I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 357: Fang Chen?

Victor frowned. "Meaning?"

Rhozan looked pain-stricken.

"The abomination attacked him with everything it had. And though he fought with impossible strength... he was injured beyond anything I had ever witnessed. His body was breaking apart before my eyes."

Victor finally tore his gaze from the glowing figure. "So you froze him here?"

"I sealed him in the crystalline stasis of our ancestors," Rhozan replied. "It halts the flow of time for the wounded inside. His injuries will not worsen—but they also cannot heal."

"How long has he been like this?"

"Five years."

Victor stared again at the stranger and the faint rise and fall of his chest preserved unnaturally by the light.

"Five years..." Victor muttered. "So then—since he failed—you assumed someone else would show up? Another Iruhun?"

Rhozan nodded. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

"The prophecy said the Iruhun would come from beyond the doors of eternity and would possess a power no Kahr’uun could comprehend. It never said there would only be one. It also said that the Iruhun is bound to take care of the corruption and since the corruption remains... it means, this isn’t over."

Victor eyes narrowed upon hearing that. Besides the fact that he no longer had intentions of wanting to save the Kahr’uun people anymore, he still needed to know what he was dealing with here.

Rhozan looked at Victor.

"You see the truth now. The previous Iruhun was powerful. Perhaps even stronger than you are now. But his compassion was his downfall. He believed the corrupted entity deserved redemption."

Victor scoffed. "Some things can’t be redeemed."

"Exactly." Rhozan’s voice cracked. "He learned that too late."

Victor stepped closer to the crystalline light. He placed his palm against it. The surface rippled with soft luminescent strobes. A sense of cold timelessness washed over him.

Who was this guy?

How did he come here?

Why did he have no mana?

Why did he feel so familiar in a way Victor couldn’t place?

He stared at the unconscious face, then muttered, "What the hell were you...?"

Rhozan’s voice echoed gently behind him.

"Now you understand why we need you, Iruhun. Why we lied. Why we begged. Why we are desperate. You are not the first... but you may be the last hope we will ever have."

Victor didn’t respond.

His thoughts were too wild, too tangled.

Another human cultivator?

A dimension hopper?

A survivor from another world where mana and qi aren’t the source of power?

Or something else entirely?

There was only one way to find out... by talking to him.

Victor took a step forward while coming to a decision.

"Rhozan... what if I could heal him?"

Rhozan’s already grim expression deepened into a look of alarm.

"No, Iruhun. His wounds are... catastrophic. Corruption seeped into every part of him. His organs, his marrow, even the nerves that connect his mind to his body. The moment he leaves the beam, time resumes—meaning all those injuries will strike him at once. He would die within seconds."

Victor didn’t blink. "Not if I heal him quickly enough."

Rhozan shook his head so fast the beads on his braids rattled.

"I tried. Our finest healers tried. Every spell we cast only made the corruption fight harder. His body is trapped between life and death. No magic—no matter how ancient or powerful—can restore him."

Victor exhaled deeply.

"Then good thing I’m not using magic, isn’t it?"

That froze Rhozan mid-breath. The Kahr’uun leader studied Victor’s face for a long moment, as if trying to determine whether the human was joking or insane.

"You truly aren’t using mana?" Rhozan was utterly shocked at this revelation and felt his ears might be playing tricks on him.

They all assumed the Iruhun’s power was just so vast and that made them incapable of sensing any mana signature from him and yet he just admitted that he wasn’t using magic.

Victor didn’t confirm nor deny Rhozan’s last statement, solidifying his stance.

"Can your power do what magic cannot?"

Victor shrugged. "Won’t know unless I try."

Rhozan’s uncertainty twisted into dread. "If he dies, the prophecy might not collapse since you will still be left but as someone who has protected the Kahr’uun people in the past, I would not like to see his end—"

"We already lost him," Victor cut in quietly. "What’s the point of protecting a corpse that just hasn’t finished dying? Either we help him... or we leave him to rot in that light forever. I’m giving him a chance."

Rhozan hesitated. The air in the chamber grew tense and heavy, as if waiting for his verdict.

Finally, with a slow exhale, he bowed his head.

"Very well... Iruhun. But if anything goes wrong, I will force him back into the beam immediately. I will not allow another tragedy."

"Fair enough."

Victor rolled his shoulders, centering his qi.

<[ White Dragon Legacy Summoning... ]>

Azure-white scales rippled across his arms as he activated his White Dragon Legacy. A cool frost-like aura emanated from him, followed by a soft, sacred warmth... the harmony of ice and restoration.

Then he activated Celestial Restoration.

A radiant golden halo burst from his palms, illuminating the chamber.

"Bring him out."

Rhozan swallowed and lifted his staff. Ancient runes lit up along its length, and with a sweeping motion, the stasis beam responded. The crystalline light fractured like thinning glass. Rhozan reached into the beam with a glowing tether of mana and gently pulled the previous Iruhun free.

The moment the man’s body left the light, he began dying.

His skin lost color instantly. Dark, spidery veins of corruption crawled across his limbs. His breathing hitched. Blood seeped from old wounds that had been frozen in time for years.

Victor didn’t hesitate.

He stepped forward, spit into both palms, activating the catalytic saliva enhancement to boost the restorative techniques he was currently mixing and pressed his glowing hands onto the dying man’s chest.

Golden light erupted.

A gale exploded outward, rattling the chamber and sending loose frost flying. The man’s body arched as qi surged into him, racing through his veins like divine lightning.

Victor gritted his teeth.

This wasn’t simple healing. This was undoing five years of decay in seconds while purging a corruption born of a forbidden sacrifice.

His qi drained rapidly. It felt like a leak had opened inside him as his qi poured out faster than he could consciously control.

Rhozan was panicking already.

"Iruhun! If it’s too much, stop! We must return him immediately—"

"Shut up!" Victor growled through clenched teeth. "I’m not letting him die."

The golden glow intensified. Victor forced more qi through his meridians, pushing his healing deeper, battling the corruption eating the man from the inside out.

The corrupted miasma that always appeared around the corrupt entity began boiling out of the man’s eyes, ears, and nose. It writhed like smoke mixed with ink before burning up in bursts of white flame as the healing purged it.

Rhozan’s jaw dropped.

He had never seen anything like this in his life.

One minute soon turned to two and two turned into three...

Victor’s breathing grew rough as sweat dripped down his forehead. White Dragon scales spread further up his neck and back just to help him stabilize the flow of qi.

But slowly...

The wounds began to close.

Rotting organs regenerated.

Collapsed lungs reinflated.

Broken bones reformed.

Blackened veins returned to their natural color.

A rosy tint returned to the man’s skin.

The corruption howled as it was forced out of him and then dissipated entirely.

Finally, Victor withdrew his hands and stumbled back, panting heavily.

The previous Iruhun lay completely healed. Not a single wound remained.

Rhozan fell to his knees in astonished disbelief.

"You... you did what our entire civilization could not..."

Victor shook out his hands and tried not to collapse.

"Yeah, well... I’m full of surprises."

They approached cautiously.

The man didn’t move at first.

But after a few seconds, his eyes snapped open.

He jerked upward with a gasp so sharp it echoed through the room.

"I’m... alive? I’m actually alive?!"

Rhozan rushed toward him with an expression of relief and disbelief. "Yes! Yes, you are! You—"

But the previously sleeping Iruhun didn’t hear him.

His gaze had drifted and locked onto Victor. The moment his eyes landed on Victor, he froze in place as shock spread across his face.

His voice trembled.

"Fang Chen?"

Victor blinked in confusion.

The man rose to his feet, staring in disbelief.

"Fang Chen...? You’re... here?"

Victor couldn’t believe his ears.

His in-game name.

The name he used in Ascendant Realms.

A name no one outside the game should ever know... and yet this man was calling it like he recognized him?

What? What? WHAT?

The stranger wasn’t just another human... he knew Victor.

Or specifically, he knew Victor’s in-game identity and that didn’t make any sense.

Victor had no friends he played that was physically within the same proximity in the real world. And he didn’t really game with other players so the chances of anyone recognising him in the real world was also very little.