When Gu Li opened his eyes, his heart rate skyrocketed. This…this was his old room on Earth!
There were the familiar blackout curtains, a half dozen assorted bottles standing on the desk next to his monitor, a few scattered clothes on the floor, as well as a bookcase full of fantasy/science fiction books, and various trading cards.
“Your inner palace is much more unique than I would’ve expected. It’s a little messy, but you probably have it like that on purpose to throw off any invaders from discovering your secrets, right?” Gu Ying spoke up next to Gu Li’s ear.
Gu Li took a deep breath. Of course, he wasn’t back on Earth. Even though he was the one to drag Gu Ying here, he was still new to the technique. For a brief moment, Gu Li had dared to hope.
Now, he found himself in another cliché. A memory palace. It was a concept he had read about half a dozen times. Although Reader’s Paradise I made no mention of it, Gu Li was certain if he leveled up his Dream Dao enough, he could drag people in here for combat purposes. It only worked on Gu Ying because she was a willing participant.
“Yes, that’s exactly correct! It’s like that to deter intruders! Readers Paradise after all is a cultivation manual that draws upon the amount, and types of fiction of the cultivator. I’m very well versed in the minor dao of reading. This current so called “mess” is but a reflection of my desire to pursue the dao.” Gu Li couldn’t help but brag a little.
He didn’t accomplish much in his life, but with the amount of reading he’d done in his life, he’d probably have an achievement by now. Something that went “Congratulations, you’re amongst the top 5% of readers on Earth.” He didn’t dare claim to be in the top 1%, those guys were the true grandmasters of reading.
“As expected of Brother Li!” Gu Ying clapped her hands.
Turning to Gu Ying, Gu Li saw fascination on her face as she stared around his room in wonder.
Feeling slightly embarrassed, Gu Li decided to get them out of there, and start their cultivation.
“Right. It was my plan all along to confuse the enemy. Anyhow, let’s go!” Opening the door to his room, a white flash subsumed the Gu cousins.
Snapping his eyes open, Gu Li was in a somewhat familiar white hallway. In fact, it was a set from one of his favorite movies.
All around him were guys in black shirts, and grey pants. They held “futuristic” looking laser guns in hand, and they were all pointing them towards a door at the end of the hallway.
Gu Li noticed that he and Gu Ying were similarly dressed, and pointing the sci-fi looking guns down at the door too.
Suddenly, the sound of a buzz saw echoed around the room. Smoke, and bright red light poured out of the door.
“When they come through that door, blast them!” A black shirted man ordered.
As soon as he finished speaking, the door blew off its hinges in a bright flash, blinding Gu Li.
Red beams of energy shot out of the door, striking and killing a man next to him.
Pouring out of the door were guys in white, plastic looking armor.
“Blast them!”
Everyone, began to pull the triggers on their weapons, shooting out red bolts of plasma at the enemy.
Men fell left and right around Gu Li. A moment later, an energy beam struck Gu Li in the face.
For the briefest instant, infinite pain scorched in and around his forehead.
All he saw was darkness.
Then, after what seemed like an eternity, but only lasted a second, Gu Li shook himself from the darkness, and opened his eyes to the Gu Clan medicine house. If he had to guess, it seemed like roughly 3 hours had passed since he began cultivating.
A pair of notifications blinked in the corner of his eye.
[+15CP]
[Illusory Plasma Bolt (5%)]
Gu Li was pleasantly surprised. He estimated he gained 5CP per hour of cultivation. That wasn’t terrible. Not great, but not too bad either!
It also appeared that he could learn new spells based on the experiences he undertook in the Dream World.
Like Gu Ying had said during her explanation, the Dao of Dreams sought to make the real, unreal, to turn unreality into reality.
Gu Li moved to stand, then noticed a heavy figure laying on top of him. Gu Ying appeared to still be cultivating in the dream.
“Don’t move, you look cute together.” A masculine voice whispered.
Turning his head to the left, Gu Li beheld a familiar figure. It was the Young Clan Head, Gu Wang. They were the same age, yet Gu Wang was already in the Second Realm. He wasn’t a genius, but he was considered talented, and was highly valued by the clan.
In terms of appearance, he looked the part of a picturesque “kind” Young Master. He was wearing finely crafted green/white robes, had jade like skin, and finely braided black hair. In a word, he was classically handsome.
Gu Li was instantly on guard.
“Peace my friend. This Big Brother has no ill intentions. I’m merely checking in on my little sister. I’m happy to see she has finally found someone.” Gu Wang spoke in a warm, conciliatory voice.
Gu Li narrowed his eyes. If Gu Wang was Gu Ying’s direct older brother, didn’t cliché demand he be up in arms over her infatuation with him?
Typically, the older brother and father would conspire to keep the younger sister a pure virgin till they could marry her off to some rich old guy. Since this wasn’t happening, and Gu Li had attained Gu Wang’s blessing so easily, a plot must be afoot!
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“I gladly accept your encouragement, Senior Brother Wang. However, wouldn’t the Clan Head be angry with our love?” Gu Li was all smiles at first, then quickly shifted his eyes left and right to fake a worried, nervous look.
“No worries. You have my word that I’ll talk to father about this. Sometimes, it’s best that we keep marriage amongst the family. Your father is a clan elder, my father will have no room to complain!” Gu Wang warmly placed his hand on Gu Li’s shoulder.
The pair of men smiled, and stared into each others eyes.
“I don’t know…” Gu Li looked down.
“Tell you what. Here’s some spirit stones. Why don’t you take Gu Ying to the Dancing Dragon for a meal?” As if sensing Gu Li’s trepidation, Gu Wang plopped down a thick bag of spirit stones.
‘This bastard!’ Gu Li grit his teeth at the blatant bribery.
“I gladly accept.” Gi Li gently nodded his head so as not to wake up the slumbering Gu Ying.
“Good, good, good! I’ll leave you two to it then!” Gu Wang clasped his hands, smiled, and backed up out of the room.
Gu Li squinted his eyes. And here he thought only creepy Seniors would say “good” three times in a row! It was official. Gu Wang was mad sus. Not only that, but Gu Li fell into another cliché. The girl he was courting just happened to be the daughter of the Clan Head? Suspicious! Very suspicious!
“Ah, B-b-brother Li!” Gu Ying opened her eyes, and stared face to face with Gu Li.
[(Daily 1/3) [Guide A Junior In Cultivation | Reward: 25CP]
[+25CP]
“Nice.” Gu Li smiled widely to himself as he saw the increase in CP.
Gu Li then caught his cousin staring at him.
“You can get off me now, Little Ying.”
“Oh!” Gu Ying looked away in embarrassment, then rolled off Gu Li.
Gu Li then took a moment to snatch the bag of spirit stones. Doing a quick count, he saw 250 Realm Two spirit stones inside. Which was the equivalent of 2,500 Realm One spirit stones.
He briefly considered converting them into 250CP, but decided against it. Gu Wang likely would have someone observe them, and see if he actually took his younger sister to the Dancing Dragon. Besides, he could always use what he didn’t spend on food for his cultivation.
“That dreamscape was amazing! I haven’t experienced anything like it! Not even when my father pulled me into one of his dreams!” Gu Ying excitedly remarked.
“Not so fast. Let’s discuss our cultivation over lunch.” Gu Li led the way out of the Gu estate.
Gu Li had planned to peruse the Gu Clan’s books on alchemy, but that could wait for when he had more points. For now, he was looking forward to some Xianxia cuisine.
When they reached the main road, Gu Li passed by a bookstore. In the shelf was a familiar book, one with a familiar boy who had a scar on his forehead. The title of the book read: “Hadrian Potter and the Wizard’s Jewels.”
Gu Li stopped himself in a stupor. What the hell.
Not even in another universe could he escape HP fanfiction.
Doubtless, the owner of this shop was a transmigrator who rewrote the HP series in his image. That or he bought/murdered the info from a transmigrator.
Rewriting the plot of a popular movie or book to make money was cliche #19 in the isekai playbook! This all but confirmed that people from Earth, or even an alternate Earth different his were on this plane.
Gu Li knew that if there were other transmigrators, there was someone, somewhere out there in this world who invented the gun, printing press, four field farming, as well as a dozen master chefs and single dads pursuing the Dao of Cooking!
Frankly speaking, he was going to do his best to ignore such people. Nothing good ever came from revealing yourself to be from a different dimension. Soul cultivators were a thing in this world. Coming across someone with a unique soul from another universe was a soul cultivators wet dream. Gu Li was NOT going to risk his shot at reincarnation over some stupid encounter like: "hey you're from Earth? I'm from Earth too, no way! We should like, totally team up!" moment.
“You’re not interested in that copy, are you?” Gu Ying asked from behind.
Turning around, Gu Li titled his head inquisitively. “Copy?”
“Mhm. Copies of Harrison Potter, Severus Potter, and bunch of other “Potter” replicas float around every now and then. It’s a popular series thousands of years old. My favorite version was written by a great author of many works. He has a strange name, Cambrian. Anyway, I’m surprised you haven’t heard of this series. It must be to pedestrian for you!”
“That’s right.” Gu Li nodded along. “I had dabbled in the HP verse in my younger years, but it’s grown rather stale and repetitive as of late. In any case, let’s go get something to eat, I’m starved.”
They finally came to the Dancing Dragon. It was one of the few pagoda style buildings on the block. The restaurant was eight stories tall. Snaking its way up the pagoda was a replica dragon.
Every half hour, the dragon would coil in a different direction, and radiate a different type of ki. It would then change color to signify which type of ki was being emitted.
Currently, the dragon gave off a reddish orange glow. It elicited a feeling of warmth, and heat.
A huge line was formed in front of the restaurant, blocking their view.
Gu Li cut the line, approached a waiter, and flashed his clan insignia. “We would like to sit in the Gu Clan’s reserved seating please.”
“One moment please.” The waiter then held out his hand, taking the insignia from Gu Li.
The waiter placed the insignia in a box. After ten seconds, the box lit up green.
“Identity confirmed. Come this way please.” The waiter led Gu Li and Gu Ying away.
The pair were led to top floor of the pagoda, and directed to a tiny pair of seats right next to the kitchen.
Looking around, Gu Li saw many massive tables, and covered booths. The Gu Clan wasn’t powerful or rich, but at least he could enjoy some of the high life. The Chinese idiom saying that it was better to be the tail feather of a phoenix than the head of a donkey somewhat made sense to him at that moment. He could see how people would become content with what they had.
Fortunately, he had help of the system, he had a chance of rising up.
“I assume you two will be having the Gu special?” The waiter questioned.
Gu Li looked at Gu Ying, but seeing that she wasn’t forthcoming with an answer, Gu Li thoughtlessly nodded his head along.
“Very good, that’ll be 250 Grade Two spirit stones.”
Gu Li grimaced, and handed over the bag that his cousin had “bribed” him with earlier.
When the waiter walked away, Gu Ying smiled at Gu Li.
“So, Little Ying, what insights have you achieved in this latest cultivation session?” Gu Li pasted on a weary smile.
“Well, when I saw you leave so early Brother Li, I was concerned! But I quickly realized that was you leaving me an opportunity! I experienced an awesome palm technique! It goes like this!”
Gu Ying held out her hand in a C-shape, and pointed it at Gu Li.
“Kuph ah uh-huh. Woah, you learned how to telekinetically choke people?!” Gu Li leaned back in his chair. Why couldn’t he learn something cool like that?!
“Not exactly. It’s just the illusion of choking. It’s not all that great…I wasted Brother Li’s opportunity.”
“No way! That spell is an interrupt! If someone starts choking in the middle of a fight, they’ll assume they’re being poisoned, or that a third party has come to interfere! It’s a great skill for subterfuge! Good job learning it, seriously.” Gu Li praised.
Over the next hour, Gu Li and Gu Ying slowly ate their food, and then got into a conversation on their powers, and how to use them.
“A typical bright yellow ball of light would give away your position in the dark. When I change the color like so, and place it in front of my eyes, my vision changes! I call it, infra-red.” Gu Li demonstrated how the Light Ball spell could be modified.
“You’re pretty smart Brother Li.”
“I think you’re pretty too, Little Ying.”
Right when Gu Li was moving in for a kiss, a small explosion of power rushed out of one of the curtained booths.
Plates, and tableware flew everywhere.
“Miss Tsang, I can explain!” A richly dressed man on his knees held onto a beautiful woman’s fair hand.
She seemed to ignore his existence entirely.
Miss Tsang wore a purple veil covering her face, however, the rest of her voluptuous body was on full display. Her belly was exposed, revealing a toned stomach, thin silk showed off powerful thighs, and of course, her chest was ample like any other FMC.
“You’re courting death! Unhand Miss Tsang!” A man furiously shouted from the stairwell. Coiled around his shoulders was a sleeping fox.
“Li Ping?” Miss Tsang slowly looked up.
“Shit, of all the damn times to get interrupted. I should’ve seen this coming.” Gu Li silently muttered to himself.