The Dao of Reincarnation (125-127) (Patreon)

Chapter 125: Deity in the Martial World (Part 1)

Looking back on his life, born into a grand era, he had seen far too many dazzling figures. In the torrent of that age, beneath the brilliance of the great era, Su Chen had left behind very little ink on the pages of history. This era was destined to belong to one person alone.

Su Chen glanced at his current Reverse Fate Points: forty thousand from this life, plus the five thousand from before—a total of forty-five thousand. Less than ten thousand years remained until Fang Bubai's ascension. Trying to achieve the dao in that span was no different from a fool's dream.

[Talent: 0 (+)][Comprehension: 0 (+)][Family Background: 0 (+)][Dao Heart: 1000]

Talent: +10000Comprehension: +10000Family Background: +10000

Fifteen thousand Reverse Fate Points remained. Su Chen chose to save them. He wanted to see what would happen once any single attribute reached ten thousand points. He opened the Reverse Fate Scripture and initiated the next life.

...

"Martial Spirit: Flame Bird"

"Rating: B-grade"

"..."

Su Chen opened his eyes in bewilderment.

"Where… is this?"

Towering buildings rose around him. A dense crowd of people stood on a vast sports field.

At the center of the field stood a high platform. On it was a man in military uniform, and beside him a youth of only seventeen or eighteen, flames wreathing his body while a flame bird totem hovered behind him.

Su Chen looked down and realized he too wore a blue-and-white uniform. For a moment, he felt dazed.

Memories of this life flooded his mind.

In this life, his name was Jiang Chen. The world he inhabited was called the Spirit Hub Domain—more precisely, a planet within it named Hailan Star. Originally, this place had no cultivation system at all. Then one day, a substance called Origin Energy appeared, causing mutations in certain people. They awakened their Martial Spirits, granting humanity the chance to grow stronger.

This continued for a hundred years until, in one region of Hailan Star, space suddenly collapsed. Countless monsters poured out. More and more rifts appeared, unleashing creatures impervious to blades, fire, and water. Humanity survived by obtaining cultivation methods from an ancient ruin, hunting the monsters to grow stronger, and gradually stabilizing their position.

By now, the human cultivation system had matured. Martial Spirits were classified into five grades: S, A, B, C, D, E. Higher grades meant easier cultivation. The strongest human alive was an eighth-tier powerhouse capable of tearing space apart with ease.

"Isn't that just the Nirvana realm?"

Su Chen mused. The grading here seemed not so different from the Heavenly Profound system. What truly drew his attention, however, was his identity in this life. He came from a military family of loyal martyrs. Every ancestor had died on battlefields against alien races.

His grandfather and grandmother perished in the Heavenly Rift. His father served as the supreme commander of one of the Heavenly Rifts and had not been seen since Su Chen's birth. His mother, once a leading expert in a research institute, had been assassinated by alien beings and passed away shortly after giving birth to him.

A family of martyrs, every generation sacrificing for humanity. Beyond that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Except… where had his ten thousand points in Family Background gone?

Su Chen took a deep breath.

"Next—Jiang Chen!"

As the military officer on the platform called his name, Su Chen set aside his wandering thoughts for the moment.

"You're Commander Jiang's son?"

The officer's stern face softened into a smile when he saw Su Chen.

"This is the testing crystal. It will awaken your talent."

He led Su Chen to the crystal and watched with anticipation.

The entire Jiang family were geniuses. Commander Jiang himself was one of only thirteen S-grade Martial Spirit holders in Longxia. As the commander's only child, his talent could hardly be poor… especially now, when Heavenly Rifts were appearing more frequently, and Longxia's experts were stretched too thin.

Su Chen placed his palm over the crystal as instructed. The moment his hand touched it, he felt something stirring inside his body. Without changing expression, he quietly withdrew his palm.

"Martial Spirit: Human Race"

"Rating: C-grade"

Behind Su Chen appeared the phantom of a man standing with eyes tightly shut.

The officer's face fell with visible disappointment.

In this world, a Human Race Martial Spirit signified almost no potential. Humans lacked the innate might of other races, the ability to command natural phenomena. There was simply no future in it.

Su Chen stepped down from the platform.

"Hahahaha, so this is our great genius Jiang? Awakened a pathetic Human Race Martial Spirit with a mere C-grade rating?"

Su Chen turned his head. The speaker was a tall, cross-eyed young man who wasted no time launching into merciless mockery.

Su Chen didn't bother searching his memories for the other's identity. In a single explosive step, he closed the distance—too fast for the youth to react—and drove a fist straight into his face. Teeth scattered across the ground like broken porcelain.

"Jiang Chen… you actually dared to hit me?! I'm an A-grade Martial Spirit—Blazing Bear! I'm a genius! How dare you hit me?!"

The youth clutched his ruined mouth, mumbling in disbelief through blood and shattered teeth.

"Remember this: you too are human. What right does a human have to look down on a Human Race Martial Spirit?"

Su Chen leaned down, towering over him with cold contempt.

In the Heavenly Profound Domain, humanity stood supreme. Several consecutive Great Emperors had been human, their might oppressing the cosmos. For ages, the myriad races had bowed before mankind. Since when had humans groveled before other species?

The youth realized his mistake too late. He scrambled to backtrack. "Jiang Chen, you're slandering me! I never looked down on humans! I only said Human Race Martial Spirits are inferior to those of other races!"

Inwardly, he cursed Su Chen for his viciousness. If he publicly admitted to discriminating against humans—especially after being forced to acknowledge it—he would be branded a traitor in the next breath.

Su Chen waved a hand dismissively. "One month from now, I will prove to everyone that a Human Race Martial Spirit is no worse than any other."

One month later, the major martial academies would begin recruiting students.

Ignoring the stares of the crowd, he turned and left without another word.

"Delusional! A C-grade Martial Spirit still dreaming of entering a martial academy!"

The youth glared at Su Chen's departing back, eyes filled with venom. He wanted to watch this once-admired genius fall into the mud.

By then Su Chen had already returned to the Jiang residence. He summoned the old steward at once. "Bring me a Martial Spirit crystal."

"Young Master… Martial Spirit crystals are vital strategic resources. They cannot be used lightly…"

The old steward gave a helpless, bitter smile.

Su Chen's brow furrowed. "Are you telling me that the Jiang family—generations of loyal martyrs who gave their lives for the nation—doesn't even have the right to requisition a single Martial Spirit crystal?"

The steward's heart jolted.

Su Chen spoke calmly. "Some things my ancestors refused to take. I will take them."

The old steward looked at Su Chen and felt his pulse quicken. He hurried off to make the arrangements without another word.

Alone in his room, Su Chen let out a soft sigh.

The Jiang family ancestors had fought and died for their country, yet they took nothing in return. He—the only son of the supreme commander—lived in a residence with nothing but one old steward. Not even a single hair's worth of wealth remained.

Was this really reasonable?

Chapter 126: Deity in the Martial World (Part 2)

Su Chen summoned his Martial Spirit.

It was a man seated cross-legged with both eyes tightly shut. At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about him.

But who was Su Chen? In his previous life, he had reached the Saint King realm. In this world, a single palm from him could erase this entire star system.

"My Martial Spirit… is far from ordinary!"

Before long, the old steward returned with the Martial Spirit crystal.

Su Chen placed one hand on it. Before he could fully release his Martial Spirit, the crystal cracked with a sharp sound and shattered. As the crystal broke apart, the closed-eyed man abruptly opened his eyes. He glanced at Su Chen, then extended a single finger.

A cascade of golden scriptures flooded Su Chen's mind, coalescing into a cultivation method called the Heaven-Covering Art.

Su Chen was mildly startled as the technique took shape in his sea of consciousness.

"Heaven-Covering Art—what an audacious name. This is actually a Quasi-Emperor scripture… Just what is the origin of this man?"

Unfortunately, the figure offered no answer. After imparting the Heaven-Covering Art, he closed his eyes once more and sank back into apparent slumber.

Understanding dawned on Su Chen. The missing ten thousand points in Family Background were here. The missing ten thousand points in Talent were here as well. The man before him had been—at the very least—a starry Great Saint. Otherwise, he could never have casually bestowed a Quasi-Emperor scripture for cultivation.

After beginning to practice the Heaven-Covering Art, Su Chen immediately felt that the technique had been tailor-made for him. A tremendous power within his body gradually awakened in response to the art's circulation… terrifying tides of Origin Energy surged around him on all sides.

One week later, Su Chen opened his eyes. His cultivation had reached the peak of the ninth layer of Spirit Gathering—equivalent to peak second-tier in this world.

Unfortunately, the Origin Energy here was far too thin. The terrifying power inside him had activated less than one percent of its potential. This was undoubtedly a divine physique, yet this world clearly had no concept of divine physiques. Born under such poor conditions, his divine body had remained dormant and malnourished.

Su Chen named his divine physique the Heaven-Covering Divine Body. The compatibility between his constitution and the Heaven-Covering Art was perfect—far surpassing even the Primordial Taotie Body or the Heaven-Devouring Earth-Swallowing Divine Art in synergy!

He quickly set his main objective: Acquire resources! To fully awaken the divine body!

Thanks to his status as a member of the Jiang family, he could requisition some cultivation resources, but given his C-grade rating, drawing too much would surely earn him a severe scolding from his father if word reached him.

Su Chen cultivated for three more days.

The long-silent Martial Spirit opened his eyes once again and extended a hand, writing a single word in the air:

'Battle'

In that instant, Su Chen's cultivation broke through from Spirit Gathering to the Spirit Vein realm. Golden runes shimmered in his sea of consciousness. Whenever he invoked the character 'Battle', his strength and speed would instantly double… and he could sense this was far from the limit. If he could fully comprehend the character, he would obtain an unimaginable fortune.

In just ten days Su Chen had gone from an insignificant nobody to a Spirit Vein realm cultivator—third-tier in this world's terms. The third tier was already counted as an elite. Very few reached that level. Even the instructors at his school were only third-tier at best. But to Su Chen, this was nothing at all.

"Third-tier… that should be enough to enter some of the weaker Heavenly Rifts."

The Heavenly Rifts were lairs inhabited by weaker alien races. The strongest creatures inside even the most dangerous ordinary rifts were only at the Spirit Soul realm. Anything beyond Spirit Soul qualified as a Heavenly Rift. When a Heavenly Rift erupted, it unleashed catastrophic disasters and required armies and powerhouses to stand guard at all times.

Su Chen felt that these Heavenly Rifts and Earthly Rifts closely resembled the secret realms formed from the corpses of powerhouses above the Profound Connection realm in his previous life—independent spaces unto themselves. Whether his suspicion was correct or not, he would only know after personally stepping inside one.

Soon he set out, dressed in loose black robes and wearing dark sunglasses, heading toward the location of a nearby Earthly Rift.

This particular rift was controlled by a powerful local syndicate. The race dwelling inside was a minor one known as the Dwarf Tribe—ugly, squat, humanoid in shape yet exceptionally vicious and bloodthirsty.

"Entry to the Dwarf Earthly Rift costs ten thousand spirit coins."

Su Chen paid without hesitation.

Beyond the massive gate forged from profound iron lay a long tunnel. Bloodstains that no amount of cleaning could erase still clung to the walls, along with broken weapons and corpses reduced to white bones.

A brutal battle had once taken place here.

After passing through the gate, however, Su Chen emerged into an unfamiliar jungle. Lush vegetation stretched in every direction, resembling a primeval forest. The world was small, its laws incomplete—not even one-tenth as robust as the outside world.

"So these so-called Earthly Rifts are actually formed from the corpses of powerhouses in the starry void. The Dwarf Earthly Rift is most likely the secret realm born from the body of a Profound Connection realm cultivator after death."

His guess proved correct.

In this world's terms, the Profound Connection realm equated to the sixth-tier—also known as the King- level.

Before long, Su Chen encountered his first dwarf: short and bloated, clutching a mace forged from iron. Its pitch-black skin split into a wide grin full of sharp teeth. Su Chen silently corrected the name in his mind—these should be called Goblin Dwarves.

Even the first one he met possessed fourth-layer Spirit Vein realm strength. Yet in Su Chen's eyes, their cultivation system was crude and backward. At the same fourth-layer Spirit Vein, even the weakest cultivator from the Heavenly Profound Domain could easily handle several of these.

Su Chen shook his head.

In a small inner world like this, reaching the fourth-layer Spirit Vein was already impressive. How could they possibly compare to the accumulated wisdom of trillions of beings across billions of years in the Heavenly Profound Domain?

The dwarf bared its teeth, greed flashing in its eyes as it jabbered incomprehensibly. Su Chen drew a long blade and cleaved its body in half with one stroke, then split open its skull. Inside lay a black stone—an energy core in this world's terminology. It could sell for a thousand spirit coins or so. Companies would then refine these black stones into energy fluids for ability users to cultivate with.

To Su Chen, those energy fluids were far too crude. The side effects were severe—even the highest-grade ones paled in comparison to proper pills. Unfortunately, this world had no alchemy tradition, so Su Chen had no choice but to venture into the rifts himself in search of raw materials for pill refining. After all, everything here was fundamentally different from the Heavenly Profound Domain.

He stored the energy core and pressed deeper.

Five days later, Su Chen located a dwarf settlement. More than a hundred dwarves were gathered beneath an ancient tree, performing some kind of worship.

From a distance, Su Chen already sensed a vast surge of energy.

"This is…"

He narrowed his eyes.

A beam of light suddenly descended from the sky!

Under the radiance of that pillar, the strength of every single one of the hundred-plus dwarves began to rise sharply!

Chapter 127: Deity in the Martial World (Part 3)

That aura… There was no mistaking it!

Su Chen had personally lived through a Dark Turmoil. He had also clashed with the corrupted powerhouses of the forbidden zones. The impression that aura left was indelible. The energy radiating from the towering pillar of light shared the exact same origin as that ominous, inauspicious presence!

In other words, this dwarf secret realm was connected to some ancient being from a forbidden zone!

Su Chen's heart sank. The situation was far from optimistic. Even the weakest forbidden zone harbored at least a Saint-level existence. This world was in far worse shape than he had imagined.

Yet what intrigued him more was why these feeble creatures had any connection to a forbidden zone at all. Under the baptism of the divine pillar, the strongest among the dwarves had only reached the fourth-tier Spirit Sea realm at best.

The moment the dwarves noticed the sudden appearance of a human, their chieftain—a squat figure wearing a feathered headdress and clutching a staff—let out a shrill, guttural cry, jabbering wildly.

"Jabber all you want. Tell it to my blade."

Su Chen swung his long knife in a clean arc. One dwarf warrior failed to react in time and was cleaved in half at the waist. The sight instantly enraged the entire tribe. At their chieftain's command, dwarf warriors charged forward without fear of death.

And then they all died.

Su Chen advanced like a god of slaughter, stepping through pools of green blood.

When the chieftain saw his entire tribe cut down before this human, rage consumed him. His body swelled violently, transforming into a three-meter-tall giant. His aura faintly surpassed the limit of the Spirit Sea realm.

A trace of seriousness finally appeared in Su Chen's eyes. He raised his long blade. Totems materialized one after another before him. With a single downward slash, the totems shattered, coalescing into a terrifying hundred-meter blade beam that tore the earth apart.

This was a technique he had obtained in his previous life from a Saint King who specialized in the way of the blade—a long knife that had once carved through countless heroes.

Heavenly Yang Imperial Divine Blade.

The freshly transformed dwarf chieftain froze for an instant. Without hesitation, he turned and fled—but he never made it past a hundred meters. The blade beam sliced him cleanly in two.

After delivering the strike, Su Chen's face turned somewhat pale. Unleashing a Saint King-grade ultimate technique took a tremendous toll even on him. He harvested every energy core from the corpses, then approached the mysterious ancient tree.

Only now did he see clearly what lay beneath it: piles of human skeletons arranged carelessly. Deeper in the settlement, he discovered living humans—penned like livestock, treated worse than pigs or dogs.

When those survivors saw Su Chen arrive, hope flared in their eyes as though they had witnessed a savior.

From their trembling accounts, Su Chen learned the full story.

"The Black Tiger Gang… colluding with the dwarf tribe to slaughter their own kind?"

Many adventurers who entered the dwarf rift had not died at the hands of the dwarves—they had been killed by their fellow humans.

Worse still, the Black Tiger Gang had been abducting people from the outside world and delivering them to the dwarves as sacrificial offerings for their rituals. Every corpse here belonged to a human.

Su Chen's expression darkened.

Piece by piece, the clues connected, reminding him of something he had seen before: in certain ignorant small worlds, the weak would revere the terrifying existences within forbidden zones as gods. They held grand sacrifices, acted as willing accomplices, and offered vitality to those beings.

In return, the forbidden-zone entities would occasionally bestow a sliver of power, granting these weak creatures the chance to grow stronger… but that debt would eventually be repaid in full. The beings in the forbidden zones were never benevolent!

These small worlds were linked to forbidden zones!

"The commotion here has probably already reached the Black Tiger Gang. If I leave the Dwarf Earthly Rift now, their people will definitely be waiting outside."

The Black Tiger Gang controlled this rift and had a fifth-tier Spirit Soul realm powerhouse sitting in command.

Though Su Chen possessed many techniques, he still could not reliably contend against a Spirit Soul realm cultivator while only at the Spirit Vein realm. The gap between the two was simply too vast.

Therefore, he decided to remain inside the Dwarf Earthly Rift for a while and cultivate until his strength was sufficient. Only then would he leave and uproot the Black Tiger Gang waiting outside.

He instructed the survivors to stay hidden inside the rift until everything was settled before attempting to escape. As for himself, he set off in search of alchemy materials.

Three days later, Su Chen gazed at the five perfectly round pills in his palm, each glowing with a faint halo. He swallowed the first one in a single gulp. His cultivation surged wildly. In less than a few hours, he broke through from the first-layer Spirit Vein to the fourth-layer Spirit Vein. Without hesitation, he consumed the remaining four pills one after another.

One day later, golden light flared in Su Chen's eyes. His cultivation soared all the way to the ninth-layer Spirit Vein. The privilege of a powerhouse re-cultivating was precisely this unrestrained.

For ordinary people, the barrier from the ninth-layer Spirit Vein to the Spirit Sea realm was a major bottleneck. For Su Chen, it held no secrets whatsoever. He spent another two days refining more pills, swallowed them, and smoothly advanced to the Spirit Sea realm.

In this world's terms, he had become a fourth-tier powerhouse. That was already enough to suppress some of the weaker Earthly Rifts.

Su Chen exhaled slowly. His goal had been achieved. It was time to leave the Dwarf Earthly Rift.

Yet as he passed through the site of the first village again, he found fresh corpses strewn across the ground. The survivors he had rescued earlier now lay dead, their bodies bearing clear wounds from human blades.

Su Chen let out a soft sigh. He had clearly warned them not to leave the rift. Evidently, someone had disobeyed, slipped out quietly, and led the Black Tiger Gang straight back inside—resulting in the complete annihilation of the survivors.

By now, the Black Tiger Gang members were likely scouring the entire rift for him.

Suddenly, Su Chen's gaze snapped toward a certain direction. With two steps, he vanished from where he stood.

...

A dozen or so men in black were searching the area. One of them—a burly man with flower tattoos covering his arms—held an iron chain in his hand. At the other end of the chain lay a blood-soaked man, barely breathing, clearly on the verge of death.

The tattooed man's face was dark with fury. "Damn useless trash! Can't even find a single person!"

When Su Chen had wiped out the first dwarf tribe, the Black Tiger Gang had already taken notice. The higher-ups had been alarmed. If word spread that they were colluding with the dwarf tribe to slaughter their own kind, the Federation's retaliation would be terrifying.

The Black Tiger Gang had adopted the principle of "better to kill the wrong person than let the right one escape." They intended to eliminate every possible witness. They had laid multiple ambushes outside long ago.

Then they captured someone who claimed to know the full truth. Under that person's guidance, the gang dispatched their elite force into the rift to eliminate the one who knew everything before the situation spiraled further.

Yet several days had passed, and they still hadn't located the person who dared annihilate an entire dwarf tribe.

"Bo… Boss…"

One of the underlings suddenly pointed upward with a trembling finger.

The tattooed man looked up.

A figure hovered in the sky above them.

The expressions of every Black Tiger Gang member changed drastically.

"He… he… can… can fly!"