Chapter Three: The Vial and the Vision

Even with the moonlight flooding through the cracked shutters, the silver vial in my hand felt darker than night itself.

It shimmered faintly, unnaturally, like starlight captured in glass. I rolled it between my fingers, its weight far heavier than its size suggested.

[Item Identified: Prototype Aether Catalyst Vial]

[Effect: Unknown. Seal: Imperial-Class Restriction.]

[Warning: Requires Spirit Thread Level 3 to analyze.]

I didn't need the system to tell me what I already knew from the flood of restored memories.

This vial—this cursed little thing—was the reason Shen Li had been sentenced to die.

And it wasn't poison. It was an experimental cure. Something she had created in secret to counteract the slow soul corruption she'd detected in the Emperor's bloodline.

But someone had switched it.

Someone had taken her cure and replaced it with real poison.

[New Objective Branch: Identify the Saboteur. Difficulty: High.]

Progress: 0%. Suggestion: Recover Original Research Logs.]

I closed my hand around the vial and looked up. Qin'er had fallen asleep by the fire, curled in the corner like a frightened animal. Her loyalty was real—but I wouldn't put her in more danger than necessary.

Whoever had orchestrated this wasn't just powerful.

They were still watching.

The next morning came with frost and silence. No new guards. No new food. I rationed the stale bread and drank from the cracked bowl of water. My body was healing faster than it should've, which meant the system was slowly reactivating internal channels.

[Spirit Thread Level 1 achieved. Energy Flow detected in Lower Dantian.]

Mini-Map Unlocked: 10-meter radius. Passive Threat Scan Enabled.]

I smiled faintly. It was small—laughable by real cultivator standards—but it was progress. More than Shen Li had ever been allowed to achieve.

They'd sealed her cultivation channels when she was twelve. Said her bloodline was "too strange." She'd relied on alchemy and political instinct to survive. But now? I had both her mind—and something entirely new.

Physics. Algorithms. Energy flow analysis. What they called spirit, I called power vectors.

And I was going to engineer my own ascension.

I set to work that afternoon.

The guards' armor, though dented, was lined with a rare alloy. I broke it down into fragments and fed it to the system's crafting interface.

[Crafting Initialized: Spirit Mesh Liner (Tier 0)]

With some torn robes and metal wire, I created a lightweight inner vest. Crude, but it would deflect at least one blade.

Then I sketched out a crude memory array using soot and dried blood—Shen Li's old method. The design wasn't elegant, but it would stabilize my short-term recall and reduce the pain from further memory injections.

As I worked, the system chimed again.

[Host's Adaptation Speed: Above Standard. Sync Rate Accelerated.]

[Hidden Trait Unlocked: Quantum Perception (Dormant)]

Quantum what?

[Trait Description: Allows Host to perceive multiple outcome branches briefly. Activation requires Spirit Thread Level 5.]

So I couldn't use it—yet. But even locked traits meant potential.

I was beginning to suspect I hadn't landed in Shen Li's body by accident.

That night, I activated the mini-map and sat still in the cold silence of the dead moon base.

There were no incoming threats. No blinking alerts.

But I wasn't waiting for a fight.

I was waiting for a vision.

The data cube I'd decrypted last night hadn't just dumped memories into my head—it had awakened something. A sensation that prickled beneath my skin like static. A memory that didn't belong to Shen Li or me.

A third layer.

When I closed my eyes, I saw flashes:

—A golden throne beneath a shattered sky.

—An Emperor bleeding starlight.

—My own reflection, standing beside him, cloaked in imperial black, a crown of circuitry burning across my forehead.

[Warning: Dreamscape Fragment Detected. Enter? Y/N]

Yes.

The dreamspace was not a dream.

It was structured. Programmed. A sealed memory file buried deep inside the system—possibly from a former host. Possibly from the system's origin itself.

I stood on a platform of shattered crystal, floating in the center of what looked like an endless observatory. Data cubes hovered in the air like stars, each pulsing with encrypted runes.

And in the center of it all, a woman waited.

She looked like me—but older. Her presence crackled like a solar flare, and her eyes shimmered with layered timelines.

"You're early," she said.

My voice came out steady. "Who are you?"

"I'm you. Or rather, one possible version of you. I reached the core of the system before time devoured me."

She walked toward me, every step leaving behind burning equations that faded into mist.

"This is no ordinary cultivation system. It's not even celestial in origin. It was built—by us. By Earth-born minds, long after the end. Before the stars turned cold."

I stared. "You're telling me this is a time-looped artificial protocol?"

"Yes. And only one of us ever survives long enough to complete the Mandate Path. This time, maybe it'll be you."

[Mandate Path Fragment Acquired. +2% Completion.]

Unlocked: Forbidden Technique Preview – Event Horizon Step (Locked)]

Before I could ask anything else, the observatory shattered, and I was flung back into cold stone and firelight.

I woke up gasping, the pain sharp and real—but my limbs were stronger. The air tasted different. My threads of energy pulsed, warm now, not flickering.

[Vitality Restored: 88%. Spirit Thread Level 2. Basic Movement Technique Unlocked.]

I sat up and whispered to the system:

"Tell me what I need to do to reach the capital."

[Objective: Escape Orbit.]

Method 1: Hijack Supply Skiff (Risk: 81%)

Method 2: Activate Hidden Teleportation Array beneath compound (Condition: Requires Star Array Lens)]

"Where is the lens?"

[Status: Missing. Suspected Location: Abandoned Star Alchemy Lab, Sublevel -3.]

I exhaled slowly. Beneath us. Buried. Locked since Shen Li's exile.

The palace thought they'd buried her genius with her exile.

They forgot one thing.

Now she had me.