"So, let me be sure I'm getting this straight, just because of the presence of you two in the Sect, Mother Earth is going to make sure that the demoniacs are going to come over, and we will wind up in an open warfare?" Lingfeng asked me with a tired look on his face.

"Yeah, pretty much something like that…"

"Then, shouldn't we just get the both of you out of the Sect and run away to someplace else?"

"Sure, we could do that, but then that OTHER place would get attacked instead. If you want to put yourself into the mindset of the Mother System, then you should start thinking like a playwright. The Mother System NEEDS tragedies and conflicts to push forward the narratives of the “Players”, especially of those who have lost their memories, because nothing motivates a person to become stronger more than losing your entire family or watching your entire Sect burn. And do not limit yourself to only those sorts of occurrences. Anything that you might think about which could cause the “Players” to become stronger by going through conflicts can be included as something that’s possible to occur, no matter how ridiculous it may seem.

"So, how many of these “Players” as you call them, are out there in the world?"

"Timmy couldn't say, so I assume it's a System confidential information, but the parity between the people that CAN remember stuff and those that got memory wiped is about fifty-fifty."

"Who the hell is Timmy?"

"That's just what I call my system assistant (I point to my head). To explain it in a way that you can understand, he is a sort of an artificial spirit similar to those found in soulbound artefacts, except that he is “glued” onto my spiritual roots instead, and acts like an interface or buffer between me and the Mother System."

"You... have a voice in your head that tells you things about Mother Earth?"

"I know it sounds weird, but think about him more on the lines of him being a secretary, or liaison. Heck, you could even call him the Angel on my shoulder if you want to. I brought him with me when I came into this world alongside a few other spiritual spells that prevent the Mother System from messing with my head directly, since I like to be free of any influences.

Which is NOT something that also applies to you as well, because the mother system CAN indeed influence your decisions without you even noticing it. It's not outright mental manipulation, it's more of a continuous nudging towards a certain direction or decision mindset, if the Mother System wants to see something happen to you in a certain way. And now that the System knows that YOU know about it, it's going to try and screw you even more, because I can guarantee to you that it does NOT like any of the “native” people of the planet knowing the truth about it."

*Gulp*

I could see Lingfeng's Adam's apple bob up and down, as blood was draining down away from his face.

"Well, I've gone and screwed the pooch now, haven't I? I just had to ask the questions that shouldn't have ever been asked."

"Well, I did warn you, didn't I?"

"Yes you did, and I thank you for that, but I do not think my Dao would allow me to ignore such vital information, no matter how terrifying it could turn out to be. So....what the hell do we do from now on, if everything is as terrible as you say?"

"For now, you're going to go and get the Templars off my back, and you will also tell them to prepare for an assault on the sect of a much larger caliber than they have currently prepared for. Tell them to call for more reinforcements immediately, and that you will cover all of the costs of the spirit stones needed for the teleportation formation.

We can just create a bunch of highly charged spirit stones for the teleportation formation, and then get more troops over here to face-off against the impending danger. And also please tell Senior Knight Fall to get off my case. By the way, you said that you would take me to a ley-line intersection so I can cheaply charge my spirit stones with good Qi. If we are going to spend a lot of those stones to summon more reinforcements, then we are going to need a steady supply of clean Qi for them."

"Alright, yes, I did promise that. I can take you up the mountain right now if you want. If what you say is true, then we are going to need all of the resources we can muster."

"Good, let's go, no time like the present."

As we were stepping out of the house, Lingfeng waved his hand and summoned out a highly decorated Chinese sword for no apparent reason.

"What are you going to do with that thing?"

"Well, the best ley-line intersection is on the other side of the mountain, so it would take us a lot of time to get there if we went on foot. I thought it would be simpler if we just flew over there."

"Aw...right... flying on swords, DUH, I forgot that you high-level dudes can do that."

Lingfeng tossed the sword away and it turned into something similar to a hoverboard, floating a few centimetres above the ground and emanating green Qi all around its contour.

"Jump aboard, and hold tightly onto me. The ride can get pretty rocky with all of the mountain winds blowing at that altitude."

"Ugh...s...sure…"

"Ok, ready? 3, 2, 1"

*WOOSH*

"AAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!"

I was never really TOO squeamish about heights, but riding on a few centimetres-wide sword-and-Qi “plank” at the speed of a few hundred kilometres an hour while rattling in the mountain winds really did a number on me.

We landed somewhere on the upper section of the Mountain of Books, but on the part that was facing away from the Sect buildings, which you could call the spine of the mountain. When we got off from the sword, I immediately jumped down from the blade and the Qi light and I hugged the Earth.

Ah, Terra Firma, I never thought that I would miss you so much. Embrace me with your rocky presence!

I could definitely see now why some other cultivators wanted to install railings on their flying swords. This transportation method was insane!

As I was flopping down on my stomach hugging the dirt, I took a peek over the sharp edge of the mountaintop, since I was generally afraid of heights when I had nothing to hold onto.

"Uwaaah! That’s a long-ass straight drop right there man. How long is this sheer cliff drop anyway?"

"I don’t know, a couple of miles maybe? There's even a competition that the Sect organizes from time to time for the mid level cultivators, to see which one can scale to the top of this cliff by using only their feet, hands and fingers. But you don’t have to worry about that, there's a “normal” pathway that reaches here as well, just by climbing the mountainside on foot."

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After that, Lingfeng took me to the insides of a cave, which had its entry-way hidden by a dense web of hanging vines that totally concealed the gap into the cliffside, causing anyone that did not specifically know that there was a ley-line hotspot at this location to miss the cave completely. It was like one of those “secret” spots inside of a game-level with hidden bonus loot that you had to look for really hard before finding anything.

Inside the cave, a crack in the earth could be seen, which was being continuously filled at a slow rate by a trickling water stream that was gushing from the cliffside, making it look like a natural volcanic “onsen”, even though the Mountain of Books was not volcanic in nature by any measure, but rather sedimentary, as anyone could tell from the superimposed rock plates that had given its name in the first place.

When the water was hitting the bottom of the crack and was getting in contact with the almost-exposed ley line, It would heat up and become steamy, then bubble back up to the surface. But because the water stream was continuously bringing fresh cold water from the mountainside, the overall temperature at the surface of the hotspring was that of a warm bath, rather than that of a boiling soup, allowing for people to safely bathe inside the “thermal crack” without suffering any burns.

"Man, this is a really good place for cultivation! The air is filled to the brim with good Qi and fire Qi! I think I could even recharge all of the spirit stones over here and never run out of fuel. Fucking awesome! Thank you, old geezer! I should probably head back down on foot, so I can map out exactly the way to reach this place without having to fly. After that, I'm going to bring Fungus and Liliam over here and have a nice, long, long hot-spring bath together."

I began to dip my fingers inside the water, and I found it absolutely delightful. This was obviously some sort of system-designed locale aimed to satisfy the “onsen episode” from the Player’s adventure “series”, where all of the harem girls would get to splash eachother while laughing and the boys would try and peek at them before getting smashed in the face.

"By the way, you grumpy old fossil, do you know any sneaky path that I can take from here to get back to my house? I do not want to run into any of the Flame Templars yet, since my class is still weird and I’m afraid that they might see it."

"Erm, why don't you just go to the Adventurers Guild to change your class? You could have done that at level 10+"

"Wait, what? So another piece of absolutely common knowledge that I was missing?"

"Well, yeah, you can manually change your Main Class once every 10 levels if you so desire, either at the Adventurers Guild or at any of the Temples of the Gods for a small spirit stone fee, and also get access to two other subclasses up to a total of 10 subclasses if you ever hit level 50. That's more than enough to cover most occupations and hobbies for most people. I can fly you to the local Buddhist temple if you want me to, so you can change it right now."

"Sure, let’s do that! I can map out a path to this place tomorrow morning, when there’s more light to see where I’m going, and I can also bring Fung with me."

We then both climbed back onto Lingfeng’s sword, and we flew down towards the Sect’s Buddhist Temple.

Flying on a sword was weird. It’s not as much as sitting on the flat of the metal blade, but more like sitting on a surfboard, since this weird layer of sword Qi just gushed out of every part of the blade, creating a literal “plank” of Qi that you could sit on. It was also a very “sticky” surface, since saying “magnetic” would be incorrect because it would only apply to ferrous metals, yet this thing “sucked” onto itself even the flesh and the clothes of the user. The attraction was so strong that it could allow for the humans riding the sword to hang upside down from the “Qi plank” without even falling down. The “suction” force could be manipulated freely by the user to either totally “glue” the user to the sword, or allow him to detach himself instantly in case of need. Still, one of the drawbacks of the sword flight was again the still-missing impact shield in the front, since we were now both swallowing bugs in mid-flight like crazy.

We reached the Buddhist Temple just as the sun was dipping below the mountains, leaving red-rainbow shades on the clouds and the sky in a very picturesque manner. We then proceeded to the backyard of the temple where the Weirdwood Tree was located at alongside with the many altars of the Gods, to see which one would allow me to change my class. The moment I set my foot in the courtyard, Timmy began screaming.

*New Mail Jingle*

Timmy:You have (3) New Unread extradimensional mails waiting for you.

Proceed to the closest Weirdwood Tree Communications Center to receive your physical attachments.

Mail? Seriously? Bleh, then again, it should be obvious that such a feature would be available to players.

I went to the white tree with the old-man face, and then I put my hand on it’s bark.

Inbox:

Mail 1: Thank you for using Gods-R-Us Travel Agency! You have gained a 20% discount coupon for your next purchase!

We hope that you will enjoy your time on Planet Pangerra!

We would also like to remind you that your [Planned Tourist Vacation On A Planet Without Magic], [Earth, Version 68^94^7] suddenly expired because of your [Priority Recall] circumstances, but that you will still be able to resume your vacation on a similar Earth Version if you so desire after your current time on planet Pangerra is over.

Argh! How does that even work? Resume my time on Earth? WTF! What about the time inconsistencies?

Timmy: That Earth is probably in another Universe, just like the one you previously came from, so I do not think time-sync problems are an issue here. They can just shuffle the stuff around in the Omniverse, where time is irrelevant.

Mail 2: Omniversal ㄖ爪几ㄚ乃ﾑ刀ズ Bank account Update:

250000 Karmic Points have been added to your account from an external source.

Ugh? What? Who did that? How come? I sure as hell am not responsible for that!

Mail 3: 5.3

REMEMBER! 📎

The moment I read that last message, I felt something slip inside of me and attach itself to my spiritual roots like one of those external modules without me being able to do anything about it.

AAACK! WHAT THE FUCKING HELL MAN! DID I JUST GET TROJAN HORSED?

I was always careful about opening mail attachments, even back on Earth, but this thing had literally jumped at me stronger than an Alien facehugger!

When I tried to poke at it and see what the purpose of the whole item was, I could not get any feedback from the damn thing, so I even asked Timmy what the hell that module was all about, yet he also had no clue.

He told me that the only information he could gather about the new module which had promptly installed itself onto my soul was that the thing was called a [5.3 Placeholder Container], and that it was all the info that the item had. Not even Timmy had any idea what it could do, so that rang some huge alarm bells inside of my mind.

There was no sender address, nor a return one, with zero instructions about what to do with the damn thing, nor anything about its purpose except for that cryptic one-word message.

Remember WHAT? And what the fuck is a 5.3? My previous smartphone screen size in inches? AAARGH!

I closed the mail interface, and then I proceeded to the shrine dedicated to Mother Earth, which was a statue that looked strangely similar to the Venus of Willendorf sculpture, depicting a Fatty Momma with overflowing tits.

Once I got near, an interface option popped up asking me whether I wanted to donate for a blessing, or do something else.

I picked something else, and I got a list of other things that I could do at the shrine, among which was the class change.

Timmy: You are now eligible for a manual class change.

You can now pick from the following classes:

Actor

Alchemist

Archer

Arsonist

Bowyer

Chickenslayer

Con-Artist

Cryomancer

Demonslayer

Escaped Clone

Energy Manipulator

Herbalist

Inventor

Mentalist

Murderer

Otherworlder

Ranger

Woodworker

Why the hell was Arsonist even an option? Was it because I had set fire to my garden when I had fought Ifritt’s book?

Anyway, I picked Alchemist and also unlocked my two other subclass slots, which I left open for now. After “donating” a couple of spirit stones to the plater in front of the altar and having those black tendrils of the system shoot out from below and dismantle the stones into nothingness, I got the confirmation that my “official” class was now Alchemist, and I was very happy about that. Now, if I could find some way to erase my guild affiliations history, and I’d be somewhat safe against inspections even without having to use that “hide stats” skill.