The whip struck with a wet thud, tearing through the thin rags on Fang Yuan's back. Blood, mixed with metallic dust, seeped out. To the overseer—a burly Rank 1: World Breaker (3rd Stage)—it was just another day of breaking slaves.
"Get up, you rusted scrap!" the overseer roared, his voice echoing in the damp tunnels. "The Moon-Shatter Sect doesn't feed corpses. Dig, or I'll bury you in your own hole!"
Yuan let out a ragged cough, his head bowing low. But beneath the surface, his Null-Logic was performing a miracle of subversion. Every time the whip touched his skin, it didn't just deliver pain—it delivered Mana.
[TECHNIQUE: VOID-SINK - KINETIC ABSORPTION]
Instead of resisting the impact, Yuan's "Broken Astral-Circuits" acted like a sponge. He was siphoning the kinetic energy and the raw mana from the overseer's strike, channeling it directly into his damaged lungs. The Copper-Dust that was killing Han was now being refined into Liquid Mana-Fuel.
"Yes... Master..." Yuan wheezed, his voice trembling perfectly.
As he picked up the rusted pickaxe, he wasn't just digging for ore. He was planting "Logical Parasites" into the ground. With every strike of his tool, a tiny vibration of Null-Logic traveled through the metallic veins of the mine, slowly "claiming" the territory as his own.
"Let them think I am a dying ember," Yuan thought, a cold, indigo spark hidden deep within his pupils. "By the time they realize I am a forest fire, there will be no oxygen left for them to breathe."