Chapter 98: Opportunity

In the hidden chamber, Qin Aoyi remained unaware that Wang Yiran had watched him from the moment he had sunk into his intense focus, mere minutes earlier. His full attention and vitality were consumed by swiftly devouring several novels on his reading device, lost completely in the worlds he traversed. The special bond between them had already convinced Qilin that Wang Yiran presented neither harm nor threat, so Qilin made no move to interrupt the process with any warning. Qin Aoyi was thus free to reveal his extraordinary nature right beneath Wang Yiran's watchful eye...

Even had he known he was being observed, the moment would likely have passed too swiftly for any pretense, for after only a dozen minutes of relentless reading Qin Aoyi sensed himself entering a rare and flawless state of synchronization. This extraordinary condition, forged through a week of dream cultivation, had driven his already strained spiritual state beyond its limits. Yet with such perfect alignment between mind and body, the process could not continue indefinitely without flaw or delay.

The growing fatigue went unnoticed amid the overwhelming priority of the task. All his concentration fixed on the novels, any sign of tiredness was pushed aside, forgotten entirely. The mind governed the body; no matter how powerful the latter, it must obey the former's commands. Qin Aoyi's spirit showed fatigue, but the infinite deferral of that fatigue command—because the current pursuit held absolute priority—left it suspended without end.

Another half hour elapsed. Wang Yiran stood motionless at the doorway, witnessing how Qin Aoyi had finished the entire collection of newly installed novels in just one hour, roughly one-tenth of them. Qin Aoyi had not skimmed but truly memorized every word, a feat far beyond ordinary memory.

The mental toll finally reached its true limit. A stabbing pain suddenly erupted in his brain, shattering the trance. Qin Aoyi recoiled, clutching his head as his body lost balance and he collapsed half to his knees, the novel he had just taken from the shelf tumbling aside.

Alarmed by the sudden grimace of agony, Wang Yiran rushed forward. "Qin Aoyi, what is it? Are you all right?"

But Qin Aoyi could not hear her. He only felt the vague pressure of someone trying to steady him, overwhelmed by the sensation that his skull was about to burst. His hands clamped desperately to his temples, and he began slamming his forehead against the ground, the chamber echoing with heavy thuds.

Panic seized Wang Yiran; this condition lay far outside her experience, leaving her unsure how to help. She could only cling to him tightly, yet Qin Aoyi's strength was overwhelming and he remained unresponsive to her voice, the pain depriving him of all action. The tearing agony, rooted in the brain, defied even natural unconsciousness, for the physical pain was controlled by the spirit itself, keeping him lucid even as it surpassed every limit of endurance.

Soon the torment spread from his skull to every nerve and muscle, as if each fiber were being shredded and stretched to its breaking point. The passage of time stretched into what felt like lifetimes.

Qin Aoyi coiled every muscle and bone to the utmost, exerting maximum force in a desperate attempt to ease the neural torment, yet the effort yielded almost nothing.

A voice rang in his mind: "Warning: Pain reaching the host's body limit. Current body in anomalous state. Expected to end in five minutes and thirty-two seconds."

Qin Aoyi caught only fragments of the message, his thoughts reduced to the single word pain. The extraordinary focus that had carried him through this ordeal left him unable to process anything further, a prisoner to the agony alone.