Time inside the first floor flowed endlessly, like water slipping through one's fingers.

Four months passed in relentless repetition.

Wang Chen pushed himself to the absolute limit, hunting resentful ghosts day and night without rest. The frozen wasteland became a graveyard of shattered wraiths, their numbers steadily thinning until only a few thousand remained scattered across the barren expanse.

It was brutal. Efficient. Methodical.

And completely unsatisfying.

Sitting atop a small hill far from the remaining clusters of resentful ghosts, Wang Chen finally allowed himself to pause. Cold wind brushed against his robes as he summoned his updated status window, his brows lifting only a fraction as the information unfolded before him.

---

Class: Holy Knight

Class Tier: Epic

Level: 76

Primary Stats

HP: 18,450 / 18,450

Stamina: 12,300 / 12,300

Mana: 6,800 / 6,800

Core Attributes

Strength: 420

Agility: 260

Defense: 510

Vitality: 480

Willpower: 600

Faith: 750

Resistances

Holy Resistance: +60%

Dark Resistance: +45%

Curse Resistance: +40%

Fear Resistance: +50%

Class Passives

Sacred Physique (Lv. 5): Reduces corruption effects by 35%.

Oathbound Resolve (Lv. 4): All stats +20% while defending allies or sacred ground.

Divine Endurance (Lv. 3): 15% damage taken converted into stamina.

Light Affinity (Lv. 5): Holy skills deal +30% damage.

Active Skills

Holy Smite (Lv. 6): +180% damage vs corrupted targets.

Radiant Guard (Lv. 5): Generates a 4,000 HP holy barrier.

Oath of Protection (Lv. 4): Redirects 50% ally damage to self.

Consecrated Strike (Lv. 3): Cleanses 1 debuff per hit.

Aura

Aura of Conviction (Lv. 4): Allies gain +15% Defense, +10% Willpower.

...

Wang Chen studied the window in silence.

Contrary to his expectations, this was a pure battlefield class.

No bizarre reality-breaking abilities. No metaphysical hacks. No instant win buttons like some of his previous classes.

And yet… it was terrifying in its own way.

A single Holy Knight like this could completely reshape the flow of a battlefield. The defensive scaling, the sustain, the aura buffs—stacked together, it turned the class into a walking fortress that refused to fall.

More importantly, the holy attribute was an outright nightmare for resentful ghosts.

Even his most basic attacks shredded them. Holy Smite in particular felt less like a skill and more like a natural predator asserting dominance. Against corrupted entities, it was slaughter, not combat.

"So this is what a frontline nightmare looks like," Wang Chen muttered to himself.

Satisfied with his gains—and unwilling to waste any more time standing around—he flicked his wrist.

A faint hand formed from condensed holy mana shot forward and slammed into the hill. With a dull roar, stone and frozen earth exploded outward, carving a compact cave into the slope.

Snow settled. Dust drifted.

Wang Chen stepped inside without ceremony.

This would be his meditation chamber.

He still had work to do.

He didn't stop there.

To ensure absolute safety, Wang Chen drew upon the fragments of formation knowledge he had acquired during his past tower runs. One formation after another took shape around the freshly carved cave—concealment arrays layered atop repulsion seals, interwoven with subtle warning glyphs. The formations were not flashy, but they were precise, practical, and ruthless in purpose.

By the time dawn should have arrived in the outside world, the cave had become a dead zone.

Resentful ghosts that drifted too close were repelled by invisible pressure, their shrill howls abruptly cut short as the formations shredded their approach. Even without activating his aura, the space around Wang Chen became something they instinctively avoided.

Only then did he sit down.

Everything was ready.

Wang Chen was about to close his eyes and begin his research when his brows suddenly shot upward.

"…What was that gaze?"

His heart skipped a beat.

Just a month ago—no, not long ago at all—he had felt the same thing. A lingering, deliberate gaze brushing against his existence, faint yet unmistakably familiar. At the time, he had dismissed it as paranoia born from exhaustion.

But now…

A face surfaced in his mind with unsettling clarity.

Exquisite. Cold. Beautiful enough to blur the line between danger and temptation.

Mo Huyan.

It had been years—who even knew how many—since their last encounter. And yet, the moment her image appeared, Wang Chen's expression darkened.

"Tch…"

This was the worst timing possible.

He did not want to cross paths with that woman now. Not when his fate was already being siphoned away by an ancient beast egg. Not when he was standing at a crossroads that demanded absolute precision. Mo Huyan was not just a person—she was a walking variable, the kind that disrupted plans simply by existing.

Unfortunately, she was also a variable he could not control.

Wang Chen exhaled slowly, forcing the image from his mind.

Thinking about it further would only destabilize him.

Focus.

With a single thought, his consciousness sank inward, plunging into his spiritual sea.

The vast inner space rippled gently as two familiar figures floated at its center—lifelike, radiant, and eerily accurate.

The avatar of Zhao Yufei stood calmly, her presence ethereal and faintly luminous. Her nature was active even here, unconsciously drawing in strands of fate from the Garden of Eternity like a quiet siphon. Golden threads flowed toward her without resistance, as natural as breathing.

Wang Chen watched her without surprise.

He had long grown accustomed to this phenomenon.

Zhao Yufei's existence itself bent fortune. Understanding it wasn't optional anymore—it was necessary.

His gaze then shifted, slowly, toward the other avatar.

Young Master Yun.

And the atmosphere subtly chilled.

His eyes burned with intense focus as he studied her.

The avatar of Zhao Yufei floated silently within his spiritual sea, serene and distant, yet her existence alone stirred the laws around her. The golden threads of fate continued to drift toward her, subtle and unquestioning, as if the world itself acknowledged her presence.

Like floodgates bursting open, countless questions surged through Wang Chen's mind.

What is fate…?

If he were forced to give an answer, it would be a brutally simple one.

Fate was the extreme end of destiny.

Something absolute. Unavoidable. A conclusion written long before the first step was taken. Once set in motion, it would occur regardless of resistance, indifference, or even ignorance.

If someone's fate was to become a supreme Human Emperor, then it would happen—whether they struggled toward it with blood and sweat or stumbled into it by accident. Effort did not create fate; it merely aligned one with it.

The Tower of Infinite Enlightenment had proven this to him long ago.

Destiny rewarded effort. Fate did not require it.

Destiny was a path. Fate was the end.

As Wang Chen continued to contemplate, time flowed onward like an unending river.

Days quietly dissolved into months.

Months blurred into years.

The world outside his hidden cave continued its grim cycle. From time to time, resentful ghosts drifted toward his location, drawn by instinct rather than awareness. Their hollow gazes lingered for a moment before the formations repelled them, scattering their forms like mist beneath sunlight.

Wang Chen did not react.

He did not even open his eyes.

Just like that, another decade passed.

Twenty years.

For nearly twenty full years inside the first floor, Wang Chen had done nothing but contemplate the nature of fate—dissecting it, questioning it, pressing against it from every angle. He replayed the flow of fortune around Zhao Yufei again and again, tracing each subtle movement, each deviation, each contradiction.

And yet…

Nothing.

No enlightenment.

No breakthrough.

No spark of realization.

The truth was cold and unyielding.

After twenty years of relentless contemplation, he had made no progress at all.

The path he had envisioned—creating a technique to manipulate or cultivate fate itself—no longer seemed merely difficult.

It felt impossible.

Today, Wang Chen opened his eyes.

The wear of time was unmistakable within them.

They were not the eyes of someone who had merely meditated for years, but of someone who had stared at the same wall of truth for far too long—and failed to break through it.

"Damn it… I really am untalented."

His voice was hoarse, scraped raw by disuse.

"Twenty years, and I still have no idea how to progress."

The words tasted bitter.

Could it be that all those legends about future-crafting techniques, about manipulating fate itself, were nothing more than glorified fairy tales? Fabrications woven by later generations to romanticize impossible heights?

For a fleeting moment, the thought of giving up surfaced.

Wang Chen's fingers clenched.

"No."

He crushed the idea without hesitation.

"So what if I made no progress in twenty years?" His teeth ground together. "I refuse to believe things will remain the same after another twenty."

With that stubborn conviction, he closed his eyes again.

Days blurred into weeks.

Weeks eroded into years.

Another twenty years slipped away like dust through his fingers.

When Wang Chen opened his eyes again, his expression was darker than before, his face nearly black with frustration.

Still nothing.

Not even a hint.

Doubt began to seep in, quiet and insidious.

"Maybe… such a technique simply cannot exist."

The moment the thought formed, he shook his head violently, as if trying to fling it out of his skull.

"No."

His voice was low, iron-hard.

"If Zhao Yufei can do it, then I can as well. I refuse to believe I'm barred from reaching it."

Once more, he sank into meditation.

Time lost all meaning.

Twenty years became fifty.

Fifty became a hundred.

When Wang Chen opened his eyes again, his face was pale as paper. His breathing was shallow, his spiritual presence dulled—not weakened, but exhausted.

A full century.

One hundred years of contemplation.

And still, nothing.

No enlightenment.

No revelation.

No progress.

Yet even then, he did not stop.

Another hundred years passed.

Two centuries of silence.

Two centuries of obsession.

Wang Chen sat unmoving in his cave, just as he always had, when—

The space around him rippled.

Not violently. Not threateningly.

Simply… intrusively.

A figure stepped out of distorted air, as if she had always been there and reality was only now catching up.

Mo Huyan.

Time had clearly forgotten her.

Her face remained flawless, untouched by age. Her aura was regal and suffocating, the kind that made ordinary cultivators instinctively drop to their knees and prostrate without understanding why.

She glanced around the bleak cave, then at the motionless figure seated within it.

Wang Chen noticed her arrival.

He simply did not open his eyes.

Mo Huyan paused, then laughed softly. A devilish curve lifted her lips, amusement dancing in her eyes.

"Hehe… little cultivator."

Her voice echoed lightly against the stone walls.

"It's rare to see you rotting away in this damned place for so long."

She tilted her head, studying him with open curiosity.

"So tell me…"

"What exactly are you trying to do?"

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