Yuan Lin didn't sleep that night. How could anyone sleep with a storm raging in their gut?
He returned to his apartment with the first threads of dawn, closing the door behind him and leaning his back against it as he panted.
It wasn't the panting of physical exhaustion, but of the excess adrenaline and tension that had kept him alert for hours.
His success at Blackwood Asylum didn't give him a sense of victory as much as a feeling that he had stolen the core of an unstable nuclear reactor and was now carrying it in his pocket.
He could feel the energy he had absorbed from the "Chaos Orchid." It wasn't a gentle warmth like the energy from the junkyard.
This was a mass of raw, living, and volatile power, sitting in his lower abdomen like a miniature sun about to explode. It sent waves of heat through his body, making his hands tremble uncontrollably.
But worse than that were the echoes.
That fleeting image he had seen in the forest was no hallucination. It was stuck in his mind, flashing back every time he closed his eyes. The doctor's cold face, the shining needle, and the indescribable feeling of absolute terror that was not his own. It was someone else's feeling.
He sat on the cold floor of his living room, trying to regulate his breathing. He had to understand. He had to know what he had let into his body.
"System," he called out in his mind, his inner voice hoarse with exhaustion. "What exactly is a 'Chaos Orchid'?"
The blue screen appeared in his vision, its cold texts a point of order in the sea of chaos he was feeling.
[The Chaos Orchid is a rare natural treasure that forms spontaneously in the heart of an active 'Chaos Rift.' It is a physical embodiment of the ambient energy.]
Yuan Lin followed up with his next question, dreading what the answer might be. "And the memories? That image I saw... is that normal?"
[The plant feeds on the chaotic energy and the concentrated emotional residue of its location. The greater the tragedy and turmoil at the site, the stronger and more saturated with psychic echoes the flower will be. What you saw was a fragment of this echo.]
Another message came right after the first, accompanied by a red warning light.
[Warning: When absorbing energy saturated with emotional residue, there is a 12.8% risk of "memory contamination" or "psychic echo." Assimilating these phantom memories may lead to mental instability or insanity. It is recommended to filter the energy with extreme care during the cultivation process.]
A chill ran down Yuan Lin's blood. Insanity. He had never thought that might be one of the risks. He had been worried about monsters and other fighters, but he had never worried about the enemy that might grow inside his own mind.
"And the 500 points?" he asked, trying to change the subject to something less terrifying.
[500 Chaos Points have been added to your balance as a reward for the successful "harvest" of a rare material. Current balance: 625 Chaos Points. Note: The points are an achievement bonus. The raw energy of the flower remains unassimilated in the host's body.]
"Unassimilated..." Yuan Lin whispered to himself. He could feel it. That energy was like an undigested meal, giving him spiritual indigestion. He knew he couldn't leave it like this. Either he would control it, or it would control him.
"No other choice, then," he said firmly, finding the last remnants of his will.
He made his decision. He sat cross-legged in the middle of his room and took deep breaths to chase away the tension. This was the most dangerous thing he had done yet.
"System, block all notifications from the chat group. I don't want any disturbances."
[Command confirmed. Activating "Deep Meditation" mode.]
He closed his eyes and dove into his inner consciousness. It was like looking at a night sky inside his own body. He saw his small spark of Qi, which he had cultivated with difficulty in the junkyard. It was like a single, faint star. And next to it, there was a violent, turbulent sun. That was the orchid's energy. A massive sphere of purple and black light, spinning violently, emitting flashes of images and silent screams.
He felt fear, but he forced himself to remember the instructions from the `[Gray Chaos Scripture]`. He wasn't supposed to devour the whole storm at once. He had to do it thread by thread.
With intense concentration, he extended his mental "hand" and used his `[Chaos Grip]` skill to gently pull a single, thin thread of energy from that raging ball.
The moment he did, the battle began.
The energy thread resisted. It was wild, saturated with the madness and pain it had fed on for decades. Yuan Lin felt a sharp pain in his head, and the images rushed into his mind again, but they were clearer this time.
He saw long, sterile white corridors. He heard the sound of metal wheels on a tiled floor. He smelled the strong scent of disinfectants trying in vain to hide the smell of despair.
"Resist!" he screamed in his mind, tightening his grip on the energy thread. He had to impose his will on it.
He followed the scripture's instructions. He began to pull the thread through the energy pathways in his body, not randomly, but through a specific, complex path designed to "filter" the energy. His own small Qi served as a filter, a fine sieve.
As the raw thread passed through his pure energy, it felt like passing muddy water through a cloth. The "dirt"—the painful memories and screaming emotions—separated from the pure energy. It was a painful and mentally exhausting process. With every memory fragment he filtered, he felt the echo of someone else's pain.
He felt the prick of a needle in his arm. He felt the cold spread through his veins. He felt the fear of the man in the white coat whose eyes never smiled.
*"It's not me!"* he had to constantly remind himself. *"This is not my pain. These are not my memories."*
It was a battle of wills. A battle to preserve his "self" in the face of a flood of others' suffering. He continued to pull and filter, drop by drop, thread by thread. Sweat was pouring down his real body in his apartment, and his body was trembling from the strain.
He didn't know how much time had passed. Minutes? Hours?
But finally, he succeeded in filtering the first full stream of energy. What remained was a pure, shimmering thread of dark purple energy, a hundred times stronger and denser than anything he had absorbed from the junkyard.
He guided this pure thread to his inner "furnace," where his original spark was. When they met, there was no conflict. There was a merger. The small spark swallowed the new thread, and suddenly flared, growing exponentially, transforming from a mere spark into a small, steady flame.
An unparalleled feeling of warmth and power flooded his body.
Yuan Lin collapsed backward onto the floor, panting, but an exhausted smile was on his face. He had done it.
A series of notifications appeared before him.
[Successfully assimilated 10% of the Chaos Orchid's energy.]
[Purity of Gray Chaos Energy has significantly increased.]
[Qi quantity has greatly increased. A level breakthrough has been achieved.]
[The host has entered the First Stage of the 'Qi Condensation Realm'.]
[New bodily functions unlocked: Enhanced Senses, Minor Wound Regeneration, Increase in Physical Strength.]
He sat up slowly. He felt the difference immediately. It wasn't just a feeling of strength; the world itself looked different. The colors were sharper. He could hear the ticking of the clock in his neighbor's apartment through the wall. The small cuts and scratches he got from the dog fight had completely vanished.
He looked at his hands. They were no longer the hands of an office worker. They were still thin, but there was a feeling of underlying solidity beneath them.
He closed his eyes again and looked inside himself. His new flame of Qi was glowing steadily, but next to it, there was still that massive, raging ball of the unassimilated orchid energy. 90% of it was still there, waiting.
It was still a dangerous storm. But now, he was no longer afraid of it. He felt strong enough to confront it.
"This..." he whispered to himself, wonder and anticipation in his voice. "...was just 10 percent."
A wide, ambitious, and slightly terrifying smile spread across his face. He had tasted real power. And now, he was addicted.