by M. Q. Kajack
“Fuck! The number one existence couldn’t resist it. But then why can’t we join the Central Country’s sects?”
Li Qi waved his hand. On his palm, a token was sent flying to my direction. A token? Li Qi seemed to have understood my thoughts.
“Watch it carefully.”
I inspected it with my soul. After a few seconds having it in my hand, I could feel it; it was the same feeling I had when I touched the Holy Crystal.
“A token made from Holy Crystal?”
This continent was getting weirder...
“It’s not clear what it’s made of, but it is like the Holy Crystal. The heads of the sects have a special token that can create more tokens. The process to become a disciple is to refine one of these tokens. This is a token from the Light Sect. If someone from my sect gave you an unrefined token, you could refine them and become a fellow disciple. Although, if the unrefined token is from a sect in another country, the token will detect you are from another country and it will break. This rule applies to the North, West, South, and East countries. If you go to the Central Country, a place where there are more resources, you can join a sect there even if you have already joined a sect in your country. This way, you can get more resources for being in a richer country, but still belong to your country’s sect. Also, the Central Country has more level of control over the other four countries...” Li Qi continued to explain.
This was too much information to digest, as if everything was set up by someone this way. The Holy Crystal was controlling everything... why did seem so familiar?
“Then, since it’s like this, many people will go to the Central Country. Though, if you belong to another country’s sect and you joined them, it would still put you in a difficult spot,” I said, scratching my head and thinking hard.
“Exactly. This way, you would try to prevent those people with thoughts against the actual system and the Central Country. It’s a win-win situation for them since they have the resources that other people lack.”
“Who controls the Holy Crystal, then?” This was too much information for my brain. It was lucky I had the System, otherwise, my head would have exploded.
“No idea. No one knows. The Holy Crystal has been here since the start of the Seeking Continent, or at least, that is the information that has been passed on for centuries. Actually, the Ancient Ruins is also related to them. Once you exit, the Holy Crystal token will show you your progress on the Ancient Ruins floor. So if you exit right now, the Holy Crystal will show you something like 80% completion or something like that...”
“I’m confused. This kind of information about being a citizen or the Ancient Ruins didn’t show when I touched the Holy Crystal...” I said while remembering the time I touched it.
“That’s because you touched it without another thought. Surely, the one who made you touch it only told you about the talent, so your thoughts were only focused on testing your talent. If you touch it now while thinking about yourself, it will reveal everything about you,” Li Qi explained carefully with a wide smile on his face.
This guy... he is doing it on purpose. I treated them like fools before and now he’s throwing all the knowledge to make me look like a fool.
I coughed. “Is there something else I need to know about the Holy Crystal?”
“There are many things. You can just check it out when you are back in the city since it will take too much time to explain the other stuff. You need to know that everybody can see your information the moment you get registered—well, just the common information. Touch the Holy Crystal and think about the person you need; the information will pop out. If you belong to a sect, you can just use your token.”
“What if I use your token?”
“It won’t work, as it’s for my use, not yours. Besides, if you do so, you will get struck by a lightning bolt as a warning,” Li Qi said with a serious face.
“You kidding me? Struck by a lightning bolt? Just for trying to use it?”
I gulped.
I had Li Qi’s token in my hand. Luckily, I didn’t try to use it. I threw Li Qi’s token back to him. I was strong but not strong enough to withstand a lightning bolt.
“Now that you know more about how the sects work, are you still unwilling to join the Light Sect? Are you going to head to the Central Country?”
“I have some stuff going on with the Dark Wood Sect. I will try joining them,” I said with an evil smile on my face.
Li Qi was taken aback. He turned around to conceal his reaction, but I already saw his stunned face.
“Some sects are not suited for this country,” I said, laughing.
“It seems a great man has greater goals. I was too short-sighted.”
Li Qi was laughing until he reached another wall.
“I accept the test,” he said with confidence.
Yet another one was gone; only You Ye was left. In my previous life, I wasn’t good at interacting with females. I couldn’t understand what You Ye was thinking, as she donned a radiant smile on her face. Ever since these youths calmed down and walked their chosen paths, she just watched the events unfold. For some reason, I had a bad feeling.
You Ye exhaled, arranged a little bit her robes, untied her gold hair, and left it resting on her shoulders. She puffed out her chest and started to walk toward me. I was starting to get nervous even though Shu Yi and Shu Er had more impressive and imposing physiques than her. Granted, the twins were mine. They were under my Death Soul Seal so I could restrain or control them, but it was not the case for the girl in front of me... She was getting closer to me. I tried to open my mouth several times, but I could not utter a single word.
Shit, what’s wrong with me? It’s just a girl. Where is the man who just exterminated more than eight hundred lives as though he was just stepping on ants?!
Before I knew it, my back was already against a wall, and You Ye was embracing me. Her bosom was pressing against me—the feeling was nice—and her head with her long golden hair was resting on my chest.
“Brother Ye, you know, I never knew my dad. The cultivation world is really hard and rough. Love barely existed; it is only for those with power. Only they can pursue it. There are many adversities. Cultivation levels, for example, ensure varying lifespans. What will you do, then? Just wait for your lover to die of old age? Or will you waste your life away in search of an item that can make your love grow to the same cultivation as you? There are many possibilities that can happen. So many people end up renouncing love and love only the benefits they can get. My mother is a talented and stunning woman. Many people pursued her when she was younger, yet they all got rejected One day, my mother was beaten by a ‘savage’ who she met in the woods. That was my father. My mother was pampered into arrogance… until she met him. Later on, she found out who this young man was. He was an extremely talented young man; a genius who only appeared once in a millennium. He could easily defeat people stronger than him. The youth’s image was burned in my mother’s mind; she had fallen for him and she pursued him. She succeeded in the end, otherwise, I wouldn’t have been born. They journeyed together. Many things happened between them and my mother became pregnant.
“Then an incident happened and pushed my mother to make a decision. A powerful young master from the Central Country took a liking to her, something my father couldn’t tolerate. My father had many talents as well as faults; he was a very temperamental man. He annihilated that young master and got himself hunted down by the whole continent. That’s how powerful the young master’s background was. As much as my mother believed in her lover, she couldn’t convince herself. She couldn’t trust the words of her lover claiming that they would be okay, that nothing would happen to her or their child. How could a single man stand against the whole continent? Who would believe it? My mother, who was pregnant with me, ran away for my sake. She wanted her unborn child to live, for me to be born without being hunted down or having to hide and run everywhere.”
You Ye looked straight
into my eyes.
“I don’t blame my mother. She raised me and always did the best for me, but she said it herself. She regretted her choice over and over again, and if she could undo her decision, she would. My father was never killed in the end, and no one ever found him. Brother Ye, I want you to know I don’t care if you are like my father; I don’t care if you stand against the whole continent. I have fallen in love with you. I will not walk the same steps my mother did. I will pursue you! You will become my man!”
I was left speechless by You Ye’s story, much more when I heard her confession. I couldn’t think straight.
You Ye’s lips pressed against mine. They were mellow. I was intoxicated...
“I accept the test,” You Ye said, touching the wall behind me with a big smile.
That was my first kiss in both lives...
Ding!
P...
Eh?
“System, what’s wrong? Are you done with the analysis from before?”
Yes!
“Why didn’t you say anything, then?”
The System was acting strange.
The System was analyzing ways to upgrade itself.
“You found a way?” If the System found a way to upgrade, that would be awesome. I could have new functions or new skills. So far, nothing out of the ordinary worked to get a skill, and I also rarely got a quest. The system in the novels I had read, even the one in RPGs I played, had more functions than this system of mine.
Analysis ongoing.
Since the System was clearly busy, I decided to advance in the test just in case there was some kind of timer inside the room, not that it helped much besides the usual kill reward stuff.
I sighed. The one who made this room was truly... I looked at the ceiling painted in some weird colours like they were all carelessly thrown together. Really ugly.
The ceiling was too high to reach, and although Qi Refining cultivators couldn’t fly and their Qi was not enough to support prolonged flights, using it for something like getting to a high place or moving to the top of a mountain was very useful. Manipulating the Qi inside me, I did a series of air steps to reach the ceiling. It was my first time but, surprisingly, I didn’t face any problems.
Ding!
Learned Passive Skill Fly Lv1/100 (0/10000)
Fly: Increase movement speed by 1% while in the air.
Every part of my soul focused on the notification that just appeared in my mind. If it hadn’t been for my second soul which stabilized my body, I would have crashed into the floor. Did I get it just like that? Could it be that I could only learn a defined set of skills?
Death God System upgraded from 1.0 to 1.1
The System got upgraded! What changed? This was great news!
“System, you found a way to be upgraded?”
Replying to the host—the token from the sects can help the System upgrade itself. The technology can increase the knowledge inside the system database. Recommending the host to get his hands on a higher-ranked token.
“That will be easy. I just need to kill a disciple to get my hands on them.”
Once the user dies, the token gets destroyed.
“Then, I just need to take it by force!”
The token has a spatial function. The user can retrieve and retract the token at any time.
“Fuck! Since when you have become so smart and knowledgeable? Then, I will kidnap the opposite party to maintain his life, and take his token to analyze it.”
The token can be destroyed by the user with a thought.
The token—
“Enough! I will figure out a way to get my hands on a higher-ranked token!”
There was one thing bothering me: why would the System upgrade with a token? Did it have something to do with the materials it was made of? Li Qi explained that the Sect Leader had a special token that could create tokens for their disciple. This should be what the System was referring to as ‘a higher-ranked token’.
Hold on! Technology? This world didn’t have technology at all. Clothes were handmade, weapons were forged by a blacksmith, and everything else was like in Europe’s Middle Ages. Thanks to Qi and arrays, they could make things for their uses: communicating with tokens, teleporting arrays, and other things. There was the fact that thanks to Qi, they were more advanced than the technology from my other life, but it remained that the ‘technology’ concept didn’t exist here. Then...
“System, what is the token from the Light Sect made of?”
Unknown.
That wasn’t the right question. Think… got it!
“Is it made from an array? Explain what you know.”
No, the core of the token is made from a type of crystal. The composition and materials are unknown to the System, although similar to the Holy Crystal. There is also a mass of energy inside the crystal operating with circuits all around the token. Thanks to the design, order, and composition, the System found a way to upgrade itself after analyzing and comparing it with the System Core.
So, it’s indeed technology. No wonder they couldn’t understand the tokens, they didn’t have any basis of the technology on this world. It was an ancient era, after all. Still, the technology was enough to make the System gain insights.
I kept pondering on this issue and I was starting to understand some stuff. I was stupid, but there were obvious things. The System I had was damaged—it was not complete. That was why it could gain advantages from other technology. This didn’t mean that the System was less advanced, it was just not at its peak. Thinking about this made me remember the database. If the database was gone, it would be impossible for the System to know about itself. The only down side of this was that I couldn’t fill the information needed to upgrade the System in this world. At most, I could make it evolve by itself by analyzing other technology stuff. The Holy Crystals and the tokens were the key.
“System, can’t you analyze the Holy Crystal? It should be similar since the token might be also related to it.”
The System’s analyzing level is too low. It would take a dozen years to analyze the Holy Crystal as it’s too complex. There also is a protection device on the Holy Crystal that can destroy the System.
What?! This is the first time I heard a system could be destroyed.
The System can indeed be destroyed as it is fused with your soul.
Great! Things were taking a bad turn. I thought I had an omnipotent system, but I just realized that it could be destroyed on top of the fact that it was damaged... Wouldn’t that mean I would also cease to exist if the System got destroyed?
Yes.
The Death Core was still unknown to me and now the System was making things harder.
Shaking my head and leaving behind the thoughts about those two things that were not under my control, I pressed my hand against the ceiling.
“I accept the test.”
A multicoloured light engulfed me and I got teleported.
I massaged my head with my hands, trying to clear away the dizziness. This teleportation was too much.
After a few minutes, I could see myself surrounded by mirrors—hundreds of them. I used my soul to cover every direction, but there wasn’t anything except mirrors.
What the hell is going on?
I was expecting some ancient voice or something to explain what I must do to pass the test. I waited for a few minutes, but nothing happened. This was getting on my nerves. What kind of test was that? On top of that, the mirrors were not actual mirrors. There was no reflection at all.
Back at the Imperial City, many youths were celebrating while some of them were crying. For those who were crying, there was no second chance. They had utterly failed the Sect Trials. Their only hope would be breaking through to the Qi Refining stage, but for most of them, that would require getting their hands on Spiritual Stones which were scarce for poor and medium families. Even some rich families would have trouble getting their hands on them. Those celebrating were, of course, the youths who managed to s
ucceed. They were now proud members of their sects.
The ones in charge of the trials this time were core members of the country’s sects. They were young men and women who had reached the Nascent Soul cultivation stage. Even though some big clans in the Imperial City had stronger Nascent Soul cultivators than the ones the sects sent, they had to give them face and they treated them with the utmost care. After all, they couldn’t fight a single sect even if they joined hands with other clans. Even the King wouldn’t dare to stand against a sect.
This time, there was another event going on nearby. Usually, sects would run their inner and core tests when the Ancient Ruins’ portals to different levels appeared. The portals never spawned at the same time or in the same place. The sects would always have men trying to find out where they would appear as the Ancient Ruins gave benefits to those participating—of course, only if they lived through it.
A coincidence happened this time and the portal to the Ancient Ruins’ first level spawned in the Imperial City. It was also close to the time when the Sect Trials started to gather talented youths.
Roughly an hour later, all the youths waiting outside had calmed down. This was an important and crucial step in their lives; they got to see their seniors and interact with them after they exited the Ancient Ruins. The youths had solemn faces. They just joined their respective sects and they were already under such pressure—they couldn’t let their sect lose face.
At the city gates, a vast portal could be seen. It was big enough to be seen from a hundred li away. Those looking into it would feel dizzy. They couldn’t imagine what kind of existence created such a big portal. Among the youths, there was a young girl whose figure stood out. Her beauty was something that couldn’t be explained.