---
There was once a man who ruled without a throne, whose name never made it to the headlines—because he owned them. While empires scrambled for gold, oil, or information, he bought and sold entire markets in the dead of night, reshaping nations like a deity behind the veil. Demand, supply, currency manipulation, stock volatility, futures, digital trade manipulation—he was the silent pulse of the global economy.
His name was Tianzun.
But no one truly knew him.
Not his lovers.
Not his enemies.
Not even those who believed they worked beside him.
He walked in shadows, his identity hidden behind layers of obfuscation and false trails—an unmatched genius with a mind like an infinite chessboard. His actions were deliberate, surgical. Every move carved into the world like calligraphy etched in gold. Not a single decision wasted. Not a single moment seen by the blind masses.
Until, one day…
He died.
There was no explosion. No grand assassination. No medical cause, no trace of poison, no cyber sabotage. His death wasn't registered by any authority, because no system knew he existed.
Only Tianzun knew how he died.
And even that truth… he would carry with him.
---
Darkness.
Weightless.
No heartbeat. No sensation.
So this is death, he mused, his thoughts eerily lucid. Not a whisper of regret touched his soul—only curiosity.
But then, there was something else.
Warmth.
A faint, rhythmic thud. Distant, muffled—like echoing thunder beneath water.
His awareness floated… then spiraled.
No… not thunder. A heartbeat.
Suddenly, a strange heaviness bound him. Walls pressed in from all sides—wet, slick, organic. He could hear again. Voices… distorted, watery, yet intelligible.
Then came the realization that shattered logic:
> "It's a boy. The fourth child of the Xiao family…"
"Madam's condition is stable, but the child… his presence… it's terrifying."
The world rushed back into clarity, and with it, the impossible truth settled upon him:
He had reincarnated.
And not just anywhere. The conversations—the words—Xiao family, Wu Tan City, Qi Method—they weren't unfamiliar. No. They were intimately known to him.
This was the world of Battle Through the Heavens.
---
[Xiao Clan Compound – Inner Courtyard – Wu Tan City]
"He hasn't even opened his eyes, yet the aura around him unsettles the elders," murmured Xiao Zhan, head of the Xiao clan, standing beside his wife's bed. He held his newborn son, wrapped in golden-threaded silk, his brow furrowed. "Fourth son, born under a blood-red moon… Look at this child's presence. It's... as if he's watching me."
The boy did not cry.
He did not squirm.
He stared with calm, unfocused eyes, disturbingly serene for a newborn.
---
Inside the Infant's Mind
Hmph... Xiao Zhan. Middle-stage Dou Shi. Strong sense of duty. A good man… but still too rigid.
Tianzun analyzed with inhuman clarity, though bound in infant flesh.
Mother—Yue Mei. High-grade fire affinity. Vital essence unstable. She'll weaken in five years unless…
He paused, mind accelerating with formulaic exactness.
Yes. I'll need to acquire a third-tier Life Restoration Pill before I turn four. Requires: Scarlet Spirit Grass, Bone Marrow Essence Root, and Phoenix Ash Lotus as core catalyst. Refinement must be done by at least a Tier-4 Alchemist.
He committed it to memory.
Even as a child in a cradle, Tianzun was not idle.
This world is real. Not a simulation. The laws of Dou Qi cultivation, pill refinement, soul force… they're more detailed than what the manhua described. This… isn't a fantasy. This is a living, breathing realm.
And he had entered it with full memories of two lives.
A child born from mystery, layered with lifetimes of cunning, knowledge of economic systems, and a complete blueprint of how this realm unfolded. But most importantly—
He was no puppet of fate.
---
[Elsewhere – Xiao Clan Outer Pavilion – Same Time]
Two elders argued behind closed doors.
"The fourth son… his body rejects soul probing," one whispered, trembling. "I dared test him with a Rank-3 Spirit Thread. The thread burned into smoke before reaching his Sea of Consciousness."
"Impossible. Even the clan head doesn't possess that kind of resistance."
"I'm telling you, Elder Lu, that child… He's not just different. He's wrong. As if some ancient force was looking through him."
---
Back in the Inner Courtyard
Xiao Zhan stood silent. The infant's dark eyes—far too composed—met his for the briefest second.
For a fleeting moment, the father felt something chilling. Not fear, but awe. As if the child didn't belong to this world.
---
Two Years Later
[Training Hall – Xiao Clan Grounds]
The child had grown.
Two years old, yet his control over Dou Qi channels was freakishly precise. Even the Qi Gathering Powder, normally unstable in untrained children, was absorbed through self-regulated breathwork.
He didn't speak often—but when he did, it was never a child's voice. He asked about circulation cycles, Dou Meridian formations, meridian purification times.
At night, he sat in silent cultivation, recreating the foundational diagrams of tiered Qi Techniques—based only on overheard lessons.
Xiao Mei, his elder sister, once found him humming cultivation rhymes while arranging beast cores by elemental type and tier. She thought he was mimicking his tutors.
He wasn't.
---
[Underground – Hidden Room Beneath Library]
Tianzun slipped into the sealed chamber late at night, a place long forgotten even by the elders.
His hand touched an old scroll.
"Blazing Wind Step – Earth Low Tier Movement Technique"
Too slow. Unrefined. Only uses three Qi pulse nodes instead of five. Still... I can rewrite it.
Within a week, he refined it into a hybrid technique that chained wind and flame into a burst-dash step no one in the clan had seen before. He demonstrated it during morning exercises—disguising it as a 'childish stumble.'
The clan thought it was adorable.
They had no idea.
---
Closing Scene
One night, beneath the moonlight, Tianzun stood barefoot on the stone training court, silent.
He opened his palm. A flicker of fire Dou Qi appeared, tiny, raw.
He shaped it. Spun it. Pressed it into a spiral.
An embryonic Qi Flame.
At two years old.
---
> "In this world," he whispered aloud, voice soft and mature beyond reason, "power rules everything. But power, without knowledge, is a blade without a handle."
He looked toward the sky.
> "Heaven. Realm. Empire. Sect. Beast. God… It doesn't matter. I've danced with devils in a world without spirit. What can this world offer that I cannot outmaneuver?"
His eyes narrowed, reflecting the starlight.