When Zeng Fei awoke, he stared at the stone tiles that made up the ceiling in a daze.

It took him several minutes to come to terms again with his transmigration into this world and the ritual he’d been forced to undergo. At least he felt like himself still.

As for the Emperor’s strange words that lingered in his mind, Zeng Fei wasn’t quite sure what to make of them. Then again, they didn’t matter too much to his present situation.

Sighing, Zeng Fei rose and enrobed himself.

When he took account of his surroundings, he was briefly stunned to find the densely packed bookshelves empty now. Did their disappearance have anything to do with him?

Unlikely, he concluded, seeing as they had nothing to do with the ritual.

The spirit adviser was sure to know, yet that old man spirit was nowhere to be seen.

This was doubly bad as Zeng Fei needed the spirit to explain exactly what the ritual had done to him; while it may be a cursed inheritance he had received, the inheritance of an Immortal was still bound to come in handy if he knew how to use it.

“Senior Spirit.” He used his fawning tone as before, hiding his true sentiment on the trickster spirit, “Oh Esteemed Senior. Are you still here?”

There was no response, but when he scanned from side to side, something did catch in his vision for a split second.

Squinting hard, he swivelled his head to try and experience that glimmer of light once more, gradually honing in to the edge of the bookshelf nearest to him.

There, an ethereal presence lingered; the spirit adviser looked as though it’d been rubbed out by an eraser, leaving only an outline and residual colour.

It was not until Zeng Fei moved directly in front of it that the spirit adviser noticed him, raising its head. “Oho, I hadn’t realised you’d awoken, Little Master.”

Its voice had become hoarse and feeble, matching its almost transparent figure.

When Zeng Fei tried to respond, the spirit adviser spluttered violent coughs over him.

“Little Master, the truth is I don’t have much time left, so we must hurry in teaching you the basics. First, observe your dantian. There, you shall find the core of the Emperor’s Divine Art.”

Curiosity piqued, Zeng Fei scanned his body using his paltry divine sense - now that his cultivation had regressed to the first layer of Qi Refining - and discovered the opaque bubble in his lower dantian.

When he touched its border, his consciousness was pulled into it and brought inside the world existing within his body.

At the snap of a finger, he found himself amid breathtaking white terrain. It was an ice sheet, he realised after several seconds, a nival zone. There was also a hyaline lake, arctic-blue, on the edge of this domain space.

The total area couldn’t have been more than that of a small warehouse, and yet he was rendered speechless by the knowledge - from the original’s memories - that stable internal spaces like this were exclusive to extremely high-ranking cultivators, not at all something a Qi Refiner like himself should be able to host.

Moreover, the internal space should have just been empty space for storage, akin to those found in storage pouches, not inhabitable space like this.

Indeed, the hot penny of a sun in the sky alluded to a day-night cycle, and the faint spiritual qi in the air implied that people could comfortably live here. It also appeared this domain space was independent of his body, as proven by the freezing ambient temperature which in no way reflected his soul.

Zeng Fei had just taken in this wondrous sight when the spirit adviser appeared beside him.

“Welcome to your domain, Little Master.”

Unlike him, whose teeth were clattering and body shivering from the unreasonable temperature, the spirit was faring far better in here as its figure appeared more stable and solid than outside.

Zeng Fei’s thoughts on the matter were interrupted then by a cry that sounded like a donkey braying with constant clicks, prompting him to turn around. His jaw dropped.

Covered in silver-grey plumage, the newcomer had a black head with a white mask on top, and black button eyes that were locked on him. Its chunky huggable body did not distract him from the fact that it was also freakishly big, at most a foot shorter than him.

The chick began to waddle towards him, meanwhile Zeng Fei turned to the spirit adviser with a look of disbelief and pointed. “T-that’s a penguin…”

“Ohoho, Little Master, that he is. A member of the legendary Blackcoats, the Emperor’s elite infantry, once feared the world over. To think I’d live to see—”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” Zeng Fei hurried to clarify. “I’m asking why is there a penguin inside me?”

The spirit adviser gave him a concerned look. “He is your spirit beast, Little Master. Were you not paying attention to Master’s last words, when he said he was given his title because of the Kings and Emperors he commanded?”

“Emperor…” Zeng Fei took another look at the penguin and noticed that it was indeed a baby Emperor Penguin, if a ginormous one.

For some reason, he’d thought the whole polar theme until now had been an aesthetic thing, not once having considered the animals he’d seen to be combatants.

His thoughts were put on hold as the giant plushie waddled into proximity and stopped before them. It tilted its beak and studied Zeng Fei’s appearance for a long moment, its beady eyes shining with curiosity.

It summed up its assessment by pointing its beak to the skies and giving a trumpet-like note. This made Zeng Fei look upon it more fondly, pleased that it had good taste in judgement.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

When the penguin then came closer and reared its head towards him, he scratched behind its neck and brushed at its soft down feathers.

It wagged its head a few times until it had shaken off his hand, then pecked at said groping instrument.

“Ow! What’s that for?” His positive assessment of the penguin had lasted all of ten seconds.

“He’s peckish,” the spirit adviser answered, watching as the penguin waddled away towards the lake. “Anyway, let’s not dally, Little Master. With my remaining lifespan, I must teach you the two most important things about the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. First, will yourself to leave this domain.”

“Wait, hold on. Are you sure you can’t just stay in here and extend your lifespan that way? I mean, you look far more hale in here, so—” Zeng Fei stopped as the spirit adviser gave a chest-wracking cough and disappeared from in front of him.

Swallowing down his annoyance, Zeng Fei followed suit and willed himself out of his domain, returning his consciousness to the real world.

The slight stiffness in his muscles implied that his body must have been frozen still in that pose while he’d been inside the domain, meaning that the version of his body in there must have been a creation of his consciousness.

“Now, Little Master. The first thing is the method of cultivating using the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. Here, repeat as I say.”

In the time it took to brew a cup of tea, the spirit adviser drilled into Zeng Fei’s head the oracular formula that he’d need to chant while cultivating.

When he tried it out, he noticed how the spiritual qi in the air drew to his breath and entered his body where it could be refined; although it was too early to say, this method seemed considerably more efficient than the technique the original had been practising.

Once this was done, the spirit adviser informed him on how to summon his spirit beasts to fight for him.

“Now, please go ahead and try it out, Little Master.”

“And you’re certain I need to do it in a passionate voice? Like I can’t just do it normally, or even mumble it under my breath.”

“That’s the way Master always did it, so it must be. Think of it like a tradition - while it may be somewhat strange, it’s also part of your lineage so no need to feel embarrassed performing it. Ohoho.”

“Well, I suppose you’re right.”

Zeng Fei closed his eyes and grumbled as though he was convincing himself to give it a shot.

In truth, he could hardly contain the joy at being able to live out his childhood fantasy, the long-repressed chuuni inside him surging up.

As such, when he reopened his eyes, he thrust his hand out as if lobbing a P***ball and yelled out dramatically. “I choose you, Emperor Penguin!”

…

Nothing happened.

“Ohoho, Little Master. You must specify who exactly you mean.”

“Ah, right.” So he had to name his minions. There was one that immediately came to mind because of the penguin’s size, but unfortunately it felt unsuitable because of the difference in species.

And so, thinking strictly of Emperor Penguin names, it wasn’t long before he recalled one from a cartoon he’d watched long ago as a kid; one that felt fitting too seeing as how his minion had the cheekiness to peck at its very own master on first meeting.

Once more he thrust out his hand and yelled at the top of his lungs. “I choose you, Pingu!”

His qi burst out in white threads and formed a blindingly bright penguin silhouette (in case the animators wanted to have an ad break here by asking ‘Who’s that P*****n?’), before fading away to reveal the newly-named penguin.

Startled by the sudden change of surroundings, Pingu glanced around, then shook his body vigorously to flick the freezing water off his feathers, getting it all over Zeng Fei who recoiled away like a cat.

“Fuck, fuck. Fine, go back.”

The water-sprinkler did not disappear on command, however, and only went once the spirit adviser had explained to him that he needed to mentally draw the penguin back into his domain, almost like reeling in a fishing line. This was simple enough, but required a few seconds of focus due to his unfamiliarity with the motion.

This was when he noticed how expensive the summon had been. Not only had materialising Pingu’s form required a large amount of qi, but maintaining his presence in the real world had drained Zeng Fei’s qi every second on top of that. At most, he’d last a minute before running dry… Talk about a criminally expensive PAYG plan!

The spirit adviser clapped its hands in delight. “How wonderful it is to see that Master’s Divine Art has been properly handed over to the new generation. Now, this humble spirit can finally pass on with no regrets.”

“Woah, woah, woah, hold on,” Zeng Fei spoke with alarm, fearing that the spirit would once again disappear if he didn’t act fast enough. “I’ve got a lot more things to ask about. Before anything else, what’s this about the whole world banding against the Emperor? I mean, won’t they just do the same against me the second I summon Pingu?”

“No need to worry about that, Little Master. In truth, the Immortals banded against Master because he kept ambushing them whenever they left their nests. Eventually, he didn’t even care about that anymore and moved onto raiding the sects themselves.”

“I thought he said they’d been jealous about his growth rate…”

“Well, he was facilitating his growth by raiding them, so he wasn’t lying.”

“…”

Zeng Fei felt like cursing himself for thinking that the spirit adviser’s fondness for telling its version of the truth had been a standalone personality trait, and not a habit it’d directly picked up from its master.

“I thought you said the Emperor wasn’t a villain, and that it’d all been a misunderstanding…”

“Strictly speaking, it had been a misunderstanding. He had no interest in their lives, and only wanted to take their techniques - not even take, really, just to read them. But who would have thought they’d feel so touchy about sharing their work that they’d collude against him like that?”

“…”

“Disgraceful behaviour, I know, Little Master, but that’s the reality of the cultivation world. Either way, you won’t have to worry about getting recognised as most of Master’s detractors died in the final confrontation; and the few who survived went onto purging every mention of him to hide their shameful conduct.”

“And you’re certain that that’s why they purged him from the history books, not for any other reason? Because to me it feels like the Emperor might have done a bit more to have earned such an extreme response.”

“Ohoho, you jest, Little Master - Master’s growth was all the justification they needed to react like that. It’s a tale as old as time itself for incumbents to engage in anti-competitive behaviour against promising newcomers who threaten to surpass them in the industry. If only there had been an antitrust agency to keep these bad actors in check, Master would have gone on to realise his plans of conquering the world and bringing in the Golden Age.” The spirit gave a heavy sigh. “But alas.”

So not only had the Heavenly Demon Emperor engaged in wanton IP theft, he’d also genuinely been planning on world domination?! At this point, Zeng Fei was only surprised that the other sects hadn’t got around to dealing with him earlier.

The spirit adviser continued: “If anything, Little Master, I would caution you more against hiding the Divine Art than displaying it. The Master hated meekness, so it’s likely he engineered a mechanism into the Divine Art to punish you if you dare hide your status as his true successor. Then again, not even he thought it would take this long to find a worthy successor, so maybe you’ll be punished anyway if no one around recognises the technique.”

“What?! How would he even know that? Isn’t he dead?”

“I was not privy to the workings of the Divine Art, but I do know it had multiple astounding functions unseen in any other technique, including something that organised his troops autonomously to save him the effort of doing so manually. Perhaps that entity also observes your behaviour, but I unfortunately I don’t know any more.”

Zeng Fei pondered for a long period before speaking. “Honestly, I feel like I can’t unpack most of what you’ve said until I get a good grasp of the art itself. So before you go any further, could you explain all the functions of the Divine Art that you do know of.”

“Of course. At once, Little Master.” The old man avatar of the spirit adviser smiled gently and nodded, hiding its true intentions.

Now that it’d activated the formation underlying this room, there was no longer any turning back.