Cultivating with a Broken System (and No Talent)

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Chapter 8: No Monster, No System – Only Me

For the first time…

There was silence.

No system interface.

No voice whispering in my head.

No writhing parasite clawing inside my chest.

Just me.

The strength I once had from the demonic arts was fading—

not because I was getting weaker,

but because the thing inside me…

was gone.

And yet, somehow, my body didn't rot.

It didn't collapse like it should have.

> "That wasn't the system,"

"It was you."

I remembered those words.

Maybe… the monster didn't protect me.

Maybe my body had begun to adapt.

The hunger for blood?

Gone.

The twisted voice?

Silent.

"Am I free?" I asked aloud.

But if I had to ask that question…

Was I really?

This wasteland I wandered—this corpse of a land—

no longer screamed of death or vengeance.

It was just… empty.

And in the silence, a thought rose:

> "What if I build something new?"

I still had knowledge.

Memories of the creature's twisted cultivation methods.

Its fears.

Its secrets.

I began to experiment.

Not with demonic power,

but with something else—

something pure.

I forced that energy into my core.

It hurt.

A searing pain that nearly split my soul.

But my body—this strange vessel—healed rapidly.

Faster than human.

Faster than anything I knew.

I could feel the corruption burn away.

And when the pain stopped…

I had broken through.

My cultivation surged.

Not demonic.

Not parasitic.

Mine.

> This was the real beginning.

My beginning.

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