Chapter 9 —

Leaving the hospital, Lin Jiangxing, his heart heavy, escorted He Yuanyuan back to the girls' dormitory, then wandered aimlessly towards the boys' dormitory.

A night breeze blew, and he suddenly felt a dull ache in his chest, as if something was wriggling inside.

"Strange, why is my heart pounding so strongly? I haven't done any strenuous exercise," he rubbed his chest, shaking his head and attributing it to a lingering effect.

Back in his dormitory, Lin Jiangxing collapsed onto his bed. The accumulated fatigue of the past few days washed over him like a tidal wave, and he quickly fell into a deep sleep.

However, because of his experiences over the past two days, his sleep was restless. He was jolted awake in the middle of the night by a bizarre dream—

In the dream, he was in a dungeon in the black market, facing a gigantic silver dragon. The silver dragon first scrutinized him with the eyes of someone examining an object, then extended its claws and, without a word, ripped out his heart…

The scene in the dream was too real; he even felt the pain of his heart being ripped out. His forehead was covered in cold sweat.

“What kind of dream is this? It's too real…”

Lin Jiangxing muttered to himself, lying down to try and fall asleep again, but he couldn't. Frustrated, he got out of bed and took a cold shower, trying to calm himself down.

…

After his shower, he habitually opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of beer, and gulped down several mouthfuls. After finishing the beer, he suddenly remembered the fountain pen under the floorboards, which was almost fully charged.

“Right, that pen isn’t fully charged yet. As for Hongyu… sigh, let’s focus on improving my strength first.”

He lifted the tile in the corner and took out the wooden box. The pen still lay there quietly, the crystal on the barrel nearly pure black, just a hair’s breadth away from perfection.

“Come on, I wonder if you can bring me a different kind of surprise—” Lin Jiangxing took a deep breath, took out a small knife, and cut his palm, letting the blood drip freely onto the crystal.

With the spilled blood, the crystal surface greedily absorbed every drop of liquid like a thirsty creature. Lin Jiangxing felt his life **** rapidly draining away, but this time, he didn’t stop—the throbbing pain in his chest seemed to urge him to persevere, to persevere to the very end.

“Buzz—”

A low, resonant hum sounded, and the crystal finally turned completely black. The pen seemed to come alive; the gold and purple metal of its body emitted a faint glow, and a strange energy wave emanated from its tip, enveloping the entire dormitory.

"What on earth is this pen...whoa!!"

Lin Jiangxing froze, about to take it out of the box to examine it more closely, when suddenly it flew into the air, its tip aimed straight for his forehead.

Lin Jiangxing instinctively leaned back to dodge, but the pen was incredibly fast, as if it had its own will. His dodge failed, and he only had time to let out a cry before the tip pierced his brow.

"Ah—!"

A wave of excruciating pain washed over him, blurring his vision instantly. He felt a cold energy drilling into his brain from between his brows, like countless fine needles churning his nerves.

Blood seeped from his forehead, but he didn't fall. Instead, he stood stiffly in place, his eyes wide, his pupils flashing with a strange purple-gold light.

...Time seemed to stand still at that moment.

The pen tip, after piercing Lin Jiangxing's brow, stopped advancing. The pen trembled, dissolving into a pool of ink that seeped into his forehead, leaving a mark resembling a pen nib, emitting a faint black glow.

Soon, the excruciating pain in his forehead receded like a tide, replaced by a cool energy that spread from his brow throughout his body.

His vision gradually cleared, but his mind was filled with countless unfamiliar pieces of information, as if someone had directly shoved an encyclopedia into his brain.

"What...what the hell is this?!"

He muttered to himself, touching his brow—the wound from the stab was gone, replaced by a mark, cool and hard as metal, yet embedded in the skin like a tattoo without a raised ridge.

"So, its name is...the Heaven-Creating Brush?"

According to the information that inexplicably flooded his mind—this divine artifact called the "Heaven-Creating Brush" came from an otherworld called the "Mystic Science Realm." It was a strange plane where technology and fantasy intertwined, where humans used science to analyze rules and combined mystical power to create miracles.

The Heaven-Creating Brush was one of the most advanced creations in the Mystic Science Realm, forged by a legendary scientist and mystical cultivator. It could transform the wielder's thoughts into reality—turning the abstract into the concrete, creating things out of thin air, and even rewriting the rules of the world to a certain extent.

"Turning the unreal into reality? Rewriting the rules? Sounds like cheating in real life!" Lin Jiangxing blinked, the method of using the Heaven-Creating Brush instantly flashing through his mind:

The Heaven-Creating Brush was now integrated into his body. He only needed to "write" descriptions with his thoughts, and with sufficient energy, he could use his fingers as a brush to realize all sorts of fantastical ideas!

"Let's try it... Let's start with something simple, get a high-grade elemental energy crystal!" Lin Jiangxing took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused his thoughts on the pen-tip mark between his eyebrows.

In his mind, he seemed to see the uniquely shaped Heaven-Creating Brush writing in the air: "A high-grade elemental energy crystal containing a high concentration of elemental energy, pure and flawless, abundant in energy."

As his thoughts wrote, a strange energy surged from between his eyebrows, flowing down his arm to his fingertips.

As the energy gathered, his right index finger trembled slightly like a pen tip, drawing purple-gold trajectories in the air. Immediately afterward, the void distorted, and a fist-sized, crystalline stone appeared out of thin air, landing in his palm, its surface emitting a soft blue light.

“Holy crap! It really came out?!”

Lin Jiangxing's eyes widened, and he excitedly picked up the crystal to examine it closely—the crystal felt cool to the touch, and its internal energy surged, its quality far surpassing the low-grade crystals he had seen before.

He quickly sat cross-legged and tried to absorb a trace of energy—sure enough, the efficiency was several times higher than that of low-grade crystals; it truly lived up to its reputation as a high-end item worth hundreds of thousands.

However, amidst his joy, he sensed that the energy within the mark between his brows seemed to have decreased slightly. Upon closer inspection, the mark, like an internal "energy crystal," had lost about one percent of its previously abundant energy.

"...Using this ability requires consuming energy from the mark. It seems this energy is the 'mystic power' I've accumulated over the years by charging with my blood. I'll have to use it sparingly."

Lin Jiangxing's lips couldn't help but curl upwards—this ability is too heaven-defying! With this pen, what will he have to worry about in the future? Cultivation resources, treasures and toys—he can "draw" them out in a matter of minutes with the Heaven-Creating Brush.

Looking at the Heaven-Creating Brush in his hand, ideas kept surfacing in his mind: forging weapons of the rule system, changing and improving his cultivation talent, even resurrecting the deceased Liu Hongyu?