The Verdant Sky Sect occupied a valley between three mountains, their peaks wrapped in permanent mist. Buildings of gray stone and dark wood clustered around a central courtyard, with terraced gardens climbing the lower slopes. Disciples moved between them in robes of pale green and blue, the colors of young leaves and distant sky.
Liang Yu stepped out of his small stone room and into a world that felt like a painting.
The air was different here. Thinner, maybe, or just cleaner—scrubbed of the exhaust and processed smells of the city. It carried scents of pine and herbs and something else, something almost electric, that he would later learn was the residue of cultivation—qi in the atmosphere, left behind by those who trained.
He stood in the doorway for a long moment, just breathing.
The body remembers some things. Language. Basic customs. Muscle memory for walking, eating, sleeping. But higher-level knowledge—cultivation techniques, sect politics, personal history—is fragmented. The original's death damaged the memories.
You'll need to learn. Quickly. And carefully.
Liang Yu nodded to himself. A small gesture, barely visible. Then he stepped forward, into the morning light.
The outer disciple quarters were a cluster of similar stone rooms arranged around a communal well. Disciples his age—fifteen to eighteen, mostly—moved between them with the easy familiarity of people who'd grown up together. They spoke in groups. Laughed. Argued. Ignored him completely.
He was a ghost. Just as the system said.
Liang Yu walked toward the well. Not quickly, not slowly. Just present. A body moving through space.
A group of three boys stood by the well, drawing water. Fourteen or fifteen years old, all of them. Robes slightly too large for their growing frames. Faces unmarked by the weight of years.
"—said Elder Zhou himself approved the配方. Can you imagine? An inner disciple before twenty—"
"My cousin said the配方 is dangerous. Two people failed last year. Their meridians—"
"That's because they were weak. Lin Fei isn't weak. Lin Fei is—"
They noticed him. Paused. Looked.
Liang Yu kept walking. Reached the well. Met their eyes with the calm expression he'd used in a hundred meetings with difficult clients—pleasant, neutral, slightly distant.
"Morning," he said. "Is the water clean? I'm still recovering. Don't want to risk another illness."
Simple. Practical. A reason to approach.
The tallest boy—the one who'd been talking about Lin Fei—blinked. "Uh. Yeah. It's fine. The sect tests it."
"Good to know." Liang Yu dipped the bucket, drew water, filled the clay jug he'd found in his room. "I'm Liang Yu. Just got cleared from the infirmary. Still learning who everyone is."
He offered the words like small gifts. Names created connection. Connection created existence.
The boys exchanged glances. The tall one shrugged.
"I'm Zhao Ming. This is Liu Kai and Sun Tao." Gestures to the others, who nodded with the awkwardness of teenagers meeting a stranger. "You're the one who ate the wrong herbs? Heard you were out for three days."
Heard. They heard about me. They know I exist, vaguely.
"Four days," Liang Yu said. "Missed the orientation for new outer disciples. Feel like I'm playing catch-up."
"That sucks." Zhao Ming seemed to lose interest, already turning back to his friends. "Well, don't eat anything that isn't from the dining hall. Medicinal herbs aren't food."
Wise advice. A week too late for the original.
Liang Yu smiled. Nodded. Carried his water back toward his room.
Behind him, the conversation resumed. He didn't exist to them anymore. But he'd temporarily existed, and that was enough for Mission 1.
Mission Complete: Establish Presence
Progress: 3/5 disciples made aware
Note: You have been registered as "that guy who poisoned himself." Reputation: neutral (slightly pathetic). This is not ideal but is acceptable for a first step.
Reward pending completion.
Liang Yu set the water jug in his room and sat on the pallet, thinking.
Three down. Two to go. Then I get a cultivation technique.
You seem very practical about this.
What's the alternative? Panic? Mourn my old life? I can do that later. Right now, I need to survive.
The system didn't respond. He took that as agreement.
The dining hall was a long wooden building near the center of the sect, filled with long tables and the smell of rice and vegetables and occasionally meat. Disciples ate in shifts, morning and evening, with the outer disciples eating separately from the inner.
Liang Yu arrived at the evening meal, bowl in hand, and found a seat at the edge of a table where two other disciples sat in companionable silence.
They were both older. Seventeen, maybe. One boy, one girl. The boy was broad-shouldered and plain-faced, eating with the focused attention of someone for whom food was fuel. The girl was smaller, sharper, with quick eyes that flicked to Liang Yu as he sat.
"You're new," she said. Not a question.
"Recovering. Was sick for a few days." He filled his bowl from the central platter—rice, pickled vegetables, some kind of stewed meat he couldn't identify. "Liang Yu."
"Lin Qiu." She gestured with her chin at the boy. "He's Zhang Hu. You're the poison victim."
Word travels fast.
"That's me." He ate a bite of rice. Chewed. Swallowed. "You've been here longer?"
"Three years." Lin Qiu's tone was flat. "Zhang Hu's been here five. Still outer disciples. Still waiting for a break."
Zhang Hu glanced up at that, a flicker of something—embarrassment? anger?—crossing his face before he looked back at his food.
Liang Yu filed the reaction away.
Rivalry. Resentment. Two older disciples, stuck at the bottom for years. Zhang Hu has been here five years—that's a long time to be an outer disciple. Something's holding him back.
Lin Qiu is sharper. More verbal. She's frustrated too, but she's looking for someone to blame.
Interesting.
"Any advice for a newcomer?" Liang Yu asked, keeping his voice light. "Besides not eating random herbs?"
Lin Qiu snorted. "Don't expect anything. The sect doesn't care about outer disciples. We're here to do the work nobody else wants to do and hope someone notices us. Most don't get noticed."
"Lin Fei got noticed," Zhang Hu muttered. First words he'd spoken.
Lin Qiu's eyes narrowed. "Lin Fei is different. Lin Fei has talent."
"Lin Fei has an elder backing him."
"Same thing."
Liang Yu ate his food, listening. Lin Fei. The name from the well. Someone being discussed by outer disciples with a mixture of envy and resentment.
Potential mark. Potential rival. Potential—
Focus. One step at a time.
He finished his meal, nodded to his tablemates, and left.
Mission Complete: Establish Presence
Progress: 5/5 disciples made aware
Reward unlocked: Basic cultivation technique (Qi Gathering)
Do you wish to claim now?
Back in his room, door closed, Liang Yu sat cross-legged on the pallet.
Claim.
Knowledge flooded into him. Not words—experience. The feeling of qi moving through meridians. The rhythm of breath and circulation. The meditation posture that opened the body to heaven and earth.
It was like remembering something he'd never learned.
Qi Gathering (Basic)
Type: Foundation technique
Effect: Allows user to sense and absorb ambient qi
Limitations: Extremely slow without talent. Requires consistent practice.
Note: This technique will not make you powerful. It will make you capable of becoming powerful. Eventually. If you're lucky.
Liang Yu sat in the darkness, feeling the strange new awareness settling into his bones.
He could sense it now—faintly, distantly. The qi in the air. The energy that permeated this world. It felt like static electricity, like the pressure before a storm, like something vast and indifferent brushing against his skin.
He reached for it.
Nothing happened.
He tried again. Still nothing.
Your meridians are blocked. Congenital. You'll need to clear them before you can cultivate effectively.
How?
Many ways. Elixirs. Treatments. Breakthroughs. All expensive. All difficult.
Or—
Or what?
A pause. The system's amusement returned.
Or you find someone whose meridians are already clear. And take theirs.
Liang Yu's hands stilled on his knees.
That's possible?
Anything is possible. The question is whether you're willing to pay the price.
He sat in the dark room, sixteen years old in a stranger's body, feeling the weight of the words settle around him like chains.
I'm not there yet.
No. But you will be. Or you won't. That's the interesting part.
Liang Yu closed his eyes and began to meditate.