The black ocean faded away. A swirl of hundreds of chaotic colours bombarded his vision.

Only after several hours did they part, revealing the sight of a plain wooden ceiling. He was in a small room that stank of old lumber.

The deafening scream of an infant filled his ears. Before him, an old woman was frantically waving a rattle.

No. That cry was from him.

A dry pain wracked his tender throat. Only now did he realise how hoarse his throat had become.

How long had he been screaming?

He reached his hand to touch his throat. At that moment, he saw his tiny grubby hand.

This...

This was not his body! It was frail and mortal, without the slightest hint of condensed qi. Yet, he could still feel his soul sealed within it.

Inconceivable. It was as if an elephant had been stuffed into a small paper bag. If his soul made the slightest movement, the entirety of his body would be shredded so finely, there wouldn't even be blood mist left to spray!

How was that possible?

The situation thrust upon Aoyang left him with too many questions.

A strong nausea shook him and he retched. But there was nothing in his stomach to spew out. A splitting headache struck his very being. His body was rejecting his soul!

He clutched his head, his entire body trembling.

His vision grew blurry as a tremendous fatigue fell upon his very soul. His weary eyes began to close. For a moment he fought to keep his eyelids open, but the realm of sleep took him moments later.

"Hah..." the old lady heaved a sigh of relief.

She picked up the sleeping infant and left the small room, heading down a hall. With the gentle creak of an old wooden door, she entered a large room with over a hundred small beds, countless infants sleeping on them. She placed him onto one of the empty beds.

The infant child had been screaming at the top of his lungs as soon as he was born, giving the mother quite the fright.

Newborns would cry... but the screams of this one were especially haunting, like that of a pig being slaughtered.

She had no choice but to isolate him in a room briefly, not wanting the other infants to be frightened.

The old woman left the room with a sigh, patting her aching back.

Days passed uneventfully.

The cloudless night skies were crystal clear, dotted with the brilliant light of countless stars and constellations.

But he could not recognise a single one. Galloping Qilin, Celestial Tiger, Heaven's Hand... of those he had learnt in his past life, none were present.

It was clear he was an unimaginable distance away from his original world.

He stared at the faint moonlight from outside listlessly. It had taken a while, several days filled with unending nightmares before his memories settled.

The second heavenly law came to mind. In death, to reincarnate anew. Having experienced the law first-hand, he had gained a certain instinctual understanding. When he detached his soul from his ruined body, the heavens declared him dead and dragged him into the cycle of reincarnation.

But an uneasy feeling weighed on him. He had a strong feeling he was not supposed to retain his memories, nor the cultivation of his soul.

It had been so long since he had been unconscious. He had not slept in over a thousand years.

On his clothes, a piece of cloth was carelessly stitched, "Baiyun" scrawled on it. It was his name in this life.

Aoyang, no, Baiyun raised his hand into the air, gazing at it. So small and frail.

White Cloud. Perhaps his parents wished he could be as free as the clouds in the skies, soaring wherever he pleased.

An ironic name.

This body was that of a servant, one of the most unfortunate and cursed existences in the universe. They were unnatural, pitiful people brought into life against their will.

Across the vast cosmos, there was not a single sect that did not need labour.

Mortals were cheap. They did not need cultivational resources; even the most ordinary of food and water would keep them alive. Even paying them was optional, for they could not lift a finger against the might of an immortal.

Be it a subtle mercy from the heavens or a cosmic coincidence, mortals were unsuited for sect labour. When a mortal was exposed to impure qi, their bodies could not expel it. Slowly, they would fall ill as impurities accumulated, dying a slow painful death.

The solution was simple, to hire cultivators as labourers at a higher price.

But human greed was insatiable.

Paying such a cost was unacceptable. Even if they enslaved cultivators, the mere act of them breathing stole precious qi from their sects!

Across the universe, demonic cultivators settled on the same solution.

Meridians. They were the culprit. If mortals did not have them, they would not be contaminated.

Qi was the essence of life. All life had meridians, be it flora or fauna.

To be born without them was akin to being born without lungs. A cursed existence, unable to take in the breath of the cosmos.

But the demonic cultivators did not care.

Countless mortals screamed as they were kidnapped and tossed into death chambers. Inside were dense seas of impure qi, a miasma of decay.

Thuds echoed as bodies collapsed to the floor. Only the most resilient of mortals survived, spared from the grasp of death by healing arts. But they were no less miserable. The survivors were treated like livestock, forced to produce the next generation.

The process repeated. Little results were seen in the first centuries.

But immortals were patient. They had all the time in the world.

No one knew when the first true servant was born. But as aeons passed, servant races devoid of meridians began to appear all over the cosmos, like weeds overtaking a barren field. Even sects that criticised the demonic sects for this heinous crime eventually took in servants of their own, unable to resist the allure of profits.

What a cruel joke for him to be born as one.

Baiyun felt panic brushing its withered fingers against his heart. But he took a deep breath and calmed down.

He suddenly remembered the hollow eyes of his disciple, as dark as the void sea. The moments before his death were the most distorted memories he had. He could not even remember why they had fought.

He had to return to the sect and find out what happened!

Baiyun raised a hand and clenched it into a fist.

He would still find a way to cultivate.

He would still find a way to return.

Immortals were patient. Even if it took him a thousand years to return, he trusted the people he knew would remain.

But it truly was a shame. He could not witness the sight of his disciples growing up. Perhaps they would already have forgotten about him by the time he returned.

He sat there in silence for a moment, feeling a deep sadness for a moment at that thought.

But there was no time to waste. Baiyun put his worries aside and got to work.

Days passed in the blink of an eye.

The caretakers would feed him from a rubber gourd occasionally. Inside was a strange mixture consisting of water, milk and a trace of spirit herbs.

As the essence of life, qi was essential even to mortals. Servants did not have the meridians to absorb qi from the air, so if sects did not provide it through food, they would die as infants.

Baiyun hardly noticed the caretakers tending to his infant self. It was as if his body acted on instinct, covering for him, while his mind worked round the clock.

A transcendent soul did not need rest.

Even as his body slept, his soul continued to think.

Baiyun sensed the qi from the herb milk circulating within his body. It was a paltry sum, but it showed all hope was not lost.

The streams of qi were weak, like the almost imperceivable ripples in a still glass of water, disturbed by a slow breeze. But his soul watched with almost bloodshot eyes for hundreds of hours, bordering on obsession.

In his current state, he could not take notes. But the memory of his soul was sufficient.

With the meals he was given each passing day, the streams of qi grew slightly denser, strengthening his physique.

The body of a servant was like a prison without doors or windows. Any qi, good or bad, would remain trapped within, often meaning short lives for servants despite their qi-strengthened physiques.

But this helped greatly in his research.

It was as if he was watching the growth of a small village into a bustling town. As the population grew, the people began to build new amenities and workplaces. New paths formed in the barren dirt as more and more people travelled, finding more and more shortcuts.

A town elder lived in a grand hall, the dantian. Each day, the citizens would gather and pay respects to him.

The barren landscape changed. Grass and trees grew, buildings fell and were rebuilt.

Baiyun was the mapmaker of his body.

Outside the window, the cycle of day and night became an indistinguishable blur of black and white. His comprehension of his body grew by the day.

When he snapped out of his trace, his body was much larger, capable of walking. Before he knew it, he had become 3 years old.

The cultivation technique was complete.

If his body was a bustling country, Baiyun had learnt every facet of each and every inhabitant. His new body no longer felt strange and alien.

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He raised a hand, opening and closing it before his eyes. It felt so natural now. When he first came to this world, it felt as if he had been stuffed into a skin suit against his will.

For the first time, body and soul truly accepted each other.

Adapting to a new body after living in his old one for thousands of years was not easy.

While every person's qi pathways were different in their own unique way, as humans, they remained largely similar. But servants had been so "deformed" by eugenics that their qi pathways barely resembled that of a regular human.

Some researchers even argued servants could no longer be classified as true humans, instead putting them in the category of variant humans.

Baiyun laughed bitterly to himself.

If only he had studied the constitution of servants more in his previous life. But just as quickly, he brushed the thought away.

No.

He had already sworn against human experimentation. It was a mistake he made in his careless youth when all he knew was his father's teachings.

Humans, even servants, were not to be treated as pill beasts. He first declared that when he was 337 years old, much to his father's fury. It was one of the many things his father called him immature for, for daring to put value into the meaningless lives of mortals.

Baiyun gathered up the qi within his body, following the technique he had carefully devised. Slowly, so as not to harm the frail toddler body, the qi entered his dantian in a slow trickle, like water from melting snow.

Mist from a cloud, gathering to form a single droplet of rain. A small wisp of qi formed within. It flickered and blurred as if it could fizzle out of existence at any moment.

Baiyun exhaled.

Success.

It was a tiny step, not even a hundredth of the way to the first stage of qi gathering. But a deep relief washed over him, and he laughed in joy. The biggest hurdle had been resolved! He had adapted the cultivation technique from his past life to this strange body.

Now, all he needed was to gather enough qi.

Time continued to flow.

At the age of 4, the sect began to educate him with his many fellow servants. Literacy. Housekeeping. Cooking. Spirit gardening.

At the age of 6, they were deemed ready for work and sent into the fields.

With how servants trapped qi that would refine their bodies, even at the age of 6, they were as strong as a 10-year-old. The sect was taking full advantage of the greater strength servants had compared to normal mortals.

Baiyun soon learnt how the sect rewarded their servants.

Each day, spirits would observe the servants and assign contribution points based on their performance. The servants who did well were treated to lavish meals, but those who did poorly would only be given kitchen scraps for dinner.

Meals did not cost any contribution points, to ensure servants would not deprive themselves of good food merely to save for a large reward.

That motivation really showed during the day, where servants would go about their jobs with gusto. It was incomparable to his previous sect, where lifeless servants went about their tasks like puppets. Whoever managed the servants here was quite skilled. Such enthusiasm for the mere price of proper food was more than worth it.

Baiyun could see the manipulation, but he was helpless.

If it came down to this, he was going to make the most out of his past experience. He tended to the fields as fast as an adult servant, sowing the seeds perfectly. When he harvested, he was even faster and would never damage the crops! Even the herbs he planted were the largest and most vibrant.

Meanwhile, the rest of the child servants struggled, their hands shaking as older servants chided them.

The caretakers were impressed. Normally, there were too many servants for them to notice a specific one, but Baiyun was like a crane brazenly standing in a flock of chickens.

One day, he overhead two of them as he worked the fields.

"That servant. Do you think he has some rare constitution?" one of them, a gruff old man spoke.

"Hahaha! Perhaps, perhaps. In the future, he could be a seed for future servant generations." the other laughed.

Baiyun's face darkened. Filth that treated humans like livestock! If he had his past might, he would behead them immediately. But he snuffed his rage out in an instant. There was no point in being angry if there was nothing he could do. Right now.

The skies soon turned golden. It was sunset.

One by one, the servants carried baskets of herbs to the collection point, a large stone warehouse where yet more servants would categorise and store the harvest. Baiyun's basket was 10 times larger than the other servants', yet, it was still brimming with herbs. The other children stared at him in envy. But they did not dare to even think of stealing. If they were caught, they would be sentenced to a month of kitchen scraps!

But Baiyun was still a small child and could only push the basket across the ground awkwardly.

After all the servants placed down their baskets, wiping off their sweat, a bright white light showed itself in the skies. It was a light spirit, in charge of managing the servants of this division.

"You are all dismissed!" the spirit said enthusiastically. "Head over to the kitchen for your meals, and rest well for tomorrow!"

Some servants let out a cheer, rushing into the distance. Others merely sighed and trudged off.

Baiyun followed the trail of servants, heading to a large and extravagant dining hall. It was unlike the simple brick housing the servants were used to, built of white marble and even engraved with formations that kept it impeccably clean.

For the servants, only dinner was catered, something to look forward to after a day of hard work. For their other meals, servants had to subsist on grain balls the sect issued.

As he entered the hall, he heard the loud indistinguishable mumble of many servants chatting, laughing and crying. Thousands of servants were feasting away, many of them ill-mannered, without the slightest table manners.

Yet, despite their brutishness, little food was spilt.

From the corner of his eye, he saw a servant cry out in alarm as his bowl of noodles fell to the ground. The servant bent down to the ground, stuffing the noodles into his mouth voraciously, before slurping up the soup from the floor directly and licking it clean.

The servants around him roared in laughter, some even cheering him on.

Baiyun shook his head before making his way towards one of the many chefs, reaching out his hand. Each servant had an invisible seal engraved into one of their hands, recording their contribution points.

The chef touched it and nodded, before heading back into the kitchen.

In a few minutes, he came out, holding a large tray. On it was a piping hot plate of food; low-grade spirit rice, ginseng leaves, sliced roots fried with flour and wilted beans. Beside it was a small bamboo box full of delicacies, for Baiyun to take home and savour later.

This was why he had to show his worth.

While the food did not seem like anything special, because of his contributions, all the dishes were made with various offcuts from spirit plants. Domesticated spirit herbs had most of their qi and medicinal properties concentrated in their most prized section. For example, a spirit ginseng would have 99% of its qi concentrated in its root, much like how a cultivator had most of their qi condensed in their dantian.

But even that scant amount remaining was invaluable for him right now. They were needed for him to reach the 1st stage of qi gathering!

Baiyun did not want to spend decades gathering qi from ordinary food.

He slowly savoured the food, chewing with a content look. How could herb discards be that delicious? Was it because he hadn't eaten food in thousands of years in his past life? It was no wonder the servants here were so motivated. Spoiled by such luxurious food, how could they stand to eat kitchen scraps for a single day?

After polishing the last grain of rice off his plate, he wiped his mouth and headed home with the bamboo box in hand.

It was a quaint little brick cottage. Inside were two simple beds, a table, two chairs, a closet and a door to a storeroom stuffed with various supplies. Not a single speck of dust could be spotted. Baiyun took it upon himself to keep the room in perfect condition. Even if he had to do the cleaning himself, he thought it would be undignified for an "elder" to live in an unkempt room.

Most servants lived in cramped quarters with dozens of others, but with his contribution points, he had purchased the privilege of having an abode to himself, where he lived with his brother.

Baiyun cleaned himself with a wet cloth before switching to a new set of servant robes. On its back, "WanLing Sect Servant" was shoddily embroidered.

He sat on his bed, meditating as he condensed the qi from his meal into his dantian.

Now to expel the impure qi. He swallowed several mouthfuls of air, before gathering unwanted qi into it. He patted his stomach, before burping it out.

It was awkward but necessary. The mouth of a servant was the only place qi could enter or leave. He could not even expel it through his rear end.

Baiyun did not want to talk about his newfound mortal bodily functions. In his past life where he was born a cultivator, he had not even defecated even once. This accursed body! It was humiliating for him to sit on a toilet, expelling unspeakable things. He had to reach qi gathering as soon as possible.

At that moment, a ball of light flew through the walls, entering his room.

He looked up. It was the light spirit.

"Haa... You're copying the immortals again? I told you so many times, you won't get anything out of it!" it sighed. "It's not about how you sit. Cultivators can only cultivate because they absorb qi from their pores and lungs!"

Baiyun made an annoyed face, relaxing and letting his body fall flat on the bed.

"Yeah yeah. You don't have to nag me again!"

"Urgh. You never listen." the spirit grumbled, but suddenly lit up. "Oh! But I came here because I had big news!"

"Really? What is it?" Baiyun got up from bed, practically jumping with excitement.

He had learnt to act in a slightly childish manner, what he thought befitting of his body's age.

"Hmhm!"

The light spirit materialised a small storage bag, dropping it into Baiyun's hands. The cloth was old and slightly tattered. A simple depiction of a pavilion was painted on with black ink, but it had begun to fade and leak.

"Tada! Your very own spatial bag. Now you can hold all the stuff you want! Well, to a certain extent."

"Yay!"

Baiyun grabbed the bag and ran around the room in glee. Perhaps it was an act, but his joy was genuine.

Having experienced the luxury of storage artefacts for the entirety of his past life, not having one was one of many things that made him feel incredibly stifled. It was as if he had regrown an arm he had lost for years.

"Those stingy old men made such a big fuss because of your age! I had to pester them for months before they approved."

Baiyun tilted his head.

"Ah, you're probably not interested in hearing about the higher-ups and their dumb management. Okay okay... What about this, about 20 years ago, there was the Golden Flood incident!"

The light spirit began to ramble to Baiyun about various old stories, while he nodded every now and then.

When he had first reincarnated, he had been quite alarmed by the spirits. Spirits were strange lifeforms born without bodies. As unfettered souls, their spiritual senses were unparalleled. If he used qi sense or divine sense, they would probably notice immediately and alert the elders.

Naturally, this would force him to restrict the use of all spiritual senses within the sect. Not that he could use any currently.

But for whatever reason, the light spirit got quite attached to him. Baiyun did not think much of the caretakers here, but he did not mind the spirit's company.

The two of them talked for a good long hour. Finally, the spirit left, not wanting to disturb his sleep schedule.

Baiyun looked around in the empty room. It seemed his brother was sleeping elsewhere today. If servants performed especially poorly, they would sometimes be forced to work late into the night and sleep in the fields.

He headed to the storeroom, the storage bag in hand.

With a creak, the door opened. Baiyun waited a few minutes for the stale air to clear before heading in.

Grain balls, farm equipment, rags, a stool, ropes, a random giant bowl...

He walked around the room with a grin, stuffing all sorts of items into his storage bag without much thought.

While these bags were given to outstanding servants so they could store herbs with ease, they were allowed to put in personal belongings as well. After all, it was not only a tool that let servants carry more. It was also a reward, meant to motivate servants to continue working hard.

This was quite surprising to Baiyun. Spatial bags were quite an expensive commodity even in his old world; he found it hard to believe a sect would be willing to give them to mere servants. Did the people of this world have advancements that made them easier to produce? He was quite intrigued by the possibility.

In any case, he had learnt an important lesson from his past life.

Even if he wasn't sure what he'd do with the item, he should stash it into his bag anyway! The future was uncertain, even the silliest of items could come in handy one day. The last thing he wanted was to regret not grabbing an item in advance.

The bag was relatively small, only able to contain a small room of goods. If not for that, Baiyun would probably have emptied the storeroom in his frenzy.

He walked out of the cottage, stopping at a tiny shed stocked with firewood. He stuffed several bundles into his bag before stopping.

Baiyun sighed. It hadn't even been an hour, but his bag was already half full! It was such a shame that the remaining space had to be reserved for harvested herbs.

While storage bags often damaged the essences of herbs, servants were in charge of growing low-quality spirit herbs. Ironically, such shoddy essences were hardier and could be transported in spatial environments safely.

He stared at the bag with slight sadness.

A "proper" storage bag would be able to contain several mountains at minimum! He used to own dozens of Mountain Swallowing bags. When they got full, he would stuff them into various drawers, each labelled neatly.

He stared at his bag reluctantly before returning to his bed and let his body rest.

Once more, he immersed himself in the flow of time. Months passed in an instant.

With the storage bag and the help of his growing physique, he was able to gain far more contribution points than ever, now no longer hindered by weight.

Each night, the chefs prepared food of even higher quality for him. Occasionally, there would even be shavings of actual spirit herbs mixed in.

His cultivation began to advance faster and faster. His original estimation was 4 more years to reach qi gathering, but the bag had singlehandedly doubled his speed!

On the exact day of his 8th birthday, late at night, Baiyun was meditating on his bed as usual.

Inside his dantian, hundreds of small wisps of qi had accumulated.

"Huuuu..." he took a deep breath.

Another wisp of qi was extracted from his stomach, joining the lake of qi.

It was time.

For months, he had already been able to make a breakthrough, but Baiyun decided to accumulate a little longer, to be safe. He decided his 8th birthday would be an auspicious date for such a huge matter.

The lake of qi began to stir. The wisps floated out, gathering around a single point. They began to layer themselves until the lake ran dry, forming a sphere of qi brimming with light.

A tremor shook the dantian without warning. A soul hand had materialised, wrapping itself around the qi sphere.

Baiyun trembled as an immense pain shook his entire body, countless small wounds forming internally. Even after his soul had synergised with his body, such a small action could cause such damage.

Compress!

The soul hand crushed the sphere of qi, a blinding flash of light erupting.

Hong!

Baiyun dissolved the hand before it could cause further harm. A blinding flash rushed through his body, but he quickly suppressed the glow with his soul.

Within his body, his dantian was bruised purple. The sphere of qi was no more, now replaced with a single strand of qi. It was a thick strand of white energy, now clear and defined.

The first stage of qi gathering!

He stood up and laughed heartily.

The tension that had coiled around his heart dissipated. For the first time in years, he felt free once more. His body felt as light as a feather.

In the past 8 years, he had tried his best not to think about the possibility of failure. If the path of cultivation was truly cut off from him... he did not even want to imagine the despair it would bring.

A boundless joy filled every corner of his soul, and his smile lit up like the sun.

It was a feeling he hadn't felt in thousands of years.

Good, good.

Baiyun looked at the superior qi within his dantian and nodded with satisfaction.

Now, he could carry out the next stage of his plan. Aoyang would never be content dying in old age as Baiyun the servant.