SSS-Rank 10x Reward System: Accepting Disciples to Live Forever Chapter 101: The First Cultivator

However, one thing made Wang Chen’s brows crease in genuine concern.

Compared to before, the living beings inside the Garden of Eternity looked... sharper. Hardened. Their eyes carried a determination born only after witnessing cataclysm. Entire tribes—what few remained—moved with instinctive discipline. He saw humans practicing crude martial forms, punching the air with the awkward ferocity of newborn martial artists.

Even beasts were evolving at an unnatural pace. They weren’t cultivating in the traditional sense, yet their bodies were refining themselves, perfecting their instincts. A few of them were even drawing qi unconsciously, tapping into the growing qi sea like young predators discovering a new tooth.

In all, one terrifying possibility took shape in Wang Chen’s mind:

The Garden of Eternity might soon give birth to true cultivators.

His face stiffened.

Cultivators... living inside him?

A shiver crawled down his spine.

If they soday realized they were trapped inside soone’s spiritual space...

If they decided the only way out was to tear open the boundaries—

Wouldn’t that an killing him?

A prison break inside his own skull.

The thought alone made his scalp go numb.

"No. Impossible. I’m overthinking again."

He shook his head fiercely as if he could physically knock the idea out of his brain. But the unease burrowed deeper, stubborn and cold.

Still, after a few breaths of self-reassurance, he forced himself to ntally file this under "Problems Future Wang Chen Will Suffer From."

He already had enough disasters lined up.

...

There was sothing else in the spiritual space.

If one looked closely, chains of starlight—each as thick as an adult’s waist—ran through the fabric of the Garden of Eternity. They glowed faintly, rging into the very ground and sky. Whether or not there were micro-tears in the space, the presence of these chains made everything feel stable, fortified.

They were the reinforcent holding the world together, preventing the massive spiritual space from collapsing inward.

Wang Chen stared at them and sighed in exhaustion.

"I’ll need at least three thousand more Chains of Enlightennt..."

Just saying the number made his temples throb.

Forming the chains wasn’t the issue—his comprehension of his techniques was impeccable. But each chain devoured spiritual strength like a starving beast. After crafting even a handful, he needed to ditate for hours. Even if he forced himself to create thirty chains a day, it would still take three months.

And that didn’t include sleeping, eating, or insulting the Bodhi Tree for emotional balance.

As he was ntally preparing himself for months of suffering, he suddenly felt a tug—an unnatural pull—emanating from one of the Chains of Enlightennt.

Wang Chen’s eyes imdiately snapped toward it.

A boy.

His spiritual sense zood in. A boy, no older than nine or ten, sat cross-legged on the ground. His small face was calm, eyes shut tight in ditation. It would have been a peaceful scene...

if not for the shimring cascade of light falling from the sky like starlit rain.

The child sat directly beside a Chain of Enlightennt.

Wang Chen’s lips started twitching uncontrollably.

No... no, no, no. Don’t tell ...

Was this little brat attaining enlightennt?!

A child of the Garden of Eternity comprehending his Chains of Enlightennt?

Shocked, confused, and vaguely horrified, Wang Chen froze. All his earlier concerns evaporated as he focused entirely on the kid.

For the first ti in a long while, he monitored sothing with absolute seriousness.

This matter could change everything.

Ni Luo’s face was calm as a still lake, his breath steady, his posture unmoving. Yet beneath that serenity, terrible mories flickered like cracks in fragile glass—images so violent they kept disrupting his concentration.

After the First Great Cataclysm, when the Garden of Eternity had nearly torn itself apart, the surviving beasts were the first to adapt. They learned to reinforce their fragile bodies, evolving at a monstrous pace. Humanity... did not. Humans beca prey on the verge of extinction.

Ni Luo had watched the world fall apart with his own eyes.

His entire clan—slaughtered by a maddened three-legged crow drunk on newfound power. The creature’s talons dripped molten fla; its shrieks rattled bone. And Ni Luo, still a trembling child at the ti, could only watch, powerless, as everything he knew burned.

Afterward, the empty world greeted him with cold wind and silence. Orphaned too young, Ni Luo wandered aimlessly across desolate plains and ruins where beast footprints were larger than houses. Everywhere he went, he saw children just like him—lost, hungry, terrified, and alone.

Slowly, the anger in Ni Luo’s heart—once a blazing inferno—cooled into sothing far more resolute.

If he wanted to stop this cycle, only one thing mattered:

Strength.

At seven, he began practicing martial arts.

At eight, he had mastered every technique humanity had managed to preserve. Elders called him a monster prodigy. So whispered he was an avatar of the gods, sent to stand against the beasts.

Word of him spread like wildfire.

The Rising Sun Kingdom—the last flickering torch of humanity—bestowed upon him the title of Martial Saint. A Martial Saint at nine years old. Sothing that had never happened before, not in all the written histories.

Many didn’t believe it.

Many challenged him.

None survived.

By the age of ten, Ni Luo stood at the pinnacle of human martial achievent. A living legend. A pillar for the hopeless.

But even at that absolute peak, he remained painfully aware:

He was still insignificant before beasts blessed by the mysterious origin of world qi.

When the Rising Sun Kingdom faced the next beast invasion, the walls trembling beneath titanic claws, even the defeated royal elders turned desperately toward the child they had nad their savior.

The weight of those expectations pierced him like a thousand invisible blades.

He fought, he killed, he bled—yet even with all his power, he could not change the outco. Humanity was dying again. And for the first ti in his life, Ni Luo felt a deep, aching resentnt toward the heavens.

Why grant beasts such power while leaving humans frail?

Were humans not also born of heaven and earth?

Why this cruel imbalance?

Driven by despair, Ni Luo made a vow under the blood-red sky. He left the kingdom alone, declaring that he would either die on the battlefield or return with a hope greater than any human before him.

He fought and fled through forests drenched in beast blood. He battled until his bones cracked and ran when monsters too powerful appeared in his path. His small body endured more than most adults could tolerate.

Then, one day, he saw sothing impossible.

A pillar of light descended from the heavens—vast, radiant, magnificent. It pierced the sky like a divine spear, runes swirling across its surface with unfathomable intent. Knowledge—otherworldly, imnse—seed to pulse from within.

Ni Luo’s eyes snapped open in the present.

A gleam of understanding, brilliant enough to cut through fate, surfaced within them.

"Qi... it is everywhere," he whispered. "It is the lifebreath of all living beings. This mysterious qi is what gives the beasts their strength."

Then, the boy laughed—a raw, triumphant laugh echoing through the spiritual world.

"I, Ni Luo, have also learned to make use of this qi!"

...

Far Away, Wang Chen, who had been observing the boy, almost coughed blood on the spot.

This was bad.

Very bad.