After the heavy revelations about the past, the atmosphere in the courtyard finally lightened. Lu Canghai reached into his robes and pulled out a simple storage ring, and placed it gently on the stone table.

"I was out wandering much longer than I anticipated this time," Lu Canghai smiled. His eyes crinkled warmly. "I spent the last few months tracking down some old ghosts who still owed me favors. Consider this your adulthood present, my disciple."

Su Bai stared at the ring. A profound warmth blossomed in his chest.

Clear Cloud Peak’s treasury was actually packed with treasures Lu Canghai had hoarded over the years, but Su Bai’s weird constitution had prevented him from using any of them. His master had gone out and literally acted as a debt collector, shaking down supreme experts just to find usable, tailored items for his beloved disciple’s coming-of-age.

Su Bai picked up the ring and sent a wisp of his Qi inside.

He was instantly dazzled.

Hundreds of glittering, high-grade spirit stones were stacked neatly in the corner. Beside them sat rows of protective jade pendants, life-saving talismans, and meticulously preserved spiritual herbs. Su Bai almost laughed out loud, trying to imagine his master politely threatening cultivators for their lunch money.

’An incredibly generous annual bonus,’ Su Bai cheered internally.

Just then, his spiritual sense brushed past a dusty, seemingly ordinary book resting at the center of the ring. Curious, Su Bai withdrew it.

The cover was made of worn leather. Across the front, bold characters were written:

Sunflower Manual.

"Master, what is this?" Su Bai asked.

When Lu Canghai saw what Su Bai was holding, his benevolent smile vanished. It was instantly replaced by a rare scowl of profound annoyance.

"Do not mention that accursed thing, disciple," the old man grumbled, then waved his hand dismissively. "I got outsmarted by a cunning bastard from the Blood Iron Sect. He claimed he had no spirit stones left to repay his debt, so he offered me an ’ancient, peerless technique’ instead. It turned out to be a mortal martial arts manual. A completely useless one."

Su Bai froze. A martial arts manual was fundamentally different from a Cultivation Method. Martial arts didn’t teach you how to compress Qi into a Foundation.

He flipped open the heavy cover.

The very first line of the manual, written in aggressive, blood-red ink, read:

"To master this supreme art, one must first castrate oneself."

Su Bai’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. His corporate brain violently crashed, throwing up a massive red error screen. ’Hardware removal required?!’

Seeing Su Bai’s frozen expression, Lu Canghai sighed heavily.

"That manual has an infamous history," his master explained. "It was originally created by a brilliant but completely untalented mortal martial artist who possessed no Spirit Root. He despised cultivators. He wanted to kill them, so he created a mortal technique so extreme and so unbelievably fast, that it could physically pierce magical shields before a cultivator could even form a hand seal."

Lu Canghai hesitated, then coughed awkwardly into his fist. "Though... it came at the cost of his manhood."

Su Bai stared at the book. His analytical mind rapidly dissected the mechanics.

Normally, the Sunflower Manual required the practitioner to sever their Yang essence because the technique forcefully generated extreme, volatile Yin Qi to push the human body to god-like speeds. If a normal, intact man tried to practice it, the intense surge of Yin would violently clash with his natural Yang. The resulting combustion would melt his meridians and kill him instantly.

It was an extreme, Yin-based speed manual.

Did he have to actually castrate himself? Absolutely not.

’This is perfect,’ Su Bai realized. ’The manual’s prerequisite is designed to prevent a fatal Yang-combustion error. But if I ignore the prerequisite and trigger the combustion... my Reversal Body will instantly invert the fatal error! !’

He could achieve god-like speed, retain his complete hardware, and achieve perfect internal harmony.

Seeing Su Bai utterly fixated on the cursed book, Lu Canghai remembered his disciple’s bizarre Reversal Body. The old man’s eyes widened in sudden realization, but he quickly shook his head.

"Too bad," Lu Canghai sighed regretfully. "Even if your unique constitution allows you to practice it safely, it still cannot help you reach Foundation Establishment. As I said, it is only a martial art, not a Cultivation Method. It lacks the profound instructions needed to compress your sea of Qi."

That was the glaring problem. He still lacked an Operating System.

But Su Bai had a trump card.

"Master," Su Bai said, looking up with bright, determined eyes. "Allow me to try and make some... adjustments."

Lu Canghai froze. His face instantly paled. "Adjusting a manual? My Disciple, that is tantamount to suicide! Even grandmasters dare not alter ancient texts, for a single mistaken meridian path will cause the cultivator to violently explode!"

"I promise I will not do anything reckless, Master," Su Bai reassured him with a placid, confident smile.

Unable to deny the disciple who had just miraculously reached the 10th Stage, Lu Canghai reluctantly nodded, though his eyes were lined with deep worry.

Su Bai immediately excused himself. He carried the manual back to his hut.

Sitting on his meditation cushion, he opened his system inventory and withdrew the Dao-Devouring Blank Stele.

The featureless, grey stone rested heavily in his palm. He checked its description again.

[Description: Forcibly extracts and consumes a cultivator’s active Cultivation Method, leaving their foundation completely empty and useless.]

’If it empties a foundation, the Reversal Body will make it establish one,’ Su Bai confirmed. ’Let’s install the compiler.’

Without hesitation, Su Bai pressed the stele against his abdomen and refined it, pulling the mystical artifact directly into his Dantian.

The moment the heavy, bleak stone entered his infinite, cloud-storage void, a massive anomaly occurred.

At the center of his boundless Dantian, the crystalline Sapling Wood Root suddenly awakened. Sensing a foreign object entering its domain, the sapling reacted with terrifying greed. Its dark, crystalline roots violently lashed out like a cluster of fiber-optic cables. They wrapped tightly around the grey stele!

"Hey! Wait—!" Su Bai almost cursed out loud.

His sapling was trying to eat the artifact!

Before Su Bai could stop it, the crystalline roots fully absorbed the stone. But instead of destroying it, a flawless integration occurred. The featureless grey stele embedded itself directly into the trunk of the sapling, fusing with the wood. The stele began to softly glow, acting like a blank, high-tech monitor installed directly into his Dantian’s motherboard.

’It didn’t destroy it... it integrated it,’ Su Bai let out a massive breath of relief.

Just then, a sudden, profound clarity washed over his mind. He felt light, elusive, and incredibly sharp, as if his brain’s processing power had just been doubled.

The Sapling had successfully assimilated the Stele’s "Devouring" and "Emptying" properties, upgrading itself into the ultimate compiler.

Everything settled. The inner void was calm once more.

Su Bai opened his eyes and grabbed the Sunflower Manual.

He laid the book open on his lap and began to read the complex, taboo circulation paths. Ignoring the horrifying self-mutilation warnings, Su Bai forcefully drove his massive ocean of 10th Stage Qi through the manual’s exact route.

And then, the Stele reacted.

Inside his Dantian, the blank stone embedded in the sapling suddenly lit up with a sudden dark light.

The next thing that occurred completely shattered Su Bai’s expectations.