Chapter Twenty-Three: Devouring Thunder, Awakening the Supreme Ancestral Bone!

As a Grand Traveler of the Vast Worlds, Lin Qiye’s every deed was for two purposes.

First, to defy fate and rewrite his destiny.

Second, to improve his evaluation score—ideally to reach SS or above.

Neither overturning fate nor achieving an SS+ ranking would be easy.

There were only five years left until the revival of spiritual energy and the arrival of the Celestials.

Lin Qiye had a premonition that the Celestials’ power would utterly crush this world.

Without forming a mighty force to resist, perhaps even destroy the Celestials, he feared he would never reach an SS-level evaluation.

Thus, Lin Qiye resolved to bring Ji Qinghuan under his banner.

After all, this young woman—outstanding among assassins—had shown herself willing to risk her life for vengeance on behalf of a friend. Her character and abilities both met his standards.

“Only… spiritual energy in this world is so sparse. Training alone would consume all resources, yet I still have to build a power base… Truly a headache,” Lin Qiye muttered with a shake of his head.

…

An hour later, Ji Qinghuan led Lin Qiye to a mountain valley.

The valley stretched endlessly, and on the open plain at its entrance lay thousands upon thousands of charred corpses—wild boars, wild horses, bears—a veritable valley of death.

Lin Qiye gazed into the distance.

High above the valley floated dazzling clouds of lightning, forming a canopy that blotted out the sun, lightning and thunder raging as if ferocious beasts battled within.

The stormy clouds pulsed like living hearts, pounding violently at intervals.

With each pulse, the clouds exploded outward, lightning streaking across the surrounding mountains, heating them until they glowed red.

Evidently, any animal venturing near had perished beneath these “heartbeats.”

Around the valley’s edge also lay many blackened, human-shaped corpses.

“Brother Lin, the spiritual herb is inside, but there’s only a special moment when you can enter. Otherwise, you’ll end up just like those charred remains,” Ji Qinghuan said, pointing at the blackened figures.

“That one, they say, was a master of external martial arts, immune to lightning from childhood, but he too ended up as charcoal here.”

“I only found the entry pattern by chance. In five or six days, we should be able to go in!” Ji Qinghuan calculated.

However, Lin Qiye had no patience to wait five or six days.

He stared at the thunderclouds looming over the valley, lost in thought.

As he watched the ever-churning clouds, Lin Qiye felt an inexplicable sense of affinity.

A wild, absurd idea welled up within him—if he could devour them, the benefits would be immeasurable.

What kind of thought was this?

Lin Qiye’s expression was odd.

But his intuition, empowered by his SSS-level talent and Genesis Simulation, had never failed him.

So, with a mind to test it out, Lin Qiye activated his Genesis Simulation.

“Show me how to deal with these thunderclouds.”

[This simulation requires 1,000 Travel Points (22,499 remaining).]

[Simulation successful: Your constitution is unique. If you enter the thunder valley directly, you can devour the clouds of lightning. Doing so will awaken an unparalleled spiritual root within you.]

Reading the result, Lin Qiye raised his brows.

“Awaken an unparalleled spiritual root?”

“According to the original timeline, I do possess a heaven-defying spiritual root. After the revival of spiritual energy, a mysterious organization will forcibly extract it from me… The loss of my spiritual root was the main reason for my wretched death in the dungeon.”

“I always thought the root could only awaken after the spiritual energy revived. I never expected to stumble on an opportunity to awaken it now!”

A few traces of delight emerged on Lin Qiye’s face.

Without further hesitation, Lin Qiye took a step forward.

A phantom of a dragon-elephant shimmered around him, then turned into a streaking afterimage as he charged into the thunderclouds.

Seeing this, Ji Qinghuan’s hair stood on end, her scalp tingling. “Brother Lin, don’t go—”

But before she could finish, the ten-meter-tall dragon-elephant phantom collided violently with the storm clouds.

The clouds, brimming with frenzied energy, erupted with a deafening thunderclap at the moment of contact.

Bolts of lightning, thick as pythons, surged into Lin Qiye’s limbs and organs, threatening to reduce him to a charred corpse.

However, Lin Qiye’s body was anything but ordinary.

Each dragon-like bolt crashed onto him, only to be swallowed whole—transmuted into pure energy that washed through every bone in his body.

Heavenly thunder forging his bones!

Lightning cleansing his marrow!

Lin Qiye felt his soul surging with ecstasy.

Not even these world-ending bolts of lightning could harm him. Instead, they roused the dormant spiritual root within him, which began to awaken.

Lin Qiye exhaled a breath of white mist, feeling invigorated.

“So, my unparalleled spiritual root is related to lightning. That’s why I’m immune to thunder.”

He grinned, strolling deeper into the valley as though out for a walk.

Sensing Lin Qiye’s peculiarity, the thunderclouds frantically tried to evade him.

But having tasted their power, how could Lin Qiye let them get away?

He charged after them, pursuing relentlessly.

Half an hour later, the sky-darkening clouds had been utterly devoured by Lin Qiye within the valley.

Now, the bones throughout Lin Qiye’s body gleamed with a purple-gold hue, brilliant lightning flowing through them.

“So, my spiritual root is the Nine-Colored Divine Thunder Physique? When fully awakened, nine divine dragons of lightning will coil within me, and with a single gesture, even the cosmic barriers of the Diamond Realm can be shattered!”

Lin Qiye’s eyes burned with excitement, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

Intuition told him he’d stumbled upon a true treasure—such a peerless spiritual root should only be encountered by a Diamond Traveler.

For a Silver Traveler, the chance was but one in a hundred million.

Yet, by sheer fortune, Lin Qiye had encountered and even awakened it!

More thrilling than winning the lottery!

He was secretly elated.

“Though I’ve only devoured an ordinary thundercloud for now, and only awakened a trace of my spiritual root’s potential, its destructive power is already terrifying.”

Raising his hand, Lin Qiye conjured a bolt of lightning at his fingertip.

He flicked it lightly.

In the next instant, a distant mountain, a hundred meters tall, was obliterated in a resounding explosion.

“The might of thunder—truly extraordinary!”

Lin Qiye clicked his tongue in amazement.

Behind him, Ji Qinghuan stared in shock, blinking blankly.

“He actually devoured all the thunder in the valley… and can control it at will, flattening a hundred-meter mountain with a single move?”

“Compared to that, the assassin’s training methods are simply worthless!”

Ji Qinghuan sighed deeply.

As the top-ranked assassin, she finally understood—she had been nothing more than a frog at the bottom of a well.

What pride was there in being number one among assassins? It was a joke.

Cultivation was the true path to defying heaven!

Her heart was in turmoil—envy, awe, yearning, desire—all flickered in her eyes.

She fell into contemplation.

But before she could think further, Lin Qiye landed in front of her.

“Come. Show me the century-old spiritual herb.”

Ji Qinghuan nodded quickly and led the way into a cave.

Deep within, a three-foot-tall violet ginseng glowed with radiant light. Wisps of purple mist swirled above it.

Lin Qiye approached the ginseng and carefully dug it up.

Beneath the stalk, a plump, pure-white, radish-shaped humanoid root was revealed, its surface untainted, shining with purple light.

A rich medicinal fragrance filled Lin Qiye’s lungs, sending the spiritual energy in his body into a restless surge.

His eyes lit up.

“A hundred-year ginseng nurtured by thunderclouds, brimming with a century’s worth of medicinal power. Fortunately, you didn’t try to consume it, or you would have exploded into thousands of pieces.”

Upon hearing this, Ji Qinghuan shrank her head, visibly shaken.

“I know… I once tasted a tiny rootlet and almost died. Since then, I’ve only dared to train near the herb, never consuming it.”

Lin Qiye chuckled softly, wasting no more words.

He immediately sat cross-legged, bit through the ginseng’s skin, and let the purple juice flow into his belly, transforming into scalding magma that exploded within him.

He focused his mind, instantly activating the Qi Refining Art to refine the medicinal juice.

As the process continued, Lin Qiye’s cultivation soared.

Half an hour later, he reached the fourth level of Qi Refining.

An hour later, he broke through to the fifth.

At last, his cultivation stabilized at the middle stage of Qi Refining, Level Five.

By then, every drop of medicinal juice in his body had been refined.

He opened his eyes, a hint of joy gleaming within.

“Not bad. In just half a month, I’ve reached the fifth level of Qi Refining.”

He was greatly satisfied.

In the first cycle, after the revival of spiritual energy, any cultivator in the Summer Nation who reached the tenth level could dominate the entire planet.

Lin Qiye was now only a few steps away from such power.

It was a cause for celebration.

However, to resist the Celestial invasion, he alone was not enough.

He needed allies.

So, the remaining ginseng skin would be used to create the world’s second cultivator…