Chapter 2

In 2009, the villas in Fuhua Community had already reached over 20,000 yuan per square meter.

Wang Teng's villa was a spacious 800 square meters. When he first bought it, it cost over 10 million yuan, and with the renovation, it exceeded 20 million yuan.

Stepping into the villa, the first thing that caught his eye was the spacious hall.

Two servants were busy cleaning.

Wang's mother, Li Xiumei, was busy in the kitchen.

She came from a family of scholars and was a well-known talent in her university days, but she was not one to avoid household chores.

On the contrary, her cooking skills were exceptional, and the dishes she prepared always earned high praise from Wang Teng and his father.

Therefore, Li Xiumei always cooked herself, preparing meals every day and waiting for her husband and son to return home to eat.

Seeing the busy figure in the kitchen and smelling the familiar aroma of the food, Wang Teng stood at the kitchen door, his mouth opening and closing for a while before he finally called out.

"Mom, I'm back!"

"You're back!" Li Xiumei turned around and smiled. "Wait a bit longer. Your father should be home soon. We'll eat together when he gets back."

"Okay! I'll go wash my face first." Wang Teng rushed upstairs without looking back and ran into the bathroom.

"This kid! What's up with him today?" Li Xiumei shook her head.

In the bathroom, Wang Teng turned on the tap and let the cool water wash over his face.

He's back!

He never thought that after a decade, he would have the chance to return to this home.

After the Wang family's decline, Wang Shengguo was assassinated and died, and not long after, Li Xiumei passed away from depression.

Wang Teng lifted his head, wiped his face, and looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes slightly red.

A decade had changed so much.

Wang Teng had changed; he was no longer the same person he used to be. In his previous life, his heart had become as cold and hard as iron.

But deep down, there were still a few soft spots, places he had been unwilling to touch before.

Wang Teng dried his face, left the bathroom, and followed his memory to open his bedroom door and walked in.

Familiar furnishings, familiar everything.

Posters of NBA stars on the walls, music CDs and novels stacked on the bookshelf, a desk by the window, not far from the bed, with a computer on it.

The computer was a new model, an Apple, with a sleek silver body that was both light and stylish.

Another item that didn't fit the timeline.

Seeing the computer, he suddenly remembered something and took out a phone from his backpack. Sure enough, it wasn't an old 2009 model but the latest Apple 8.

Wang Teng, who was well-prepared mentally, calmly entered the password and unlocked the phone.

He was glad he was forgetful with passwords, using the same one for so many years without changing it.

Inside the phone were many apps like Meituan, Ele.me, WeChat, Douyin, and others that only appeared later; they didn't exist in 2009.

When he was reborn, he had planned to use his memories from his previous life to rise to the top and make Jack Ma, Pony Ma, and other tycoons bow to him.

Well, that's not happening now!

He sighed, put down the phone, and turned on the computer.

There was no better way to find out what had changed than to go online.

With the development of computers and phones to this level, it made no sense for the internet to still be in its 2009 state.

Technology and the internet have always been inseparable.

After turning on the computer, Wang Teng was somewhat surprised.

The operating system was not Windows 10 but already version 11.

It seemed that the development was not exactly the same as in 2019, but there were still differences.

He spent some time getting familiar with it before he adapted.

He opened the Baidu browser and searched for "warrior," and a large amount of information appeared.

An hour later, Wang Teng closed the browser, leaned back in his chair, and looked utterly astonished.

"Thirty years ago, spatial rifts appeared all over the world, connecting to another world—the Star Martial Continent!"

"The Star Martial Continent has Origin Energy, and everyone cultivates Origin Energy to become warriors!"

"Warriors are incredibly powerful!"

"Low-rank warriors can shatter stones and cut through water, while high-rank warriors can destroy mountains and stir the seas..."

"This is too fantastical!"

Wang Teng was at a loss for words.

Earth scientists studied Origin Energy and found that it was likely [Dark Matter]. However, they couldn't explain why the people and animals on the Star Martial Continent could absorb Dark Matter to change themselves, while Earth's creatures couldn't.

Soon, with the appearance of the spatial rifts, Earth seemed to undergo some changes, and Earth's creatures began to be affected by Dark Matter.

Plants grew taller and more lush, and some extinct species reappeared.

Animals became larger, and their physical characteristics, such as scales, claws, and teeth, were enhanced.

Some animals with special talents even mutated, gaining various elemental abilities like earth, wood, water, fire, and metal.

As the pinnacle of creation, humans naturally evolved as well.

Human bodies became stronger, running faster, jumping higher, and having greater strength and longer lifespans!

Most of the elderly, who were in their seventies or eighties thirty years ago, are still alive, and they are over a hundred years old, with mental states similar to those of people in their sixties or seventies.

Earth's people went crazy!

The world's nations set aside their differences and held a global joint conference.

They decided to organize people to explore the spatial rifts, and after confirming safety, they gradually sent soldiers and experts from various fields to the Star Martial Continent.

These people were called pioneers!

The Star Martial Continent is vast, and the pioneers claimed to come from overseas, gaining the trust of the locals and engaging in communication and trade with them.

Earth's people were not barbaric invaders but adopted the principle of peaceful coexistence proposed by Chinese leaders, interacting with the Star Martial Continent's inhabitants in a gentle manner.

Soon, the pioneers brought back cultivation methods from the Star Martial Continent.

After research and trials, it was found that Earth's humans could cultivate. Eventually, all countries decided to publicly release the cultivation methods, ushering in the era of martial arts for all.

This was a significant transformation!

History took a major turn, developing in an unpredictable direction.

Here, let's highlight the key points, as they will be on the college entrance exam.

The greatest strength of humans is their wisdom. Through cultivation, humans rapidly became powerful, and in just a few years, a large number of powerful warriors emerged worldwide.

These warriors entered the military, government, or belonged to various large corporations and families, forming alliances. Some independent warriors, unwilling to be constrained, established martial arts schools to provide cultivation paths for the common people.

Thanks to these warriors, powerful mutated beasts were kept out of cities, preventing large-scale impacts and destruction on civilized society.

However, being a warrior ultimately requires talent, and not everyone can become one.

To become a formal warrior, one must first strengthen their physical body and lay a solid foundation.

At this stage, the cultivator is known as a martial disciple.

Once the foundation is solid, one can absorb Origin Energy and store it in their body, becoming a formal warrior.

If Origin Energy is compared to water, the body is the container. The process of absorbing Origin Energy is like filling the container with water. Only by making the container wider, larger, and stronger can it hold more water.

In simple terms, this is the principle of a warrior's cultivation.

Martial disciples are classified into three levels—beginner, intermediate, and advanced—based on their physical attributes such as strength and speed.

He Manrong, whom Wang Teng met at the school gate, was an advanced martial disciple, just one step away from becoming a formal warrior.

However, this step is a significant hurdle for many.

The difference between absorbing Origin Energy and not is qualitative.

A formal warrior who has cultivated Origin Energy can easily defeat ten advanced martial disciples who haven't, with no effort.

The gap between an advanced martial disciple and a formal warrior, though seemingly small, is like a vast chasm.

Moreover, "poor in literature, rich in martial arts." Cultivating as a warrior requires a large amount of resources, which are expensive, putting ordinary people at a disadvantage.

In summary, despite the large population, the number of warriors remains small, and most people are just slightly stronger ordinary individuals.

But this does not prevent warriors from becoming the mainstream. The rarity and importance of warriors have instead elevated their status to a transcendent level.