Chapter 9: Chapter 9 - The Severance Package and the Chocolate Chip Anomaly

Back in the safety of his drafty wooden hut, Su Bai sat at his unremarkable desk.

He pulled a fresh, leather-bound notebook from his storage ring. Taking a calligraphy brush, he opened to the very first page and drew a thick, decisive line through the words: Ultimate Trash Physique.

Below it, he wrote the new, officially rebranded project title: The Reversal Body.

With a flick of his wrist, Su Bai summoned the heavy wooden box containing the pill dregs. He opened the lid and stared at the failed pills inside. They were lumpy, discolored, and smelled faintly of burnt hair and swamp mud.

In his notebook, he quickly jotted down the known effects of pill dregs.

Item: Pill Dregs

Standard Cultivation Effect: The equivalent of ingesting microplastics or heavy metal poisoning. To a normal cultivator, swallowing these feels like chewing jagged glass mixed with wet cement. They are heavy, chaotic, and refuse to be digested. Over time, these impurities permanently clog a cultivator’s meridians, destroying their foundation.

Su Bai gulped.

Then, he moved his brush to the other side of the page and wrote down his hypothesis.

Expected Reversal Effect: If the hypothesis holds, the reversal body cannot build up pill poison. It will metabolize 100% of the toxic impurities into pure EXP.

He set the brush down.

It was time for clinical trials.

He pinched one of the broken, foul-smelling pills between his fingers. He disregarded the pungent odor. He had nothing left to lose. Without any hesitation, he tossed the toxic dreg into his mouth.

One second passed. Two seconds. Then three...

Su Bai’s eyes went incredibly wide.

"This is..."

He chewed the remnants of the pill and a look of profound, unadulterated bliss washed over his pale face.

To him, the highly toxic meridian-destroying pill tasted exactly like a warm, perfectly baked chocolate chip cookie straight out of the oven.

His eyes actually grew teary.

It had been six years. Six long, miserable years of eating plain, moldy bread and stale tavern wine. He had finally tasted chocolate again.

It was enough to make a grown corporate man cry.

Just then...

A deep, radiating warmth spread through his chest and limbs. His body eagerly devoured the toxic impurities, converting the lethal heavy metals into a smooth, steady stream of pure spiritual energy.

Su Bai desperately wanted to grab handfuls of the dregs and stuff them into his mouth, but his brain hit the brakes. He had learned his lesson from the Heavenly Demon Blood-Burning Pills.

’Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.’ If he ate them all now, the raw energy would bottleneck in his mortal stomach again.

Instead, he spent the next hour meticulously documenting his findings. He noted exactly how his body reacted to the dregs compared to the demonic pills.

His hypothesis was absolutely correct. His body reversed everything. Knowing this completely changed his entire business model. He finally knew the exact progression path he had to take to survive in this world.

He closed his notebook and summoned the second box from his ring. The velvet-lined case containing the Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pill.

Now that his hypothesis was confirmed, there was no hesitation in his mind. He stared at the famous suicide pill. He treated it not as a lethal poison, but as a high-tier divine pill.

He reviewed his notes on the pill’s effects.

The Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pill.

It is famous for granting its user "Ten Seconds of Nirvana." The pill contained a highly refined, illusory Yin mist. The moment it dissolved on the tongue, it aggressively severed the brain’s connection to physical pain, anxiety, karma, and worldly attachments.

For exactly ten seconds, the user experienced absolute, perfect peace. If they were being tortured, the pain vanished. If they were terrified, they felt profound warmth and safety.

Their mind projected their ultimate "happy place." They smiled, completely letting go of their worldly burdens, and then their soul quietly and painlessly dissolved into dust.

It was the ultimate mercy kill.

"This pill was designed as a corporate severance package," Su Bai muttered to himself. "It convinces the employee that the company is totally fine and they are highly valued, allowing them to peacefully and quietly retire from existence."

He didn’t know exactly how his body would reverse a peaceful death, but he was incredibly eager to find out.

He picked up the ominous black pill and popped it into his mouth.

The moment it dissolved on his tongue, Su Bai was amazed. It tasted like a refreshing drop of sweet morning dew.

Then, the Reversal Body kicked in.

Su Bai did not get a peaceful, numbing high. His soul did not detach from worldly burdens. Instead, he got hit with a terrifying, crystal-clear wave of pure, concentrated existential motivation.

BAM.

It forcefully deleted any trace of laziness, apathy, or peace in his brain, replacing it with the intense, pounding, chest-tightening urge to be flawlessly productive.

’Oh heavens,’ Su Bai’s eyes dilated. ’My hardware reversed the code! Instead of a peaceful retirement, it simulated an emergency audit! It triggered the End of Quarter Panic reflex!’

His adrenaline surged. Deep inside his Dantian, his lazy ’Dead Wood’ spirit root suddenly woke up in an absolute panic. It began spinning and vibrating like a high-end server fan operating at maximum overclock speed.

Acting entirely on instinct, Su Bai grabbed a massive handful of the chocolate-chip-tasting pill dregs and shoved them into his mouth.

The result was magical.

Because his spirit root was currently in a state of hyper-motivated panic from the Oblivion Pill, it processed the toxic dregs at terrifying speeds.

The raw energy didn’t even have a chance to pool in his mortal stomach. The moment the "cookies" hit his digestive tract, the overclocked root siphoned the energy, refined it flawlessly, and packed it directly into his Dantian.

There was no gas buildup, no painful bloating, and no demonic burps.

Su Bai was exhilarated. His corporate mind instantly translated the synergy.

’The Pill Dregs are the raw data waiting to be processed! The Oblivion Pill is a temporary RAM upgrade and a massive CPU overclock!’

It was the most productive feeling in the world. He was a one-man accounting firm clearing a year’s worth of backlogged spreadsheets in mere seconds. He threw another handful of dregs into his mouth.

His cultivation base rapidly swelled.

Nine seconds.

He refined the energy. His meridians hummed with power.

Ten seconds.

The Nirvana effect of the Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pill finally faded. It left Su Bai gasping for breath as the intense, panic-driven motivation abruptly left his system.

He slumped over his desk, sweating but entirely unharmed.

He checked his internal spiritual sea and let out a breathless, triumphant laugh.

The bottleneck was shattered. With a perfect, streamlined workflow, Su Bai had flawlessly broken through to the 6th Stage of Qi Refining.