When Long Chen was closing his eyes, accepting what seemed like his final moment, a sudden shattering sound echoed through his consciousness. It wasn't coming from his surroundings or outside his body—it was coming from within, from his very soul.
Long Chen's eyes snapped open wide, blazing with renewed arrogance.
"Well, well," he gasped, blood still trickling from his lips but his shameless grin returning, "looks like even death doesn't want to deal with me yet!"
He felt profound changes coursing through his body. Deep within, just above where his dantian should be, a tiny star was now shining—smaller than a grain of rice, barely the size of a particle of sand, but burning with incredible power.
"Finally!" he laughed, coughing up blood but unable to contain his excitement. "The heavens have recognized my natural charm!"
In the next moment, a thread-like structure emerged from the star, and Long Chen's shameless confidence was momentarily tested by pain worse than dying itself. It felt like something was drilling through every fiber of his being.
"Fuck!" he roared, then immediately grinned through the agony. "If this is what it takes to become powerful, then bring it on! I've endured worse—like listening to Zhou Yaoyan's poetry at the spring festival!"
Above him, black clouds began gathering ominously, lightning crackling with divine fury. The heavenly tribulation was preparing to strike.
Long Chen felt an instinctive threat from the clouds, his hair standing on end. But instead of fear, he felt... excited.
"Oh, so now the heavens want to play?" he laughed maniacally as the thread-like qi channels spread through his body like glowing veins. "Bring it on, you celestial bastards! I've been insulting people all my life—time to insult the heavens themselves!"
The star-like threads covered his entire body—hands, feet, face—glowing like constellation maps across his skin. When the formation finally completed, Long Chen felt something that made his shameless heart nearly burst with joy.
He could sense qi.
"FINALLY!" he roared at the storm clouds above. "Do you know how long I've waited for this moment? All those years of people calling me talentless, and now look at me! I'm practically glowing with power!"
But his celebration was cut short as the dark clouds gathered more menacingly above him, clearly preparing heavenly punishment for his awakening.
"Oh, come on!" Long Chen spat blood and glared at the sky with typical shamelessness. "I finally get what I've always wanted, and you want to kill me for it? That's like a woman inviting you to bed and then setting the room on fire!"
Despite his terrible condition—still bloody, beaten, and now experiencing the agony of sudden qi channel formation—Long Chen's mind remained sharp. He suddenly remembered something and reached into his clothes with a wicked grin.
"Those idiots were so busy gloating they missed the real treasure," he chuckled, pulling out a carefully hidden ring. "Amateurs."
It was the space ring his father had given him on his eighth birthday—a ring that could only be opened by someone who could use qi. For years it had been nothing but a painful reminder of his limitations.
"Well, hello there, beautiful," he purred to the ring as if it were a woman. "Ready to show me what you've been hiding all these years?"
Inside the space ring, Long Chen found a treasure trove: healing pills, qi cultivation pills, fancy clothes, and high-quality weapons.
"Father, you magnificent bastard!" he laughed, immediately beginning to devour pills like a madman. "You knew this day would come!"
His body began healing rapidly, but the qi started flooding through his new channels like a raging river. His body began swelling like a balloon, and he looked ready to float up into the threatening clouds.
"This is either going to make me incredibly powerful," he grunted, "or incredibly dead. Either way, it'll be a hell of a story to tell the ladies!"
At that moment, his head exploded with pain as a flood of memories crashed into his consciousness—two incredible cultivation techniques: the Star God Slaughter Hegemonic Divine Body Art and Heaven Refining Alchemy.
"Oh, fuck yes!" Long Chen's eyes blazed with shameless excitement. "I go from zero to hero in one night! The ladies are going to absolutely lose their minds!"
The Star God technique included two battle arts: Star God Ring and Star God Battle Body Armor. Acting on pure instinct, Long Chen activated the Star God Ring.
The black clouds above actually shuddered in fear.
"That's right, you celestial cowards!" Long Chen roared with typical shameless bravado. "Bow before the magnificent Long Chen!"
But the clouds quickly recovered, rumbling with mocking thunder that echoed through the entire forest.
"Oh, you want to laugh at me?" Long Chen's grin turned predatory. "Let's see who's laughing when I'm done with you!"
The Star God Ring began absorbing surrounding qi like a black hole, creating a massive vortex. Long Chen's body swelled even faster, looking ready to pop like an overinflated balloon.
"Come on, you beautiful technique," he muttered, "don't let me down now. I've got too many women to conquer to die from qi poisoning!"
He began running the Star God cultivation method, and his swelling began to stabilize. Suddenly—BOOM!—a sound erupted from his body as he broke through to the first level of Qi Cultivation realm.
"One!" he counted with shameless pride.
BOOM! Second level.
"Two! The ladies are going to love this!"
BOOM! Third level.
"Three!