The servant's library.

No, to call it a library might be an exaggeration. It was a simple brick shack rarely visited by anyone, one of the few recreational facilities of the servant sector. Inside, dozens of old shelves were lined neatly, dust and cobwebs lining their tops.

Half the books here were related to servant activities, including books on efficient harvesting and crop formations. But the rest were books discarded by disciples of the sect, collected by none other than the resident light spirit.

Baiyun sat on one of few available seats in the meagre library with a lantern on the table close by, holding a book in hand.

Close by, the spirit in question floated above him, looking through the pages as well. For whatever reason, it had taken interest in him in the past years and would visit him whenever it felt like it.

"The great immortal reincarnates as a dragon."

That was the title of the book in his hands. It was a shallow read, but it was an opportunity to ask a question he wanted to ask for years.

"Hey hey, miss spirit! Do you think it's possible to reincarnate like this book says?" Baiyun asked innocently.

"Reincarnation? Hmm... I think I've heard the elder spirits talk about it in the past." the spirit mused. "Something about a new heavenly law about reincarnation being passed down? But I'm not sure."

"It's real?" Baiyun looked up with eyes of child-like excitement. "Then, in my next life, can I be reincarnated as a cultivator?"

"Huh? O-oh, maybe?" the spirit stumbled over her words in a fluster. "But as far as I know, people reincarnate without their memories. You probably won't remember this life."

"Aww..." Baiyun pouted.

But he recovered quickly. With excited waves of his arms, he spouted question after question endlessly. The light spirit seemed troubled by the naive questions of the child.

Baiyun was equally pained by how he had to put on the facade of a clueless child; it was both embarrassing and tiring. If anyone from his past life saw him like this, he felt like he would bury himself in a hole for a hundred years. But tonight was a rare night the spirit had time to spend with him, he wouldn't let her go without asking his fill of questions so easily!

The questions continued for a good few minutes, before he could finally ask the question he wanted. After all, a young child wouldn't know what a heavenly law was.

"-and boom! A brillant flash of light!" the spirit said.

"Ohhh! So it shines with a golden light when they announce a new law! That's so cool! How does it happen? I want to see it!" Baiyun was practically jumping in excitement.

"The heavens don't just pass down laws so casually. Those laws were passed in the 27,980th year, and this year is the 28,088th so that's um..."

"A hundred and eight years later! That's so long!" Baiyun exclaimed.

"Yeah... haha."

The light spirit dimmed, seemingly ashamed of itself.

Baiyun sweated a little. He answered that reflexively! Even if he was posing as a bright child, perhaps it was a little too much for him to be faster at arithmetics than a spirit of unknown age.

108 years, huh? He felt a deep melancholy.

His soul had been in suspension for that long? Baiyun thought he had been reincarnated instantly, but it made sense it took time for his soul to be transported this absurd distance.

As he had suspected, reincarnating with intact memories was not normal. Not everyone would think to keep it hidden, and there would be a lot of chaos if many children were born with knowledge of their past lifes. Would his memories be erased if the heavens found out about this error? Baiyun could not help but worry.

If he continued to cultivate, the chance the heavens would find out would grow. But the thought of spending the entirety of this life as a servant was worse. Even if his life was put on the line, he knew he couldn't give up.

Baiyun shut the book in his hands, a faint puff of dust floating into the air.

"Miss spirit!" he said suddenly. "I'm bored, so tomorrow I want to go to the mushroom chamber!"

"What?!" The light spirit practically jumped. "Why would you want to go there?"

"When you took us there last time, I thought the glowing mushrooms were cool!" Baiyun put on the look of a smug child. "I have a lot of contribution points anyway, so what's wrong with taking a break for a day?"

If a servant did well, they could spend their contribution points to get a request of theirs fulfilled.

The two of them bickered for a few minutes before the spirit finally relented, letting out a sigh.

"Fine... I know I can't change your mind when you're like this. But be careful! I'm not allowed to go down with you. And the earth spirit supervising the chambers isn't as caring!"

The spirit spent the 10 minutes nagging and drilling him with safety protocols. Baiyun could only sweat.

"I'll sleep early since tomorrow is big!" he said, desperate to flee.

He practically rushed out of the library with a book under his arm, hurrying home. He ran down a stone road and made a few quick turns, before arriving at a small brick house.

Baiyun quickly pulled the door open only for his eyes to twitch at the sight before him. His brother was hunched over the bamboo box full of delicacies the chefs had given him, eating a bowl of shaved iced leisurely by the spoonful.

"Ah! You thieving rat!" Baiyun yelled.

"Hah! You thought I wouldn't find it if it was under your bed? Blehh!" the kid stuck out his tongue.

Baiyun flung the book in his hands, smacking him right in the head. He would have kept the bamboo box in the storage bag the sect had given him, but it was of low quality and items inside had a tendency to tumble around and flip over.

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"Ow!"

Well, not that he really was angry, he told himself. He was just acting as a child, after all. He fought his brother off and ate the rest of the delicacies before heading off to bed, hugging the book to sleep.

"The Fundamentals of Earth".

It was a cultivation related book, not one a child could be expected to understand. Baiyun didn't want to explain to the spirit why he was flipping through such books, so years ago, he figured out an convenient excuse.

"If I sleep with the books, maybe I'll absorb their knowledge!"

That was what he declared to her years ago, much to her speechlessness. In the end, the spirit still catered to his childish demands and handed him a few old cultivation books she found lying around.

Hugging a book to sleep an easy way for him to read books with soulsense while his body rested. They were far from as refined as the techniques his old sect had, but Aoyang did not like spending the night idling til his body woke. Even if they weren't particularly refined theories, he still enjoyed pondering them from time to time.

Hours, followed by the night passed as the soul read and contemplated each and every page. Baiyun opened his eyes to the light of dawn and put the book aside. He did not wake his brother today and simply left. It wasn't his problem if that kid overslept.

The light spirit flew over, holding a giant bag.

"Here, wear this!"

Baiyun squirmed as she tied a helmet to his head and stuffed him into a thick coat. At the helmet's front, a small qi stone was embedded, shining with a faint light.

"You don't need to go that far..." Baiyun sweated. "I'll be fine."

He wasn't sure how he felt about the spirit acting like an overprotective mother. When had she gotten that attached to him? But it was precisely that very care that made it difficult for him. Too much attention only made it more difficult for him to act discretely.

"Repeat the safety protocols from yesterday!" the spirit said sternly.

"Okay, okay!"

Only after confirming he remembered the protocols did she nod and let him off. Baiyun took off his helmet briefly to adjust his hair, staring at the qi stone wistfully. How easy would it be if he could just eat it to advance his cultivation?

For a moment, he was tempted to gobble it up on the spot and pretend it was just the impulse of a weird child, but he held back.

"Bye miss spirit!"

Baiyun waved goodbye to her before heading off.

He followed long winding paths and made his way to the nearby mountains, where caves reached far down. Other servants were on their way as well, but they did not look as prepared. They did not have coats and merely put on a few layers of clothing. They did not have the luxury of a miner's helmet, instead holding large oil lanterns.

Most of them were adults, so quite a lot of them were staring at the child joining them in puzzlement. But they minded their own business and did not ask.

Before long, the gaping maw of a cave in the midst of the mountain revealed itself. Baiyun followed the servants as they descended the dark caves, entering the bowels of the earth.

The slow trek downwards began. The servants did not seem in the mood for talk, tho they let out slow laboured breaths as the air grew colder. Baiyun felt a little bad and offered the leasted dressed servant a large rag as a makeshift cold, and she nodded in thanks.

An hour of walking passed before they entered the mushroom plantation. The servant handed the rags back to Baiyun, and he finally nodded back in response.

The other servants did not pay the slightest heed to him, dispersing in every direction. They pulled out pickaxes with an axe head with one end, getting to work immediately.

Baiyun looked around and took in the sight.

Even deep underground, the caverns were far from lifeless. Massive roots from a strange woody plant dug into the stone walls, countless mushrooms infesting them. Save for the light of lanterns and some luminous mushrooms, the caverns were darker than night.

The faint sounds of grinding and clacking could be heard as servants slowly dug into the stone walls, tendering to the roots and harvesting the ripe mushrooms.

Baiyun did not lie to the light spirit about finding the mushroom caverns "cool". He thought there was a certain beauty to the atmosphere here.

He recalled something from a few years back.

Back when he was 6, the light spirit rounded up the young servants and brought them here to visit. To them, it was dark, freezing cold and the still air felt suffocating. Who would enjoy digging into stone walls in such conditions for hours? They were told if they did poorly at their jobs, they would be sent here to work for the rest of their lives.

The scare proved effective and the very next day, the young servants worked with tenfold effort.

But Baiyun did not come here to get any work done.

He walked past the many servants hard at work, as well as those merely idling around listlessly, their eyes dulled by boredom. Baiyun shook his head; it was as the light spirit said.

The earth spirit supervising them simply did not care. It would merely note down the contribution of the servants and kept the caves sturdy with new reinforced pillars. If any underground beasts appeared, it would slaughter them. The servants who chose not to work were only making it worse for themselves; it meant they would have to put up with the suffocating cavern for yet more hours.

Baiyun touched the walls silently and mused to himself. They were not artificial caves, but part of a large underground network of natural caverns. The earth spirit had a radius it marked as the "safe zone". If any servant ventured beyond that point, they would no longer be under its protection.

He walked deeper and deeper into the caverns. The servants around him grew fewer and fewer, until it was only him alone.

The edge of the safe zone was now in sight, marked by a faint yellow light. He hesitated for a moment and took a deep breath. Then, he walked past the light.

Free of surveillance, at last! Baiyun laughed in silence, then focused for a moment and opened his mouth.

A thin thread of qi sense entwined with soulsense shot out. Soulsense was to draw upon the senses of one's soul. Qi sense was to use external qi to sense the surroundings. To combine them both was the art of divine sense.

With how he lacked external meridians, he had to use qi directly from his stomach.

Now that he was in the 1st stage of Qi Gathering, he could now extend a tiny fragment of his soul safely. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough for him to sense danger 3 metres around him. Along with that, his lack of external meridians would help him stay hidden from spirit beasts. There was no qi wafting off his body to give him away, nor would his body take in the surrounding qi.

He put his helmet back into his bag wordlessly. The last of the helmet's light peered out of the bag, before being engulfed, plunging the surroundings into pitch darkness. Baiyun had no choice. Light was far too dangerous.

With soundless footsteps, he ventured.

The silence was suffocating. All he could hear was faint winds whispering through the caves. Every now and then, he could hear distant creatures scuttling about. But just as abruptly, the deafening silence would return.

Inside the caves, he was not the only one trying to hide.

This was nothing. He had gone through far worse in his training against inner demons; such a small thing could not frighten him.

But Baiyun clutched his chest, alarmed by the sensation within him. Why was his heart pounding so fast? Why was his breath shaky? He did not realise, or perhaps chose not to realise, but being reborn in this young body had changed him.

He took deep breaths and steadied himself before continuing onwards.

Minute by minute, step by step, an hour passed. How far away was he from the safe zone now?

On his way here, he felt the qi sense of spirit beasts sweeping their territory many times. Each time, he could only leave quickly, changing the route he took in the darkness. His divine thread might have a small effective range, but it was far quicker than qi sense, darting out before they could sense him in return.

Though, if he tried to use divine thread under the surveillance of the sect spirits, he was certain they would out in an instant. They were not simple beasts after all.

Baiyun's thoughts paused as his divine thread chanced upon a faint qi in the darkness. His breath quickened as he walked towards it slowly.

A large grey fleshy lump coated in foul black ooze stuck out of the cavern walls. It was a spirit fungus of sorts. Baiyun reached to it with divine sense and analysed it, reaching the unsurprising conclusion that it was a very poisonous mushroom.

That was only natural. If it was a free treasure for the taking, a spirit beast would have eaten it long ago.

Baiyun took a hand scythe from his bag and spent the next minute sawing it off, a fork in his other hand. As the fugus began to shake, a sliver from being cut off from the wall, he stabbed the fork into it and plucked it off. If he let it fall to the ground, the sound might attract unwanted attention.

How ironic, to hold what was inedible on a rock. Baiyun wasn't in the mood to appreciate that little thought. He rolled the fungus in a pile of rock dust to stop the dripping of the ooze, then began his journey back to the safe zone. It was far too dangerous to process the mushroom here.

The memory of a Transcendent expert's soul was not to be sneezed at. Even if it was a week later, he would still be confident in finding his way back.

He continued in the darkness for half an hour, but suddenly halted.

Something’s qi sense was blocking the path back.