Waking Up

Lin Ming and just laid down on the bed. Today had been a long and stressful day for him. It started with getting kicked out of the inn he was meant to be staying at, by the lackey of a young master who wanted to impress Zhu Yan. Unable to find a new place he could stay until the trials for the Seven Profound Martial House began, he opted to find a job for deboning in Grand Clarity Pavilion.

After displaying his skills and getting the job, he opted to practice on some Ferocious Beasts, to be specific three Level One Ferocious Beasts and one of Level Two. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred other than the Peculiar Stone he found in the Level Two Ferocious Beast's stomach.

As he lay there on the bed he drifted to sleep and dreamt of a heaven filled with martial arts which seemed to be implicated in a conflict of some sort, something way beyond what he could comprehend. Quickly realizing that it seemed too real to be a dream he concluded that this was a vision and began to fully pay attention to it. Observing so many unfamiliar things he noticed the only thing he could recognise was the peculiar stone he previously found while deboning. The cube was apparently called "Magic Cube" or at least a portion of the full name mentioned in the latter half of the vision.

He saw the destruction, the disappearance of the cube and the powerhouses before arriving at an unusual space filled with shattered mirror-like glowing shards and specks of light; all of which were of different sizes, stuck in space, centred around two things. The first one being a spherical glowing light which after some thinking he concluded to be the soul of the woman wielding the Magic Cube in the vision, as the glow gave him the same sort of feeling.

Shifting his gaze to the second point of interest in the centre, next to the woman's soul, he saw a translucent cocoon which one could clearly spot a human inside or at least what seemed to be human-like. He had learnt his ignorance through the visions thus he wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't human.

Shocked by the physical being in the space, he tried to distinguish the features of the person to see whether he could relate it to any of the people he had seen in the vision. Unable to recognise the features, or at least what he could see through the slightly distorted cocoon skin, he gave up and once again shifted his attention towards the floating shards, more specifically the ones near him.

He lifted his hand and tried making contact with a speck of light which was the smallest and closest to him.

Crack

Hearing the sound, he quickly pulled back his hand and raised his guard. His line of sight was directed to the only physical object within the space, the cocoon.

What he saw gave him a foreboding feeling, the cocoon had cracked and it seemed as though it would open up any second, the feeling of dread washed of him pressuring him to start thinking of ways to defend himself as he was certain he was no match for the being that might arise from a mysterious space, filled with the souls of powerhouses.

Crack

Crack

The cocoon carried on cracking before disintegrating completely.

Thump

The body that was formally cocooned fell the ground before attempting to stand up.

...

"Sigh, it's about time, even a soul could rot if stayed in a place for the amount of time I stayed here" thought the being as he tried to overcome the weakness he felt in his body, trying to stand up with a body he forgot how to use.

This was Xenos, someone who had ended up trapped within this space which he assumed to be the cube. He had originally been horrified at not even being able to move his body and could only think mentally, but over time he just became grateful on not having limited mental capacity as he did before. He although was depressed and drowning in sadness at his fate, leaving his previous life, facing the current predicament, he was helpless and thus was forced to come in-terms with his situation and move on.

He had been trapped in the cocoon for countless years, he didn't even know what it was made out of. He however did not abandon hope, this was because over time he had seen a person enter the space filled with darkness. The being he assumed to be human was his first hope, but unfortunately, he could not commune with them because he was not a telepath nor could he move his body.

This person seemed to be able to talk to Xenos, but seeing no replies, they gave up and tried to open the cocoon at last no results were visible.

The person would occasionally visit the space and would sometimes bring along a female, who he assumed to be his partner. And even filled the empty space occasionally with shards of glass that seemed to glow.

After a while, even that person stopped coming.

Since Xenos had lost his sense of time, he busied himself with the limited knowledge he gained in the past as well as the memories he accumulated. Over time, his personality developed. He began to question things from his previous life, having gained what seemed to be an infinite amount of time to think, he began to look through his memories from different perspectives and realized the cold interactions of the people around him towards himself and began to grow colder and indifferent, realizing his ignorance. Although he grew more indifferent, he did not change substantially.

He also knew he would one day get out of this cocoon and enter an extraordinary world of cultivation, as for how he knew this, he could put facts together of a telepathic man entering a space with no sorts of doors, specs of light that were described in the Chinese novel involving the Magic Cube and last but not least the item that caused his death just happened to be this Magic Cube. The cube despite having some minor differences to what was described in the book was still the Stone of Eternal Life, that, he could confirm.

Cough

Xenos coughed as he began to stand up, as for how he did this so fast, he had no clue. He had been trying to familiarize himself with the body so he could talk to the youth that entered the space. The young man could only be Lin Ming as he was the youngest person to arrive in the space and had the poorest quality of clothing he saw enter, compared to the divine people who entered before, there was clearly a difference.

As for how he saw things despite having no eyesight, he thought this to be divine sense since it was related to the soul and chances were that he had been nourished by the Magic Cube for a long time, so having divine sense wasn't a surprise.

Finally standing up he stabilised himself before trying to head towards Lin Ming propping up hand signs to show that he meant no harm, alas Lin Ming was too vigilant against him. He forgot where he was and had his back clash against a glowing shard the size of an adult's palm.

Xenos was now sure that Lin Ming was done for, in the novel he had barely managed to win out against a small speck, this shard's danger was not joke. Willing himself out of the Cube, he began to look for Lin Ming, having no time to admire the scenery of the world; he spotted Lin Ming on a bed and rushed towards him. Unable to do anything but help him mentally, he directed his divine sense towards Lin Ming's sea of consciousness.

Despite sheer moments being passed, Lin Ming was basically three quarters of the way done for. Trying his best to save his life, Xenos pushed his will to the limit to deal with the soul fragment's instinct alongside Lin Ming. After two hours of pushing himself to the limit, he began to see the light and pushed himself beyond his limit before completely destroying the soul fragment. Unfortunately, even the memories of the expert were erased from existence.

As he returned to himself, he passed out from exhaustion.

...

"Uh... what happened-" recalling the events prior to being unconscious, he began to regret his decisions somewhat. He had acted out of impulse, despite convincing himself that being selfish is something that will only benefit him in the future, he just couldn't prevent himself from helping Lin Ming as he was assured certain death.

Sighing he realized that putting his new way of thinking into practice would be way more difficult.

Shaking his head and clearing himself from these thoughts he felt a gaze on himself. As he looked to up to see Lin Ming staring at him with a certain level of vigilance, nothing near the look he was given in the Cube.

As he heard him trying to say something, he was confused before realizing the difference in languages, he began to gesture, conveying his inability to understand Lin Ming.

As though understanding Xenos, he nodded before he left the room not before gesturing Xenos to stay in the room.

As Lin Ming excused himself to god knows where, he began to finally observe the world around him. The emotion of seeing something other than blank darkness for who knows how long brought tears to his eyes. After adjusting his emotions, he realised that he must look different as he had been in the Magic Cube's space for countless years, he searched for a mirror and once he found it, he was shocked.

He still had the pale skin like before since he did not get much sunshine due to his illnesses, but the skin instead of seeming sickly pale was more of a pearly white showing of its vitality. As for his eyes, they remained the same, being light amber. The hair however, was a big change, this had to do with the health of the hair, prior to his reincarnation, he still had the jet-black hair, just in a very damaged state because he couldn't care for them. But now, the hair seemed to be smooth and somehow even darker than before as though they didn't even absorb light, and they still possessed the curly nature. His physique remained the same, resulting in his disappointment, quite lanky as he was skinny and quite tall for his age; he seemed to lightly taller than Lin Ming if compared.

As for why he was shocked, although he did not look different to what he remembered completely, it was suffice enough to say he didn't age in the cocoon but grew younger...?

He looked like what he did before but when he was fifteen.

Creak

As Xenos was admiring his new appearance, Lin Ming had returned. He still showed his vigilance and had his guard up; this clearly demonstrated his lack of trust towards the stranger.