I Died Inventing Cultivation, Now the Heavens Call Me Genius

Chapter 7: The First Cultivator Who Feared Si

“Put the prince down, William!”

Professor Nathaniel Hayes shouted as the black crystal in Ethan’s hand began to pulse. Silver light spread across the chamber floor, forming thin lines that crept toward Emperor William Cole’s boots.

William tightened his hold on his son and stepped backward. “Everyone, stay away from him!”

His warning came too late. The silver lines reached the emperor’s feet, and his remaining spiritual energy vanished with a sharp crack. William staggered, nearly dropping Ethan before Alexander caught his father’s arm.

“What is that thing doing?” Alexander demanded.

Nathaniel stared at the crystal with undisguised terror. “It is attempting to reconnect with the archive.”

Ethan examined the object in his hand. Although the crystal was no larger than his palm, the symbols shifting beneath its surface resembled equations from his previous life. The markings rearranged themselves every few seconds, forming patterns he almost understood, but something about the final sequence remained beyond his grasp.

One message, however, had become impossible to forget.

YOUR FIRST DEATH WAS ORDERED BY SOMEONE YOU TRUSTED.

Ethan had devoted years to studying Si because he wanted to prove that ordinary people could cultivate without depending on heavenly recognition. He had died believing his final experiment had failed, yet the crystal now suggested that someone had deliberately arranged his death.

Who did I trust?

His memories offered no immediate answer. He had worked alone during his final experiment, refusing to share his incomplete research because he feared someone would exploit it. Only a handful of people had known about his laboratory, but one memory returned with unsettling clarity.

The night before his death, someone had left a message on his laboratory door: You are asking questions that will destroy you.

He had dismissed it as a threat from a rival researcher.

Perhaps that had been his first mistake.

Before Ethan could examine the crystal further, a deep crack spread across its surface. Nathaniel lunged forward, but a silver shock wave hurled him against the wall. Alexander drew his sword, although the golden light that usually surrounded its blade had disappeared with the collapse of the cultivation system.

Then a stranger spoke from the staircase.

“You should have left the archive sealed.”

Everyone turned toward the entrance. A tall man stood beneath the archway, wearing a weathered gray cloak and a dark metal mask. A thin scar crossed the exposed skin beneath his left eye, but no one had heard him approach.

William raised his sword. “Identify yourself!”

The stranger ignored the emperor and looked directly at Ethan.

“So, Shen Yu has returned.”

Ethan’s wrist burned beneath his sleeve. The stranger knew his former name, just as the Heavenly Registrar did, but the fear in the man’s voice suggested that Ethan’s survival was something he had desperately hoped to prevent.

Nathaniel struggled to his feet. “You cannot be here. The eastern seals were restored centuries ago.”

The masked man turned toward him. “And yet you opened the door.”

“I did not know what was inside!”

“That has never stopped scholars from destroying the world.”

William stepped between the stranger and his family. “If you possess information about my son, you will explain yourself before leaving this chamber.”

The stranger gave a humorless laugh. “Your son is the least of your problems, Emperor. The cultivation system you depend on has just suffered its first serious interruption in ten thousand years.”

He pointed toward the fading silver network above them.

“Your cultivators may eventually recover their power, but the Heavenly Registrar now knows that someone can modify its laws. It will not ignore that discovery.”

Ethan studied the stranger’s movements. Despite his dramatic warnings, the man seemed more frightened than angry. His hands remained close to his sides, and he deliberately avoided looking at the black crystal.

He was afraid of it.

That realization mattered. If the stranger understood the archive, he might know why Si had been altered and how Ethan’s first life had ended.

Unfortunately, Ethan remained trapped in an infant’s body, unable to question anyone properly.

The stranger approached the crystal but stopped several steps away when William raised his weapon.

“Do not let it touch your skin again,” he warned Ethan. “The archive is not a library. It is a prison built from memories.”

Nathaniel frowned. “You speak as though you have seen it.”

“I have.”

The stranger removed one glove, revealing silver scars covering his palm. Their arrangement was identical to the markings inside the crystal.

“I was the first cultivator to absorb Si deliberately.”

Nathaniel stared at him in disbelief. “That is impossible. Historical records identify Shen Yu as the first researcher to prove that Si could be absorbed safely.”

“The historical records are lies.”

The stranger turned back toward Ethan.

“Your research did not create Si, Shen Yu. It only revealed a way to enter it. The moment you absorbed that strand, something inside the archive recognized you. Your death was the price of opening a door that should have remained closed.”

Ethan’s thoughts raced. The revelation explained why Si had reacted to him, but it raised an even more disturbing question: if someone had absorbed the energy before him, how had that person survived when Ethan had died?

Before he could consider the possibilities, the black crystal rose from the floor.

Silver threads erupted from its surface and wrapped around the stranger’s wrist. His composure shattered as he struggled against their grip.

“Release me!”

The crystal pulsed, and the emotionless voice of the Heavenly Registrar echoed through the chamber.

FIRST SI CULTIVATOR IDENTIFIED.

SUBJECT: UNKNOWN.

ARCHIVE STATUS: INCOMPLETE.

The stranger’s scars began to glow as silver light crawled up his arm. When Nathaniel rushed to help him, the man struck the scholar aside with a burst of energy that should have been impossible after the cultivation system’s collapse.

William stared at him. “You still have power?”

“Not cultivation,” the stranger gasped. “Something older.”

He seized the crystal with his unmarked hand and crushed it. The object shattered, releasing a burst of silver light that extinguished the threads around his wrist.

His mask cracked, revealing a pale face covered in faint silver lines. Ethan immediately recognized the pattern as an equation rather than a cultivation mark.

The stranger had embedded Si directly into his body, bypassing the heavenly recognition system entirely. He was living proof that Ethan’s original theory could work, although the glowing scars suggested that the process had exacted a terrible price.

With exhausted eyes, the stranger looked at Ethan.

“Your first death was a mercy, Shen Yu. If you remember what answered your experiment, your second life will be much shorter.”

He turned toward the staircase, but William blocked his path.

“You are not leaving until you explain everything!”

The stranger hesitated before looking back at Ethan.

“Ask Nathaniel who gave him the journal.”

A flash of silver light swallowed him, and he vanished.

Alexander moved toward the staircase, but William stopped him. “No. He wants us to follow him.”

Nathaniel remained beside the shattered crystal, his hands trembling as Ethan watched him carefully. The scholar had claimed that he found the journal after years of searching, but what if someone had deliberately placed it in his path?

“Your Highness,” Nathaniel whispered, noticing Ethan’s stare. “I swear that I have never knowingly served the Heavenly Registrar.”

Ethan could not respond, but his suspicion had already deepened. He could not trust the heavens or the historical records, and now he had reason to question the one scholar who had helped him recover his former identity.

As the family prepared to leave the chamber, Ethan noticed a tiny strip of paper beneath the broken crystal. Silver writing covered its surface, and he focused on the message.

IF NATHANIEL HAS FOUND YOU, THE FIRST ARCHITECT HAS ALREADY CHOSEN HIS SIDE.

Beneath the warning appeared a name.

WILLIAM COLE.

Ethan slowly raised his eyes toward his father, who was speaking quietly with Alexander and had not noticed the message in his son’s hand.

For the first time, Ethan wondered whether the person responsible for arranging his second life might be the very man sworn to protect him.

Deep inside the shattered archive, a whisper stirred in the darkness.

“Four attempts failed.”

After a brief pause, the unseen presence delivered its next command.

“Begin the fifth.”