What would it be like to become a reef rock?
I think—
it would probably be a pretty miserable experience.
Before confessing to Su Liumeng, I worried more than once whether she might have turned into some strange, unknown creature.
To be honest, I really couldn’t accept the idea of my other half being some kind of unknown aberration.
But now, it’s actually me who has become a massive, motionless stone.
Looking back at my past life experience, it was an utterly dreadful ordeal for me.
For a whole one or two hours, I couldn’t move even a micrometer, let alone control my body.
It was a kind of indescribable despair and helplessness.
I’m not someone who can just sit still and do nothing.
Suddenly turning into a vegetative, deep-sea reef rock, even the most basic emotions, only vague joys, angers, sorrows, and happiness remained. How could that make me feel comfortable?
To sum up: it was a very painful experience.
I never want to go through it a second time.
Suddenly, I didn’t even know how to explain to Su Liumeng that I was a big rock in my previous life.
The story that happened on my side, she probably doesn’t know about it, right?
Though I don’t know what Su Liumeng’s past life was like, just from the fact that I was a big rock, I felt there should be no interaction between us.
In other words, there was no past-life connection between us at all.
This isn’t just a guess. It’s a sixth sense naturally arising in my heart when I slipped into my past body.
My past life has nothing to do with Su Liumeng.
No past-life affinity means no past-life affinity. I’m not someone who believes in mysticism anyway, so I don’t care about these things.
Besides, it doesn’t affect our feelings in this life.
But the trials of the Heavenly Dao don’t care about those things.
Some of them are even rigid, requiring a karmic bond from a previous life. That made my heart sink a little.
I don’t want to disappoint Su Liumeng. I definitely don’t want to fail this trial.
Reality has no “what ifs.”
Even without an omniscient perspective, I have my own judgment.
So much time has passed since my past life, yet Su Liumeng and I still haven’t had any interactions.
Logically, this trial should end quickly, at the very first test.
But the reality is the complete opposite.
The trial hasn’t ended; instead, it’s dragged on.
A strange thought suddenly arose in my heart, as if this trial isn’t about whether Su Liumeng and I have fate.
It’s more like the Heavenly Dao is simply showing me scenes from my past life, a ridiculous intuition, but it boldly appeared deep within me.
Outside, others were also a bit stunned.
According to past records of Heavenly Dao trials, the first test usually lasts no longer than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.
Today, it was forcibly dragged into the third hour, and the protagonists in the story and their partners had no interaction at all.
One of the main characters was a massive stone unable to move—a ridiculous and incomprehensible thing, yet it happened so vividly.
The Great Elder snatched the sheepskin book, which the Fourth Elder treated like a treasure, and said, “Let me see what else is written in this book.”
The Fourth Elder was speechless.
The problem was, he couldn’t win against the Great Elder.
The Great Elder flipped to the first page and read the contents aloud.
“Whether innate spirits or acquired spirits, there is a unified name—”
“Namely, the Primordial Life.”
“Not only are they born with extraordinary talent, but they also pass through trials without any hindrance.”
“Besides that…”
“The Great Elder frowned. “What’s this? The rest of the words here are chewed up by some shameless dog.”
He blew off the dust and skipped that part, continuing to read,
“Whether innate or acquired spirits, if the first life fails to achieve anything and enters the cycle of reincarnation, dissolving into the murky mortal realm, the true spirit will gradually become dim. Not only will talent sharply decline, but one will also lose the greatest innate ability.”
“The second life is the closest to the first, and also the highest in talent among all subsequent reincarnations. Therefore, while the true spirit has not yet fully dimmed, one can take a gamble to—”
“Return to the Primordial Life form.”
“The cost is heavy. One must swear a unique oath of the true self, vowing never to enter reincarnation again, and find the body of the previous life to have even a slight chance of success.”
“To return to the Primordial Life form requires the courage to risk death for rebirth. Not only does one retain the talents of the current life, but also all the abilities from the previous life, reaching a breakthrough from crisis to opportunity—the strongest state across all lives.”
“The true self is unique, not entering reincarnation. These eight characters mean that if one’s body and Dao perish, they truly vanish without a trace, even losing the chance of reincarnation. This secret method should never be attempted lightly, except in dire circumstances.”
“What nonsense.” The Great Elder nearly threw the sheepskin book away.
“Not entering reincarnation—isn’t that an evil art? Who sacrifices all their future lives for the power of one life? In my opinion, if a person isn’t capable, they’re doomed, regardless of talent.”
“A truly formidable person should be like the founder of our Su family, who, even as an ordinary person, can punch open the boundary.”
“This guy… when his time comes, he should just die quietly and be done with it.”
“All these tricks, even sacrificing countless future reincarnations, only to still face birth, aging, sickness, and death—just be honest.”
“Evil art.” The Great Elder looked somewhat angry and tore this page from the sheepskin book.
“Have you read this? If you have, forget it. Don’t pass on this evil art to the world.”
“As cultivators, we must practice with dignity.”
“In life, there are no shortcuts. Throwing away all your future for nothing is the most desperate thing, even losing the chance of reincarnation.”
“I’ve read it carefully.” The Fourth Elder answered honestly.
The Great Elder put the half page into his storage space, solemnly instructing,
“If you’ve seen it, you must forget it. Remember, don’t show it to that girl. In this world, she’s probably the only one who has the chance to use it. If she’s willing to marry into our Su family, we can’t harm her.”
“If she uses some evil art, sacrificing her future potential but unable to take the final step, when her lifespan nears its end, won’t Su Liumeng go mad?”
“The Great Elder is right.”
Inside the Heavenly Dao trial, I was forced to live as a stone man for four hours.
During the agonizing time, I suddenly thought of my past life.
Even infinite accelerated time was almost unbearable.
My past life was truly that of a stone, for at least a hundred million years.
Now the timeline in the vision had already reached one hundred million years later.
One hundred million years—that’s a terrifying number.
I tried to empathize with my past self and, after deep thought, was left with an unspeakable despair no one else could understand.
What a stone desires most, is freedom.
And… nothing but freedom.
A wish only a stone could understand.
How much it longs to move freely like a normal person.
*****
At this moment, I suddenly guessed how I’d die in the future.
I blinked my beautiful big eyes, and a crystal tear silently slid down my cheek.
Time and space twisted at that moment.
Past and future seemed to exchange in an instant.
Tick—
The tear fell onto the stone, forming a dazzling spot at the top.
Countless white lights instantly boiled, and an inexplicable emotion spread in my heart, before all fluctuations faded without a trace, as if the tear had never appeared.
After a hundred million years, I was no longer an ordinary stone, at least I had the ability to express emotions, just like the intense light just now.
But, I still couldn’t speak.
Like a being completely trapped inside its own body, facing the sea waves and weather day after day.
I must have longed more than once for this world not to be so monotonous—at least not so relentlessly gray and unchanging.
The turning point I hoped for finally arrived one day.
After officially entering my hundred-million-year life, the world underwent a shocking change.
The sky was gradually rising higher; the bluish-black sky color was lightening.
Countless deep red thunderbolts were born continuously above the ascending sky, then rained down like raindrops into the ocean.
Boom—
Facing the endless might of the sky, this boundless ocean seemed to be running out of strength.
I saw countless waves being forced upward, forming quilt-like protective layers in the sky.
However, all of this was in vain.
In this apocalypse-like storm of lightning, nothing could escape destruction.
I saw the seawater slowly boiling, being burned away by the heat from countless lightning bolts.
The sea level was steadily dropping.
In a daze, I seemed to hear the ocean’s wails.
It was the howling wind over the sea, more like the ocean’s own instinctual struggle for survival.
This was a true human tragedy.
The sea level dropped further, exposing more of the reef’s body.
From afar, looking toward this place, I was no longer just a reef rock but a small mountain standing above sea level.
Though still tiny compared to the vast ocean, it stood firm and unyielding.
Countless white mists formed around me, protecting a corner of the ocean with a terrifying lightning storm raging nearby, using the power of a hundred million years of cultivation.
Outside, the Su family elders suddenly saw the image turn into a mosaic.
No further images or even sounds remained.
This terrifying red lightning storm lasted an astounding one million years—and still showed no sign of ending.
I had originally been the one most looking forward to the world changing.
At this moment, a sadness like the death of rabbits and foxes filled me.
This was not even my own emotion, but that passed down from my past life.
Watching the ocean that had accompanied me for a hundred million years slowly die step by step, I felt a strange emotion.
But what could I do?
In this endless storm of lightning, the ocean, far stronger than me, could only be powerless.
What ability do I have to fix this?
Even protecting this small corner already exhausted me physically and mentally.
The small mountain once wrapped in white mist began to gray just like the surroundings.
This was proof that the divine wonder was beginning to perish.
Once all the white mist vanished, all my hundred million years of efforts would disappear with it.
The sky had remained at this height since it rose one million years ago, and no one knew where this lightning storm came from.
Its goal seemed singular, to destroy everything in the world.
The sky really wasn’t high, as if one could reach out and touch it, yet at this moment, it felt so distant that I dared not look at the terrifying sea of clouds.
Another three million years passed.
The thunderstorm formed by lightning didn’t abate; instead, it grew even fiercer and more sinister.
I had originally been just a small mountain, but with the ocean level falling, I had become an awe-inspiring towering giant.
Looking at myself now, I couldn’t connect this image to the small reef rock from a hundred million years ago.
I knew this was my true form, but there was still an indescribable shock.
Though my body couldn’t move in reality, it didn’t stop me from gradually raising my gaze to lock eyes with the Heavenly Dao somewhere in the void, watching me.
The Heavenly Dao was ruthless and had no consciousness of its own.
Why did it show me my past life? What was it trying to do?
Three hundred years felt like enough time to get used to the power of thunder.
Not only could I now stand firm in the storm, I began to draw boundless power from it.
The white mist around me thickened; I could now protect not only my feet but also parts of the nearby ocean.
Only, the ocean had changed drastically.
I had become a mountain that could pierce the clouds, naturally able to see very far away.
It was the first time I saw the end of the ocean.
It seemed the endless lightning and heat had evaporated most of the seawater.
I knew this wasn’t the original edge of the ocean but the edge where the seawater was drying up.
This ocean was shrinking moment by moment.
The once turbulent sea had grown strangely quiet; the surface no longer rippled.
This ocean that had caused me countless curses and constantly eroded my body was now nearing the end of its life.
It looked like an old woman clinging to the faintest breath of life, exhausting all her strength just to keep breathing.
It was also the first time I saw real land, and it was nothing like the lush green I imagined—only countless yellow-black rocks and endless sandstorms, a world-ending scene completely different from the ocean storm.
What kind of world was this?
This question appeared in my heart more than once.
I even wondered if the era I was in was a world before life was born.
Otherwise, who could survive so many apocalyptic calamities?
When even surviving is a luxury, how could there be order and civilization?
Another ten million years passed.
The mountain grew ever taller and majestic.
The ocean had completely evaporated.
My strength was now visible to the naked eye.
I even felt that if I could move freely, one punch would blow a hole in the sky that no one could close.
I wasn’t exaggerating much; I really was that terrifying.
Endless power within the mountain made me stand tall in the lightning storm for the first time.
I had become—like an immobile energy black hole, swallowing every lightning bolt the sky sent my way without exception.
Eventually, no lightning dared to strike me anymore.
All energy on the ground was absorbed clean.
Looking down at the barren ground for the first time, I fell into an eerie silence.
Gazing at my towering form, I suddenly realized something.
Wait—
I seemed to be one of the sources of this apocalypse.
There wasn’t a single life form in this world without a reason.
I was just a mountain.
A “slightly” bigger rock.
Of course, I acted purely on instinct.
Whatever I could eat, I swallowed without hesitation.
Seeing this world falling apart, with not even a drop of water left, it seemed only a few years away from complete collapse.
If you asked me why I didn’t stop absorbing,
I would answer, “How do you reason with a rock?”
Obviously, it makes no sense.
A rock has no human morals and will do whatever feels good.
In fact, no one talked reason to me.
There was no living being in this world, so of course this mountain would eat whatever was available.
The things I absorbed turned not only into energy but also part of the mountain’s height.
Seeing myself grow stronger and stronger, I developed a strong intuition.
If I kept growing blindly like this, I truly felt I could stand shoulder to shoulder with the sky, even punch a hole through it.
Because, the sky really wasn’t high anymore.
Countless thunderbolts bowed and trembled beneath me.
For the first time, I saw the edge of the world.
A place that seemed just within reach.
Sadly, I still couldn’t move, nor could I speak.
And—