William Carter instinctively covered his left ear. That small bead had just flown to his ear and quickly sank in.

Yes, it really sank in like that. Afterwards, a small bump seemed to appear next to William Carter’s ear, as if it were a tiny birthmark he’d had since birth.

After waiting a moment longer, the lights suddenly brightened—clearly, the exhibition hall’s power system had been fully restored.

However, what followed was a sudden commotion from behind him, and it seemed to be growing louder.

“It’s gone…”

“The item was stolen.”

Almost everyone was talking about the same thing. Soon, news that all the ancient artifacts unearthed for this exhibition had disappeared from the display platform spread throughout the venue.

A few quick-witted people immediately took out their portable sensors, recorded the scene, and connected directly to Skynet to upload what was happening. The atmosphere in the hall instantly became tense. Groups of staff rushed in to maintain order, but it was obvious that the thief was already long gone.

……

When leaving the exhibition hall, William Carter didn’t look well. Not for any other reason, but just because of that mysterious bump on his ear, he felt a chill in his heart.

However, the only thing that comforted him was that most people were experiencing something like this for the first time. Some were flushed with excitement, but there were also plenty of people who looked pale with fright. William’s reaction was undoubtedly very similar to the latter group, so after verifying his identity and passing the scanner, he made it home safely.

As for why he was able to pass the scanner safely, to be honest, William Carter had no idea.

When he got home, his parents still hadn’t returned. William Carter casually gave the robot nanny an order and went back to his room. For some reason, he suddenly felt extremely tired, so he skipped dinner and went straight to bed.

In his sleep, an unknown energy fluctuation slowly spread from his ear, gradually entering his cerebral cortex and connecting with his brainwaves.

However, William Carter, who was asleep, didn’t feel a thing until he naturally woke up the next morning.

Opening his eyes, William Carter lay lazily in bed. Last night, he seemed to have had a dream—a dream that was both surreal and incredibly vivid.

In the dream, he was a mage. Yes, an ancient and now completely extinct term—a mage, and not just any mage, but the most reviled kind: a necromancer.

In the dream, his power was immense, to the point where he could even traverse the universe. But no matter how powerful, everything comes to an end. For some reason, his life eventually reached its conclusion. So, he sealed his power within a memory stone, to be left for someone destined to find it.

According to his dream self, unless someone with identical brainwaves appeared, no force in the world could open the memory stone. And he, William Carter in this life, just happened to be a human whose brainwaves matched those of his dream self exactly.

The dream ended there, leaving only some inexplicable incantations and a strange cultivation method suddenly imprinted in his mind.

William Carter had no idea what those incantations were, but he was extremely curious about the cultivation method.

Human society had developed to the modern era and long since recognized one thing: that humans possess limitless hidden potential. Ever since humanity entered the space age, all kinds of methods to unlock human potential had sprung up like bamboo shoots after the rain.

Thousands of years of experimentation had led to two main directions for developing human potential. One was the physical system, and the other, naturally, was the mental system.

No one could say which was superior, but except for a very few people, the vast majority practiced both. Only by complementing each other could the highest level of safety be achieved.

The information in his mind told William Carter that this was a mental cultivation technique. If he remembered correctly, it wasn’t listed in Skynet’s database.

Of course, everything available on Skynet was just the most basic, public version. Truly advanced techniques were never made available to ordinary people. And William Carter was undoubtedly just one of those ordinary people.

Silently reciting the cultivation formula in his mind, William Carter naturally began to practice. He half-lay on the bed, eyes half-closed, in a state between sleep and wakefulness. Outwardly, this posture looked no different from how ordinary people practiced, but the inner workings were worlds apart.

It felt as if a century had passed, or perhaps only an instant. When William Carter came to, everything before his eyes was different.

His mind was invigorated, as if it had undergone a qualitative leap, filling him with confidence.

He turned over and got up, glanced at the clock on the wall, and was slightly surprised to find that only two hours had passed.

The voice of the intelligent robot called from the doorway—it was breakfast time. He left his room and went to the dining hall, but his parents still hadn’t come home.