Sun Yi stepped onto the 76th floor, initiating the simulation. The environment shifted instantly.

He stood in the center of an ancient gladiatorial arena shrouded in dense white fog—a classic procedural generation trope.

From the mist, guttural roars echoed. Then came the stampede.

Fifteen rhinoceros-like beasts burst into view. They were upgraded models compared to their Earth counterparts: covered in silver-plated armor, eyes glowing with red LED intensity, and a single, serrated horn projecting lethal intent.

System Scan: Target threat level equivalent to Qi Refining Stage 8.

The herd charged, their horns glowing with concentrated demonic energy. They moved with the momentum of a freight train, closing the distance in seconds.

Sun Yi stood motionless. He didn’t draw his sword. He didn’t circulate his True Qi. He simply waited, hands at his sides, analyzing their trajectory.

In the central control room, the three Foundation Establishment monitors exchanged worried glances.

“Is the system lagging?” one asked, frowning at the screen. “Why isn’t the CEO executing any defense protocols?”

“Should we abort?” another suggested, hand hovering over the emergency stop. “If he dies in the simulation, the psychic backlash will require mandatory downtime. We can’t afford to have the Chairman out of commission.”

“Hold,” the senior monitor commanded. “He’s calculating. If the difficulty curve was too steep, he would have logged out manually.”

On screen, the lead rhino was mere inches from impact.

Sun Yi moved.

His right hand snapped out, fingers clamping around the charging beast’s silver horn like a hydraulic press. The kinetic energy of the charge died instantly, stopped cold by raw grip strength.

“Denied,” Sun Yi grunted.

With a primal shout, he pivoted, using the beast’s own momentum to lift it off the ground. He slammed the massive creature into the arena floor with the force of a wrecking ball.

BOOM.

The arena shook. The rhino shattered into pixels, dissolving back into the system code.

“What the…”

The monitors in the control room stared, slack-jawed.

Sun Yi didn’t wait for the dust to settle. He blurred forward, appearing in front of the next target. A simple, straight right hand punched through the air.

Crack.

The fist connected with the rhino’s armored skull. The horn shattered. The head exploded. The beast derealized instantly.

Sun Yi moved like a demolition machine. One punch, one kill. He dismantled the remaining thirteen beasts with efficient, brutal strikes. No wasted movement. No flashy techniques. Just overwhelming hardware superiority.

The simulation dissolved. Sun Yi stood alone on the empty 76th floor.

“Underwhelming,” he muttered, flexing his hand. “Level 8 mobs aren’t providing actionable data.”

His physical body, reinforced by the Blood Spirit Fruit and Thunder Spirit Grass, had far exceeded the projected specs.

“Let’s see how far I can push the chassis without using software.”

Sun Yi’s eyes gleamed with interest. He stepped toward the stairs.

Floors 77 through 80 were a blur of one-hit knockouts. The difficulty scaling was too linear. Sun Yi breezed through them, treating the high-level mobs like tutorial dummies.

On the 81st floor, the algorithm finally spiked.

A three-meter-tall Giant Ape materialized from the fog. Its red eyes locked onto Sun Yi, radiating a tangible pressure.

System Scan: Target threat level equivalent to Qi Refining Stage 9 (Elite).

Sun Yi smiled. Finally, a mid-boss.

Because demon beasts possessed naturally higher base stats than humans, this ape was effectively stronger than your average 9th-stage cultivator.

ROAR!

The ape beat its chest, signaling aggression, then launched itself forward. It was fast for a tank class, covering the ground in a blur. It reached Sun Yi and swung a fist the size of a wrecking ball.

Sun Yi didn’t dodge. He chambered his own fist and met the attack head-on.

BANG!

Flesh met flesh. A shockwave rippled through the virtual air.

The ape’s arm crumpled. Its massive body was launched backward like a ragdoll, slamming into the invisible barrier of the arena. It flickered and vanished.

“Still too weak,” Sun Yi noted, checking his knuckles. “I overestimated the market competition. A top-tier Tier 1 beast can’t even withstand a basic melee attack.”

He continued his ascent.

In the control room, the atmosphere had shifted from concern to sheer disbelief.

“This data doesn’t make sense,” one monitor whispered. “Last quarter, his physical stats were average. Now he’s one-shotting elite mobs with bare hands?”

“What kind of R&D is he doing in there?”

“He’s climbing to the 100th floor without drawing a weapon,” the senior monitor said, his voice hushed. “This isn’t cultivation. This is a massacre.”

Sun Yi continued his vertical sprint, clearing floors with monotonous efficiency.

Finally, he stepped onto the 100th floor.

The simulation loaded a new biome: An Ancient Battlefield. The ground was scarred earth, the sky a bruised purple.

Across the field, a legion awaited. Over a hundred top-tier Tier 1 beasts—each one a boss-level threat comparable to a Qi Refining Great Perfection cultivator.

Sun Yi grinned. This was the stress test he needed.

“Alright,” he cracked his neck. “Let’s see if the server can handle the load.”

He launched himself forward.

The beast horde roared in unison, charging to meet him.

A blue flash illuminated the battlefield. An ice spike, thick as a thigh, shot toward Sun Yi from the backlines—a ranged DPS attack.

Sun Yi didn’t break stride. A golden sword beam materialized from thin air, intercepting the spike and shattering it into diamond dust.

Screech!

Above him, a Firebird with a ten-meter wingspan banked hard, charging a massive fireball in its beak. Air support.

“You think having the high ground gives you an advantage?” Sun Yi laughed.

He activated the Wind Thunder Step.

Crack-boom.

He vanished, leaving a sonic boom in his wake.

He reappeared instantly on the Firebird’s back, mid-flight. Gravity seemed to pause.

“Ground yourself.”

He drove his fist into the bird’s spine. The impact force was catastrophic. The avian beast disintegrated into embers before it could even fire its payload.

In the control room, the monitors gasped as the telemetry data spiked off the charts.

“Wind Thunder Step…” one whispered. “He’s running a Foundation Establishment protocol!”