They said knowledge was sacred.
They also said it was dangerous.
Which, Su Chen had learned, usually meant: it's sacred when we control it, and dangerous when you do.
He stood in front of the Second Hall Library, hands clasped behind his back like a respectful disciple, eyes half-lidded under the early morning sun. To any passing elder, he looked the part—humble, contemplative, maybe even slightly confused by the dense wall of cultivation texts carved into the archway.
Internally, though?
He was tracking the qi flow under the bricks.
The library wasn't just a storage space for basic techniques and outdated scrolls. Beneath it, buried in what the sect had labeled as a "collapsed relic vault," was something far older. Something Su Chen had stumbled upon during his thirty-fifth year in his previous life—right before the Memory Plague devoured his sect and erased half his cultivation records.
That memory alone had cost him seven anchor cooldowns.
This time, he wasn't waiting.
[System Notification: Temporal Distortion Registered]
[Anchor Trace Detected – "Vault of Echoes" Hidden Layer Confirmed]
[Entry Possible via Spiritual Resonance Tuning – Trait Required: Mental Resonance Physique ]
Of course.
The System loved irony. In his last life, he'd lacked the trait. In this one, it had awakened during the Baptism Ceremony—because of the very formation meant to destroy him.
Now?
Now he had the key.
The outer disciples' section of the library was poorly lit, filled with chipped stone shelves, dusty bamboo scrolls, and cultivation manuals no one read unless they wanted to fail gloriously. "Flickering Palm," "Rock-Breaking Elbow," "Qi Condensation Basics for Idiots."
Useful… if your dream was dying with flair and zero results.
Su Chen nodded politely at the yawning disciple managing the register. He passed through the corridors without pausing, heading toward the back wall where a cluster of broken shelves leaned against a sealed stone slab.
This slab had no script.
No formation.
No identifying mark at all.
Because the mark wasn't visible.
It resonated.
Su Chen pressed his hand to it.
[Mental Resonance Triggered – Vault Seal Reacting]
[Thread Connection: Fragmented Memory of Former Reset Cultist – ERROR]
[Echo Stabilization Required…]
The stone pulsed. A flicker of something—someone—passed through him. Words not spoken, but felt.
"We buried the truth here… because they burned the rest."
Then, the slab shuddered and receded with a soft hiss, revealing a hidden staircase descending into pitch-black shadow.
Su Chen smiled.
"Oh, you're going to hate this, Elder Shen."
The Vault of Echoes wasn't large. Not physically.
It was a circular chamber, twenty meters wide, the walls engraved with overlapping inscriptions—each one in a different dialect, era, or conceptual script. Daoist sigils swirled over ancient beast-script. Foreign runes coiled around incomplete formation diagrams. The air smelled like old incense and forgotten thunder.
And in the center, suspended over a cracked pedestal, floated a single book.
Not bound in leather or silk, but wrapped in threads of raw soulstuff—each strand pulsing faintly like it remembered being alive.
[System Alert: Forbidden Archive Recovered – "First Thread Manual: Law of Return"]
[Warning: Scroll Fragment is Incomplete]
[Decryption Requires Anchor Access Level 2 – Progress 28%]
Su Chen approached slowly.
He'd read this scroll in his past life.
Or rather, he tried to. Back then, it had rejected him. Not because he lacked talent—but because the scroll required one thing above all else:
Regret.
Not self-pity. Not trauma.
Actual, soul-carved regret.
The kind you could only carry if you'd failed to protect something that mattered.
Su Chen stared at the soul-bound threads.
"I remember now," he whispered. "You activated after I watched Song Qian die."
A pause.
The scroll pulsed once. Faint. But real.
"You recognize me," he said. "Even though I've reset."
[Trait Triggered: Emotional Echo – Qualified for Partial Access]
[Decrypting Scroll Fragment: 17%... 39%... 62%...]
[You have obtained: Incomplete Technique – Thread of Return (Prototype)]
Type: Soul Path Technique
Effect: Rewinds last five spiritual exchanges within a bounded duel. Duration: 3 seconds. Cooldown: 2 days.
Limitations: Must remain within soul-thread range. Soul backlash risk on failure.
WARNING: Overuse causes memory fragmentation.
He reached for it—and the threads accepted him.
Not all the way. Not yet. But enough for the scroll to sink into his palm like ink into paper.
It hurt.
Like swallowing fire and remembering the taste of someone else's scream.
Su Chen staggered back, gasping, one hand pressed to his chest.
[Technique Acquired: Thread of Return (Unstable)]
[New Anchor Slot Created – "Vault of Echoes" (Locked)]
[Anchor Tier Upgraded: Emotional State Threads Available]
So that was it.
He had a combat-grade reset ability now.
Not global. Not timeline-wide.
But personal.
Three seconds. In a duel, three seconds was everything. It was the difference between life and death, between hesitation and decapitation.
It was hope and it had only cost him one soul bruise, partial memory dissonance, and about thirty seconds of screaming internally.
Not a bad deal.
As he exited the Vault, the seal slowly slid back into place, erasing the door without a trace.
The scroll was gone.
Only Su Chen remembered it.
And the System.
And—somewhere far beyond the sect—someone else.
That night, the wind over Azure Sky Mountain carried a different scent.
It passed through the pillars of the Inner Pavilion.
It brushed the robes of Elder Shen and somewhere deep in the clouds, high above mortal sight, a single celestial formation shifted.
A symbol reappeared in a forgotten layer of Heaven's Archive.
[Reset Thread Activity Detected]
[Anchor-Type Cultivator Identified – ERROR: Discrepancy With Known Fate Threads]
[Deploy Watcher Protocol – Timeline Observer Class 3]
A new piece had entered the board and it wasn't bound by any known script.
Back in his courtyard, Su Chen lay on his back, staring at the ceiling tiles.
His mind buzzed.
Thread of Return pulsed quietly in his core like a buried ember.
A forbidden scroll.
A trait no elder understood.
A system with fragmented rules and a cooldown that ticked like a patient blade.
"I'm not ready," he muttered aloud.
Then smiled.
"But I'm further than they think."
And tomorrow?
He had a date with a duel.
Let them send their so-called geniuses.
Let them smirk and whisper about the outer sect nobody.
He'd rewind their arrogance, one broken second at a time.