Chapter 587: Obstruction

The scene continued to shift.

Act Seven:

The man who had gained a new power led soldiers who also mastered that power, promoting this method everywhere.

They gathered the remaining survivors, using their new power to fight zombies and mutants.

People praised him, and his "thoughts" kept spreading.

The first Ascetic Practitioner was born.

With the second...

Third..

The hundredth...

The Empire began to be rebuilt, and the man here launched the counteroffensive.

He swore to eliminate all monsters.

Lin An's thoughts were no longer on the rapidly passing scene; he simply looked at his own hands in sudden realization:

"So that's how it is... so that's how it is..."

"My earlier guess... was only half right."

"The mystery of the Ascetic Practitioners' power in this world is indeed firm conviction."

"But the principle is not so-called enhanced mental strength... it's related to this world's strangeness."

Suddenly, Lin An involuntarily thought of religion in the real world.

The so-called transcendence, the so-called becoming a Buddha or god...

Is this also that principle?

He once thought that those fanatical religious people, indulging in self-mortification, were seeking the pleasurable substances the body secretes on its own.

Like a self-produced addictive drug.

Just as marathon lovers most enjoy extreme fatigue, after breaking through that limit they feel a strong sense of peace and happiness.

But now, thinking about it, the underlying meaning is chilling.

Everything seems that simple.

It's like you're sitting in a room now, wanting to pick up a water cup in one minute.

You have this idea in your mind, and you can easily act on it, drinking that sip of water.

But the greater the goal you set, the more time and cost you must expend.

Just as wanting to memorize a hundred words is obviously much harder than picking up a cup.

You will be disturbed by yourself, be lazy, feel tired, and give up halfway.

But if your resolve is strong, you can overcome these obstacles and accomplish those things.

Then...

Everything follows the same reasoning.

What if the goal is to get into a prestigious university?

Or to become the world's richest person?

Or to gain a strong physique, even to become a deity, wielding transcendent power?

The greater the goal, the greater the desire, and the obstacles and difficulty will increase exponentially.

But.

As long as something can be done in this world, people can truly become deities, cultivating into the so-called gods and buddhas.

Then, no matter how small the probability, no matter how great the difficulty.

As long as the possibility is not zero, logically it can definitely be done.

And the secret lies in whether one can persist.

The so-called ascetic practice is tempering the will.

Repeatedly setting difficulties for oneself in advance, to grow accustomed to these obstacles.

When you become accustomed to having no feet yet still can climb mountains with your hands, it means you will no longer be hindered by equivalent hardships.

When an Ascetic Practitioner endures great pain, his conviction will be sufficient to overcome anything that obstructs him.

And perhaps this Secret Realm's rules involve some kind of cycle.

When an Ascetic Practitioner with absolute conviction, even after a hundred more years, will not slacken.

When, in the future, he finally gains power, that future power will instantly transmit back to the present.

It's like if there truly were deities in the world who could wield temporal power, then he could naturally travel back to the past to give power to his still-mortal self.

The present influences the future, and the future feeds back to the past.

This is remarkably similar to the ability of the Causal Sequence.

And upon realizing this, Lin An felt a dazed surge, with countless thoughts arising in his mind.

At the same time, a system prompt suddenly sounded:

"Ding, the task to decipher the mystery of the Ascetic Practitioner is complete."

"Please eliminate the Ascetic Practitioner as soon as possible."

"Gain world exploration progress, 25%."

The light screen flickered, Lin An gave an unsurprising yet surprised wry laugh, and closed the system prompt.

But he watched the rapidly playing footage before him, watching the man fighting blood-soaked, battling zombies.

He still had some doubts in his heart.

The mystery of the Ascetic Practitioner has been solved.

But the power the man erupted with at the beginning was clearly psychic energy.

And the words the man spoke made him think of an unbelievable fact.

The first Ascetic Practitioner turned out to be a player!?

The man is a player from the real world!?

He couldn't be the target of the deathmatch mission in the system prompt, could he?

Amidst all the speculation, Lin An pondered various possibilities while diverting part of his attention to watch the screen.

There is still one problem.

That is, where is the Blood Corpse?

Is it something that appears later?

Up to now, the only things shown have been Zombies and Mutants.

Leaving aside how these monsters appear, perhaps it's related to the so-called mystery of Shesha.

In his muddled thoughts, Lin An assumed that after the Ascetic Practitioners appeared, the zombie disaster would make contact.

But after the screen changed quickly, it suddenly stopped on a new scene.

Scene Eight:

After mastering the power of the Ascetic Practitioners, relying on the near-infinite resurrection trait.

The man rebuilt the empire; this time, his posture was no longer stooped, and his whole being brimmed with vitality.

The massive appearance of Ascetic Practitioners ended the disaster.

Compared to the first time, he far more thoroughly eradicated the infectious remnants left by the Zombies; this time, he ensured there were no abnormalities.

The royal city was rebuilt, erected on the same ruins.

As if driven by obsession, the man swore that wherever he was destroyed, he would be reborn there.

Amidst roaring mountains and tsunamis, he walked into the crowd, unperturbed.

His conviction was as firm as the hardest substance in the world, his resolve as vast as a sky without visible stars.

Destruction and rebirth, death and resurrection, failure and victory.

After enduring hundreds of years of life-and-death trials, he mastered unmatched power.

But this time, he seemed to have some kind of premonition.

Amidst countless reverent gazes, the man suddenly parted the crowd and walked up to several foreign merchants.

At their feet lay a stone that had been moved aside.

The stone had originally been pressing on a well nearby.

Outside the screen, Lin An gazed with a strange expression at a familiar scene.

Isn't this the merchant who caused the catastrophe when the royal city was rebuilt the second time?

What's going on!?

Although they don't look alike, their actions are the same!

How could there be such a coincidence?

Are we about to reenact this disaster again?

No, with the Ascetic Practitioners present, this shouldn't happen...

Within the screen.

The merchant who had just drunk the well water was at a loss, fearful as he gazed upon the world's strongest Ascetic Practitioner, also the sole emperor.

The merchant hurriedly tried to kneel.

But just as he was about to kneel, a flush of crimson surged into his eyes.

"Roar!!"

"It's a monster! He's turned into a monster!"

Shock, fear.

The crowd, long suffering from the zombie disaster, noticed this abnormality.

Unlike before, this time the man "came to" the original ground where the zombie disaster broke out.

On his unperturbed face, he looked at the infected merchant before him and suddenly smiled:

"I found you..."

"This time..."

"I won't let history repeat itself..."

"Bang!"

The first Ascetic Practitioner crushed the "fish that slipped through the net," killing the first Zombie.

Or perhaps it is the progenitor of the Blood Corpse?

When the merchant whose brain had been crushed staggered and fell to the ground, the screen nevertheless did not end.

The screen sped up.

The first Ascetic Practitioner, lost in thought, took a few steps toward the well and peered inside.

The well interior was dim.

Faintly visible was a hint of red, and black hair floating in the water like aquatic weeds.

An infant's wail, or rather a roar.

The Ascetic Practitioner expressionlessly gazed at those tender eyes, now suffused with crimson.