‘Oh no, I can see nothing!” Tolly whispered in a weak voice. He felt he was going to lose consciousness soon.

Upon arriving in the stomach of the two-headed snake, a stream of sticky, gooey liquid, which turned into the shape of a small Bineonate, came to wrap around him tightly.

“I’m going to absorb all your vital energy and then rot your body away. Hahaha…” the terrifying voice came back to Tolly’s ears.

Tolly felt it difficult to breathe in the air. He struggled desperately but to no avail. The more efforts he made to free himself from it, the tighter the Bineonate-shaped fluid wrapped him. it seemed Tolly was about to perish in a minute.

However, the Universe Golden Cauldron tattoo on his wrist suddenly began to emit a dazzling golden light, shining through the darkness in the stomach of the two-headed snake.

“Oh, no”, Bineonate shrieked in terror, “Impossible! You ate the fruit of the Golden Cauldron Tree, didn’t you? How could it be possible that you were able to see its fruit? Only those with super-star talent for cultivation could see the fruit. You are a super-star talent!! No way! Oh, no, ahhhhhh…”

The golden light from the tattoo on his wrist, shining more brightly than before, pierced through the liquid wrapped around his body thoroughly.

With a loud bang, Bineonate exploded. Tolly was swept out by the gas in its body and sent flying to the air and finally fell onto the ground heavily.

Like a deflated ball, Bineonate shrank to a smaller size and dropped itself to the ground, too. It died, lying there motionlessly.

Tolly lay on the ground, staring at the two-headed snake in shock.

He was weak, unable to speak anything at the moment. When his strength came back to him a bit later, he uttered softly,

“Hey, I’ve told you, mate, thirteen is not a lucky number!”

Probably too tired, Tolly lay down there on the ground for a while and immediately fell asleep. Still, he had a strange dream.

In the dream, he walked into a deep cave that was covered with golden glows. As he walked along, all kinds of peculiar pictures were drawn on the walls. What particularly aroused his interest was a huge fresco. He intended to get closer to examine it, but before he could be able to have a closer look at it, he suddenly woke up.

‘What a dream! What are those pictures?’ he thought, full of questions in his mind, ‘Are they the so-called mandala hidden deeper in my subconsciousness?’

Back on Earth, Tolly had used to read some books about psychology. The word ‘mandala’ had been quite familiar to him.

‘Are they surreal or real?’ Tolly wondered. His eyelids fluttered but didn’t open.

He was still feeble, unable to muster up his strength to sit up, so he decided to continue to lie on the ground and tried not to move. The only problem now was that he couldn’t fall asleep again.

Hence, he closed his eyes and his mind wandered in the darkness before him. When he concentrated his mind on the place between his two eyebrows, something strange happened. He felt something powerful in his eyes come to meet the underlying power between his eyebrows.

To his astonishment, two golden words in capital letters appeared in his mind: HEAVEN HEART. What was supposed to be dark in his mind abruptly lit up, and he saw a huge sun rising slowly in the darkness of his consciousness.

The sun was extraordinarily huge that it was almost going to occupy half of the darkness. And what’s more amazing, it had nine smaller-sized suns rotating unceasingly inside it. They were all shedding gold light. And the only strange part of it was that at the center of it was a smaller sun in navy blue.

‘What’s that? a sun or sun of the sun? I’ve got the sun in my mind? Unbelievable!’ Tolly thought, ‘Could it be the energy center that needs to be switched on for my cultivation?”

Nevertheless, as soon as he was distracted, the huge sun in his mind quickly disappeared.

He took a deep breath and relaxed. After that, he concentrated again. The two golden words HEAVEN HEART flashed once more in his mind and then the same sun rose above from the horizon of the darkness in his consciousness again. Yet, when he was slightly distracted, all this was gone again.

He repeated that several times. Finally, he got the hang of it and was able to concentrate without any distraction. He was sure that the sun in his mind was the key to his successful cultivation since apparently, the sun was the energy source that would provide him with the necessary vital energy he needed.

Instinctively, Tolly felt that if he could channel the energy of the sun to every part of his body, it would certainly speed up his cultivation.

Once again, he did his utmost to focus on the place between his eyebrows with his mind without any other preoccupation. Sure enough, the big giant sun no longer disappeared easily in his mind.

It hung high up in the sky of his mind, which lit up the darkness before him. Gradually, Tolly was even able to control this fireball to make it travel around his body. Wherever it traveled, it made everything inside his body visible to Tolly.

He saw all his internal organs. His stomach was squirming. His heart was pumping blood in and out. Tolly could even see the thin layer of pericardium over his heart. When the sun traveled around the special place between his two legs, it looked like it was shining over a large white sticky sea where innumerable little tadpoles were swimming happily.

‘Could it be the sea of vital energy?’

All of a sudden, the sun dived itself into the boundless sea below and began to heat it. The tadpoles in the sea turned into warm steam and started to go up inside his body.

As the warm steam touched his body, it soon became a powerful stream of vital energy, which began to circulate inside his body, starting from the Perineum Acupoint, known as ‘Huiyin’ or ‘meeting of Yang’, which lay at the crossing of his two legs, up the Governor Meridian on his back to the One hundred Meeting Acupoint on the top of his head.

From there, it went down the Conception Channel at the front of his body to the Perineum point again. In this way, it completed a Small Heavenly Circulation of vital energy.

“Huh? Is the Universe Golden Cauldron System trying to help me with my cultivation? That’s amazing!’

A little bit excited, Tolly immediately moved his limbs and found that they could be flexibly up and down. He felt like he was refreshed and full of vital energy now.

Mustering up his strength, he quickly sat up on the ground, but he didn’t open his eyes.

Instead, he let the sun in his mind continue its work. It traveled constantly around his body. As more and more vital energy sleeping in the white sticky sea under his equator came to its senses with the heating of the sun, Tolly discovered his body was getting lighter and lighter. He knew it was definitely a good thing for his cultivation.

Not before long, his body began to heat up, and big beads of perspiration were standing out on his forehead.

Meanwhile, the beginning part of the ‘Energy Absorption Technique’ came unbidden into his mind.

‘Steal the heavenly vital energy; gain the strength of the primordial power; turn your body into the sea of vital energy; temper your body and spirit with the sea…’

Tolly followed its instructions and began to practice. About two or three minutes later, he felt the Universe Golden Cauldron on his wrist shaking violently, and the sun in his mind flew out of his body from the spot between his eyebrows. It began to wander around the dead body of Bineonate.

With a ‘Ding’ sound, a short text message appeared in Tolly’s mind. It read,

[The owner of Universe Golden Cauldron, a target has been detected. Do you want to initiate the procedure of absorbing its vital energy?]

After reading it, two tabs flashed into his mind with YES and NO written on them respectively. Tolly was pleasantly excited. He never expected his new system could be operated in his mind, whether he looked at it with his eyes or not.

But where was the cursor? And how could the tabs be clicked on? Tolly wondered.

‘Can it be operated by my thinking?’

With a ‘yes’ thought in his mind, the YES tab was clicked on indeed.

‘That’s amazing! What an advanced system!’

Before he could think more, a status screen flashed into his mind. Tolly notice that there were many tabs on the top of the screen, all of which were virtually greyed out slightly except one named ‘Techniques’. He couldn’t wait to check it out.

Accordingly, he decided to click on it. When his mind focused on the tab, the screen automatically switched to it. Tolly was sure now that the system was one with him and could be operated simply by reading his mind. In a flash, a new window popped up on the screen, which said,

[Main Art Owned: Energy Absorption Techniques, incomplete but restorable]

[Layer 1 at Stage 1: Dragon Meditation Technique, incomplete]

[Note: “Energy Absorption Techniques” have been a common cultivation art since ancient times. It has long been incomplete after endless years of vicissitudes. For the complete version, it requires 800 points of Vital Energy.]

‘800 points? Are you kidding me?’

Switching back to the main window, Tolly was quite dismayed to find that he had only 56 points of vital energy. He felt himself bristling with anxiety, for it would probably be a really long way for him to go. He had no idea when he would be able to collect that extra 744 points. He decided to resign himself to his fate.

However, Universe Golden Cauldron instantly fathomed the thought in his mind. a new notification message popped up on the screen.

[Aim: To get more points of Vital Energy]

[Quest: Eat more]

[Note: If you eat more, you will gain more]

‘Is that all? Is it all the advice the so-called Universe Golden Cauldon can give me?’  Tolly stared at the screen in his mind and thought, ‘Holy shit! You should have told me what to eat and exactly how much, not merely the word ‘more’. A-a-and I’m actually not hungry at the moment.”

Tolly thought that he would receive another new message soon. He waited and waited, but nothing happened. The Universe Golden Cauldon did not read his mind this time.

‘Why?’ He pondered, ‘Come out, Ding-ding! What’s happening to the system? Is it angry? Does the system have its own spirit?’

Still, Ding-ding didn’t come out. Tolly did not think he did anything wrong. Oh, maybe he had just been a little bit rude to it.

Could it be acting like this: when he was nice to it, it would be nicer to him; when he was bad to it, it would be worse to him?

‘I’m sorry for being rude to you! Please accept my apology!” Tolly thought to himself.

Miraculously, the screen had a new notification again. Tolly was happy to know how to communicate with it better. He had never known that even a system itself would have a temper like a human being.

[Aim: To get more points of Vital Energy]

[Quest: Have more wild goose soup, which is available in your house, or you can absorb the vital energy from others.]

[Note: If you have or absorb more, you will gain more]

Having a glimpse of the screen, Tolly found out that the message was more specific than before. Just then, his sun which went about the dead body of Bineonate had just finished its scanning of the two-headed snake. Now it was flying back into his body. Immediately, it sent a copy of the data about Bineonate to the Universe Gold Cauldron.