Cultivating in Reverse: My Sign-In System Wants Me Dead

Su Bai returned his attention to the Root Organ and took another bite.

The refinement continued.

Nearby, the Flaw-Piercing Needle Intent Seed was also changing.

Its presence had become increasingly distinct inside his sea of consciousness.

The vague edges that had once surrounded it were nearly gone, leaving the Intent Seed sharper and more concentrated than ever before.

Su Bai could feel that nourishment alone would no longer be enough to complete it.

What remained was comprehension.

He needed to understand the final step himself.

Once he did, what emerged would no longer be an Intent Seed.

It would become true Needle Intent.

Su Bai had no intention of rushing that realization.

The Root Organs were continuing to refine the foundation of the Intent Seed, and every improvement made the thing growing inside his consciousness feel increasingly unreasonable.

If he was going to form true Needle Intent, he might as well let it become as troublesome as possible.

His Natal Needles clearly agreed.

All nine had benefited from the enormous amount of nourishment passing through the Soul-Bloom Lotuses.

The difference was most obvious in the original Natal Needle.

Su Bai summoned it.

A black needle emerged beside his hand.

Its surface looked almost perfectly smooth, and the spiritual density within it had risen far beyond what it possessed before entering the altar.

Su Bai lengthened it.

The needle stretched instantly.

He shortened it again before changing its thickness.

None of that was new.

The original Natal Needle had long been capable of altering its size and reshaping its body.

What had changed was how completely it could now control that form.

Su Bai flicked his finger.

The needle shot forward.

Halfway through its flight, its rigid body curved.

It bent around the edge of a broken stone before straightening again without losing speed.

Su Bai’s eyebrows rose.

He changed its shape once more.

The needle flattened slightly while moving, passed through a narrow crack between two pieces of rubble, and returned to its original form the instant it emerged.

There had been no need to stop.

Its structure simply adapted while remaining one continuous weapon.

Su Bai called it back.

The Natal Needle curled loosely around his finger before becoming rigid again.

The structure itself had become flexible enough to transform continuously during movement.

It could bend around obstacles, alter its thickness while passing through narrow openings, change the angle of its tip during an attack, and immediately harden again when it needed to pierce something.

For a weapon built around finding flaws, the usefulness was obvious.

Su Bai summoned the other eight.

The newer Natal Needles had undergone the same qualitative improvement, although the original remained noticeably superior in density and responsiveness.

Nine black needles moved around him.

Their bodies curved through the air, sometimes rigid and sometimes almost threadlike, constantly changing their trajectories without losing their connection to the Flaw-Piercing Needle Intent Seed.

Su Bai watched them for several breaths.

’This is becoming excessive.’

He did not sound particularly unhappy about it.

Su Bai recalled them.

There was still one other mystery bothering him, and it had nothing to do with the changes inside his body.

Every time he finished consuming a Root Organ, the enormous ancient weapon pinning that particular sealed source reacted.

At first, Su Bai had thought the weapon itself possessed some surviving awareness.

One had already helped loosen the final portion of the first Root Organ.

The others behaved similarly.

Whenever only a small amount remained, the ancient weapon would shift just enough to release the root from its grip, allowing Su Bai to catch and consume it completely.

The movements were too deliberate to be coincidence.

Su Bai eventually turned toward the mobile artifact spirits accompanying him.

"Can you sense artifact spirits inside those weapons?"

The saber’s amusement faded.

It examined the enormous weapons embedded throughout the altar.

The bow did the same.

Even the hammer remained quiet for several breaths.

"No," the bow finally answered.

Su Bai frowned.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing resembling us."

The saber moved closer to one of the enormous weapons before stopping at a safe distance.

"This great one can sense the remaining spirituality in the weapon itself, but there is no independent consciousness inside."

The hammer released a low vibration.

"If an artifact spirit once existed there, I cannot find it."

Su Bai looked back toward the weapon.

That made the situation considerably stranger.

Something had intentionally moved those weapons at exactly the right moments.

Yet the artifact spirits could detect no consciousness belonging to the weapons themselves.

Su Bai’s gaze slowly moved upward.

The ancient weapons did not simply descend from empty air.

Each was connected to the colossal figures surrounding the altar.

Humanoid forms towered over the sealed sources, their enormous stone bodies scarred by time and corrosion. They had remained motionless for so long that Su Bai had treated them as part of the sealing structure itself.

Figures of the Immortals who had fought here.

Su Bai stared at them for several breaths.

A possibility entered his mind.

Before he could examine it further, another cry shook the altar.

He still had unfinished food.

Su Bai turned away.

The remaining sealed sources had abandoned threats entirely by this point.

One continued murmuring toward the Origin.

Another had apparently maintained its sudden belief in karmic retribution and had become strangely quiet whenever Su Bai approached.

The last few simply endured.

Their ancient arrogance had been reduced to a kind of exhausted resignation.

Unfortunately, resignation did not make their Root Organs taste any worse.

Su Bai continued.

Another flesh mass disappeared.

Another Root Organ entered his stomach.

Another connection dragged his perception into the dark expanse.

The enormous eye stared at him. Su Bai glanced around instead.

Pressure descended. Reversal twisted the link. He returned.

The pattern continued until the altar had become increasingly empty.

With every death, the Ashen-Blood Miasma surrounding the area thinned.

With every Root Organ, the anchors inside Su Bai’s nine Gateway Qi Reservoirs grew firmer.

His soul became clearer.

His spiritual sense became sharper.

The Flaw-Piercing Needle Intent Seed continued condensing while all nine Natal Needles absorbed more nourishment through their respective Soul-Bloom Lotuses.

By the time Su Bai reached the final sealed source, even the ancient weapons had become quiet.

The flesh mass did not threaten him.

It did not pray.

It merely remained beneath its restraint as Su Bai exposed the Root Organ.

For the first time, Su Bai almost felt bad for it.

Almost.

He bit down.

The final Root Organ disappeared gradually.

The sealed source’s remaining vitality weakened with every mouthful until there was barely enough strength left for its flesh to tremble.

When only the last portion remained, the enormous ancient weapon shifted.

Su Bai watched carefully this time.

The movement was unmistakable.

The weapon lifted just enough.

The Root Organ came free.

Nine Natal Needles immediately surrounded it before it could attempt to return to the Origin.

Su Bai caught it.

His gaze moved toward the colossal figure connected to the weapon.

For a moment, he thought he saw something faint within the stone, then he swallowed the final piece.

The connection seized him again.

Darkness surrounded his perception. The enormous eye opened before him.

By now, Su Bai almost felt familiar with it.

"Still you."

The pupil contracted.

An overwhelming pressure crashed toward him.

Su Bai immediately regretted speaking.

The foreign connection twisted under Reversal before the pressure could deepen further, and the dark expanse vanished from his perception once more.

When Su Bai returned to the altar, something inside his body trembled.

All nine Gateway Qi Reservoirs responded simultaneously.

The accumulated anchoring principle surged into their foundations.

The internal anchors that had remained incomplete began stabilizing at once.

Su Bai’s spiritual sense immediately turned inward.

’They’re—’

He never finished the thought.

A deep vibration rolled through the altar.

Su Bai’s eyes snapped open.

Golden formation patterns illuminated beneath his feet.

The ancient weapons accompanying him reacted immediately and moved closer.

The saber stopped laughing.

The bow’s spiritual presence sharpened.

Even the hammer became still.

Light spread from the center of the altar toward its edges, passing beneath every dead flesh mass and climbing the enormous weapons that had pinned them for countless years.

Su Bai slowly stepped backward.

The mobile artifact spirits retreated with him.

The light continued rising.

It reached the colossal stone figures surrounding the altar.

Su Bai’s expression changed.

The figures began glowing.

A presence that had been silent for countless years began stirring within the altar.

Su Bai remembered the movements of the sealing weapons.

The way each weapon had loosened a Root Organ exactly when he needed it.

He looked at the artifact spirits beside him.

There had never been artifact spirits inside those enormous weapons.

The realization settled heavily in his mind.

’It wasn’t the weapons helping me.’

His gaze rose toward the towering figures of the Immortals.

Something had remained inside them.

Perhaps not living souls. But after thousands of years, some fragment of will had apparently endured.

The Immortals who had failed to permanently destroy the sealed sources had watched someone finally accomplish it.

The final formation pattern ignited.

Every colossal figure shone at once.

Su Bai instinctively raised an arm as blinding golden light swallowed the altar.

For the first time since entering the Fallen-Star Sanctuary, the ancient altar no longer felt like a prison.

Something within it was waking.

And whatever had awakened seemed to have been waiting for the sealed sources to finally die.