shou was already gasping for breath, his whole body dripping with cold sweat.
And the sword light and his figure had inevitably begun to distort.
It was only his inherent, stubborn determination that kept him upright and prevented him from collapsing.
Only when every last bit of strength had been completely exhausted did Zong Shou stop the sword light, gasping for breath as he sat on the couch.
Once his intensely focused attention finally dispersed, he could feel that every part of his body, from limbs to organs, ached as if seared by flames.
This was not merely a pastime borne out of boredom, but rather pure unease.
Both this world and his own predicament profoundly instilled in him a sense of crisis and urgency, making him desperate to obtain some strength, or at the very least, some ability to protect himself.
In “Divine Emperor,” everything approached reality.
Whether it was martial arts, language, the five senses, or combat, even down to basic necessities like clothing, food, housing, and transportation, there was a complete system.
Most players relied on the system’s default settings to play and fight, without seeking deeper understanding.
Yet there were some who did everything in their power to learn various knowledge and languages within Divine Emperor, studying the principles of martial arts thoroughly and seeking to deeply understand everything about this world.
They could even break free from the constraints of the game and find their own pivotal breakthroughs on the existing foundations.
Not only was Zong Shou among them, but he was also one of the best.
Basic Swordsmanship, Basic Boxing, Basic Lightness, Basic Evasion, Basic Step Technique, Basic Guarding, Basic Internal Skill—he had thoroughly mastered all the basics of a martial artist to the highest level of returning to simplicity, reaching the grandmaster level.
Among the hundreds of millions of players, those who achieved this were only a mere thousand or so.
Indeed, Zong Shou had mastered all the principles, variations, and derivations of this basic swordsmanship.
What he needed to do now was simply to make this body firmly remember, turning it into his own instinct.
It was just that his body was exceedingly weak.
A mere session of ordinary practice could only last as long as a short tea break, and his physical strength was not even half that of a normal person.
What was even more frustrating was that he was completely unable to cultivate the basic internal skill.
It wasn’t that Zong Shou’s body was truly weak.
In fact, in terms of strength, flexibility, and agility, he could even surpass an average person.
Even his root bone and Five Elements Spirit Root should belong to that of a genius of the first order.