Keslations

In response to the system's unreasonable demand, Gong Zhu decisively replied: "I refuse."

System: [...]

Gong Zhu pulled the kneeling teen up off the ground, and with a flick of his wrist, he was holding the spirit stone and brocade pouch from Fu Yuanzhi's shirt.

"Qianbei..." Hand...hand...

Gong Zhu opened the pouch, managing with some effort to read the words on the note inside... Hm...fill the stone with spiritual power, huh?

He looked at the dusty grey rock in his hand. While he didn't know what all this was about, it definitely didn't have the malicious intentions which the system had exaggeratedly warned him about. If it really was malicious, then why would they find a...low-level disciple who couldn't even keep his footing when stepping on clouds? That was tantamount to sending an alt account from the newbie village to solo the world boss—he'd die in one hit.

[Wait a moment, Host, can you truly be certain that it will not explode? Think of that mountain rock.]

Gong Zhu's expression darkened for a moment before he glanced over at Fu Yuanzhi, who was gazing unblinkingly at him with big wide eyes; the sight of the teen's fair-skinned, beautiful face immediately killed his confidence.

When he stopped to think about it, he really wasn't sure of himself at all... Embarrassing myself is a small matter, but what if I blow up a perfectly good future disciple... And so with a decisive wave of Gong Zhu's hand, Fu Yuanzhi—still maintaining that same upwards-gazing pose—was tossed back to the Chuxin Palace plaza.

He then even tried showing off a bit, using his spiritual power to write four words on Fu Yuanzhi's palm when he tossed him: Come get it tomorrow.

—He personally felt very cool.

Fu Yuanzhi, having appeared in the Chuxin Palace plaza, stood there blankly for a while before silently looking at the words on the palm of his hand...

Qianbei's writing...

Hmm...but...

...Fu Yuanzhi shook his head. I'm sure it's only because I was nervous and my palms were sweaty that the characters Qianbei wrote look so distorted.

“Ai, Yuanzhi!”

Fu Yuanzhi, hearing a loud shout, looked up to see Yue Henxing waving at him from in front of a stone tablet not far away.

There was quite a bustling crowd gathered at the foot of the tablet. Classes had long since ended for the day, and it was a rare sight to see so many people in the Chuxin Palace plaza this late at night; as such, Fu Yuanzhi walked over to his roommate and asked, "What happened?"

"Oh I know, Yueqi Peak must have demonic beasts that eat people's memories! Did you forget that now's when we start forming groups for the midyear exam half a month from now?" Yue Henxing patted his shoulder as he continued, "Congratulations on returning alive from Yueqi Peak. Don't tell me what's up there, I don't want to end up with insomnia from your scary stories."

Fu Yuanzhi clenched his fists, answering in the affirmative, but...he hadn't planned to tell anyone else about Qianbei to begin with!

As for the midyear exam...

"I was hoping to be in the same group as you," Yue Henxing said with a sigh, "but it looks like I'll have to go be dead weight for somebody else instead."

Unbeknownst to Fu Yuanzhi, not only had Gong Zhu written on his palm, he'd also stealthily left a thread of his spiritual consciousness, using it in a way that was sort of like...long-distance monitoring? Using Fu Yuanzhi for positioning, Gong Zhu was currently on the cliffside looking down upon the entirety of Chuxin Palace Plaza; the disciples' remarks were naturally transmitted to his ears as well.

And so he asked the system, "How is the midyear exam conducted?"

The system replied: [It is equivalent to a midterm exam, with participants being divided into groups of ten. These groups each enter a pre-set exam location, where they will need to cooperate in order to solve the given problems; furthermore, two groups must compete over a single problem. Each group must include one person from each of the ten classes in order to both balance the disparity between groups, and assess the integrative ability and cooperativeness of the disciples. The specifics of the test content varies every year; all winning groups, excluding Class One disciples, will be promoted by one level, while the losing groups, excluding Class Ten, will collectively be demoted by one level.]

...Sure enough, exams were a common invention of all humanoid races. This testing method could still be considered relatively fair though; it was strict, but not cruel.

Although— "Doesn't that mean that if my disciple loses, he'll drop to the lowest level class?" That wouldn't do!

[Host...are you sure you can't pick someone else? You've got to have some standards!]

"System, I’m gonna guess you were a Jinjiang server in your past life."

The system was thrown off in a very human-like manner by this comment, and Gong Zhu continued with: "You're in need of repair."

System: [...]

Gong Zhu leisurely replied, "This is fate right here. I see him falling from the clouds every day, and just when I'm thinking about him, he delivers himself right to my doorstep."

It was a very long time before the system finally squeezed out: [Host, there's no worth in believing superstitions about fate.]

"Uh...the system for an idealist world telling me not to be superstitious..." Gong Zhu said in exasperation, "You really are as messed up as that server."

System: [...No, I'm not green.]

*

The disciples below the tablet were all discussing the midyear exam. The outer sect had two major exams each year, one midyear and one at the end of the year, which directly affected their grade level. Now generally, if you had a good relationship with the professors, all you needed to do was flatter them a bit and play the good student card to have the professors take care of your grades. In these two exams, however, a loss was a loss and a win was a win; while the exam problems were different every year, the promotions and demotions were unavoidable, with no one allowed to pull strings.

And so the golden trump card that was Class One became an extremely hot commodity.

Among young disciples, those who got on well with others had an easier time forming cliques, and those who didn't were generally easy to pick out. Fu Yuanzhi and Yue Henxing stood there as the disciples around them started grouping together, leaving the two of them to look on helplessly. Yue Hengxin was an infamous slacker; as for Fu Yuanzhi, Young Lord Yujing disliked him, so few people were brave enough to greet him warmly.

The eavesdropping Gong Zhu frowned: "Yujing? What place is that?"

[At present it could be considered...the imperial city for human cultivators. and the largest Daoist city among the ten continents and three islands.]

"The imperial city huh, so cultivators can also moonlight as emperors? Does this world not have any mortals?" Gong Zhu immediately grabbed this opportunity to learn as much as he could about the setting.

The system generally stopped playing dead when there was a trigger point. It replied, [There are. Not only do mortals exist, but the division and rule of administrative regions is largely an affair for the mortal imperial government to deal with. However, this place is saturated with spiritual energy, so that many people unable to practice the Great Dao can still master one or two spells for daily use. Pure mortals entirely unable to use spiritual power are relatively rare, so taking that into account, Lord Yujing's influence as a Daoist cultivator is quite large. The only ones left who refuse to acknowledge his superiority are the demonic cultivators; even the yao cultivators have to show him some amount of respect.]

"Then that makes Young Lord Yujing a prince." Gong Zhu nodded at this.

—The little Lord Yujing could be nothing other than the crown prince, leading Gong Zhu to automatically envision an overweight father-son pair dressed in richly ornamented garments and strutting around like peacocks.

"Then do you know why this prince dislikes my disciple?"

System: [...Host, you haven't taken him as a disciple yet, have you?]

Gong Zhu bitterly lamented, "Could you pay a little more attention to what systems are supposed to do, like continuing to give me a proper explanation, instead of randomly interrupting?"

[...Alright then, the names of all the locations here are related to clouds. The place we are currently located in is called Yunzhou, or "cloud continent"—one thousand years ago it was considered the one among the ten continents where demonic cultivators had the strongest influence, with the long river below the Yunze River ("cloud pool") marking its boundary. Though Yunmeng (cloud dream) Sky Palace was quite powerful, the demonic realm's strength was far from small, such that the sky palace dared not make any rash moves beyond self-preservation, let alone fully attend to the greater part of Yunzhou on the other side of the river. It was to a point where even the great clans each tacitly agreed that this place was under the jurisdiction of the demonic cultivators.]

[Lord Yujing suddenly appeared a thousand years ago. It took only a single battle to make his presence known, when he killed the powerful demonic cultivator who was entrenched in Yunzhou at the time. His name then continued to spread far and wide as he fought back one ill-intentioned yao cultivator after another, and cleared the Yunzhou area of all the remaining demonic cultivator forces entrenched there. This earned him popular support, and led to him establishing the prosperous city of Yujing; the city has since flourished under his rule, and lately has shown a vague trend towards bringing all of the Daoist cultivators into a unified collective with it at the head. There are still three continents which have yet to be brought under Lord Yujing's influence however, and there are also some sects, families, and independent cultivators who refuse to accept a unified school of Daoism. They believe that the Great Dao cannot be attained in an environment so centered around recognition and material gain, and that while Lord Yujing may have had great merits in the past, his recent actions have been no different from those of the empires of mortal dynasties. Of these, Lord Yujing's most vocal opposition is your disciple's family.]

Er...this Lord Yujing is kinda sounding like one of those characters in the righteous camp to me!

"So what's the relationship between Yunmeng Sky Palace and Yujing?"

[Now that's a complicated question,] the System said with an affected tone. The look on Gong Zhu's face immediately became noticeably chilly, leading the System to hurriedly stop asking for a beating and start explaining instead:

[Yunmeng Sky Palace is the highest-ranking cultivation sect in all the ten continents and three islands. In the ten thousand years since its founding, its disciples have spread all over the world. Those disciples who enter its gates are put through repeated assessments, and must be ranked among the best of the best—whether in behavior, cultivation, or moral character—if they wish to remain within the sect's walls. All other disciples can freely leave to practice on their own once they have completed their studies, but regardless of what those disciples ultimately choose to do, the mark which Yunmeng Sky Palace has left on them can never be erased.]

"Yunmeng Sky Palace must have paid you an advertising fee, System." Gong Zhu nodded and said, "Continue."

[...As such, Yunmeng is considered a neutral academic institution, as every sphere of influence includes one or more of our former Yunmeng disciples; regardless of what battles rage on outside, the world within the walls of Yunmeng Sky Palace can be thought of as akin to paradise.]

This rhetoric...the System had definitely received ad revenue from Yunmeng Sky Palace. That aside though, Gong Zhu had thought of another critical point: "So cultivators also have harem power struggles."

The System performed an extremely realistic impression of a helpless tone: [Host, the peaceful "I love you, you love me, we're a cultivation family" mentality you're imagining is in the minority among cultivators, after all...doesn't cultivation require resources? Between having good timing, location, and social conditions, we have to put time and location first. If you're unable to seize the best resources, and even surviving becomes a problem, how can you be expected to cultivate?]

Makes sense. Today's system is a philosophical one as well. Gong Zhu nodded, thinking, If it was set off by old scores between clans and competition over resources...then fine, it'd be difficult to tell who's in the right in that case. As the disciples noisily discussed their midyear exams in the Chuxin Palace square, Gong Zhu decided to withdraw his spiritual consciousness for the moment, and focus instead on completing the task his disciple had given him!

"System, come, teach me how to inject spiritual energy without causing an explosion."

[Honestly...all you have to do is put a little less strength into it...]

*

Because each class had the same number of students, two groups would have to take in the leftover Fu Yuanzhi and Yue Henxing whether they liked it or not.

Fu Yuanzhi's group had grabbed him and ran—though he and Little Lord Yujing didn't get along, that didn't mean that Fu Yuanzhi lacked ability. He'd been tossed bodily down from Class One by his classmates, forced to wear the title of Class Nine, but in reality he was a powerful figure under which Class One's students sought protection. For the sake of good grades, they were willing to offend Little Lord Yujing this once; besides, his name still had a "Little" in front, didn't it? They could discuss it again when he became Lord Yujing for real.

The group that got Yue Henxing wore miserable looks on their faces, and Yue Henxing followed them out with a shrug.

When it came down to it, Yunmeng Sky Palace was located high above the clouds, and was not controlled by any individual force. What this meant was that while the younger generation of disciples normally kept their distance from Fu Yuanzhi, in reality they all—aside from those children of noble families who were always trying to curry favor with Little Lord Yujing—got along with him relatively well.

"Hello Fu-shixiong, I'm Qu Qing from Class One, we've met before."

The one who'd spoken was a female cultivator. She wore a calm smile on her face, and was dressed in one of those water muslin outfits which were the current popular style at the sky palace; when she raised her hands it gave the impression of flowing water, and her voice was crisp and pleasing to the ear. Fu Yuanzhi greeted her in return: "Hello Qu-shijie, and all my other shixiongs and shijies as well. I hope that you will take care of me during my time with you all."

The group was still able to name each other even if they were otherwise unfamiliar on the whole, and so felt they could skip the empty formalities. Qu Qing said, "We currently still have half a month to get familiar with each other and practice our teamwork, but here's the problem—"

Everyone looked at Fu Yuanzhi and sighed as Qu Qing continued, "The problem is how we're supposed to successfully get Fu-shixiong into Yundu Palace."

Pretty much all of the junior disciples' lessons were given at Yundu Palace, with the professors giving lectures in turns. Every absence was recorded, and points were deducted accordingly. This would normally affect no one besides Fu Yuanzhi, but if one of the professors happened to bring up a magical array requiring cooperation between multiple people, and on the day of the exam nine of them took their places while Fu Yuanzhi alone was left clueless, that would have a serious impact on their score.

Qu Qing said in a stern tone, "Everyone, since we're a team now, let's think of it as the will of Heaven. We all need to help Fu-shixiong together, and help ourselves in the process; when Little Lord Yujing's followers come to bully Fu-shixiong again tomorrow, we can't just stand by and watch anymore."

However, when Fu Yuanzhi told them he had an alternate assignment to do and would be excusing himself from class the next day, everyone—notably including Qu Qing—appeared to relax as much as if they'd just heard that the final exam would be postponed by a day.

Fu Yuanzhi sighed. As the night deepened, a bell rang out over the Chuxin Palace square, reminding the disciples that it was already past midnight. Everyone still had class in the morning, and so they all dispersed, one after the other. Fu Yuanzhi started heading to his room, but halfway there he paused to think, then slipped into the square's decorative flowerbed, digging around until he'd gathered a small pile of earthworms. It looked a little gross, but he staunchly persevered in carrying it back to his room, preparing to feed it to Qianbei's bird.

Immediately upon entering, he found the great variety of snacks Yue Henxing had brought from home now scattered all over the floor, and lying in the center of it all was...

Yes...Qianbei's birdball...

"Aaaah!" Yue Henxing appeared from behind Fu Yuanzhi to let out a horrified scream. "W-W-What...what kind of monster is this!? Those were all soul snacks carrying spiritual power! I spent half my pocket money from the last holiday to get them, they were supposed to last me a month, and it ate them all in one sitting?"

Fu Yuanzhi picked up the sleeping bird, noting that it still appeared to be the same sparsely feathered chick as before. He rubbed its spherically round little tummy to find it soft and warm, with no apparent threat of bursting.

Qianbei's bird might look like a sparrow, but there's no way it's an average bird if it's this strong! Fu Yuanzhi couldn't resist pressing his face against the little bird. Ignoring Yue Henxing's howling, he opened a window to toss out the worms, washed up, then went to bed content and relaxed, hugging Qianbei's bird.

*

Gong Zhu, meanwhile, was far from relaxed.

There was a dark look on his face as he pinched the charcoal briquette in his hand back into its original form as a spirit stone for the eighteenth time, then erupted in anger.

—This thing's battery capacity is way too small, dangit!

[Host, just pretend this is your disciple. If in the future your disciple gets hurt in a fight, you're going to want to transfer spiritual energy to heal him, right? But the moment you try, your disciple will explode...]

A storm-faced Gong Zhu once again took that pitiful spirit stone and continued his attempts.

Pretend this is my disciple...that's right, TV dramas are constantly pulling out scenes involving hands-on healing and the like. I'll practice on the spirit stone first; then when my disciple needs help in the future, I won't end up sending bits of him flying all over the place.

"Wait a minute, why should I have to train for this? It's my disciple we're talking about, anyone trying to seriously injure him will have to do it over my dead body!" Gong Zhu's tone was a resolute one—he had confidence, willpower, and more importantly, the power to be the world's best shifu! Whether his disciple ended up with physical issues in the future, or his mental health declined, this shifu of his was fully prepared to face it!

[Congratulations, Host, you've succeeded!]

Hm?

Thinking of his disciple really did work wonders; this time the spirit stone hadn't exploded, instead smoothly absorbing the spiritual energy Gong Zhu transferred into it, and becoming fully charged with the lustrous glow of concentrated power. The tiny spirit stone—formerly a dusty gray—changed into a translucently crystalline form, a whisp of pale green mist swirling around it, emitting a gentle light that was easy on the eyes.

Mission complete! And it's still dark out, yup, so it'll be a good while before my disciple comes by.

Oh right, I should brush up on my speech first—wouldn't want my pronunciation and things to sound overly strange!

And so Gong Zhu thought for a moment, picked up Da-Ju who'd been nibbling grass by his feet, stared into those beady little eyes peeking out of its fur, and said with full sincerity, "I sense an innate intelligence within thee...no, that sounds too contrived; hm...it was fate that brought us together—no, that sounds like something you'd say on a blind date..."

Da-Ju blinked its little eyes, vacantly chewing on the freshly acquired bit of grass in its mouth.

"System, seeing as you scanned my memories before—of all the many novels I've read, are there any good lines or phrases for taking in disciples that you could give me for reference?"

[......] The system remained silent.

"Nah, borrowing someone else's lines would be way too insincere." Gong Zhu hugged Da-Ju in his arms as he walked back and forth by the water, attracting the undivided attention of a family of squirrels; it wasn't long before the geese, ducks, and cranes were all waddling back and forth with swaying necks along with Gong Zhu's pacing figure.

"Maybe I should get straight to the point and ask directly?"

Gong Zhu lifted up Da-Ju, who started struggling in an attempt to get back to chewing grass, couldn't reach due to how high it had been lifted, and grumpily bit Gong Zhu's fingers in retaliation. Gong Zhu, meanwhile, continued his rehearsal: "'I want to take you as my disciple, are you willing?' What do you think, System, my accent didn't sound strange this time did it?"

[...Um...Host, your behavior here is already strange in and of itself...you're taking a disciple, not meeting a paramour.] If the system had eyes, it would have been rolling them emphatically by now.

A blushing Gong Zhu explained, "I'm doing this to hide my identity as a transmigrator. As my system, you wouldn't want everyone to hunt me down thinking I was some kind of otherworldly monster, would you?"

System: [You have a point. It's fine as long as you're happy.]

Gong Zhu decided to ignore the system and went back to practicing his speech, feeling like he was preparing for the oral part of the TOEFL exam. Da-Ju—fed up with his hugging—struggled free and ran off, and so Gong Zhu turned his gaze to the fuzzy little creatures around him.

*

The system listened quietly to Gong Zhu's pronunciation practice. A long time later, it earnestly said:

[As long as you're happy.]

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At the top of the mountain, the one whom legends described as terrifying in appearance, who was neither a vicious beast nor a demonic cultivator, was happily patting a boulder. There were two characters on this boulder, which he’d just learned to recognize today—

“Yueqi”.

#I learned something new I’m so happy#

The characters were carved in a spot located a very long walk’s distance below his residence, half-hidden in the hazy sea of clouds. Gong Zhu stood barefoot on the ice-cold rock of the mountain, using his hands to make measurements from a distance. Each of those big characters was taller than him, each stroke powerful and bold, the penmanship still retaining such a forceful air that it seemed as if the characters could go flying off at a moment’s notice; though it was written with the “qi” for “rest”, this handwriting lacked even an iota of the leisure you’d expect for a place of relaxation.

So cool!

“My guess is ‘I’ wrote this in the past.” Gong Zhu gesticulated at the characters for quite a long while before sighing, “If you had me try writing it again now, the resulting chicken scratch would give me away on the spot!”

The system could no longer endure this constant fear of exposure: [You won’t give yourself away…you’ve merely been summoned back to your previous…is all…]

Hm, is this system from the Bureau of Secrets*? Holding back halfway through the sentence, does it think I’m deaf?

Although— “So my deduction was correct? I’m definitely a bigshot, a sect master or something.” Gong Zhu nodded at his own words. This isn’t anything new; whether it’s Jinjiang or *****dian, regardless of which transmigration trope you’re looking at, you always transmigrate into a character with a bit of a story behind them. I’ve never heard of anyone transmigrating into a cannon fodder character who dies in three minutes…although…I get the feeling that the system is noticeably…indignant? Don’t tell me a rip-off system like you wishes its host was an outer sect kitchen employee?

The system caught wind of Gong Zhu’s thoughts, and practically blurted out, [That’s right! You are…and yet they dared…]

The way it managed to stop itself in time was exactly as if it were under interrogation, a stroke of the whip extracting half a sentence from its lips before it managed to grit its teeth and resist saying more.

And so, relying on his plentiful experience in reading online web novels, Gong Zhu came to the firm understanding—that something was up here!

Curious, he asked with the patience of a teacher, “System, come, tell me my story.”

The system maintained its usual silence.

So Gong Zhu stopped paying attention to it, as was his custom, and leapt back onto the cliff. He’d fully mastered this sort of free-traveling cultivation skill by now. It basically took just one blink to go from the cliff to the water pavilion, and if he wanted to fly farther, he just needed to blink harder; but he didn’t dare attempt heading down the mountain—

Because he still couldn’t speak well!

Life in the cultivation world was extremely pleasant. There was no roll call, dormitory inspection, CET-4 or CET-6*; the air was nice and the scenery was beautiful; even his phone addiction was cured without any effort on his part. Aside from brushing up on his language skills, Gong Zhu had also spared some time to study magic and things during his time here. However, at one point he accidentally cleaved a cliff the size of a two-story building into a pile of dust, and smashed open a crater along with it. It didn’t much matter that he’d scared himself; the important thing was that the incident had scared the baby bird into covering his shoulder with poop, and from that day onward, Gong Zhu never tried casually experimenting with magic again.

Let’s stick to the literary arts before getting to the martial—bird shit is hard to wash off.

*

Yueqi Peak was an extremely ordinary isolated peak amidst those along the 800-li Yunze River. The distance to which Yunmeng Sky Palace had expanded its territory since the sect’s founding could no longer be calculated at this point, but when the sky palace was first completed in the very beginning, the sky was filled with rosy clouds, and the iconic building that was Yundu Palace sat right there amidst the sea of clouds that was the Yunze River. In all the countless years it had seen come and go, every new addition to the sect’s ranks had stepped upon the cloud stairs which led up to Yundu Palace; of those people, over half had lost their footing and fallen at some point.

The upper sect Daoists with high cultivation had no need for sleep; the sky was therefore far from peaceful in the dawn hours, with only outer sect newcomers sleeping soundly in their rooms.

The cloud stairs and Yueqi Peak were in opposite directions. Fu Yuanzhi got up first thing in the morning, got dressed, and prepared to quietly sneak out so that he could avoid Yue Henxing’s nagging; his roommate was sleeping like a log, and still managed to mumble in his sleep, “Oh Yuanzhi, it’s just too tragic to think that you were eaten, there’s not even a morsel of you left…”

Fu Yuanzhi: “…”

After shutting the door behind him, he thought for a moment, then worriedly cracked it open again to add an extra sealing talisman to his roommate’s irrepressibly smelly feet, as a precaution in case the overwhelming stench got him tossed out of Yundu Palace…though on second thought, whether the guy would go to class in the first place was a question in and of itself.

Unfortunately, Fu Yuanzhi still couldn’t avoid getting discovered when passing through the plaza. Quite a few of Young Lord Yujing’s followers were there hooting and jeering at him, telling him he should never expect to be able to smoothly make it to class at Yundu Palace ever in this lifetime. Young Lord Yujing, meanwhile, was entirely unmoved by the scene; he merely stood in a corner of the plaza, looking over his class schedule.

The Hall of Judgment teacher patrolling this area was watching them with an evil glint in his eyes, waiting for someone to make the first move, at which point he could catch them and toss them onto Yinghui Peak to copy books and reflect on their mistakes.

So Fu Yuanzhi cordially greeted them without the slightest hint of anger, then made a quick getaway to save his own skin.

The sight of people grew gradually more scarce along the path to Yueqi Peak; even the occasional upper sect shixiong or shijie would carefully and evasively stick to the border of the area as they flew overhead. The sight of this scene led Fu Yuanzhi, who originally hadn’t believed in those bloody rumors, to start feeling a little nervous despite himself.

…Was it just his imagination, or were the trees here much taller than normal? Even the shrubbery looked extraordinarily sinister.

On top of that, outer disciples were also forbidden from flying—it wasn’t like he wanted to get tossed off the cloud stairs every day, but after entering the sect he’d had a flight-prohibiting ban placed on him, so that no matter the situation he’d only be able to run on his own two legs. Even if he were able to fly across the clouds before, with a flight-prohibiting ban placed on him, he had no other option but to obediently keep both feet on the ground. If something deadly resided on Yueqi Peak, there was no way this pair of legs could get him very far.

Forget it, he consoled himself: A proper immortal sect would never use disciples as a “blood sacrifice”…right?

Moreover, Fu Yuanzhi also couldn’t help wondering: What sort of mysterious mission would need him, a lower sect disciple, to do it? Though it definitely wasn’t anything good; if it was, with so many people in Class One—a good number of which were treated basically the same as the inner sect disciples—there wouldn’t be any point in turning to a guy like him, who was about to drop into Class Ten any day now.

With a sigh, he forced himself to stop thinking about big bloody mouths and continue trekking onward.

The restrictions began far below Yueqi Peak, but with the token on hand, Fu Yuanzhi didn’t feel anything peculiar; by the time he remembered Yueqi Peak even had a barrier, he’d already passed through the invisible grand mountain-locking array.

There was a very big difference between what the scenery looked like, and how it had looked in his imagination. Yueqi Peak was rife with natural beauty, with lush vegetation and murmuring streams full of particularly brightly-colored carp; this was far from the mountains of corpses and seas of blood described in the rumors. Sometimes he’d find a dull-witted rabbit or squirrel by his feet, rolling past like fuzzy balls of fur. None of them knew to hide upon seeing Fu Yuanzhi, and all of them, even the occasional big-headed goose which emerged from the bushes, was spherically fat without exception.

How…even that sparrow over there is round…

Fu Yuanzhi walked up the mountain in a daze. The farther he ascended, the more he could feel the suppressive force of the grand mountain-locking array obstructing the spiritual power in his body; not only was he unable to fly, but now it even felt as if each breath he took made his chest hurt. This grand mountain-locking array was a specialty of Yunmeng Sky Palace: the greater your spiritual power and cultivation, the stronger the suppression you were subjected to. Fu Yuanzhi had heard a passing mention of it from the professor in his array formation class, but while arrays like this were formidable, they were useless in actual combat; as such, it wasn’t a part of their outer disciple elementary-level curriculum, as forming arrays was complicated, time-consuming, and useful only for locking people away.

So…was there some thousand-year-old monster locked up here on Yueqi Peak? The kind that ate tender young disciples?

Not good, he’d been influenced by all of Yue Henxing’s mutterings—the image of him struggling fruitlessly as he slid down some creature’s throat and into its stomach appeared once more in his mind.

He rubbed his arms to ward off a full-body chill, feeling as if something were peeking at him from some unknown corner.

Fu Yuanzhi cautiously made his way around a bend by a mountain stream; he’d been walking for most of the day by now, and was so tired that he needed to lean against the cliff to catch his breath. He’d come far enough that he could now see the characters Yueqi carved vigorously into a boulder just ahead, but before he could breathe a sigh of relief, his body tensed even more nervously than before—the ground right beside the Yueqi characters was covered in a mess of scattered rocks, the largest of them barely the size of his palm, and the smallest so miniscule that they’d probably already blown away on the wind.

This area was originally bare rock, so the lines of messy scratches were clearly visible, carved with such force that they seemed close to penetrating straight through the mountain; they looked neither like the claw marks of beasts, nor like scratches made by sharp weapons.

…They were more like…like an explosion of unstable spiritual power?

Don’t tell me there really is something dangerous in the forbidden ground! The thought made Fu Yuanzhi go weak at the knees. His cultivation was only so-so to begin with, and within the grand mountain-locking array he couldn’t so much as squeeze out a spark of fire; all he could do was pray.

It was here that Fu Yuanzhi remembered the cloth pouch he’d received the day before. He hurriedly opened it up to find a rolled-up piece of thin paper, upon which was written:

“Have the person atop the peak fill this spirit stone with spiritual power.”

The person atop the peak?

Fu Yuanzhi took out the dusty gray spirit stone. The note in his hand dissolved into dark smoke after he finished reading it. Feeling a tightness in his throat, he took a moment to try to quash his nerves.

Yueqi Peak’s forbidden ground…had someone imprisoned in it? So then, was the mess here the work of that mysterious person?

But how come he’d never heard of Yunmeng Sky Palace having any bigshot demonic cultivators locked up on its grounds? The whereabouts of all those well known enough to be unavoidable names in exams were all perfectly well-documented, plus the yao clans were living in relative harmony with the Daoists these days. The likelihood of it being some yao clan saint wasn’t particularly high, either…whichever way he looked at them, the marks on this cliff face were really dangerous—whoever did it was definitely no benign old man.

The pounding of his heart was now the same deafening volume as when Yue Henxing kicked the bed in the middle of the night.

There was nothing more terrifying than the unknown; in that short stretch of mountain path, Fu Yuanzhi had already imagined a million different possibilities, with his fate being a tragic one in every single one of them. A fresh Fu Yuanzhi was delivering himself right to his killer’s door, with no idea what exactly was locked away in the forbidden ground, or what method it would use to ruthlessly slaughter him.

Climbing the mountain one step at a time, Fu Yuanzhi felt like his back was stuck full of needles and getting hit with gusts of cold wind. Looking again at the chubby animals by the side of the path, he couldn’t help wondering, were they food reserves being raised by whatever vicious beast or demonic cultivator was living on the peak? And how was he, who was now no different from an average mortal, supposed to make him obediently charge up the spirit stone?

…If it weren’t for the fact he had some tricks up his sleeve that young disciples from Chuxin Palace shouldn’t be able to use…

Hit with the acute sensation that something was wrong, Fu Yuanzhi’s entire body stiffened, feeling as if the whole way here…someone had been watching him. This feeling had been getting increasingly stronger as well, to the point that he could even sense the heat of someone’s gaze focused on the back of his neck.

He cautiously turned to look behind him, almost able to hear the audible creak of his neck as he did so.

And then…and then the person who’d been peeking at him this whole time could no longer hold back the soft laugh that emitted from his lips.

“Ah—” Fu Yuanzhi let out a tiny scream before immediately covering his mouth with both hands, his eyes comically wide.

Good heavens…

—If this is the monster in the forbidden ground, then getting eaten will totally have been worth it!

Fu Yuanzhi abruptly shook his head in an attempt to rid it of the strange thoughts that had suddenly filled it in that instant, only to hear another laugh.

It was as if…someone were poking his heart with a feather. Fu Yuanzhi stood frozen to the spot, feeling the temperature of his face steadily rising…it was just, this person…was so attractive it should be illegal! Or did all demonic cultivators know a thing or two about bewitching people?

Yeah that’s right, I heard that demonic cultivators have to do a little seduction first before eating people’s souls, in order to really enjoy their flavor!

What Fu Yuanzhi saw was that someone had appeared on one of the trees behind him—a young man, probably a few years older than him, with green clothes and jet-black hair. His appearance was just like the verdant, solitary peak they were on, but the smile yet to fade from his lips transformed him into a spring breeze at dusk, awe-inspiring yet not chilling; he leaned back against the tree branch, looking down at Fu Yuanzhi with a smiling expression half-hidden behind a hanging curtain of black hair. Seeing his somewhat embarrassed figure reflected in those glimmering eyes, Fu Yuanzhi awkwardly turned his gaze away, only to inadvertently catch sight of the young man’s casually hanging, pale-skinned toes, and consequently became even more at a loss for words than before.

“I…you…ah…” Fu Yuanzhi gaped, then immediately wanted to give himself a couple hard slaps—why was he suddenly stuttering all of a sudden?

So it was that for some inexplicable reason, Fu Yuanzhi held out both of his arms and stupidly asked, “Do you want to eat these?”

Agh!

“Hm?” The young man tilted his head slightly, eyes filled with astonishment.

Fu Yuanzhi’s face instantly turned a dazzlingly brilliant shade of red.

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Though the system may have dumped a bucket of cold water over Gong Zhu's plans, it was a perfectly reasonable soaking—how could he start fascinating about disciples when he hadn't even figured out who he was yet?

Who am I?

—This was an absolute philosophical problem, the ultimate question of human existence. Gong Zhu was also more-or-less certain by now that he hadn't had the good fortune to transmigrate into a novel or game with a plot he could follow, which meant that there likely wasn't any protagonist halo-wreathed godmode disciple out there waiting for him.

If he wanted a disciple, he could rely only on himself to get one!

Gong Zhu stood observing on the cliffside for a long time, just to be on the safe side. The wind occasionally dispersed the sun-pinked clouds, making visible an unbroken mountain range and the long river winding around it. This magnificently beautiful natural scenery lost out, however, in comparison to the dazzling sight of the various buildings dotting the mountain range; these buildings couldn’t be described with such simple words as “gorgeous” or “spectacular”, because these words in Gong Zhu’s vocabulary were used to describe man-made buildings, whereas the view currently before him truly made him realize—

This realm was no longer the human realm. The danmaku comments flying through Gong Zhu’s mind consisted entirely of two words: Mount Shu*.

Countless figures shuttled back and forth, some soaring through the air while others—just like Gong Zhu had seen in video games and movies back in his previous world—stood on swords or mystic tools he couldn’t currently put a name to. The majority of them, however, were the kind mentioned earlier: jumping happily about amidst the clouds and buildings and mountains. Most of these leaping figures were wearing relatively simple and uniform outfits, running across clouds and the like, and would bow politely to those who were flying as well.

Therefore, those who were leaping had lower ability than those who were flying, most likely making them low-level students.

The clouds gathered and dispersed, following which Gong Zhu saw an even more jaw-dropping sight: water pavilions could float not just on water but in the air as well, with an endless string of gauze curtains stretched between them, from one end to the other, which people could actually walk on; corridors floated in the air as well, without any pillars to support them, and could be moved, like railroad tracks, to the left or right at will.

The cloud layer opened further to reveal little boats leaving ripples as they sailed dexterously across the sea of clouds, with graceful-looking spirit birds flying in rows behind them, looking happy as could be.

"Oh my god," Gong Zhu couldn't help mumbling to himself, "I'm definitely not on Earth anymore."

A bell rang, and as Gong Zhu watched those distant disciples start running around, he got the vague feeling that this place wasn't quite the same as proper cultivation sects—these cultivators weren't each forging their own paths alone on mountaintops, but instead were more like...an Eastern version of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or a high fantasy-style Chinese Daoist academy, because those disciples were clearly giving the impression of kids heading to class with books in their arms.

Looking further outwards, he could catch a vague glimpse of a magnificent mountain gate so large it seemed almost to touch the sky. While he couldn't quite make out what was written on it due to the cloud cover, each sharp stroke of those characters was so intense it felt as if they could penetrate straight through the rock. Gong Zhu stopped looking at it, and the oppressive feeling it had given him quickly disappeared. Watching those disciples hop around was more fun anyway.

"Oh, someone fell over there."

The hopping disciples were all hopping in one direction, when suddenly, he watched as one of them was squeezed out of the cloud layer, falling straight down towards the mountain river.

—Upon closer inspection, Gong Zhu saw that it was quite a handsome young boy as well; it made sense for his expression to distort upon getting thrown from such a height, but even that distortion seemed to have barely any effect on the attractiveness of his features. One could deduce from this that, under normal circumstances, he must be even more good-looking. Gong Zhu allowed himself to be shallow for a rare moment, and couldn't help worrying whether he might fall to his death—

Obviously he wouldn't. This wasn't materialist Earth, after all.

After passing through the cloud layer, that young disciple pulled a willow branch from who knows where, did a beautiful flip in mid-air, then started to fly...the willow branch?

Gong Zhu was still marveling over the thought that you could use a random tree branch to make up for a lack of flying sword when he saw the willow branch explode with a snap, following which the disciple fell backwards once again. Gong Zhu noticed that this time he didn't have anything nearby to grab hold of or any more willow branches to break, instead able only to flail wildly at a large cloud and get himself wet all over. There were a few small boats passing by not far from him—just as Gong Zhu was thinking this, one of the boats just happened to pass beneath that disciple, catching him. It seemed this large sect had been thorough in its planning, and any security measures Gong Zhu could think of were already put in place.

Gong Zhu breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the small boat glide away.

After watching for a good while without any more good-looking young disciples falling from the clouds, Gong Zhu reined in his wildly running mind and came to a conclusion—

This sect isn't just big, it's so huge you practically can't see where it ends!

It might even be the first immortal sect in history, or something! Hm...now that I think about it, what is my sect called... Gong Zhu poked the guilt-ridden system, which kept playing dead in response.

"You don't know this either?" Gong Zhu said, stunned, "You systems definitely aren't taking certification tests before taking up your posts!”

The hustle and bustle going on in the distance continued for quite a long while, yet not a single person, not even a spirit beast, flew towards the high-up peak which Gong Zhu was on. Which made him all the more certain—

"System, do you think I might be this big sect's founding father or something big like that, who's currently living in seclusion, and that's why the younger generations are avoiding me?" If that was the case, Gong Zhu thought to himself, then fooling people into thinking he was the real deal and not some body-snatcher would be an easy task, because nobody had the guts to stare at him that closely in the first place.

[...] The system chose to stay silent on this subject.

That family of squirrels was passing by the spaced-out Gong Zhu for a fourth time when one of them hesitated, its little nose twitching incessantly and its tail sweeping back and forth so much that it left a sweeping mark on the ground; eventually, it carefully placed the most fully-fruited pinecone it had down by Gong Zhu's feet. The moment he looked down, however, the little guy made a break for it and quickly disappeared from sight.

So basically, I've picked up a bunch of furry little fans first before anything else?

Gong Zhu shook his head, a bemused smile on his face as he picked up the pinecone. He found that he could sense the little squirrel's peeking gaze from where it was hiding in a pine tree, and couldn't resist marveling once again at how amazing his cultivation must be, after which he gave a slight nod of the head in the squirrel's direction: "Thank you, I'll be taking this then."

The squirrel couldn't understand him either way, but there wasn't anyone else he could chat with on this mountain, and keeping it all bottled up in silence could hurt his mental health. According to the tropes, chatting with his system definitely wouldn't be a wise option either; systems and transmigrators could only cause mutual harm to each other.

The system conveniently chose this moment to come out and hurt him: [This might be a presumptuous question to ask, Host, but is your name...really just Gong Zhu?]

Gong Zhu helplessly replied: "...I didn't exactly have a choice in the matter, there."

System: [Friendly reminder: Even if you cannot remember your current name, please do not use one like "Gong Zhu". In this world, "Gong" is not a surname that has ever existed in all of history. Host is asked to please tread with caution.]

Gong Zhu: "..."

—He'd been hit by culture shock from another world!

Could this get any worse? Being named Gong Zhu was tragic enough already: when his Honored Mother was pregnant, she saw that her idol's son was named Wu Suowei (which sounded like "whatever" in Chinese), and deeply felt that this naming sense was beyond cool. The fact he happened to have the surname Gong was truly a blessing, and so she'd named him Gong Zhu (which was literally "palace master"); the problem here was that, while "whatever" was a grand-sounding name, the Chinese for "palace master" sounded exactly like "princess", which...elicited feelings that were hard to describe. And just his luck, now he couldn't even mention this surname at all? You'd better have the ability to tell me the original's name then, System!

The system maintained its silence.

Sighing again, Gong Zhu offhandedly replied, "Alright, I get it. Getting transmigrated is already bad enough as it is, so adding to the bad news doesn't make too much of a difference anyway.”

But...there was no surname Gong? Gong Zhu couldn't help but frown—although Gong wasn't as stupidly common as names like Zhang, Wang, Li, or Zhao, it was still listed in the Hundred Family Surnames, and it wasn't exactly weird in any way...

After some pondering, Gong Zhu decided to head back to—no, to look for the original's residence, and see if he could find any clues about his identity. Currently there wasn't a single living creature on this mountain aside from birds and squirrels, but if a junior did show up then he couldn't go failing to even communicate—

"Ah!" Gong Zhu let out a tiny exclamation of surprise—because he found that he was no longer on the mountaintop, but standing within a water pavilion instead.

Still in shock, Gong Zhu looked down to see that he was still wearing the same clothes as before, so it definitely wasn't a second transmigration. Which meant this was...the Thousand-Li Steps!

...A-A-Am I really this powerful? Oh that's right, according to how things go in all the novels and movies, masters living in seclusion at the feet of mountains are all white-bearded old men who failed to achieve perfect cultivation in their youth and are desperately in need of successors now that they're old, and masters secluding themselves mid-mountain or in caves are skeletons lying in corners with a rare mystic book in their arms. So the one I've transmigrated into, who's secluded on the mountain's peak, is the real McCoy!

What did I unconsciously use just now though, the distance-folding technique?

[Host, your cultivation is already at the wind-flying level, of course you can manage the Thousand-Li Steps. This is perfectly understandable. Don't almost all the online games you've played have an ability like Teleport or Quickstep? You have a high cultivation level, so naturally you can move as you please without needing to wait for any ability cooldowns.] The system spoke with the same tone as if it were selling him Napa cabbages at the low, low price of 50 cents a pound.

Gong Zhu quietly sucked in a breath—No no, it's not as I please at all! I can't go flying around at random, what if two young disciples are in the middle of doing something that can't be seen in public when I suddenly drop in on them out of nowhere...

Another problem popped into his head immediately following this, and Gong Zhu couldn't stop himself from asking, "Wait, what level...did you say I was?"

The system was silent for a moment before, rather than explaining the term, replied with: [Host, please forget the novels you've read before, their settings are different. You're definitely going to need to take your time with studying.]

"...You actually know what a setting is?"

[I learned this vocabulary from scanning your memories, after all...]

That inexplicably bad feeling Gong Zhu had grew stronger thanks to this answer, and he casually placed the fast-asleep bird on a small table before looking around the room. The water pavilion was modestly sized, located by the shore of a peaceful lake (you couldn't call it a water pavilion if it wasn't) and, far from being an enclosed space, had two sides covered with hanging gauze curtains instead of walls. On the other, uncurtained end of the building, a bamboo bed and bookshelf were placed against the walls.

Just as he'd thought, the problem was more serious than initially assumed.

—Gong Zhu's vision faded in and out as he faced that bookshelf, taking a long while to recover before immediately bringing up a question in his mind: "Why...can't I read these words!?"

There's no way the original was illiterate, is there?

Hehe, nobody'd believe that.

There's no way that's possible! Who could ever believe that a master cultivator secluded from society was a total illiterate who couldn't even recognize traditional numbers?

And so a despairing Gong Zhu immediately thought of an answer, though he still cautiously asked, "The common language of this world...isn't Chinese, is it?"

The system didn't answer this question, but Gong Zhu could clearly feel the ridicule it emanated...The entire universe speaking Chinese? In your dreams!

Sure enough, novels were all just art, and though art originated from life, it absolutely wasn't above life. All those plots where people transmigrated to find themselves in bed surrounded by concerned NPCs who automatically began explaining their character's setting and backstory to them, started with the original's memories and knowledge pre-installed, remembered all their martial arts abilities without issue, and could even pull out the poetry of the ancients to fool people in their free time, it was all! Just! Lies!

Transmigration's a risky business, you're better off just living properly in your own world.

The final straw fell, crushing Gong Zhu to death—he couldn't help pressing his forehead against that pile of moon runes, feeling in that moment the impossibly great malice of the world! His current situation was that he didn't know why he'd suddenly come to another world and, to make matters worse: It was a world he knew nothing about, where his own identity was a mystery to him, and flipping through books for clues was useless because he couldn't even read the language!

So even if he did come across a native, there'd probably be a language barrier preventing communication! It wouldn't make sense for the words to be different but still pronounced the same!

"System, how come you can speak Chinese?" And not just Chinese, either; Gong Zhu still remembered the tone with which this damn system had showed off its English to him.

[By accessing the memories in Host's primordial soul...]

Enough, I gotta effin' get this off my chest! So you're the kind of system that learns a new thing and immediately uses it like a pro, huh? How come only systems are allowed to access their hosts' memories, can't we turn things around and let the host read the system's save file for once? Gong Zhu leaned weakly against the bookshelf as he knocked on the system: "You can at least...teach me the local language...right?"

If it couldn’t satisfy even this request, Gong Zhu was absolutely breaking up with this useless decoration.

[...Okay…that’s doable.] The system probably felt a little guilty as well.

#Having to learn a foreign language even after transmigrating is definitely not what I signed up for!#

Fortunately, after calming down enough to take a closer look at those books, Gong Zhu noticed that most of them were paper, and many of the handwritten ones all shared the same handwriting. He could therefore more or less deduce: These books were written by his previous "self".

Also, though he didn't recognize the characters, they did give him a vague sense of familiarity—not because the original's memories had begun to awaken in his mind, but because those characters looked a lot like Chinese, square and straight-lined. Judging by the sentence structure, if he started studying it, the grammar and vocabulary shouldn't be all that difficult either; it wouldn't be impossibly tough gibberish like the elvish you'd find in famous fantasy work Lord of the Rings, at least.

Sighing, he took a moment to console himself with the thought that at least it was a xianxia world he'd transmigrated into and not some interstellar future era, which would've definitely put him in deep shit—if he'd transmigrated into an interstellar era and accidentally kicked up a fuss over a smart toilet which had always been able to talk, he'd have been exposed on the spot and sent to a research facility. And that was putting aside his current illiteracy, too...plus the best thing about ancient times was the lack of internet, making it easier for transmigrators to avoid detection. Of course, the worst thing about it was also the lack of internet.

Otherwise he might have been able to go on Baidu real quick to ask—What should you do when you travel to a strange world and discover there's a language barrier?

Then he could follow this up with a Weibo post—#There's no transmigrator in history more miserable than me!#

Gong Zhu lamented to himself as he sat at the table, preparing to start his language class. After all this thinking, that little disciple whose whereabouts were still unknown was probably the only thing left that could soothe his soul... Ai, I can't wait to meet that wolf cub disciple who turns to the dark side in all the transmigration tropes. For the sake of taking in a disciple, I've gotta pull out that motivation I had when preparing for college entrance exams and start learning this foreign language! Besides, this was a free transmigration with no plot or system quests to follow., which meant that if he were to take in a disciple then it wouldn't go the way it always did in the tropes, with their required bit of surface-level suffering. So he'd definitely start treating his disciple well right away, and spoil him like nobody's business!

Although, looking at everything the god of transmigration had set up for him...they better not cut his wolf cub disciple out of the equation, or he was going to riot.

He could handle any difficulty they threw his way, as long as he got that disciple he'd been promised!

[Host...just another reminder, could you please get your bearings on your own situation before thinking about disciples...]

Gong Zhu flatly replied: "System, do you have a block function?" The system obediently turned on silent mode.

Speaking of which, I really should get to seeing what I look like; I better not be too ugly, or my darling disciple might not want me.

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Chapter 001 – Not Your Typical Transmigration

Chapter 002 – Host, I am your system, let us bring mutual harm to each other!

Chapter 003 – Where rumors come from.

Chapter 004 – Are you going to eat me?

Chapter 005 – How to earn affection points with your future disciple.

Chapter 006 – System: As long as Host is happy.