Chapter 8

Pang Jinlong stared blankly at everything before him, his mouth stayed open and wouldn't close, his expression became dazed for a moment, then he fiercely pinched his own arm.

When he realized this wasn't a dream, his mind was like mush at that moment, countless thoughts surged in his brain simultaneously.

A full minute later, he seemed to have thought of something, looked at the mysterious person sitting cross‑legged on the ground wearing a white cat mask, excitement flashing in his eyes; that person's earlier actions showed he had known about this long ago.

Thinking of this, he ignored the live broadcast, his face excited as he ran toward the direction where Su Chen stood.

Su Chen heard the movement behind him, but had no intention of turning around, still staring straight at the huge black hole.

Suddenly, a series of boom sounds came from the sky, and a white silhouette shot out from the black hole at incredible speed; the white silhouette left a trail of white afterimages, forming a brilliant tail that many could see clearly.

The white figure was so fast that before the series of booms arrived, it had already struck a desolate mountain far away.

At the instant the white silhouette hit the barren mountain, an earth‑shaking roar sounded, and the mountain split in two in an instant; accompanied by a rumbling, the massive crack quickly spread downward and outward to both sides.

In just a fleeting moment, a bottomless huge gorge appeared between the two peaks, and along this gorge a massive fissure at least a thousand zhang long stretched north‑south, jutting out on the ground on both sides of the mountain.

Su Chen clutched tightly to the protruding rock, resisting the massive sway. Yet there was no trace of tension on his face, because, according to the video from his past life, this would not greatly affect Luoxian Shan.

Pang Jinlong, seeing this earth‑shaking scene, lay flat on the ground, gripping the protruding stone, and the excitement he felt when rushing toward Su Chen was gone; instead fear and terror filled his eyes, and he even felt he might wet himself.

However, fortunately the scene came and went so quickly that the violent shaking vanished almost at once.

Pang Jinlong swallowed a mouthful of saliva, crawled toward the live‑broadcast equipment and phone that had fallen to the ground due to the violent shaking. His mind was filled with terror, and he had no thought of asking Su Chen anything.

Just as Pang Jinlong struggled to crawl forward, Su Chen suddenly sensed something; a strong wind mixed with overwhelming Spiritual Qi descended onto the mountain, pouring directly onto Su Chen and also onto the still‑crawling Pang Jinlong.

At the instant the overwhelming Spiritual Qi arrived, Su Chen closed his eyes, steadied his body, and began to guide the Spiritual Qi toward his dantian as he remembered from his past life, beginning to cleanse his dantian.

Cleansing the dantian is the first step of cultivation, the distinction between a mortal and a spiritual dantian; it requires drawing Qi into the body and continuously washing the dantian with Spiritual Qi until it is fully cleansed.

Before this process is complete, although one can briefly let the Spiritual Qi circulate inside the body according to the mantra, the Qi cannot remain long; only when the dantian becomes a spiritual field does it signify the first step of cultivation, called Opening Spirit.

In less than five minutes, Su Chen endured excruciating pain and completed the Opening Spirit; as he finished, a layer of black grime appeared on his body, indicating the first round of muscle‑bone cleansing.

In his previous life, his Opening Spirit took ten days; even so, that speed was far ahead on Blue Star, where even a typical prodigy needed at least a month, and ordinary people took several months at best.

At the moment his Opening Spirit succeeded, the system voice sounded again.

Ding

Host, Opening Spirit successful, you may choose one technique from "Tong Tian Sword Art", "Samadhi True Flame", or "Nine Heavens Thunder Law".

"

Su Chen did not hesitate; according to his master's words from his past life, among equal realms, sword cultivators are the strongest, though they have drawbacks and are hard to train unless aided by a suitable sword body. His master also said his physique is an innate sword body, most suitable for cultivating sword techniques.

However, in his previous life his master had no relevant sword techniques, so Su Chen did not become a sword cultivator then; this life he would certainly not miss the chance.

Just after Su Chen selected the technique, the words of that technique rushed into his mind like a swarm of ants, converging on his head.

A moment later, with his head covered, the entire content of "Tong Tian Sword Art" clearly floated in Su Chen's mind.

Having just mastered the sword art, he did not pause at all, immediately began to practice according to the sword art, because the Spiritual Qi that had poured into his body continued to flow inexhaustibly toward him.

Pang Jinlong, having just crawled to his phone, saw a notice that his live broadcast had been banned for thirty days, cursed, and was about to stand up.

Before the words fell, he felt a massive airflow surge from above, slamming his head onto the ground; his head struck the rock, a trickle of fresh blood welled from his forehead, and he then passed out.

…

At the same time, the internet was in an uproar; most viewers in Pang Jinlong's live room were skeptical of the shocking content.

But as the boom sounds kept coming, the live room was sealed, and someone immediately realized something was wrong; during the peak, the view count jumped to five thousand within a minute.

Many clever people had already recorded the entire live stream and re‑uploaded it online; among them, a video posted early amassed five million views in just half an hour, and its views kept rising exponentially.

People in Le Ping City, Guinan Province heard the boom from the sky, followed by an earth‑shaking roar; the ground began to quake violently, and they fled their houses in panic, instinctively thinking it was an earthquake.

Soon they realized it wasn't a simple earthquake; some smarter individuals linked Le Ping City's quake with the anomalous phenomena at Luoxian Shan and posted their analysis online.

Thus, major media and entertainment platforms also began releasing related videos and texts.

The Luoxian Shan incident trended hot, with tags like #Apocalypse#, #LuoxianShanBlackHole#, #LePingCityEarthquake#, #LePingCityPossibleEarthquake#, #LuoxianShanAnomaly#, #PangJinlongLive#, #LuoxianShanBlackCladWhiteCatMaskMysteriousPerson#, #LePingCityExplosionSound# and similar, reaching the top ten of the trending list within half an hour.

However, it lasted only half an hour; many similar videos vanished from major video platforms, the trend quickly fell out of the top ten, even disappearing from the list entirely.

It was replaced by #BrandNew4DMovie—'Above the Nine Heavens'#, #'Above the Nine Heavens' filmed at Luoxian Shan#, #BrandNew4DMovieTechnologyRevealed#, #LePingCityEarthquakeNowHas327Casualties#, #ChinaNewSupersonicAircraftPossiblySecretTestFlight#…

Such trending topics sprouted like mushrooms after rain, soon firmly occupying the new top ten.

Indeed, this explanation was accepted by most people; although a few still doubted, there was no way to verify it nor to post similar videos, so they all gave up and stopped paying attention.