Projection of the Heavens: I prove my immortality through slaughter.

cold.

The biting cold felt as if even the soul was being frozen.

Lin Xuan's consciousness slowly rose from the chaotic darkness, his first sensation being the omnipresent, bone-chilling cold. Immediately following was excruciating pain. A dull ache throbbed in the back of his head, as if struck by a heavy object; his temples throbbed, accompanied by waves of nausea and vomiting.

He tried with difficulty to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt as heavy as if they were weighed down with lead.

"I...am I not dead yet?"

His last memories were of the hospital's stark white ceiling, the pungent smell of disinfectant, and the despairing, drawn-out "beep—" of the life support monitor. Cancer cells had invaded every corner of his body, and boundless pain and weakness consumed his last vestiges of consciousness.

But why can I still feel cold and pain now?

He mustered all his strength and suddenly opened his eyes.

All he saw was a blurry, dim light. After a while, with the help of the cold, dim moonlight filtering through the broken window and cracks in the walls, he could barely make out his surroundings.

This was a dilapidated temple. Spiderwebs wove a gray web between the broken statues and beams. The faces of the statues were long since blurred, some even missing half their heads, revealing the mottled clay beneath. The air was filled with an unpleasant stench of dust, rotting wood, and… a faint smell of blood.

The cold wind, like invisible knives, whistled in through the cracks, sending a shiver down his spine and clearing his confused mind somewhat.

He lowered his head and looked at himself.

He was wearing a rough, dirty, patched gray cloth coat. The stiff fabric rubbed against his skin, creating an unfamiliar, rough feel. This was definitely not a hospital gown.

His hands... had become smaller and thinner, with sallow skin, thick knuckles, and covered with tiny scars and calluses. These were the hands of a young man, weathered by time, not the hands of an adult who had been tormented by illness and reduced to skin and bones, pale and powerless.

This isn't my body!

An absurd and horrifying thought exploded in his mind like a thunderclap.

Almost the instant this thought arose, a vast, chaotic stream of information, filled with despair, pain, and overwhelming hatred, surged into the depths of his consciousness like a flood bursting its banks.

"ah--!"

He clutched his head, which felt like it was about to split open, and let out a suppressed, hoarse growl. His body curled up into a ball and trembled violently.

Countless images, sounds, and fragments of emotion flashed and collided wildly in his mind:

• A thin boy named Lin Xuan, about fifteen or sixteen years old, was wearing the same tattered gray clothes as him. His face was somewhat similar to his own, but even more immature, and he had been suffering from long-term malnutrition.

The boy clutched a hard, blackened piece of bran and vegetable dumpling tightly as he ran desperately along a muddy path, his face filled with terror and despair.

Several boys, dressed in similarly tattered clothes but noticeably more robust, surrounded him, their faces bearing mocking and cruel smiles.

"You little bastard, hand over the food!"

"You dare hide something that Brother Zhao has his eye on?"

Punches and kicks rained down on the boy, who desperately protected the vegetable ball in his arms, curling up like a shrimp and whimpering in pain.

A slightly better-dressed, sinister-looking young man (Zhao Gan) stepped forward and kicked the boy hard in the back of the head. "Useless trash! You dare to try and take it from me?"

• Severe pain. Darkness. Loss of consciousness.

The final image is one of boundless resentment, a deep-seated hatred for the boy named "Zhao Gan," an indictment of this cold and cruel world, and the last shred of humble desire for life.

The onslaught of information gradually subsided, and the severe headache slowly receded.

Lin Xuan, or rather, the new soul that had taken over this young man's body, was panting heavily. Cold sweat soaked through his thin, tattered clothes, which clung to his skin, bringing an even deeper chill.

He got it.

He, Lin Xuan, came from Earth, a modern man whose life was taken by a terminal illness. For some reason, his soul traveled through endless time and space and possessed the body of a lowly cultivator with the same name who had just been beaten to death.

"The world of cultivation..." He gleaned this awe-inspiring term from the fragmented memories of the original owner. Here, there were cultivators who could fly and escape into the earth, supernatural powers that could move mountains and fill seas, and long lifespans... This was a vast world, completely different from the scientific civilization he knew, where great power resided within itself.

However, the original owner's situation was a microcosm of the most impoverished and tragic state of the world.

This place appears to be the outermost "refugee settlement" within the sphere of influence of a certain cultivation sect (Qingyun Sect), a gathering place for countless mortals who are unable to cultivate or whose aptitude is so low that they are not even qualified to do menial tasks. Like weeds, they struggle to survive in the shadow of the cultivators, and for a little bit of insignificant food and resources, they can crush and kill each other without hesitation.

The original owner was an orphan, helpless and struggling to survive like a stray dog. Zhao Gan, on the other hand, was the younger brother of a minor leader in the settlement. Relying on his connections, he had gathered a few followers who specifically bullied the weak like the original owner.

This time, it was only because the original owner accidentally found a piece of bran and vegetable dumpling that could barely fill his stomach that Zhao Gan saw it, which brought about his death.

"Survival of the fittest..." Lin Xuan leaned against the cold base of the statue, feeling the lingering pain and weakness in his body, his heart filled with icy coldness. The cruel laws of this world were presented to him in the most direct and bloody way.

The original owner's overwhelming hatred and resentment were deeply etched into his soul like a brand, creating a strange resonance with his own helplessness and indignation when facing illness in his previous life.

"Don't worry..." He murmured to himself, his voice hoarse yet carrying an unusual calm, as he looked at the dissipated remnant soul of the boy in his mind. "Since I've used your body and taken on your karma... I'll avenge you."

The moment he finished speaking, he felt something deep within his soul tremble slightly, then settle completely. It was as if the original owner's last obsession had been granted a promise and finally dissipated into the world.

The cold and pain returned clearly once again.

The most urgent task is to survive.

He struggled to sit up, but the movement aggravated his injuries, especially the wound on the back of his head, causing another wave of dizziness and excruciating pain. His body was too weak; prolonged hunger, coupled with the internal and external injuries from the recent beating, had brought him to the brink of collapse.

"I must find a way... warmth, food, water... otherwise I'll die again as soon as I'm alive." His past life's brush with death gave him an extraordinary desire and obsession with "life."

He gritted his teeth, endured the pain, and began to move with difficulty in the dilapidated temple, his eyes carefully searching in the dim light.

Behind the statue? There was nothing but thick dust and a few broken tiles.

In the corner? Only a nest of frightened mice squeaked and scurried away.

Just when he was almost in despair and his strength was about to run out, his fingers touched something unusual in a very hidden crack behind the base of the statue.

It was a hard object, about the size of a palm, that was cold to the touch.

A thought struck him, and with his last bit of strength, he carefully pried it out.

By the moonlight, he could see the thing clearly.

It was a black token, neither gold nor wood, its material unknown. It felt heavy in his hand, carrying a strange, icy coolness that seemed to slightly alleviate some of the burning pain in his body. The front of the token was engraved with twisted and complex patterns that he couldn't understand at all. Under the moonlight, those patterns faintly shimmered with an extremely faint, star-like glow. The back was blank, smooth as a mirror.

What is this?

He repeatedly stroked the token, finding nothing special about it except its coldness and weight. The original owner's memories contained absolutely no information about it. Perhaps it was something left behind by some down-on-his-luck cultivator before this dilapidated temple was abandoned?

He studied it for a while, but to no avail. Hunger and cold once again took over his body.

He clutched the token tightly in his hand; its coolness seemed to clear his confused mind slightly. He curled up in a sheltered corner of the statue's base, trying to minimize heat loss.

"I can't sleep... If I fall asleep, I might never wake up again..."

He forced himself to stay awake and began to clumsily adjust his breathing according to the most rudimentary "qi-guiding methods" circulating among the refugees in the original owner's memories, methods that were almost impossible to master, trying to sense the legendary "spiritual energy".

Once, twice... I felt nothing. My body remained cold, and the pain remained vivid.

Just when he was about to give up, and his consciousness began to fade again—

Perhaps the near-death state triggered something, perhaps the black token played some unknown role, or perhaps the fusion of the souls from two worlds brought about some kind of anomaly...

Suddenly, he felt a very faint, cool breeze, like the thawing stream in early spring, seeping silently into his Baihui acupoint on the top of his head.

This wisp of air was so faint as to be almost imperceptible, yet it carried an indescribable vitality and life force. It flowed slowly down along some mysterious path, and wherever it passed, the biting cold seemed to be dispelled a little, and the burning pain seemed to be lessened.

"This is...spiritual energy?!"

Lin Xuan's spirits lifted instantly, and he almost burst into tears of joy.

He dared not be negligent in the slightest, concentrating all his energy to guide this faint stream of air, which could be cut off at any moment, and to painstakingly circulate it through the parched meridians according to the rudimentary method recorded in the manual.

The process was slow and painful, like a tortoise crawling. The body's aptitude was clearly absurdly poor, with its meridians extremely sluggish. But that wisp of spiritual energy was still flowing, nourishing this dying body.

One cycle, two cycles...

He was completely immersed in this wonderful experience, forgetting the cold, the pain, and the hunger.

When he finally broke free from that mysterious state, he was surprised to find that the weakness in his body had lessened considerably, the sharp pain in the back of his head had turned into a tolerable dull ache, and most importantly, the lingering, chilling feeling of death seemed to have been dispelled!

Although he was still cold and hungry, he felt he could survive!

He slowly opened his palm, looking at the black token that gleamed with a dark luster under the moonlight.

"Did you help me?" he asked in a low voice, naturally receiving no answer.

But in any case, in this strange and cruel world, he grasped at the first straw.

He looked up through the hole in the roof of the dilapidated temple at the deep, star-studded night sky. The stars here were unlike any he had ever seen in his previous life—more dense, brighter, and also…colder and more distant.

In his black pupils, the light and shadow of countless stars were reflected, so deep that they seemed to swallow all light.

The Lin Xuan of the previous life is already dead.

Lin Xuan, in this life, is reborn in this place.

Illness could not take his life, and adversity could not crush his spirit.

His Dao heart, through the cycle of life and death, is like refined steel that has undergone tempering, beginning to show its indestructible prototype.

"In this life..." He gripped the token tightly, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force, his voice low and firm, clearly audible in the deathly silent, dilapidated temple:

"I must survive. Not only survive, but I must reach the summit and see what kind of scenery awaits at the end of this path of cultivation!"

The cold wind still howled, and the dilapidated temple remained deathly silent.

But a seed belonging to the strong has already been quietly planted in this most filthy and desperate soil.