Plan

“Zuo Tao is dead. The Dark Energy Stone is gone.”

In a dimly lit room where the curtains had been drawn, a middle-aged man was reporting to an elderly figure.

“Hmm… Useless trash!”

The old man’s eyes were clouded with shadow, and in a fit of anger, he struck the floor heavily with his cane, creating a rhythmic thump, thump.

Opening his mouth again, a frail voice emerged.

“We don’t have enough Dark Energy Stones. And there’s currently no way to obtain more. The descent of the god will now be delayed significantly.”

“My time is running out.”

His face was covered in deep, aging wrinkles, like a dried chrysanthemum all scrunched up. Once the god descended, it would grant him eternal life—but until then, his remaining time was minimal. If necessary, he would have to take a desperate gamble.

“Then… should we activate that plan?”

The middle-aged man asked cautiously. Though the elder looked like he had one foot in the grave, the younger man still had no confidence he could defeat him in combat.

In this cult where strength determined rank, power was everything. Whether the plan would be activated wasn’t something he could decide.

“Let’s not talk about that yet… Was anything found at the scene of death?”

The old man sat in his chair, his mouth slowly moving.

“The scene was sealed off by the Inspection Bureau. It’s nearly impossible for us to infiltrate…”

Before he could finish, the old man interrupted coldly.

“I asked for the result. Who told you to explain the reason?”

His previously murky eyes suddenly turned sharp. The middle-aged man began to sweat profusely and quickly corrected himself.

“According to what we know, the Dark Energy Stone likely wasn’t taken by anyone from the Inspection Bureau, as they are still actively searching for it as well.”

“At the time of Zuo Tao’s death, there was another person present—a student from White City No. 5 High School named Su Xuan. From what we’ve gathered, he’s an orphan. His parents are both deceased, and his older brother has been at the frontlines for years without returning. Not much else is known about him. He might have seen who took the Dark Energy Stone, so…”

“Then activate the plan. If he doesn’t know where the stone is, we’ll just use him as material. That’s all.”

“Yes, my lord.”

With that, the middle-aged man bowed and left.

“Mmm~ This is weird…”

Out on the street, passersby occasionally cast stunned and admiring glances at Su Xuan, who had just stepped out of the hair salon.

“This is a completely different feeling than going out in a dress…”

Su Xuan compared the sensations in his mind. This time, the experience felt far more real. The intense stares landing on him were like heat searing his skin.

Wearing women’s clothing was like donning a mask. No matter how fervently people stared, their admiration was for the mask—not the real him. That layer of illusion dulled the heat of their gazes and made it all feel like a dream.

He could always shift the blame to the dress, to the wig, or to the makeup.

But now, it was different. This was his true self, his everyday appearance. And even this “normal” self was being stared at with that same scorching intensity. It felt as if he were naked, exposed to everyone’s eyes with no place to hide.

Though people were staring either way, the feeling was entirely different.

Thump-thump, thump-thump—

His heart pounded wildly, his footsteps quickened. Su Xuan lowered his head slightly, hands gripping the hem of his pants tightly. Though he wore no makeup, his cheeks flushed deeply. A blend of indignation and strange excitement swirled within him.

Thankfully, the hair salon wasn’t far from home. In just ten minutes, he arrived back at his place.

As soon as he got in, Su Xuan collapsed onto his bed like a cat curling up. That overwhelming sense of reality weighed on him, making it hard to breathe. He felt like a puddle, melting into the mattress.

“Ahhh! I can’t go on like this! I’m gonna break…”

Blushing furiously, Su Xuan muttered to himself, burying his head deep into the pillow and pounding the bed in frustration.

Huff—

He pulled his head out from under the pillow, face flushed, panting heavily. A faint glimmer rested at the corners of his eyes, and a few strands of black hair fell across his cheek.

A wave of helplessness surged inside him. Without a doubt, he had just enjoyed being admired by those men. That intoxicating feeling was like opium, like alcohol—utterly addictive.

But for someone determined to become a real man, this was unacceptable. How could he indulge in such bizarre desires?

Before, he had the excuse of crossdressing—he could pretend it was all just an act, a form of stress relief.

Once the wig and makeup came off, he told himself he was a normal guy again. Thoughts like those had no place lingering in his head.

“No! I have to find the Dark Energy Stone as soon as possible! This feeling is way too dangerous!”

Su Xuan’er’s soul quality had drastically transformed his body and mind. Whether physically or mentally, he had begun to subconsciously lean toward femininity.

Rubbing his eyes, he knew it was impossible to suppress such urges. The only way was to release them properly.

In the end, that meant using crossdressing as an outlet again.

“Once a week? Hmm… Five days? Three? No—every two days. Yeah, every two days should be fine… It’s not because I like it—it’s just to relax, to maintain my mental balance. All for the sake of training.”

Su Xuan silently set this rule for himself: from now on, he would go out in women’s clothing every two days to unwind. Otherwise, the pressure might crush him, and who knew what he might do under the influence of that repressed desire?

“Let’s train. I need to awaken my initial form as soon as possible.”

Only by reaching the initial form would he qualify to enter the Chaos Lands—and only there could he acquire more Dark Energy Stones.

He opened his wardrobe. Inside was a locked box. Upon opening it, dozens of energy stones lay neatly arranged. He picked out two.

Walking into his training room, Su Xuan held the stones in his hands.

“Let’s begin.”

“Alright~”

A soft, echoing voice sounded in his mind.

As he entered a meditative state, Su Xuan felt something had changed within his body.

If his energy pathways had previously been like a circular highway with no parking zones, now a massive “parking garage” had been built alongside them—expanded during his last absorption of the Dark Energy Stone.

This meant he could now store much more energy and sustain longer combat engagements. It was also a major sign he was nearing his initial form. But not quite there yet.

The new “garage” was located just below his heart. In the body, the heart wasn’t just the center of blood circulation—it was one of the core engines of energy flow.

So when the body needed to draw on stored energy, it could extract it quickly, ensuring stable energy output during battle.

In academic terms, this area was called the Energy Chamber—a “room” specifically for storing energy.

Su Xuan’s Energy Chamber wasn’t particularly large. Using a standard energy stone as a benchmark, it could store the equivalent of four or five stones’ worth of energy.

His circulatory energy flow held about two-thirds of one stone’s worth, and with the residual or stored energy between cells, his body—excluding the chamber—contained about one stone in total.

Currently, the chamber was about half empty. Two stones should be just enough to refill it.