The descent was an entirely new form of cultivation.
For ages, mountains were concepts Wei Wuji simply stepped over. Distance was a thought he crossed. Now, it was a grueling reality of sharp stones, treacherous slopes, and aching muscles. Each step was a testament to his self-imposed mortality. The linen robes, once impervious to the elements by virtue of his ambient energy, were now just cloth, easily snagged by thorny bushes and dampened by the mountain mist.
He felt hunger. It was a faint, gnawing emptiness at first, a sensation so alien he almost mistook it for a spiritual anomaly. He remembered the concept of hunger from ancient texts, but to feel it was to understand it. He found some wild berries—ones he knew were not poisonous from his encyclopedic memory—and their sharp, tangy sweetness exploded in his mouth. It was more profound and more real than any divine peach he had eaten in the Nine Heavens.
After three days of walking, the nameless mountain finally gave way to gentle foothills and a winding dirt road. In the distance, smoke curled into the sky from the chimneys of a small town. It was called Clearstream Town, nestled by a river of the same name.
As Wei Wuji approached, the scent of the mortal world—the "red dust," as the cultivators called it—filled his senses. It was a melange of cooking fires, livestock, damp earth, and unwashed bodies. It wasn't clean or pure like the sterile spiritual energy of his peak, but it was vibrant. It was alive.
The town was bustling. Merchants hawked their wares, children chased each other through the streets, and a blacksmith's hammer rang out in a steady, rhythmic beat. People glanced at Wei Wuji, noting his simple, torn robes and unkempt appearance, and quickly looked away. He was just another drifter, another speck of dust in the vast machinery of the world. The anonymity was refreshing.
His stomach rumbled again, this time with authority. He saw a stall selling hot, steaming buns. The aroma was intoxicating. He walked up to the vendor, a portly man with a cheerful face.
"One bun, please," Wei Wuji said.
The vendor grinned. "Three copper coins."
Wei Wuji blinked. Coins. Currency. He, who could manifest mountains of divine jade with a whim, did not possess a single, humble copper coin. It was a problem so mundane, so fundamentally mortal, that he almost laughed.
"I... seem to have misplaced my coin purse," Wei Wuji said, the excuse feeling clumsy on his tongue.
The vendor's smile tightened. "No coin, no bun. Move along, plenty of paying customers."
Rejection. It was another novel sensation. Wei Wuji nodded and stepped away, his stomach protesting. He needed to find a way to earn money. What could he do? His mind was a repository of cosmic truths and divine arts, but what use was knowing the resonant frequency of a dying star when you needed to buy a bun?
He wandered through the town, observing. He saw a notice posted on a board. A local scholar was seeking an assistant to help grind ink and organize scrolls. The pay was meager, but it included a room and two meals a day.
Wei Wuji presented himself at the scholar's residence. The scholar, a man named Old Man Liu with a wispy grey beard and spectacles perched on his nose, looked him up and down skeptically.
"You know how to read?" Liu asked, his tone doubtful.
"I do," Wei Wuji replied.
"Hmph. We'll see. The last boy who claimed so couldn't even identify the character for 'water'," Liu grumbled, leading him into a study crammed with bamboo scrolls and yellowed paper. "The work is simple. You grind this inkstone when I need it, you keep the scrolls ordered, and you do not touch anything without permission. Can you handle that?"
"I can," Wei Wuji said with a calm that seemed to soothe the old scholar's irritable demeanor.
"Good. Start by sorting that pile." Liu pointed to a chaotic stack of scrolls in the corner. "By dynasty. Don't mix the Early Han with the Late Han."
For Wei Wuji, this was child's play. He had personally witnessed the rise and fall of these dynasties. He had conversed with their founding emperors. He sorted the scrolls with an effortless precision that surprised even himself. He organized them not just by dynasty, but by year, by subject, and even by the scribe who had written them, identifying their styles from memory.
When Old Man Liu returned hours later, he found the chaotic pile replaced by perfectly ordered stacks, each with a small, neatly written tag indicating its contents. He picked up a tag, his eyes widening behind his spectacles.
"You... you identified these as the work of Scribe Yi from the court of Emperor Wu? How could you possibly know that? His signature style is only known to a handful of imperial historians!"
Wei Wuji paused, realizing his mistake. He had forgotten the limits of mortal knowledge. "I... have a good memory for calligraphy," he said, offering the simplest explanation.
Old Man Liu stared at him, a strange light in his eyes. He saw not a drifter, but a diamond in the rough. A quiet, mysterious young man with an impossible depth of knowledge.
"Boy," the old scholar said, his voice softer than before. "What is your name?"
Wei Wuji thought for a moment. Wei Wuji, the Limitless, was a name that belonged to the sky. He needed a name for the earth.
"My name is Su Chen," he said, choosing a name as common as the dust on the road.
"Well, Su Chen," Old Man Liu grunted, trying to hide his excitement. "The inkstone is over there. Don't be slow about it."
That evening, Wei Wuji—now Su Chen—sat in his small, simple room, eating a bowl of plain rice and pickled vegetables. It was the most satisfying meal he'd had in ten thousand years. He had earned it. He had worked for it.
He wasn't the Eternal Sovereign who commanded reality. He was Su Chen, the scholar's assistant. For the first time, he felt a connection, a tiny thread tying him to the world. He looked out his small window at the moon. It was the same moon he had once moved with a flick of his wrist.
Tonight, it just looked beautiful. And that was enough.