Chapter 23 — Tenth Cloud

Published Mar 11, 2026, 03:58 PM

Chapter 23 - Tenth Cloud After an unknown amount of time, Wang Lin opened his eyes and saw that it was dark outside. He got off his bed and stretched for a while. His body didn’t feel very different. He took out the stone bowl from under his bed and was surprised to see that the tenth cloud had finally appeared on the bead. Wang Lin was thrilled. He looked at the bead and quickly ran out of the house. He went and gathered spring water before quickly returning. He placed the stone bead in the water and mixed it around. After he did all this, he drank the spring water and tasted it for a while, but there wasn’t any change like there was before. He looked at the bead with some disappointment on his face, then tried to bite it, but it was still hard as a rock. He even squeezed a drop of blood onto the bead, but there was still no change. He hesitated and gritted his teeth for a while, then took the stone bowl and slammed it on the stone bead. He believed that once it had ten clouds, there would be some sort of change. After a bang, the stone bowl broke. Even Wang Lin’s hand was numb, but there was no sign of damage to the stone bead at all. He used everything he could think of, but the stone bead didn’t seem to have any change after obtaining the tenth cloud. Feeling heartbroken, he threw the stone bead to the side. After a while, he unwillingly walked over to pick it up. After staring at it for a while, he started to feel sleepy. He was stunned. He had just woke up, why would he feel sleepy? He rubbed his eyes and continued to stare at the bead. Slowly, he became even more drowsy. The bead became more and more blurry before he finally fell to the ground, asleep with the bead still in his hand. He had a dream. In his dream, he arrived at a space without boundary. There were no stars, but there were glowing objects all around him. Although he was dreaming, his mind was very clear. He wondered why he would be dreaming of this. Wang Lin didn’t feel like there was anything wrong with his body here. However, he didn’t know how to wake up to escape this place. In his helplessness, he walked around aimlessly in this boundaryless area for a long time. After an unknown amount of time, when he was really tired, the surroundings started to shake. It felt like his body was being torn apart. With a scream, he opened his eyes. He looked around and noticed that he was still in the room. Wang Lin took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He was happy that the strange dream finally ended. Suddenly, his expression became really odd. He looked at the bead and noticed that all the clouds had disappeared. Instead, there were little words inscribed on the bead. “This…” Wang Lin was stunned and quickly took a closer look. The words looked really strange, an uncommon font. He had always loved reading, and thought for a long time, trying to patch the words with words he had read. He was able to guess a few words. Wang Lin held the bead and muttered to himself, “This seems to be a number in written form. It doesn’t hold any meaning.” Suddenly, a thought flashed through his head and he remembered the strange dream. “Was that related to the bead?” Wang Lin pondered a little and immediately lied down on his bed, trying to force himself to fall asleep. But he was still full of energy, so he couldn’t do it. He remembered that the last time he fell asleep was from staring the bead. So he started to stare at the bead without blinking once. Soon, he became drowsy and fell asleep. The boundary-less space appeared again. Wang Lin revealed a thoughtful look. This time, he didn’t wander around, but started to jump up and down repetitively. As time passed, he managed to jump higher and higher. At the start, he was only able to jump about half a meter, but now he was able to jump over 1 meter. After his entire body was worn out, the feeling of being torn apart appeared again. Then he woke up. The moment he woke up, he got off the bed and jumped. He jumped up really high, exactly like how he had jumped in his dream. Wang Lin was astonished. Soon, an excited expression appeared on his face. He took a few deep breaths to contain his excitement and began to pace around the room. His expression constantly changed. Sometimes a puzzled expression, sometimes a deep in thought expression, and sometimes a troubled expression. Sweat dripped from his forehead. Wang Lin muttered, “If it’s just exercising in my dream, then it is useless, I can exercise in reality. It doesn’t need to be in my dream.” “That’s not right. This bead absorbed so much liquid filled with spiritual energy before the tenth cloud appeared, it can’t be useless. There must be some other use, there must be. But what could it be?” Wang Lin forgot about everything around him and wholeheartedly devoted himself to the bead. “Could it be…” He stopped. It seemed like he had grasped an idea. He asked himself, “Could it be time?” After thinking about it, he couldn’t control his emotions anymore. He wanted to excitedly scream a few words. He clenched his fists. His body trembled as he looked at the bead. “If if it really related to time then I … I, Tie Zhu, will become an immortal no matter how bad my talent is!” Wang Lin took a few deep breaths before he returned to normal. Without saying a word, he took out the oil lamp and filled it with oil. He sat on his bed holding the stone bead and started to calculate time. After 5 hours, the lamp went out. Wang Lin quickly refilled the lamp with oil. He stared at the bead and went back into the dream. This time, he didn’t practice jumping, but he sat cross legged on the ground, counting time. One hour, five hours, ten hours, twenty hours, thirty-five hours, fifty hours! The feeling of his body being torn apart appeared again. When Wang Lin opened his eyes, the oil lamp was about to go out. “Ten times the time. Ten times the time passed in the dream.” Wang Lin excitedly stood up, holding the bead tightly. For the first time, he was confident in his cultivation. It was already really late. Wang Lin contained his excited heart and didn’t immediately start to use the bead to start cultivating. He was afraid that if he started using the bead in the morning, he would be found out by someone. When that happened, he would not be able to keep it, so he put the bead back into his bag of holding and left the room.

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