"Author note: if u find something like (___) this it means i haven't decided on a name yet.."
The first thing he felt was warmth.
A soft, steady warmth rolling across his back like morning sunlight. It made no sense, he had died in the cold. He remembered cold metal, cold air, cold blood spilling across his spine. Yet here he was, sinking into something soft.
His eyes fluttered open.
Everything was blurred, smudged around the edges, like he was waking up from a twelve-hour nap he never meant to take. His lashes were heavy. His mind was heavier.
For a few seconds he simply lay there, letting the world sharpen in slow increments.
A ceiling.
Carved wood beams.
Ink-painted silk.
A chandelier made of crystal, not light bulbs.
…Not his room.
His stomach dropped.
The fog in his head twitched.
Something, a thin thread of panic, pulled tight across his ribs.
He pushed himself upright, breath unsteady, blinking rapidly until the shapes finally came together.
A bed too large, draped in silk.
A window too tall, framed with embroidered curtains.
A room too quiet, too clean, too expensive to belong to any life he had known.
"What…?" His voice cracked on the single syllable.
His pulse picked up, each beat louder than the last.
He looked around again, slower this time, as though the room would snap shut like a trap if he moved too fast.
This isn't my house.
This isn't anywhere I know.
Where am I?
The question rose, but the answer came at him like a fist.
Memory.
Like someone slamming a folder of film reels into his skull.
The bus.
The metal pipe.
His blood in that girl's hair.
Her scream against his chest.
The weight he held up with his shaking hands.
The moment he knew, really knew, he wouldn't survive.
His breath locked. His vision pulsed.
No no no, I'm not dead, I'm not,
He gripped the side of the bed hard enough for his knuckles to ache.
A moment passed.
Another.
Slowly, painfully, the panic peeled back. Not gone, just sliding into a corner of his mind where he could look at it without letting it crush him.
"…I died."
Saying it aloud tasted like metal.
But it also settled something.
A truth he couldn't run from.
If I'm not dead… then,
He looked back at the room.
Antique wood.
Ancient style.
Nothing modern, nothing familiar.
He stood up, unsteady but driven, and touched the wall. Solid. Cold. Real.
The furniture was handcrafted.
The air smelled faintly of incense.
The floor was polished stone instead of tile.
And when he found the mirror, he stopped breathing altogether.
A stranger stared back.
Sharp jaw, pale skin, dark eyes that held an unnatural clarity. Black hair that reach his nose.
A noble's face. A handsome face. A face that had never known homework, part-time jobs, or cramped bus seats.
"That's not me," he whispered.
But the mirror didn't change.
A tremor went through him, not fear, but something stranger.
A flicker of… superiority?
A quiet, dangerous whisper in his chest:
This body… is above anything I've ever had.
He frowned immediately at the thought, unsettled by how easily it surfaced.
But he didn't have time to examine it.
Because the second wave of memories hit.
Harder.
Deeper.
Raw.
He staggered, dropped to one knee, and instinctively grabbed his head with both hands. The world squeezed in at the edges, colors, voices, images bleeding together until he couldn't breathe.
A boy named Suyin.
Born to (___) clan
(____) clan was located in the northern reaches of the Azure Vein Continent, a land split by mountain chains that ran like scars across the earth. Their home, the Silvercrest Province, sat between two dominant powers: the Cloud-Piercing Empire to the west and the Verdant Frost Kingdom to the east.
Silvercrest itself wasn't big, but it was wealthy, fertile soil, spirit-rich rivers, and a long history of producing cultivators strong enough to guard their borders but not strong enough to challenge the great empires around them.
The clan belonged to the regionally respected (___) Family, considered a Second-Grade Clan under the Verdant Frost Kingdom's hierarchy.
They weren't among the top four clans on the continent, the true monsters of the cultivation world, but just beneath them, powerful enough to be treated with caution, never quite with fear.
The (____) estate sprawled across a valley carved by ancient spiritual beasts, a place where mist clung to the mountains at dawn, and the air buzzed with weak but plentiful natural qi. It was a place built on generations of pride, old traditions, and an ambition to rise further than fate had ever allowed.
Suyin was a genius,
At seventeen, the boy had already reached Breath Awakening, Middle Stage. A genius among geniuses within the clan. The pride of his generation. A name whispered by younger disciples like a distant star they would never touch.
It all poured into Icarus like boiling water.
Too much. Too fast.
He gasped, felt darkness pinch the edges of his vision, and then,
He hit the floor.
…
When he finally woke again, the sunlight had shifted.
His head throbbed with a dull, splitting ache.
He didn't get up.
He just lay there, staring at the ceiling, breathing slow, shallow breaths.
The memories were quieter now, resting in the back of his skull like a second heart. He sifted through them carefully, wincing each time something sharp surfaced.
This isn't my world.
This is…
His chest tightened.
This is the novel.
A cultivation novel he read in his old life.
He remembered the plot.
The protagonists.
The sect battles.
The betrayals.
The realm breakthroughs.
But the boy he had become, Suyin, wasn't one of them.
Not protagonist.
Not villain.
Not even a major supporting character.
Just an extra.
Talented, yes.
Promising, yes.
Strong for his age, yes.
But ultimately irrelevant.
A name in a chapter footnote.
He wasn't fated for greatness.
He wasn't destined for anything.
He let out a slow, shaky breath.
"…Fine."
It wasn't despair.
It wasn't anger either.
It was a strange mixture of relief and irritation, like walking into an exam you knew you weren't prepared for, but also knowing you weren't meant to top it anyway.
He didn't care about being weaker than the main characters.
He didn't even care about winning or losing future fights.
But there was one thing that did bother him:
He died helpless.
He died holding weight he barely managed to keep up.
He died bleeding and gasping and afraid.
He died without choosing anything — just reacting, struggling, pushing because pride refused to let him drop that pipe.
His jaw tightened.
"I won't die like that again."
His voice was quiet, almost a whisper to himself, but it was the first real promise he'd made in this new world.
Not to become the strongest.
Not to change fate.
Not to keep up with protagonists.
Just this:
Never die helpless again.
He pushed himself up, legs trembling, and went back to the mirror.
Suyin's reflection stared back, proud, elegant, young.
But beneath that face, Icarus saw himself.
Not a hero.
Not a villain.
Just someone who refused to kneel to circumstance.
He exhaled slowly.
"Alright. Let's see what this world looks like."
And with that, he began sorting through Suyin's memories, carefully this time, learning about cultivation, about the clan, and about the five known realms:
1. Mortal Husk
2. Breath Awakening
3. Sanguine Spirit
4. Inner Heart
5. Soul Transformation
And somewhere far beyond them…
Heaven Burial.
A realm whispered at the edge of legend, he only known about it because of the latest chapter novel.
He didn't know where his path would lead, or if he would even survive long enough to see any of the main characters. He wasn't here for glory.
He just refused to be weak ever again.