The gravity of the Upper Realm was ten times heavier than the mortal world. To an ordinary man, the air would feel like lead; to a cultivator, it was a paradise of dense, crystalline Qi.
Shen Yuan stepped out of the black-stained pond, his wet robes clinging to his frame. He felt... small. His Black Hole Core, which had made him a god in the lower world, was now struggling to regulate the sheer pressure of this higher dimension.
"Master," the voice of Tian Yu echoed in his mind, "Your meridians are cracking. You absorbed the Overseer's light to bridge the gap between worlds, but your physical vessel is still 'mortal' in composition. If you do not find a way to refine your body into [Star-Forged Flesh], you will implode within three days."
"I know," Shen Yuan whispered, his eyes scanning the horizon.
He was in a vast, floating valley. Above him, three moons hung in the sky, each a different shade of jade. Below him, the clouds weren't vapor; they were rivers of flowing spirit-mist.
Suddenly, the sound of heavy footsteps and the clanking of chains broke the silence.
"Hey! You there! By the pond!" a coarse voice barked.
A group of men approached. They were dressed in grey, reinforced armor, but they weren't soldiers. They looked like overseers. Behind them, a line of thin, exhausted men and women dragged heavy carts filled with glowing blue stones—Spirit-Ore.
The leader, a man with a scar across his nose and a cultivation at the Late Foundation Realm (which was common labor level here), squinted at Shen Yuan.
"A stowaway? Or a fallen star?" the leader sneered, raising a whip made of lightning-glass. "You don't have the mark of any Great Sect. That means you're 'Wild Meat'. Boys, cuff him! The Azure-Cloud Mines are short on three-handed diggers!"
Two guards lunged forward, tossing a pair of [Spirit-Locking Handcuffs]. These cuffs were designed to paralyze the Dantian of anyone below the Core Formation stage.
Shen Yuan didn't move. He looked at the cuffs as they snapped shut around his wrists.
"Master!" Tian Yu hissed. "Why did you let them?"
"Silence, Tian Yu," Shen Yuan replied internally. "I have no status here. No maps. No resources. These fools are going to provide me with a place to hide and a source of raw ore to refine my body. Let them think they've caught a slave. They've actually invited a virus into their system."
"He's a quiet one," one of the guards laughed, shoving Shen Yuan toward the line of prisoners. "Don't worry, brat. In the mines, the only thing you'll need your tongue for is begging for water."
Shen Yuan joined the line. He looked at the prisoner next to him—a young girl with hollow eyes and dirt-streaked hair. She was clutching a small piece of ore as if it were her life.
"Don't fight them," she whispered, not looking up. "The Azure-Cloud Sect kills anyone who slows down. Just dig."
Shen Yuan didn't answer. He closed his eyes, and instead of resisting the Spirit-Locking cuffs, he began to use them as a bridge. He redirected the "Locking" energy into his own Dantian, using its restrictive force to compress his volatile Core even further.
'Late Foundation Realm guards,' Shen Yuan thought, a cold smile forming in his mind. 'A minor sect controlling a spirit mine. It's a humble beginning for a Sovereign... but the deeper the root, the taller the tree.'
As the suns set and the prisoners were led into the dark, yawning mouth of the mountain, Shen Yuan felt the resonance of something deep within the earth. Something ancient.
He wasn't just in any mine. He was in the Graveyard of the Silver Dragons—a place he himself had sealed ten thousand years ago.