“Haiz” Wang Tao sighed for what was the millionth time that afternoon as he rubbed his sore arms. Around him the sounds of axes hitting trees sounded as other servants in the same boat as his put effort into each of their swings. This was the hardest job of all the duties usually allocated to outer sect servants and usually expended a huge amount of effort and offered even less in return. This was because the amount of credits that a person could earn for chopping trees depended on the amount of wood they brought back. While this sounds quite easy, the situation was made complex by the fact that since the sect was located in area full of spirit energy, the trees were tougher and taller than the common trees found outside. The fastest a person could take down a tree was usually 3-4 days and the servants who could accomplish this were the stocky type with at least decent strength. Of course, for them to be servants at the sect meant that in comparison to the rest of the sect this level of strength wasn’t even worth mentioning. This was precisely the activity that Wang Tao depended on for credits to sustain himself in the sect ever since he had transmigrated from earth.
Wang Tao had been a 47-year-old otaku who had the misfortune of having suffered from blood cancer for most of his life. While kimo therapy had helped extend his life by quite a bit, it mostly left him weakened and without the strength to carry out the most common of daily activities. As he grew older his condition deteriorated more and more finally leading to his hospitalization and ultimately his death. At the time of his death he was filled with a lot of regrets and felt that he had not really managed to experience and enjoy life to the fullest. Therefore, when he closed his eyes for the last time and later opened them in another world and in another person’s body who also had his name, he was beyond excited. He felt as if the heavens had finally decided to be fair and had granted him a chance at life where he was neither sickly nor had to depend on any sort of treatment. This joy however was short-lived and he soon came to discover that the world he had transmigrated to was one where strength and talent reigned supreme. The body he currently occupied was that of talentless sod with a damaged dantian that had been picked up as a child after one of the senior disciples managed to destroy a bandit stronghold during his outside adventures. The disciple took pity and brought him back to the sect where he was taken care of by servants until he came of age.
The coming of age ceremony usually tested the aptitude of every single youth under 12 years who had ambitions of practicing martial arts. The sect had in its possession an artifact whose color would change depending in the talent of the person who placed their hand on it. The body he occupied did not manage to elicit any reaction from the stone and when the same senior disciple later examined his body, it was found that his dantian had already been damaged and he could not cultivate. This doomed him to mediocrity and the most he would ever amount to was a servant. He was 10 years then and had managed to survive for 5 years as a servant earning meager credits each month that all went to food and accommodation. The reason he did not simply request to leave the sect was that he did not have any family outside and even if he did the sect was strict on allowing servants who had joined them to leave. The sect as a whole only focused on cultivators and any other person had to earn their stay in the sect through menial work. The body he currently occupied had gotten tired of that type of life and decided to take his life, giving Wang Tao the chance to enter this world. Since his transmigration three months ago, all he had done was chop trees and he was finally feeling as if he also ought to commit suicide and see if he would finally gain eternal rest.
“Why are you just standing there instead of chopping the tree ?!!” A gruff voice sounded right beside his ear breaking his reverie. The voice belonged to Zhang Wei who was the outer sect steward and was in charge of all the outer sect servants. Zhang Wei was a fat bald middle-aged man who always tried to make things hard for the servants. His face was filled with ugly pocks and whenever he got angry his belly would shake as he spoke. According to a story going round, Zhang Wei had gotten the pocks and the bald head from consuming an unknown pill in order to boost his cultivation speed. The pill not only made him lose all his hair and led to the pocks appearing on his face, it also made any severely damaged his meridians leading to him losing his chance at cultivation. He would have been kicked out from the sect had his cousin in the inner sect not interceded for him leading to his current position as a steward in the outer sect. Despite this, he had still managed to reach the third stage of body tempering which was more than enough to lord over the servants who had never cultivated.
Wang Tao had immediately recognized the voice and turned around to find Zhang Wei staring angrily at him. “Boss Zhang this little one was simply trying to estimate the best angle to cut the tree” Wang Tao as a 47-year-old man was no stranger to intricacies of life and immediately bowed while answering in a subservient attitude to avoid angering Zhang Wei. However, it seemed like ‘Boss Zhang’ was in a particularly bad mood that day and instead of calming him, the words made him angrier. “Hmph! Since you have so much time to think then I am doubling your quota. Instead of the two trees per week, you’ll do four.” Hearing these words made Wang Tao almost fainted and for a trace of anger immediately showed itself on his face before quickly vanishing. Chopping four trees in a week was simply impossible but if he complained then who knew if he could survive the night. According to the memories he had gotten, people who had complained after receiving Zhang Wei’s punishments somehow ended up disappearing in ‘accidents’. Therefore, to avoid this he acknowledged the punishment and remained bowed till Zhang Wei moved on to pick trouble with other servants. Several other servants close by increased their chopping pace in order to avoid attracting the ire of Zhang Wei. Wang Tao half-heartedly resumed chopping his tree till evening finally reached.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Escorted by the rays of the setting sun, the servants all made their way down pinewood hill to their accommodations at the bottom of the hill. Pinewood hill was the only hill in the Skyfall sect that was allocated to servants. The sect was made up of seven hills and which housed the elders of the sect and the sect leader. The sect leader stayed on the tallest peak which was called the sky mending peak and housed the important sect functions. Other peaks were managed by the elders and housed the functions each elder was in charge of i.e. the medicine peak was under Elder Tian ji who as the sect’s only pill refiner, the punishment peak was under Elder Murong Wei e.t.c. The shortest peak which was the pinewood hill was under Elder Fang who was also in-charge of all outer sect matters. This meant that the outer sect disciples and servants shared the same peak with the servants living at the bottom of the hill while the disciples living at the top. The servants only accessed the middle ranges of the peak which contained the trees they chopped and therefore never interacted much with the outer sect disciples. This was because most outer sect disciples would spend most of their time cultivating or finding ways to improve their strength in order to join the inner sect. For an outer sect disciple to join the inner sect, they had to attain the qi condensation stage. Qi condensation was the second stage after body tempering and was usually the stage where one could be able to absorb the spirit energy from heaven and earth and refine it into their own qi. A cultivator at this stage could make use of artifacts and as such experienced a steep increase in their strength. Artifacts were tools that could make use of spirit energy to bring about miraculous effects. Some when injected with qi would protect their users, some would attack automatically and there were even some which could transport the user at speeds unreachable by the human body. Therefore, qi condensation was the point at which people properly broke their mortal shackles and began their cultivation journey.
Of Course, for Wang Tao all these stages were just for him to hear about and to never hope to reach. With his broken dantian nothing could be done to place him on the path to cultivation. The servants, Wang Tao included, soon came down to their abodes which were a multitude of single huts that were grouped together to resemble a small village. They were enclosed by a low mud wall with an opening for entering and leaving the enclosure left. Wang Tao headed to his hut to ruminate over his bad luck while cursing at the state his arms were in. He opened the door to his hut and all that greeted him was single table and chair together with the straw bed that formed all of his worldly possessions. Looking around the shabby hut, Wang Tao again felt like he could not take another day of this sort of life anymore and would rather just end it all. He went and sat on the chair and fell into deep thought on what surefire way he would employ to painlessly take his life before he was awakened by the sound of a notification in his head,
“Ding”
“System initialized….”
“Ultimate Cultivation System operational”
Wang Tao heard several notifications in his head in a mechanical voice.
He tried to focus inwards on the voice and this prompted a status screen to appear before his eyes
Name: Wang Tao
Age: 15
Cultivation Level: (broken dantian)
Cultivation technique: none
Martial skills: none
Weapons: none
Points: 1000/1000
“Hahaha so I actually got a cheat after transmigration…with this I don’t have to ever worry about cultivation”
Wang Tao was so happy that he almost shouted in joy before he remembered that it was in the middle of the night and he would anger people if he started shouting. He forcefully calmed himself down and went through everything on the status screen before ultimately returning to the cultivation level. As he expected his dantian was broken and therefore he could not cultivate.
“Does this mean that even with the system due to my dantian I cannot cultivate?”. Wang Tao cursed his luck for receiving such a heaven defying cheat and still being unable to cultivate.
“Wait. What is this plus sign close to cultivation level? “
Wand Tao mentally imagined the pressing the plus sign and a change immediately occurred in his body. Wang Tao felt his initially tired and heavy body become very light. A sensation of cool air flowed from the top of his head to the bottom feet and he felt all the pores of his skin come alive. His bones made crackling noises and he felt himself become sturdier and as if power was accumulating in his body. The status screen also turned dark for about two breaths before it reappeared with a couple of changes having occurred
Name: Wang Tao
Age: 15
Cultivation Level: 1st body tempering stage (broken dantian)
Cultivation technique: none
Martial skills: none
Weapons: none
Points: 0/1500
“hahahaha so it actually levelled up…”