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'In this second life: Due to this violent Transmigration, the memories of the former Lu Shañg are now irrevocably and perfectly ingrained within the core of my being. They are absolutely clear and complete, and recalling them, unlike my Earthly memories, induces no headache whatsoever.
The name Lu Shañg was bestowed upon him because he was born on an auspicious day in the 871st year of the 9th Lunar Dragon Cycle, according to the Celestial Dragon Millennial Calendar.
This Lu Shañg also possessed loving, doting parents. His mother's beauty was a celestial masterpiece, comparable to the most ethereal Asian models from Earth, while his father appeared... remarkably, mysteriously ordinary?
Hmm, I can perceive almost all of this boy's memories with a crystal, pristine clarity, yet why is it that only his father's face remains obscured to me, as if veiled by a divine mist?
Admittedly, in my memory, his father's interactions with former Lu Shañg were less frequent than the constant warmth of his mother's.
Because his mother was a mid-stage cultivator and his father was a late-stage cultivator, the heavy, dangerous burden of providing for the family and acquiring precious cultivation resources rested entirely upon his father's capable shoulders.
But he was only a late-stage cultivator, so why can I not perceive his fac—! All in all, they were a happy, humble, small family.:
'The heavens blessed both of my lives in this sacred regard, but these blessings, it seems, proved to be as fleeting as morning dew…
While his parents were alive, he was utterly carefree, a child shielded from the storms of the world. Later, at his coming-of-age ceremony at the age of ten, when he learned that he possessed a low-tier spiritual root—a talent considered merely average, the dust of the earth, for cultivating the grand path to immortality—a profound, crushing despair fell upon his heart like a mountain.
Spiritual roots are the innate, soul-bound talents that qualify and determine which type of affinity or Qi—the vital, elemental energy of the world—a cultivator can absorb and master with the greatest, most heaven-sent efficiency.'
The affinities of spiritual roots include the base, foundational elements of Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth, while higher-grade, legendary roots may align with esoteric, profound concepts such as Yin, Yang, cold, Thunder, darkness, light, Space, and even the supreme law of Time.
Furthermore, Spiritual roots are divided into four distinct categories according to their intrinsic, soul-deep quality: Mortal grade, Spirit grade, Earth grade, and Heaven grade. Each of these sacred grades is further subdivided into three tier's of power: lower, middle, and upper.
Although cultivating the path to immortality is not a journey all mortals can embark upon, it is a golden opportunity afforded to only one in ten thousand blessed souls.'
'Yet, there was no shortage of individuals with average, unremarkable talent like him within his cultivation clan.
This is because, in a cultivation clan where thousands of cultivator families reside and pass down their bloodlines, it is considered normal to be born with the gift of a spiritual root.
For, when compared to the vast, teeming populace of commoners, if two parents are cultivators, the probability of their offspring possessing a spiritual root is vastly, astronomically higher than that of ordinary mortals.'
'Like all the children in this cultivation clan, he dreamed of becoming a legendary cultivation hero. One who could soar through the heavens on a sword of light, shatter mountains with a single, earth-shaking blow, and rescue a beautiful, peerless maiden from peril.
But in that moment of judgment, when the meager, pitiful quality of his spiritual root was revealed to the cold, indifferent clan elders, they became unwilling to expend any precious resources on trash like him.
Even though his parents' countless, blood-soaked contributions to the clan were more than sufficient to merit those resources, their heroic deeds were completely and callously ignored.'
'Later, buoyed by the unwavering, unconditional support of his loving parents, he rekindled a fragile spark of hope in his wounded heart and diligently pursued the arduous path of cultivation.'
'According to the inherited memories of Lu Shang, in this world, humans, beasts, and nearly every lifeform cultivates the spiritual Qi that permeates heaven and earth in their desperate, eternal pursuit of immortality.
But not every human is fortunate enough to embark on this heaven-defying path, for one must possess a spiritual root to cultivate, and only one in ten thousand people is born with such a divine gift.'
Thus, a cultivator's sacred journey began, a grand procession from a humble mortal form to a being of celestial grace. It was a cosmic dance of body, mind, and soul, a path that twisted and turned with a profound purpose. The stages of cultivation were a ladder to the heavens, each step a world unto itself.
The first stage, Qi Consolidation, was not merely a step but the very forging of the spirit. It was followed by Foundation Establishment, which was a spiritual bedrock upon which a true immortal path could be built. After this came Core Formation, a stage so profound it was akin to giving birth to a celestial sun within one's own dantian, and finally, Nascent Soul, a stage where the spirit takes on a true, ethereal form.
Beyond these realms lay a mystery, a path shrouded in celestial mists and forgotten by mortal souls.
Each of these major stages was further divided into three smaller stages that had nine profound layers, each layer a testament to the cultivator's will and spiritual refinement. The process of Qi Consolidation was a ritual in itself, a solemn act of absorbing and refining the world's spiritual energy. Only after establishing a strong Foundation Establishment could a cultivator truly embark on their sacred journey to ascend and become a true cultivator
'And this body I now inhabited possessed a lower-tier, Mortal-grade spiritual root with an inferior water affinity—the absolute, undisputed lowest tier of talent, the dregs of the cultivation world.'
Later, his parents' entire lifelong savings and blood-earned contributions secured for him the Mortal Grade Mid-Stage 'Aquatic Breathing' technique, a potent water-affinity cultivation art of the Qi stage.
It was because of this monumental sacrifice that he surpassed the first stage and reached the second stage in a mere four years; at the same time, he achieved greater mastery in the water element-based defensive technique 'Water Wall', which was begrudgingly granted to him by his Clan after his spiritual roots were revealed.
He was overcome with a triumphant joy at his rapid cultivation success and the progression of his technique; when he went to share the glorious news with his parents, he discovered that they, who had journeyed to the Spirit Herb City of Sacred Wood-Sage Country with other cultivators to fulfill a dangerous clan mission, had been missing for several agonizing months while he was in secluded, solitary cultivation.
When the Clan's desperate, far-flung search for information yielded nothing but dust and silence, a peak Qi stage cultivator who had led the mission finally returned, his body broken and his spirit bearing calamitous, soul-shattering news.
He recounted that as they were passing near the treacherous border region between the Silver Jade Snow Country and the Sacred Wood Sage Country en route to the Spirit Herb City, a group of powerful, mysterious cultivators clad in black robes and wearing sinister red masks carved with the pattern of a wolf (🐺) had suddenly ambushed them from the shadows.
The assailants consisted of five peak-stage Qi Consolidation cultivators and twenty late-stage experts, supported by a veritable army of a hundred mid-stage and early-stage Qi Consolidation cultivators.
Their own clan's group, which included three peak-stage cultivators, twelve late-stage cultivators, and a contingent of early and mid-stage members, was utterly and mercilessly defeated within an hour, and the majority, including two of their precious peak-stage cultivators, had already perished in a sea of blood.
That man confessed with a haunted look in his eyes that he had only managed to escape the slaughter by employing a desperate, life-saving method, returning to the clan only after several agonizing days of recovery.
After hearing this devastating news, the former Lu Shañg's strength abandoned him completely, and he immediately collapsed to the ground as if his very spine had been shattered into a thousand pieces.
He could not control the black storm of grief that consumed his very soul, blaming himself in the deepest, most tormented depths of his heart, for he knew his parents had undertaken many dangerous, life-threatening missions in recent years solely to accumulate the cultivation resources needed for his future; thus, he felt an unbearable, crushing guilt for the cruel, merciless fate that had befallen them.'
Hah!..Hoooo...
After taking a deep breath Lu Shang can't help but sigh.What a poor, tragic boy. His predicament is worse, far worse, than that of many novels' main characters.
'After mourning for a month, a period of pure, undiluted agony, the nearly maddened Lu Shañg still could not accept this cruel, nightmarish reality. He eventually reined in his deep, soul-consuming grief, clinging to the last, fragile sliver of hope that perhaps his parents would miraculously return alive, just as the fleeing, cowardly man had done.
But Lu Shañg's clan members were not as hopeful; they understood the grim, blood-soaked finality of the situation with cold, pragmatic clarity. As a result, a suffocating pall of sorrow and mourning descended upon their Clan like a winter blight.
The primary, devastating loss was the Clan's stored resources, accumulated over several painstaking years, which they had capitalized on to navigate the most difficult of times.
The border region between the Silver Jade Snow Country and the Blazing Flame Sacred Country had already descended into a near-battlefield, a land of chaos and death.
Although established between the secular 'Mountain Range Country' and Silver Jade Snow Country' volatile border area, this 'FrostBloom Solar County' was, in fact, located at the very edge of Silver Jade Snow Country dominion.
In this world, a lesser county must always show deference and submit to the authority of the far more powerful nation to which it belongs. This hierarchy is a fundamental rule of the land's political structure.
Because of this, their county, which had enjoyed a precarious semi-independence for decades due to its strategic location on the border of the two Countries, was once again subjBlazingugateBlazingd under the iron-fisted rule of the Jade Snow Country.
That was why, when tensions flared like a wildfire between the Silver Jade Snow Country and the Blazing Flame Sacred Country, the powerful, tyrannical 'Mystic Ice Palace'—the true, undisputed ruler of the Silver Jade Snow Country—directly and brutally seized governing authority of the county.
They abruptly established a merciless martial law, decreeing that no Foundation Establishment cultivator or above could leave the county without their express, written permission, and demanded a crippling tribute from most of the families and clans in the county who had not paid taxes for decades.
It was for this very reason that their Clan had secretly formed a team of elite, loyal members and dispatched them to the 'Spirit Herb City' in the outer region of Sacred Wood Sage Country, to sell precious herbs, rare fruits, and many other uncommon resources found only in their nearby, treasure-filled mountain range; but now, all of it, all their hopes and plans, had come to naught, turned to ash and blood.
And this was why Lu Shañg, who was already blacklisted from the precious resource list for his trash-tier talent, was even more severely and cruelly impacted during this clan-wide crisis.
Forget life-giving cultivation pills, not even the leftover, worthless dregs of the herbs used to create them reached his desperate hands. But it scarcely mattered to him then, for he was still shouldering the deep, festering wound of self-blame and was in no state of mind for any serious, soul-cleansing cultivation practice.
Over the ensuing, grief-stricken months, their clan dispatched search parties several times in a desperate search for any remaining members or clues to their fate, but they repeatedly returned in vain, their faces etched with failure and despair.
Due to the repeated, crushing failures over the past few months, the lamentations of the deceased's relatives and the rising, angry questions of accountability began to foment a poisonous internal strife within the clan, a fire which the clan's powerful cultivators were unable to suppress as they had so easily done before.'
'Suddenly, that same peak Qi Consolidation stage cultivator who had previously returned, broken, from the incident declared himself to be of sound enough mind and body and agreed to meet with the grieving relatives of the other deceased cultivators.
And one by one, with a touch of lingering, terrifying madness still burning in his eyes, he recounted what he could remember of the last, bloody moments of nearly all their beloved relatives.
Then, it was Lu Shang's turn. The cultivator, still not fully recovered mentally, laughed a raucous, grating laugh and spoke mockingly to Lu Shang, his words dripping with contempt, "You are the son of that crazy fucker who threw away his own life to save some random, worthless bitch."
Lu Shañg, who was already reeling from the man's callous, venomous words, felt an unquenchable, volcanic rage ignite within him at the vile slander of his dead, beloved parents, and an unquenchable, soul-deep hatred for this madman bloomed like a poison flower in his heart.
His eyes, now burning with a murderous light, darted about the room, and Lu Shang spotted a porcelain vase near his left hand.
Bannnng!!..Crash!
....Swish~~
'He shattered the vase into a thousand pieces in the blink of an eye, swiftly snatched a jagged, razor-sharp shard with his now-bloody hand, and lunged toward the man's throat like a vengeful specter, his entire being suffused with an unquenchable, pure, and terrifying killing intent.'
Extra (Lu Shang):
A sudden, brilliant idea, like a bolt of divine inspiration, arose in Lu Shang's head: that he might feel less of the soul-rending pain when he later recalled any cultivation-related memories from his past life.
'This is a cultivation world, a realm of infinite wonders and horrors, so I must know everything I can about the Great Dao of cultivation. I have read countless such novels, sacred texts of another world, the majority of which I have tragically forgotten, and now that I have arrived in this new world, the ones I do remember are slowly being buried deep in the abyss of my mind.
Although the cultivation system in the novels I have read about is almost entirely different from this world's, I believe it shares many fundamental, profound similarities with it.
As a result, I must frequently consult those fading novels in order to learn new things and solve the myriad problems that will undoubtedly arise on my path. Furthermore, it now takes a long, agonizing time to find them in my memory again and again, which makes the process more painful with each attempt.'
'So, let us forge a special, sacred part of my memory that is dedicated solely to things having to do with the Great Dao of cultivation. That way, whenever I need to know anything connected to cultivation in the future, I can simply refer to this hallowed section, this personal scripture.'
'And the establishment of this special memory reserve, this divine library, will have to be done step by step in my spare time, lest I be consumed by the pain.
Because I have read countless Novels in my past world, and although most of them are useless dross, even then I will die of a headache just by reading several cultivation-related Novels of true quality. So now let's first give a name to this memory reserve, a title befitting its sacred purpose, hmm, what name can be given?'
'Yes, I have found it.'
'How about naming it the 'Otaku Bible'?'
Thus, in the great Cultivation World, a new, strange, and unprecedented kind of Gospel is born.