Chapter 131: Transcendence
Maybe it was because she’d been struggling for too long and drained her strength, but just moments into her “thinking,” Xu Zhi began to feel a bit hungry.
In truth, her mind was completely blank—she didn’t even know who she was. Calling it “thinking” was a stretch; she was really just zoning out.
The sudden sense of “hunger” was the first thing that made her brain stir.
Hungry—so naturally, she needed to eat something. Strangely enough, Xu Zhi felt that the things wrapping around her—these cocoons of light—might be edible?
That thought felt strangely familiar, reinforcing her belief that she was on the right track. But… how was she supposed to eat it?
As she pondered this, instinct kicked in. The energy inside her, which had been evolving along with her as she slept, slowly began to activate, starting to absorb the surrounding “cocoons” on its own.
As the cocoons were gradually “devoured” by her, her hunger also slowly subsided.
And along with the return of satiety came the return of Xu Zhi’s consciousness.
Her knowledge and memories gradually resurfaced, and Xu Zhi woke from her previously dazed state.
Still, she wasn’t quite sure what condition she was in, or what had happened after she lost consciousness.
Unconsciously, she continued to absorb the surrounding light. Once all the light had been absorbed, Xu Zhi felt as though she had regained her freedom.
She opened her eyes—and the first thing she saw was the city center.
But… her perspective felt off.
Too high.
Xu Zhi frowned slightly and looked down in confusion—then froze in surprise.
She was standing in the air?
She wasn’t flying. She wasn’t being suspended by anything. She wasn’t even using any supernatural ability.
She was just casually standing there in mid-air.
Xu Zhi tentatively took a step forward—just like walking on solid ground.
Humans should not be able to float like this. Even with supernatural powers, any form of flight ultimately relied on external forces.
But she was certain—she wasn’t using even a trace of ability right now.
Besides that, her mind was running sluggishly, like it had just been stuffed with an overwhelming amount of information and was still trying to sort through it all.
To be clear, the slowness wasn’t because Xu Zhi was slow-witted. Quite the opposite—her brain was now processing information at speeds far beyond human limits. The slowdown was due to the sheer magnitude and mystery of the knowledge. A normal person would go mad just from catching a glimpse of it. Yet Xu Zhi was calmly digesting and absorbing it.
And somehow, she was even multitasking—handling that avalanche of knowledge while also observing her surroundings.
When she turned around, she was still caught off guard by what she saw behind her.
At first, she thought she was facing a towering black wall. But as she moved her gaze and stepped back a little, she finally saw it clearly—it wasn’t a wall at all, but a massive black tree.
“…Damn.”
Xu Zhi felt a strange, familiar warmth from the giant tree. The sensation made her instantly realize who it was—but that only made it harder to believe.
That little thing had grown into… this?
It looked like a divine tree that had stood for millennia.
A massive black snake slithered out from the depths of the tree, something held delicately in its mouth. It slinked toward Xu Zhi, then raised its head high. She reached out her hand, and the black snake gently placed a black fruit in her palm.
It had just plucked it from the tree.
Immediately after, a wave of irritation surged into her mind, as if scolding the snake for picking fruit from its body to curry favor with Xu Zhi—that was mine!
Xu Zhi sighed, “You’ve grown this huge. Can you stop being so childish?”
The black leaves rustled despite the absence of wind—clearly rebutting her—but not too loudly.
Xu Zhi examined the fruit. It looked a lot like the one she’d found at dawn, but this one had faint golden patterns on its surface, similar to the markings on the young aberration, though much simpler.
As she picked up the fruit, Xu Zhi happened to glance at her hand—and she didn’t even recognize it as hers.
Her hands had never been ugly—her bone structure had always been fine—but years of chronic illness and malnutrition had left her extremely thin, her skin deathly pale. Her hands had sometimes looked downright eerie—almost like a corpse’s: colorless, frail, lifeless.
But now they were smooth and fair—not the sickly pale of the past, but healthy and radiant. Her fingers had flesh in the right places—not too thin, not too plump. They looked… vibrant. Healthy. Xu Zhi found it oddly fascinating.
She tried making a fist—and instantly realized something:
Her strength had skyrocketed.
She now felt like she could punch to death even the most powerful aberrations.
Not only that, her physical durability had increased dramatically. Xu Zhi suspected that even firearms couldn’t kill her now—only supernatural or mysterious forces might stand a chance.
Right… what about the aberrations?
Xu Zhi looked around in confusion—and finally noticed the aberrations lying on the ground like docile quails, flat against the surface.
“…What are they doing?”
She’d thought she’d be in for a tough fight after waking up—but… this?
The Little Aberrant swayed its branches enthusiastically as if asking for praise, childishly bragging to Xu Zhi that this was all its doing—look how strong it had become!
“Alright, alright. Very impressive,” Xu Zhi replied, humoring it with a nod.
“But now that you’ve turned into this… you can’t move anymore, can you?”
As soon as she spoke, the Little Aberrant’s pride deflated instantly, replaced by a sense of grievance.
Yeah… it really couldn’t move anymore.
Meanwhile, the flood of knowledge in Xu Zhi’s mind kept flowing. Her thoughts were chaotic—there was just too much to organize, too much new information to sort.
Compared to that, the fact that the Little Aberrant couldn’t walk anymore suddenly seemed like a trivial matter.
After all, it was suppressing the rift—Wait a second.
Xu Zhi suddenly remembered something important.
The Little Aberrant had eaten the fragment of the road associated with the [Cup] attribute, and that’s what allowed it to suppress the rift. So then… what happened to the road?
Xu Zhi quickly pulled out her game console. It had returned to its usual appearance—clearly repaired.
She didn’t know what it had done, exactly. She just hurriedly asked, “What’s the Little Aberrant’s current status?”
The narrator paused for a moment—then replied:
[Attribute: Cup. Title: Enraged Archbishop.]
Xu Zhi: “?”
“…Huh?”
You’re joking, right?
“How is that ‘enraged’?”
It was pretty mild-tempered, aside from being a bit childish.
[Is that really the point?]
The narrator sounded exasperated.
[Then what about all those aberrations too afraid to even lift their heads?]
Xu Zhi: …
“Uh, well…”
“Haha, so a tree can be an archbishop now?”
[Heh. It’s my first time seeing this too.]
[You’ve completely gone off the rails now.]
[Damn it, how did things end up like this?!]
Xu Zhi could practically hear the narrator having a breakdown.
All she could do was give a sheepish smile.
Can’t he use parasite to move?