Chapter 1: The Sect's Little Assistant
Lu Qing patted the last handful of earth onto the old man's grave, then wiped his face haphazardly with his worn, tattered sleeve. Afterward, he reached into his chest and pulled out a jade token of pure, vivid green, tossing it in front of the headstone.
Before the old man breathed his last, he had told Lu Qing to sell the jade token and convert it into gold and silver.
The money certainly wouldn't cure Lu Qing's severed spirit veins, but spent on tonics and medicinal herbs, it could keep him alive until fifty or sixty without any trouble at all.
Whatever was left over would be more than enough to keep him comfortable for the rest of his life — he might even afford a wife or two.
But whatever he did, he must never, ever return to the mountains and wait to die in this wretched Cangxia Sect.
There was no hope left.
The old man had guarded this ancestral legacy his entire life, and in the end, he had only reached the sixth layer of the Qi Refining Realm.
Demons and monsters ravaged the northern frontier, foreign tribes invaded from the west, natural disasters and strange phenomena appeared with increasing frequency. Immortal cultivation sects were either destroyed or fled. Across the vast Chaoyun Prefecture, only the Cangxia Sect remained — a single surviving seedling.
And after the old man's death, Lu Qing was the last person in the sect.
Eighteen years of bitter cultivation, yet his realm had only just reached the Qi Refining Realm.
His constitution of severed spirit veins meant that continuing to cultivate was nothing but drawing water with a bamboo basket, a monkey grasping at the moon's reflection. Worse still, the higher his cultivation climbed, the shorter his lifespan would become.
When he first transmigrated, Lu Qing had believed he was about to live a grand and sweeping life — but one cruel reality after another had mercilessly snuffed out the fire in his heart.
"Pointless. It's all truly pointless."
Lu Qing stared at the jade token in front of the old man's grave and reflected on his two lifetimes.
In his first life, he had followed the expected path — born, grew up, studied, worked — only to drop dead at his office desk.
In his second life, he had arrived at this kind of ending.
Lu Qing had no intention of following the old man's instructions.
He wanted to return to the Cangxia Sect, resume his old routine — contemplating the Dao, practicing his sword — and then, at some point, have his severed veins flare up and die as a cultivator.
Because Lu Qing felt that dying that way suited his identity as a Transmigrator, and it would be cool.
He could leave behind a few pages of a farewell letter — complain a little, lament a little.
Maybe he'd even get a chance to show off a bit in front of whoever came after him.
Just like a certain predecessor with the surname Huang.
"Old man, I'm leaving."
Lu Qing glanced at the headstone, turned around, and walked away.
But at that very moment, the grave behind him suddenly erupted with a dazzling azure light!
Lu Qing spun around and saw the jade token he had tossed aside in front of the old man's headstone — it was glowing like a cyan sun, bouncing up from the ground and slamming straight into his face.
A sharp pain like being smacked in the face with a brick shot through him, and Lu Qing collapsed with a cry.
Ding!
[The Sect's Little Assistant has loaded successfully!]
[Scan complete. Cangxia Sect location confirmed.]
"Sect Master Lu, begin your journey to build the number one sect in the Nine Provinces!"
Lu Qing felt as though he had been tossed inside a tumble dryer, spinning until he was completely dizzy — and on top of that, a voice kept buzzing incessantly in his ear.
"Sect Master Lu, begin your journey to build the number one sect in the Nine Provinces!"
"Sect Master Lu, begin your journey to build the number one sect in the Nine Provinces!"
"Sect Master Lu, begin your journey to build the number one sect in the Nine Provinces!"
What on earth?
After hearing the emotionless mechanical voice an unknowable number of times, Lu Qing was finally roused from unconsciousness by the sheer annoyance of it.
"Sect Master Lu, begin your journey to build the number one sect in the Nine Provinces!"
A System!?
A System that was eighteen years late!
Couldn't you have come a little sooner?!
Activate!
Lu Qing's eyes brimmed with tears. Eighteen years of grievances dissolved in an instant.
"Welcome to the Sect's Little Assistant. Please follow the beginner's guide to develop your sect!"
[Getting Started: Know Your Sect]
[As an outstanding Sect Master, you must know your sect like the back of your hand. Please visit various locations within the sect and check in. Note: checking in will not grant any additional rewards.]
Get to know the sect?
Could anything be simpler?
Ever since the old man Lu had picked him up and brought him into the mountains, Lu Qing had lived in the Cangxia Sect on Ningjing Mountain, and had almost never set foot outside its boundaries.
Although the Cangxia Sect was a cultivation sect with a legacy spanning tens of thousands of years, it had fallen on hard times. The only habitable place was Ningjing Peak.
At the summit stood an ancient, dilapidated main hall. On one side of the hall was a two-story wooden residential building; on the other side was a storage warehouse for miscellaneous items. In the very center lay a plaza paved with stone slabs.
That was the entirety of the Cangxia Sect.
According to the old man, when the Cangxia Sect was at its height, it had thirty-six peaks in total, with pavilions and towers of exquisite carved railings and jade inlays. Cultivators at the Core Formation Realm and Nascent Soul Realm soared through the heavens and dove into the earth, and the sect's name shook the land for tens of thousands of miles in every direction.
But Lu Qing had only ever taken those stories as tales.
Lu Qing returned to the mountain, made a full circuit of the place, and then heard the notification that the task was complete.
[Task Complete. Sect Master Ability Unlocked: Divine Stride]
[You may instantly appear at any location within the sect's territory. One charge is gained every hour, and up to three charges may be accumulated.]
Immediately, Lu Qing felt a surge of warmth rise within his body.
It was a wondrous sensation his severed-vein constitution had never experienced before.
"Let me try it out first."
Before the Little Assistant could push on to the next task, Lu Qing focused his thoughts and instantly appeared at the outermost edge of Ningjing Mountain — the farthest point Divine Stride could currently reach.
Sure enough, even locations that nominally belonged to the Cangxia Sect still counted as within the range of Divine Stride.
In other words, as the sect expanded, the range of Lu Qing's "teleportation" would grow wider and wider!
Lu Qing tried walking a few hundred meters outward, stepping beyond the Cangxia Sect's boundaries, and then activated Divine Stride once more.
In the next instant, Lu Qing was immediately back inside the main hall on Ningjing Peak.
It worked even from outside the sect's territory!
A godly technique!
Just imagine — if one day Lu Qing were out in the world and encountered danger, a single thought would bring him safely back to the sect.
He would be invincible from the start!
The only question was whether he could bring living beings or objects along with him during the transfer. He'd have to find an opportunity to test that another time.
[Getting Started: Respect Your Masters]
[As an outstanding Sect Master, you must honor the legacy of your predecessors and set an example for those who come after. Please go to the main hall and offer incense to the founding patriarch.]
Offering incense was practically part of Lu Qing's daily routine before all this.
Though sometimes there was no incense left to offer, sometimes he slept in, sometimes he simply forgot… but generally speaking, he still managed to burn incense seven or eight times a month.
Not that the founding patriarch cared, anyway.
Lu Qing lit a bundle of incense and respectfully placed it in the bronze censer before the memorial tablet, bowing three times.
[Task Complete. Full Technique Collection Obtained: "Cangxia Body Tempering Method," "Cangxia Qi Refining Method," "Cangxia Art"]
[Books are the ladder of human progress; likewise, the right cultivation techniques are an indispensable tool for cultivators seeking to ascend to immortality.]
Lu Qing saw a spatial pocket appear in his mind, with three jade scrolls arranged within it. A single thought was all it took to retrieve any of them.
The jade scrolls contained detailed records of the cultivation methods and key principles of all three techniques — ten thousand times more thorough than the oral instructions the old man had given Lu Qing!
These must be the authentic originals of the Cangxia Sect!
After the initial excitement, Lu Qing felt a wave of dejection wash over him.
After all, he had a severed-vein constitution — cultivation was as difficult as climbing to the heavens for him!
Even with the techniques in hand, he could barely practice them.
But then, Lu Qing cast those low spirits aside. After all, he now had the Sect's Little Assistant to help him — the problem of his severed veins would sooner or later find a solution!
─────────────
Edited by Fat Goose