Heavenly Origin World
Su Ming opened his eyes, his head spinning.
Above the courtyard gates, an ancient plaque hung crookedly, with faded characters barely visible.
"White Lotus Peak…" he muttered, coughing. "So this is where I transmigrated?"
One of the seventy-two outer peaks of the Heavenly Cloud Sect.
The place wasn't ruined - far from it. The jade tiles, carved beams, and layered pavilions still carried an air of dignity. But years of neglect had dulled its brilliance, like a sword left too long in its sheath.
The Heavenly Cloud Sect stretched across several mountain ranges, housing over two hundred thousand disciples under its name. Majestic peaks pierced the heavens, rivers of spiritual mist flowed like seas, and flying swords streaked across the skies. Compared to that splendor, White Lotus Peak was a half-forgotten garbage heap.
He tried to sit upright. His chest throbbed, his head pounded, and thin drops of blood slipped from the corner of his lips.
Yesterday, he had been a corporate slave working overtime. And now? According to the fragments of memory that just flooded in, he was Su Ming, twenty-four years old. Orphan. Taken in by the Heavenly Cloud Sect as a child, becoming nothing more than a Handyman Disciple. Years of scrubbing floors, chopping wood, and cooking porridge later, he somehow ended up as…
"Peak Master?" Su Ming's mouth twitched.
Technically, Acting Peak Master. White Lotus Peak had once had a master, the reclusive Elder Xuan. But the sect's Soul Hall had long declared him dead, since his soul flame had gone dark.
By sect rules, a successor had to be appointed. And before vanishing, the old man, in his infinite wisdom, had chosen… the most pitiful servant disciple to inherit his legacy.
Why? No one knew. Maybe Elder Xuan pitied him. Maybe he wanted to spite the other elders. Or maybe - most likely - he just dumped responsibility onto the first breathing body he saw on the White Lotus Peak.
Regardless, the outcome was the same, and the worst part was, Su Ming was still on the clock.
On paper, a Peak Master stood equal to the heads of the seventy-two outer peaks. In reality, he was the crippled master of an incomplete inheritance, ranked just above Outer Disciples.
The Heavenly Cloud Sect had given him five years to reach Core Formation. If he fails, he would be stripped of his title and tossed back among the ordinary disciples. Of those five years, four and a half had already vanished.
He was a Foundation Establishment cultivator, but in reality, his "foundation" was nothing but a hollow mess, built on piles of low-grade herbs and cheap pills his master left behind. His meridians were clogged with impurities, his qi flow unstable. One reckless attempt at breaking through had ended in backlash… and death.
That was when Su Ming opened his eyes in this body only to find himself already on the verge of dying. Again.
"Great. Other transmigrators get cheats and beauties," he muttered dryly. "I get a crippled body and a notice period."
As he calmed down, he looked inward. His dantian was already collapsing. His heartbeat quickened, and then....
Flicker.
In the darkness of his sea of consciousness, there it was.
A lantern.
An ancient, dull lantern. His golden finger. His cheat.
And somehow, Su Ming knew exactly what it was, what it could do, and how to use it.
"…Either I die now, or I die trying."
Grinding his teeth, he guided his qi toward the lantern. He had to ignite it.
Whoosh.
A single white spark flashed in the dark, sending silent ripples through his consciousness as it ignited the lantern in quiet brilliance.
BOOM!
Immediately, he felt extreme agony. His veins screamed, his bones cracked, his heart pounded loudly. It was like being burned alive from the inside out.
And then, there was light.
A soft white glow surged through him, spreading into every corner of his body. His clogged meridians sizzled as years of filth and pill poison burned away. His once-collapsing dantian steadied, purified, and became crystal clear.
Su Ming collapsed to the floor, drenched in sweat and foul black sludge, but alive.
For a moment, he just lay there, gasping, his entire body trembling. Then the realization hit him.
His meridians were clear. Almost all the impurities that had suffocated his cultivation were gone, incinerated by the lantern's flame. Even the remnants of cheap pills and half-digested herbs had been refined into pure essence.
It was like being reborn.
His dantian, once on the verge of collapse, now pulsed with steady vitality. His qi no longer stagnated; it flowed smoothly, alive, and vibrant. Compared to the body that had dragged him through years of mediocrity, this felt like a miracle.
But miracles came with a price.
Su Ming froze as he probed deeper. His cultivation had dropped, by a full stage, down to the eighth stage of Qi Condensation. Worse still, he was already aware of something else. His lifespan had been shaved away.
This was the lantern's first function.
A Mystical White Flame that cleansed and purified things, but it came with a cost.
The lantern remained in his sea of consciousness, glowing faintly.
Su Ming blinked, and he felt his vision of the world had changed.
The cracked rice jar in the corner shimmered brown, its weak points lined like veins. The rotten beams above glimmered gray with decay. His own hands faintly glowed silver—fragile, but steady.
"…I can see the essence of things..." He muttered.
This was the lantern's second function. Eye of The Essence. A mystical sight that pierced illusions, revealing the truth beneath, and laid bare the essence of all things.
As he steadied his breathing, the glow shifted. A soft white halo spread through his mind, warm and gentle.
The Crimson Cloud Mantra scroll that had always looked like a messy, tangled puzzle now unfolded line by line, clear as if written in daylight.
His thoughts sharpened. Insights bloomed like sparks in the dark. Cultivation that had once been a struggle suddenly felt natural.
And this was the lantern's third function. A Halo ofInsight, increasing perception, comprehension, and enlightenment.
"…So my golden finger is a lantern with three tricks," Su Ming whispered. "A flame that cleanses, eyes that see essence, and a halo that sharpens the mind."
He chuckled dryly. "Not bad. Expensive, but not bad."
Sitting cross-legged, he circulated the Crimson Flame Mantra.
With inheriting the memories of the previous Su Ming, he realized - for the first time in his cultivation journey- his qi moved perfectly, without obstruction or hesitation.
"An office worker yesterday, a crippled peak master today… and now? Ha! Ha! Ha!"
He laughed, half in relief, half in hysteria.
Seizing the moment, he continued with his cultivation.
...
Bang! Bang! Bang!
His concentration was shattered by the loud banging at the doors. The hall doors rattled. Two outer sect disciples shouted, grinning.
"Peak Master Su, your monthly supplies," said one of the two outer sect disciples, their words coated with mockery.
They tossed a sack of moldy rice and a jar of cloudy water onto the floor.
Su Ming blinked. "…That's it?"
"What else did you expect? No disciples, no prestige, no future," the other sneered. "Even the kitchens get more."
Su Ming understood the current situation.
It had been going on for months now. These two weren't just petty bullies - they were underlings of Senior Brother Lu. He wasn't here, but his shadow loomed over White Lotus Peak like a storm cloud. And Su Ming? He was the target.
He remembered the previous Su Ming - the one who had inherited this peak. A timid, slightly cowardly man, but one with quite the spine. That Su Ming had been ridiculed, belittled, and pushed around line anything but after being chosen as Elder Xuan's disciple, something had ignited in him. It was a spark of ambition, a hope that maybe, just maybe, he could prove himself.
The current Su Ming's lips pressed into a thin line. His mind spun with understanding. He saw the pattern, the hierarchy, the bullying - and he knew what had to be done.
Silently, he made a promise - not to anyone alive, not aloud—just to the shadow of the Su Ming who was there before him.
"Now that I've inherited your body… your struggles… I'll make your dreams come true. Consider it a debt I owe you."
Even in his previous life, Su Ming had never tolerated nonsense. He had been the office worker who once slapped a resignation onto his manager's desk without a second thought. That same refusal to accept rubbish ran through him now as well.
The current Su Ming wasn't timid anymore. He had been reborn into the chaos of this cultivation world, carrying all the grit, defiance, and stubbornness of the Su Ming who had gone before. And just like him, he would endure. He would rise. He would never, ever give up.
They laughed all the way down the mountain. "Trash Peak! Trash Master!"
Su Ming rubbed his temples. "…First day in this world, and I'm already a joke."
But he knew the truth. Back when Elder Xuan was alive, the deliveries had been entirely different—spiritual rice, mystical fruits, fresh herbs, spirit wine, pills, materials for cultivation, even spirit stones. Su Ming had carried them himself from the Provision Hall.
Now? Nothing. The moment his master disappeared, the respect vanished too.