Zeng Fei peered into the arched doorway that had opened up next to the hand imprint, but failed to see anything further as although the doorway itself was visible, everything beyond was totally dark.

Until it wasn’t anymore.

The torches lining the room ahead lit as one, bringing into view a long corridor.

Was the gloomy aesthetic of the corridor a tad suspicious? Sure.

And what about the ghastly blue flames dancing on those torches? Naturally.

But come on, who in their right mind could resist searching down a secret passageway that had just opened in front of them inside a dungeon?

Probably a lot of people, to be honest, but it’s not like Zeng Fei had anything else to do here.

So after a few beats of gathering his resolve, he took his first step into the corridor.

To his relief, nothing happened.

A few tepid steps followed, and still the ground did not give way to a spiked pit, nor did a boulder abruptly teleport behind him, announce “omae wa mou shindeiru”, and start barrelling towards him.

And so Zeng Fei allowed himself to relax a little, the deafening thuds of his heartbeat no longer building towards a heart attack.

At the corridor’s end, he found a doorway leading into a massive hall that too was lit by ghastly blue torches on its walls. The hall itself was split into two halves, one half peculiarly empty as if to provide stark contrast to the other half further on that looked to be a private library, occupied by row upon row of bookshelves, each one stuffed to the gills with time-worn scrolls.

Whoever it was that owned this place, their view on health and safety was all too obvious from the way they’d recklessly placed countless torches with naked flames next to stacks of flammable material.

Still, Zeng Fei wanted to get on their good side, so he did the polite thing by remaining in the doorway and calling out. “Hello, is anyone here?”

“Why, yes.” An answer came immediately from beside him, giving him half a heart attack.

Zeng Fei threw his gaze sidelong to realise a figure had been next to him this entire time, only unseen until now due to its complete lack of presence.

It looked to be a wise and kindly old man, though not entirely human as it was also eerily translucent and lacked legs with everything below its torso appearing fog-like. Since it was the wrong genre for a genie, Zeng Fei figured this had to be the spirit of an ancient cultivator.

Protagonists in cultivation stories always obtained their spirit advisers early on, who came in one of two flavours: either the sage-like grandpa from ancient times who’d gift the protagonist with a long-forgotten legacy, or the pretty girl (who regardless of her true age would act like a teenager) that had been betrayed and was hiding from some celestial power.

Realising this was his lucky break, Zeng Fei bowed deeply towards his future spirit adviser. “This junior greets Esteemed Senior. I profusely apologise if I disturbed your rest.”

“Ohoho.” The spirit adviser twirled its long white beard in its fingers. “Do you know who I am, child?”

“…No?”

“Oh… huh, that’s strange. I thought you would know.”

The spirit adviser was caught afoot (no, not literally) by Zeng Fei’s evident confusion. The question it’d asked was to make certain this child was an otherworlder (and not simply funny in the head) before passing on the Emperor’s legacy, and passing on itself.

Normally, the most reliable way of doing this would have been to scour Zeng Fei’s memories, but that wasn’t possible here as the spirit adviser knew that bodies only contained memories made in this world; as for how otherworlders were able to access their past-life memories in spite of this, the spirit adviser had no idea.

Either way, this meant it’d have to tease out Zeng Fei’s true nature through questioning, the most efficient way being to ask a question that only an otherworlder could answer and which the spirit adviser could also verify.

It just so happened the Emperor had always attributed his oracle-like foreknowledge of how events would play out to his status as an otherworlder.

Hence, the spirit adviser had believed Zeng Fei would be able to identify it despite meeting it for the first time.

Zeng Fei, meanwhile, saw the frown on its face and quickly gathered that the posed question must have been another test. If he didn’t want to end up like the original, he’d have to pull a rabbit out of his hat pronto.

“Wait, Senior.” He placatingly raised his hands, palms facing out. “Although I profess a lack of knowledge about Esteemed Senior’s identity, I do have some rough ideas. If you’d allow me to voice them…”

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Eager to give him another chance, the spirit adviser gave an encouraging nod. “Go on.”

“Okay, so I’m thinking spirit adviser, Immortal’s legacy, uh, betrayed by someone close to you, far weaker than original state, either critically injured or poisoned, uh, finding a worthy successor for a forbidden or long-forgotten ability, what else um…”

The spirit adviser raised its hand to stop him. “Good, good. You have proven yourself worthy of inheriting the Emperor’s Legacy.”

Zeng Fei’s eyes widened, somewhat surprised his strategy had worked so well but more so that the test had been so short. It caused a doubt to crop up in his mind.

“Um, Esteemed Senior, I apologise in advance for my ignorance, but what exactly did I prove just now?”

The spirit adviser appeared to be in no mood to entertain him, however, as it floated away to the centre of the empty half of the hall. “Never you mind your little brain about such profound and esoteric matters, child. What matters is that I have found you worthy.”

It paused. “Though, that being said, your body is absolute trash and could never hope of inheriting the Emperor’s technique.”

“…”

“Then again, the same could be said about the Emperor’s body back in those days. Which is why the first step of his technique is to reforge the user’s body into something higher quality, into the sole Immortal Physique capable of cultivating the Emperor’s technique.”

The spirit adviser beckoned towards Zeng Fei. “Come here now. Oh, and remove your clothes if you’d like to use them afterwards as the body forging ritual can get messy.”

Since it was common for cultivators to release bodily impurities in the form of black sludge whenever making big breakthroughs (especially for those practising body refining techniques), Zeng Fei did not find its comment strange, and he took off his robes in the corridor.

In normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have been self-conscious to be nude, but since the spirit had already called his body trash (mind you, without any need to either), he feared it’d make another pointed remark now. As such, he figured he’d play it safe.

Teeth clattering, Zeng Fei rubbed at his arms while shivering. “Brr. It sure is cold in here. Is the heating not on?”

The spirit adviser glanced at him in confusion. Given the plethora of lit torches, it would have thought a human like Zeng Fei would have found the temperature to be toasty if anything, not cold.

“You know, I can practically feel my blood vessels constricting,” Zeng Fei continued, as though he hadn’t seen its strange look. “Brr, I feel like judging anyone’s body in these conditions would be an unfair assessment.”

“…”

“Brr, so freezing. Brr.”

“Just come this way,” the spirit eventually said with palpable exasperation.

Zeng Fei chuckled to clear the tension. “Of course, Esteemed Senior, of course. I was just muttering nonsense to myself. Pay me no mind, haha.”

“…”

Inexplicably, Zeng Fei’s ploy had somehow backfired and seemed to have lowered the spirit adviser’s assessment of him, causing him to internally grumble that its expectations were too high if it genuinely believed the stuff it’d seen online were realistic depictions.

Naturally, he didn’t dare voice any of these thoughts aloud, and was all smiles on the outside as he went over to the indicated spot.

Once there, the spirit adviser left him and began inspecting the empty floor, though Zeng Fei couldn’t tell what for even after using his qi-enhanced vision.

Not knowing how long it would take, he figured he may as well gather some information while waiting. “By the way, Esteemed Senior, I have yet to hear the Immortal’s name whose technique I will be inheriting.”

“Ah, my apologies, child - I must have forgotten to mention it in my hurry. In his time, my Immortal Master was known as The Heavenly Demon Emperor.”

“…” This time it was Zeng Fei’s turn to go silent.

He chewed over his thoughts for a bit, worried they’d offend the spirit, but all the same felt he had to ask now before things went any further. “You mean like the Heavenly Demon Emperor? The big baddie that everyone bands against in every story ever.”

The spirit adviser waved aside his concern. “Ohoho, of course not.”

Zeng Fei sighed in relief.

In truth, he knew he had little reason to worry as there was no mention of the Heavenly Demon Emperor in the original Zeng Fei’s memory, which suggested that the Immortal couldn’t have been the big baddie in this universe that his counterparts were in other stories the transmigrator had read.

It’d just been momentary panic out of fear he was in for a bad deal.

Besides, the term ‘demon’ in xianxia stories referred to demonic beasts, which were better described as animals capable of cultivation. So the title ‘Heavenly Demon Emperor’ was really referring to a ‘Heavenly Emperor’ who just so happened to be a demonic beast, as opposed to someone highly skilled in Devilish Arts. This made Zeng Fei curious.

“So what is the name of the technique I will be inheriting, Esteemed Senior?”

“Are you worried I’m tricking you into a bad deal?” the spirit adviser asked, flustering Zeng Fei with the startling accuracy of its guess.

Thankfully, the spirit adviser didn’t seem offended as it chuckled on seeing his reaction. “Do not worry, child. The technique you are about to inherit was once the envy of the entire world, a legendary technique known as the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.”

“…” Forget a bad deal, he was in for the worst deal of all time.

Knowing that he’d hunted from all corners of the globe if he allowed this ritual to proceed, Zeng Fei tried to move away, but to his dismay found that he couldn’t; his entire body, bar his head, was frozen in place.

“Esteemed Senior, please wait! You know, I’m having second thoughts about this whole thing. In fact, I don’t think I can follow up on the Immortal’s legacy after all - there’s too much of a culture mismatch, you know.”

The spirit adviser must not have heard him over its loud humming, in which time the petrification spread onto Zeng Fei’s head as well and muted him.

Finished inspecting the floor, the spirit adviser returned to him and gave a gracious smile. “Well, thank you for waiting patiently, child. Like I said before, you don’t have to worry, because everything I’ve told you has been the truth; in fact, I am forbidden from speaking falsehoods to the Emperor’s successor.”

For some reason, Zeng Fei did not feel any relief from this assurance; instead, he got the feeling he’d just been hoodwinked by a master conman.

“So yes, while it may be true that the whole world did band together against my Immortal Master, know that it was all because of a big misunderstanding, honestly. My master wasn’t a big villain of any sort - ohoho, he would have laughed like so if he heard anyone accuse him of such.”

The spirit adviser clapped its hands. “Anyway, let’s not waste any more time. We’ve got a ritual to get through. Ohoho.”