Tian Ji Han felt weightless and strange. He had no body, and yet, he was… sentient.

He couldn’t even open his eyes, his awareness simply faded with the contrast of colors and outlines.

“Hello, little one.”

The soul of Tian Ji Han “looked” in the direction of the voice.

He beheld what appeared to be a thirty-meter tall Immortal Goddess. Her aquiline nose, statue-like eyes and facial features could not possibly be described as “beautiful” so much as “uncanny.” She also possessed six arms that stemmed behind her back, and wore a strange headdress.

“Don’t be fooled by how I appear to you, little one,” it said. “Appearances are deceiving. Our bodies are not ‘ourselves.’ Your body was destroyed, yet, ‘you’ are here, no?”

“I’m…I’m dead?” Tian Ji Han asked. His voice did not come from his mouth, since he no longer had one, it simply arose from his mere thoughts.

“Quite frankly, yes, your corporeal body has died,” said the Goddess. “But it appears that your particular soul was so righteous and unique that it has been offered the chance of rebirth. Lucky you, eh?”

Tian Ji Han was skeptical.

“You don’t really talk…like I’d imagine a boddhisivata to talk,” he said. “You’re making it sound like I just happened to win in a luck of the draw and it’s your job to process my afterlife documents or something.”

“Who said I was a bodhisattva?!” said the Goddess. “Look, just like on Earth, Heaven is a bureaucracy, too, okay. You think the afterlife wouldn’t be the same? The point is, my superiors deemed your soul remarkable enough to earn the unique privilege of transmigration.”

Tian Ji Han wasn’t sure he heard her correctly.

“Excuse me, ‘transmigration?’”

“Yes, transmigration, rebirth, going-into-another-world, isekai’d, whatever floats your boat!” The Goddess explained with exasperation. “You have earned this sole unique privilege to find yourself reborn in another world, not only with your memories and experiences intact, but as a highschool boy on a realm called Earth, specifically in a country called ‘Japan.’ You will have two loving parents, and a cute little sister who admires you.”

“A family?” Tian Ji Han’s voice turned gentle at the thought of being able to grow up with a family. “That sounds… really nice.”

“Yes, and that’s not all!” the Goddess said, one of her eight arms pointing the sky like a businesswoman closing the sale. “Because your knowledge and wisdom will be preserved, you’ll excel in all your studies, and become really popular. You’ll get a best friend who’s undyingly loyal, and tons of cute, sexy girls who have a crush on you. All your classmates would be jealous!”

“Wait, huh?” Tian Ji Han said. “Th-that’s really unexpected. How often does this sort of…fortune occur around here?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Tian Ji Han’s voice suddenly turned serious: “Wait, what will happen to the Heavenly Sword Sect and Xiao Feng? What happens to the world I leave behind? What happens to Yin Na? ”

“What? You mean the world you were originally born from and died in? Who cares?” said the Goddess. “That won’t be your problem anymore, you’ll be living a dream in another world and life, the world you came from might as well have never existed in the first place!”

“But it will continue existing, right?” Tian Ji Han pressed on.

“...” The Bodhisattva was silent. “Not really, time will have no meaning in the world you’re originally from because you’ll be living in another world. But to answer your question in a way that satisfies you, yes, without you, Yin Na will continue to wreak havoc and roam unchecked, just as he did while you were in closed-door cultivation for ten years.”

Tian Ji Han’s soul shook with emotion.

“I…I can’t do this!” it cried. “I can’t just move on and live a bliss-free life in another world, while living with the knowledge that Yin Na is alive and doing evil!”

“No worries,” said the Bodhisattva. “We offer a free selective memory-wiping package, terms nonnegotiable as stated in the fineprint, where, on top of eliminating all memories of you having ever been here, we can also wipe your painful and conflicting memories from your past life, including anything connecting back to Yin Na!”

“No!” shouted Tian Ji Han. “I…I’m sorry. I can’t do it.”

“...”

“I can’t move on to the next life,” Tian Ji Han said. “I’d rather be punished for my failure to reform Yin Na by having my soul be obliterated. Why, I’d rather be…I’d rather be reincarnated as a beast, if it means I can maul Yin Na to death!”

The Goddess's eyes lit up.

“Wait, I have an idea!” The Goddess’s two arms by its midsection took out a book, where it rapidly flipped through pages. Its other two arms by its shoulders rapidly wrote a letter and sealed it in an envelope, whereupon finishing the hands shoved the envelope into a slot in the “ceiling.”

“...”

“...”

Both Tian Ji Han and the Goddess stared at each other. There was nothing for Tian Ji Han to do, he had no dantian anymore and could not sit down to cultivate as he waited. The Goddess awkwardly fidgeted with her documents behind her desk while she pretended to look busy.

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At last, a returning envelope fell through the slot in the “ceiling.” The Goddess caught it mid-air and then quickly tore it open to read the contents.

“Hmm, ‘denied’…damn it! I can’t just straight up reincarnate you back into the world you’re from, even if it’s for something as noble and righteous as trying to rectify your wrongs.”

The Goddess crunched the letter into a compact ball with all six arms, then tossed the crumpled letter over her head.

“Harumph! Listen, Tian Ji Han. If you really are serious about being reborn in the world you’re from just to combat Yin Na and defeat his ‘Dao of Benefits,’ would you do it even if you were reincarnated as a rock?”

Tian Ji Han’s soul was overjoyed.

“Yes!”

“Seriously?” The Goddess sighed, she rubbed her forehead in an expression of defeat. “You’d reincarnate even if the…thing you reincarnate as isn’t even sentient and has no cultivation ability whatsoever?”

“Of course!”

The Goddess sighed. She wrote another letter, then shoved it into an envelope through the slot located on the “ceiling” again.

After an even longer wait, a returning envelope finally dropped from the slot in the “ceiling.” The Goddess caught it, and began to read the letter inside.

“Tian Ji Han,” the Goddess said. “Since you reject the offer to transmigrate into another world, I can offer you another alternative to rebirth in your original world.”

“Yes!” Tian Ji Han’s soul wanted to instinctively cup his hands and kowtow, but it had no hands or a head. “Thank you, bodhisattva!”

“I’m not a bodhisattva!” snapped the Goddess. “However, it’s not going to be easy. We struggle to make reincarnation ‘fair’ up here, so we can’t just let you easily reincarnate as another human being. However, my superiors had difficulty in deciding what vessel they’d allow you to return as, so in the end, they want me to give you this.”

The bodhisattva took out a jade trinket that was carved in the shape of a Bagua Daoist symbol.

“This is the Four Chances bead,” she said. “Using this, you will be able to transfer your soul and all your memories into anything within contact.”

As she explained, the Four Chances bead slowly merged with the light of Tian Ji Han’s soul.

“How will I know how to use it? What do you mean by ‘within contact?’ Did you seriously mean ‘anything’ or did you mean ‘anyone?’ What happens when I run out of three chances? Why such an unlucky amount, can’t I have one bonus attempt to make it five?” Tian Ji Han’s soul was full of questions.

“You’ll know how to use it!” said the Goddess. “It’ll be instinctual. Also, don’t try to use up all four chances, you’ll obviously won’t get anymore after that, and you won’t come back here! Anyway, your memories of ever having been here will be wiped starting right now. Good luck!”

Tian Ji Han was “blinded” by the light, even though his soul didn’t have “eyes.”

The lights and outlines of this world began fading again, until everything went black.

…

Tian Ji Han arose into consciousness. The first thing he saw and felt was the sensation of being buried beneath ash.

“Huff, huff… I self-detonated!” He recalled, gasping for air. “I had a life-and-death battle with Yin Na and I lost. He pulled some ridiculous move where he shot spirit stones at me… and I don’t think my explosion caught him. And…where am I?”

He had dug with all his might, until the moonlight had shown itself, fresh oxygen flooding his entire body upon emerging from the ashes. His memory was sent in shambles, but after a few seconds, he quickly remembered everything. He remembered taking the Soul Overload pill out of desperation, and attempting to take Yin Na along with the self-detonating blast. Judging from the position of the moon, only an hour had passed since his death.

He found himself currently revived a few meters away from the epicenter of the explosion. However, he felt impossibly light and really thirsty.

“I feel dreadfully fatigued…I need food…and water.”

Tian Ji Han’s hands went into his robe to retrieve his bag where he kept food, but his arm felt clumsy. But he had no bag, or clothing at all. In fact, he didn’t even have arms.

“What the?!” Tian Ji Han tried to call out.

Instead of a robe, he had a shiny, exoskeletal back covering. Instead of arms, he had six appendages.

Tian Ji Han had turned into a Gu pest. Gu bugs were rare and not indigenous in this zone, and he had no knowledge of insects nor Gu which were the specialty of very obscure clans and Sects in the Southeast Domain. Even if Tian Ji Han was able to even glimpse at a reflection of himself, he wouldn’t be able to tell what species he was, as the shape of his insectoid body did not allow him to look completely down at his horrific new body.

He had no memory of how he got there, he only knew that he had saved himself from certain death by transferring his soul into another nearby body. Because the Goddess had erased his memories, he only instinctively knew that he could transfer his soul two more times before he ran out of opportunities.

“Although I’m a mere insect now,” thought Tian Ji Han. “I am grateful that whatever species it is, its body was preserved somehow during my Golden Core explosion.”

Little did Tian Ji Han know, the husk he had transferred his soul into was actually the corpse of a Fire element Gu called “Ka.” The Ka Gu was an incredibly rare and treasured Gu, its chitinous exterior was resistant to the hottest of flames, and evidently the immolating flames from Tian Ji Han’s Soul Overload suicide earlier. The fact that such a valuable bug was going to rot away, dead of natural reasons and buried beneath ash would have been too much of a waste!

“My body was completely destroyed,” thought Tian Ji Han. “I will have to do my best in this simple insect’s body I’m inhabiting. I…I don’t recall when I was born with the ability to resurrect in the body of another living being, is this some soul transfer spell? I also somehow inexplicably understand that if I do it three more times, I won’t be able to do it any more. I need to be sparing with my transferring of souls.”

Tian Ji Han scuttled around the forest floor, trying to get used to his new body while wondering about what he should do next.

“Does this little insect have…the ability to fly? I can’t tell, I can’t feel anything on my back, so I guess I don’t have wings. Oh, how will I ever beat Yin Na like this? I’m a mere insect!”

A few hours ago he was a heroic Golden Core cultivator, a pillar disciple of virtue of the Heavenly Sword Sect fighting the demon Yin Na. Now he was a mere Gu bug crawling among the ashes of his defeat.

Tian Ji Han was wracked with despair. But just as he had curled himself up into a little ball, he unfurled himself and got back on his six feet.

“I can’t think of just myself, what about Xiao Feng?” he suddenly realized. “Apprentice, I hope you made it back to headquarters safely. You don’t have to worry anymore, your master is alive, albeit in a more diminutive form!”

Tian Ji Han tried to cheer himself up, when suddenly a looming shadow cast itself over him. The eyesight of the Ka Gu was weak, it could mostly only detect the change in light with his new sensory organs; it felt most of the threat from the vibrations in the ground.

An Igneocopper Armadillo was eyeing him hungrily.