1: Chapter 1: Transmigrated into the body of the ninth generation head of the Chen family, the only remaining bloodline heir of the Chen family in the Eastern Wilderness.

"Who?"

"The Family Head is awake! Quick, go notify Elder Lin!"

"Stop shouting, everyone is nearly dead, who is left to notify?"

"But... there was movement at the ancestral hall just now, I saw the stone table move with my own eyes!"

"You must be seeing things. Even a mouse wouldn't dare crawl in there. Three days ago, the Zerg blew up the Formation core; the Spiritual Qi backlash could burn a living person to ash on the spot!"

"But... I really heard the sound of tapping on the table—three times, clearly, like... someone telling fortunes."

Morning light pierced through the remaining clouds, slanting down on the old site of the Eastern Wasteland Chen Family.

Between broken walls and collapsed beams, a body slowly sat up.

Silvery-white long hair was covered in dust; when blown by the wind, it revealed a mechanical prosthetic eye in the left socket, shimmering with a faint blue cold light.

Three claw marks were deeply embedded in the flesh of his right cheek, like a final curse left by some giant beast before its death.

He wore form-fitting black clothes under a semi-transparent armor, the runes on the dagger at his waist dim, as if the energy had been exhausted.

He propped himself up on the ground, his fingers trembling slightly.

Not because of weakness.

But because his brain was forcibly reorganizing.

Memory fragments like data streams crashed within his Sea of Consciousness: code, compilers, office lights at 3 AM, the moment the ECG flatlined...

Then another set of images—the grand worship ceremony, elders taking oaths, rising incense, followed by black mist filling the sky, sharp claws tearing flesh, and screams cut short.

"Fusion complete," he whispered, his voice so raspy it didn't sound like his own.

He wasn't Chen Wuwang.

At least, not the original one.

He was Chen Wuwang, but also the Earth programmer Zhang Ye.

A 985 graduate with three years of overtime, he had died suddenly at his workstation, with an unnamed “Cyber Cultivation” game prototype script still open beside him.

Now, this shell opened its eyes.

Scorched earth lay before him.

Only half a wall remained of the ancestral hall, and memorial tablets were shattered across the ground.

A Family flag, burned down to its skeleton, hung on a broken pillar, swaying slightly in the wind like a soul-summoning banner.

He stood up, his movements stiff.

His body had just adapted; his spiritual power was like an empty lamp, with only the first level of Qi Refining remaining. But he didn't panic.

A programmer's first reaction isn't to cry or rage, but to debug the System.

He closed his eyes and thought: "Memory status? Running processes? Exception reports?"

No response.

Normal. This wasn't a code interface.

But when he opened his eyes again and his gaze swept over the residual Formation lines on the ground, his brow twitched.

"Is this... a variant of the Five Elements Spirit Gathering Array? No, the third circuit was connected in the wrong direction; no wonder it couldn't withstand the raid."

He squatted down, his fingertip tracing a scorch mark.

"If I were the designer, I would have added a feedback fuse mechanism here. Once an external impact exceeds the threshold, it would immediately detonate the preceding node to create a buffer zone."

Before he finished speaking, the sound of a cane tapping the ground came from a distance.

"Tap, tap, tap."

Slow, heavy, accompanied by the wheezing of an elderly person.

A stooped figure emerged from behind the ruins. Face full of wrinkles, eyes cloudy, leaning on a withered wooden cane, while the other hand tightly clutched a scorched-edged ledger.

Elder Lin.

The caretaker of the Medicinal Field. Rumor had it he knew some alchemy in his youth, but he had been senile for decades, and no one took him seriously.

At this moment, he stared at Chen Wuwang, his lips trembling.

"Family... Family Head?"

Chen Wuwang didn't look back, continuing to study the Formation patterns on the ground.

"I'm not here for a Family reunion. Tell me three things: How many people are left in the Family? What's the resource situation? Who is the enemy?"

Elder Lin stumbled two steps and fell to his knees in the rubble with a thud, holding the ledger high above his head with both hands.

"Thirty-seven people... all hiding in the underground caves. Spirit Stones are gone, the Artifact Refining Workshop has collapsed, and the Medicinal Field was corroded by insect acid—don't expect to grow a single Grade Three Spiritual Plant for three years... The enemy... is the Zerg. They raided seven days ago, burrowing out from underground, killing all the young and strong, not even sparing the children..."

Chen Wuwang took the Family genealogy.

The pages were charred and brittle, crumbling at the slightest touch.

He flipped to the ninth-generation register.

Name after name was stained black with blood.

His finger stopped on the name "Chen Wuwang."

Below it was written: "Succeeded as the ninth-generation Family Head, died on the night of inauguration."

"Heh," he chuckled softly, "quite punctual."

Elder Lin looked up: "Do you... not feel hate?"

"Hate?" Chen Wuwang closed the genealogy and tossed it aside, "I can't even hold my fist steady right now, what's the use of hate? What I need is a logic chain that can fight."

"When the enemy came, why were they able to break the Formation? Was it because we were weak, or because they were strong?"

"If it's weakness, then patch the shortcomings; if it's strength, then find the loopholes. That is the path to solving the problem."

When he said this, his tone was as calm as if he were conducting a project post-mortem.

Elder Lin was stunned.

This didn't seem like the reaction a Family Head of the Cultivation World should have.

It was more like... a strategist.

"There's one more thing." Elder Lin suddenly lowered his voice, "Over at Dongshan... it's said that a mineral vein will appear in three days. The older generation says it's a sign of the recovery of the ancestral Dragon Qi; perhaps it's our last chance."

"Mineral vein?" Chen Wuwang looked up, gazing at the shadows of the mountains to the east.

The morning mist hadn't dissipated, and the mountain shapes were blurred.

He narrowed his left eye.

The mechanical prosthetic eye automatically started scanning mode.

Infrared, spiritual waves, geological layering... a string of data scrolled rapidly at the edge of his vision.

"No abnormalities," he muttered to himself. "No spiritual power fluctuations, no geological changes, let alone a mineral vein eruption. This 'it's said' of yours—who did you hear it from?"

Elder Lin shook his head: "The elders in the village said it, passed down through generations. I... don't believe it either. But now, what else do we have left to believe in?"

Chen Wuwang didn't answer.

He walked toward a half-collapsed stone table and sat down.

His fingers began to tap on the tabletop.

Tap, tap, tap, tap-tap...

The rhythm was chaotic, like random tapping.

In reality, he was simulating a code compilation process—inputting variables, running logic, waiting for output.

He was waiting for an answer.

Even if it was just a hallucination.

At that very moment—

[Buzz—]

A sound exploded in his mind without warning.

Cold, grand, and unquestionable, like a line of instructions sent from the depths of the Universe:

"family rise system has been bound."

"Three heavenly secret instructions are generated daily at midnight."

Immediately after, a piece of information surfaced:

"In three days, the Dongshan Mineral Vein will appear, which can resolve the immediate crisis."

Chen Wuwang's fingers suddenly stopped.

His pupils constricted sharply.

"What?"

He immediately looked around.

No one.

Elder Lin was still kneeling on the spot, looking bewildered.

It wasn't a broadcast.

It wasn't an auditory hallucination.

It was a data stream written directly into his consciousness.

He stood up abruptly, looking toward Dongshan again.

The mechanical prosthetic eye operated at full capacity.

"Impossible... this kind of prediction accuracy is comparable to a quantum deduction model. Unless... it has mastered all variable parameters within the next 72 hours."

His breathing grew heavy.

As a programmer, he didn't fear ghosts or gods.

What he feared were unexplainable algorithms.

And now, this System was like a piece of underlying code perfectly embedded into the real world.

Precise, efficient, and immutable.

"So... what it says is true?" he murmured. "In three days, a mineral vein will really appear?"

He suddenly laughed.

At first, it was a low chuckle.

Then it grew louder and louder.

"Hahahahahaha—!"

The laughter echoed through the ruins, startling a few vultures.

Elder Lin was so frightened he shrank back half a step.

"Family Head? Are you... alright?"

Chen Wuwang stopped laughing, the corners of his mouth curling up, but his gaze was now completely different.

He stared toward the east, blood-red patterns quietly emerging in his eyes, as if some ancient Bloodline was being awakened.

"Zerg?" he said softly, his voice carrying a blade-like coldness. "You burned my home, killed my people, destroyed my land... and now, you're sending me a mineral vein?"

He raised his hand, his fingertip tracing across the surface of the stone table.

Crack, crack, crack.

Three deep score marks were left behind.

"Just right... let's test the edge of this Cyber Cultivation."

The wind swirled the ashes, sweeping past the broken stele.

He stood on the high platform of the ruins, his back to the setting sun.

His figure was solitary, but no longer lost.

Elder Lin leaned on his cane, standing two steps away, looking at this newly awakened Family Head, and suddenly felt—

Perhaps the Chen Family wasn't dead yet.

Perhaps they really could survive.

He opened his mouth, wanting to ask something.

But in the end, he just silently lowered his head, stepped back half a pace, and stood still.

He knew.

Some things were already happening.

And the only thing he could do was wait and see what happened next.

Chen Wuwang closed his eyes.

His consciousness was clear.

The System was silent.

But he knew this was just the beginning.

The next moment, midnight was approaching.

New instructions were being generated.