Tony woke up with a sharp gasp, his eyes snapping open as a burning wave of absolute agony tore through his chest. He tried to move, but his physical limbs felt incredibly heavy and weak, as if his soul had been forcefully squeezed into a completely foreign, broken shell.
"Look! He is actually breathing!" a harsh, disappointed voice echoed from the side of the bed.
Tony blinked through the blurry light, his Truth Eye slowly activating on instinct to scan his surroundings. He found himself lying in a modest room, surrounded by a large crowd of people. There were almost twenty relatives packed into the chamber, all of them dressed in fine silks, but their faces were completely pale with shock and deep resentment. They weren’t mourning a dying boy; they looked utterly furious that he was still drawing breath.
"Ah... damn it," Tony groaned aloud, clutching his head as a massive explosion of pain hit his temples.
Right at that exact moment, an eighteen-year-old girl dressed in a simple, patched servant uniform pushed through the hostile crowd. Unlike the greedy relatives, her face was completely flushed with a pure, ecstatic happiness, and tears of genuine relief were streaming down her cheeks. The moment she heard Tony call out in pain, she ran to the wooden side table, poured a cup of fresh, cool water into a clay bowl, and rushed to his bedside, gently lifting his head to help him drink.
"Drink this slowly, Young Master! Please, do not force your body to move just yet!" she cried out softly, her voice trembling with happy tears.
As the cool water trickled down his throat, a massive flood of foreign memories suddenly erupted within Tony’s consciousness, perfectly synchronizing with his own soul signature. The upper-realm glitch that Tang Zi had arranged was completely successful. Tony had officially inherited the fate of a terminal mortal living inside the absolute core of the Eternal Sun Realm.
According to the host’s memories, this boy shared Tony’s exact appearance, but his life was an absolute, miserable tragedy. He had no parents, and his only true protector—his caring grandfather—had died just a week ago due to a mysterious illness. The moment the old grandfather passed away, the boy’s entire circle of relatives turned into a pack of bloodthirsty wolves. They desperately wanted him dead because the powerful, high-tier Faith Family had secretly offered a massive, life-changing bounty to anyone who could quietly eliminate him.
The reason for the bounty was pure political greed. Years ago, the dead grandfather had secured a formal marriage alliance between this boy and Julie Faith, the beautiful and highly talented First Lady of the Faith Family. Now that the grandfather was dead, the Faith Family considered the timid, talentless boy to be an absolute stain on their royal reputation. They didn’t want to marry their premier genius to a useless mortal, so they secretly bribed the boy’s own relatives to poison him to cancel the engagement permanently. The terminal illness that was supposed to kill the host was actually a slow, lethal soul poison administered by his own family members.
Tony’s lips slowly curled into a cold, ruthlessly amused smile as he digested the pathetic reality of his new duplicate. He shook his head slightly against the pillows, his dark eyes instantly losing their past timid glaze, replaced instead by the terrifying, calculating sharpness of a true supreme villain.
"I need some fresh air," Tony suddenly shouted, his voice dropping into a deep, authoritative baritone that instantly cut through the murmuring crowd. He glared at the surrounding relatives with an icy intensity that made the temperature in the room plummet. "Everyone get the hell out of my sight right now."
The entire room fell into a dead, suffocating silence. All the relatives stood frozen in absolute shock, their jaws dropping as they stared at the boy on the bed. In the past, this orphan was incredibly timid, weak-willed, and would always lower his head in fear whenever they spoke to him. This sudden, explosive display of terrifying temper and absolute dominance felt completely alien to them.
The current patriarch of the branch family, who was Tony’s biological uncle, quickly forced a fake, deeply hypocritical look of caring concern onto his face. He stepped forward, rubbing his hands together smoothly as he tried to hide his disappointment that the poison hadn’t worked. "Oh, my dear nephew, you must still be completely confused from the fever. Do not exert yourself. We are only staying here because we care about your health. Since you need rest, we will leave you in peace for now. Let us go, everyone."
The uncle waved his hand, leading the frustrated, whispering crowd out of the chamber. Within a minute, the heavy wooden doors clicked shut, leaving only Tony and the young servant lady alone in the quiet room.
The girl stood by the edge of the bed, her shoulders shaking as she let out a quiet sob, staring at the lonely Tony with happy tears. She was the only person left in this world who genuinely cared whether he lived or died.
Tony slowly sat up, ignoring the slight ache in his meridians as he looked at her serious, tear-stained face. He didn’t waste any time on emotional drama. He needed an immediate tactical solution to survive the next twenty-four hours in this higher realm.
"You know my absolute situation here, don’t you?" Tony asked, his dark eyes locking onto hers with a piercing focus. "If you truly care about my survival, stop crying and tell me exactly how a talentless orphan can survive against the Faith Family and a house full of traitors right now."
The servant girl stopped sobbing, staring at him in absolute surprise. She could easily feel that the young master before her was no longer the frightened boy she used to protect; he spoke with the absolute certainty of a commander. She took a deep breath, her eyes turning serious as she revealed the only path to safety in this region.
"There... there is only one absolute way, Master," she whispered rapidly. "The Black Fire Academy. It is the premier martial institution governed directly by the realm laws. Their entrance trial is happening in just two days. If you can somehow manage to pass the trial and become an official disciple of the Black Fire Academy, the realm laws will protect you completely. No matter how powerful the Faith Family is, and no matter how greedy your uncle turns out to be, absolutely nobody will ever dare to touch a single hair on your body inside this city. But..."
She suddenly stopped speaking, her head lowering in deep, sorrowful despair.
Tony let out a low, mocking scoff, his strategic mind instantly understanding her hesitation. "But you are worried about my cultivation talent, aren’t you? According to the memories, my meridian flow is completely blocked, and the world considers me the absolute worst trash in the city."
"Yes, Master," she whispered softly, her eyes filling with fresh tears. "The academy entrance trial requires a minimum level of spiritual talent, and your body..."
"Do not worry about my body, and certainly do not worry about my talent," Tony said, a wide, ruthlessly confident grin spreading across his face as his consciousness instantly connected with the hidden system interface inside his mind.
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