Chapter 1 - Well... shit.
' Hmmm... did I forget to close the curtains last night?... it's like the sun is in my face...'
Slowly I moved my body, I tried opening my eyes slowly so that I wouldn't go blind with this god damn sun. Just as I was expecting the sun, what greeted me was the 'unfamiliar ceiling'.
Keeping my cool, my mind started working fast, trying to find the last memory that I had but to no avail.
A few moments later, I got up fast from where I was sleeping. You might be asking "chill bro, what's wrong?" well to answer your question I remembered where I was yesterday.
'I was at the company doing the usual routine: check reports, send feedback, get to meetings if there is any, making some calls that I need to do personally, and the cycle repeats itself.' And after the work hours, I headed to a restaurant. After the dinner with some business partners, all that I can remember is darkness...
'So they did something funny with the food.' remembering the fail-safes that I placed on my person and in the staff to stop these plots from happening I was genuinely amazed by the level of dedication that they showed to implement their ploy. It shouldn't have been easy to do all of this.
Thinking so, there was a small smile forming on the corners of my mouth, but seconds later my face started looking a little funny. 'Why would they go to all this trouble just to recreate the famous "unfamiliar ceiling" scene?' Even I could not think of a reason for these shenanigans...
Shaking my head, I looked for a mirror in this room to fix myself up and on the side trying to come up with a plan to get out of here in one piece and with as much HP as possible.
Locating the mirror, I walked toward it. After splashing some water on my face, I looked at the mirror. I lazily looked at my face, my deep blue eyes, my chiseled face, and my trimmed silver-white hair— It was at that moment that I froze. The "Me" in the mirror not only was younger than "Me" but "My" hair was way longer than it should have been.
Just as I was in a state of denial, I had a sense of overlapping in my brain and after that, it was like a fast roller coaster ride to 14 years worth of memories.
I could see a child being born, learning how to crawl, starting walking, and his father and mother being with him almost all the time. His name was Li Huang, Li meaning power, and Huang meaning bright or shining.
From the bits and pieces that I was watching, except his mother and father there was his grandpa and a young woman who was around him.
Years passed doing what children do; eating, shitting, moving around, and sleeping.
When he was around four years old something happened to his parents. The child didn't get it at first but from my perspective, as an adult, it was clear that they somehow died.
From then on it was his grandpa and the young lady from before; that now I know is his grandpa's disciple, taking care of him.
Years passed and soon he was 7 years old and his grandpa started training him. Well, I say training but if I didn't see how much he loved his grandson for seven years I would think that he was torturing him. I mean the way I saw it Huang was like a sine/cosine function; imagine -1 edge of death and +1 being in your full health. So what was happening was Huang's body alternating between -1 and +1 like a sine/cosine function.
Well if he was recovering normally it would be fine but no, the loving grandpa make some sort of medicinal bath(?) and would drop him in there. Somehow this would make his body a bit stronger and help him make a fast recovery; although I'm not sure if "help" is the right wording for it.
From what I gathered from their talks this is body cultivation and the bath was something that was made from some precious resources and it would help on recovery and also achieving higher realms in body cultivation.
Also, body cultivation is harder and fewer cultivators are doing it; reasons? Well, it's pretty much obvious.
First, you have to have resources so that you can achieve results, or else you get the same result as one of Huang's baths in 100 years or so. So buying this bathwater might not be a bad idea.
The second is the pain. You have to go through hell and back in your training so there is that.
The third is that you have to have a good training method because if you don't, even good resources won't be of help...
This training went on for a couple of years and soon he was 9 years old. One of the fruits of training was that at the age of 9 he looked like 12 years old.
At the age of 9, grandpa started training him on sword arts. Well so far I cannot say for the "art" part but he is definitely doing something with the sword. If I didn't know better, I would think of it as a scam.
According to grandpa, he has to first solidify his stances and then try to learn a technique because "you cannot build a house on muddy water".
So with no other way around it, Huang was swinging a sword and taking bathes. Because of sword training, the bath sessions were becoming less frequent but according to grandpa this method of body tempering won't have many effects on his body at his current body cultivation realm.
You might be curious about body cultivation realms. No? Well too bad I'm going to tell you about it anyway. In body cultivation, there are two sections: mortal realms and transcendent realms.
Mortal realms are the realms that make your body as hard as some element that can be found in nature but if you can reach the transcendent realms you can go further and beyond that and it would be like if you are an alloy of elements.
Grandpa told Huang that there are not many transcendent body cultivators in the world and they can be summed up with ten fingers. This clearly shows how hard it is to train your body and how much time it would take to see results. You have to keep in mind that, unlike Qi cultivation, body cultivation doesn't have the benefit of adding to your life span so as age progresses less and fewer cultivators would be willing to put their time on body cultivation when they need to cultivate so that they can keep their lives.
There are seven great realms in Mortal realms; named Lead, Silver, Copper, Iron, Titanium, Topaz, and Diamond. Each of these great realms contains 5 smaller realms. On each great realm, your body will be imitating the hardness of that element and in smaller realms, the purity will be increasing.
After two years of training Huang is at the fifth stage of the Lead body. The so-called bottleneck in body cultivation is more vivid and for that, you have to put more effort to overcome it.
About transcendent realms when Huang asked grandpa he told him "don't bite more than you can chew" and to think about how he can progress faster in mortal realms instead of daydreaming about transcendent realms...
Three more years passed and Huang was really 12 this time, well he looked 16 but that's not the point. In these three years, he advanced to the second stage of the Silver body that in itself was a big achievement but his biggest gain was something else that even make grandpa's jaw drop.
Just a month ago in his sword training, Huang was able to produce sword Qi. Sword Qi is the first step in the real swordsmanship path. To give you an impression of how great of a feat this is you have to know that a talented swordsman can generate sword Qi after 50 years of training. Even his grandpa's disciple who is considered a once in a million years genius was able to generate sword Qi in 9 years but Huang did it in less than 3 years.
This event was the cause of celebration in the sect. Huang as the patriarch's grandson was the center of attention from a very young age and this achievement was a needed boost to his reputation.
After the celebration was over and other sects and kingdoms send their representatives and gifts Huang was back to his training routine and 2 months passed like that.
This time his grandpa came to see him and Yuan Jia, his disciple was with him. She was like a big sister to Huang and would always help him in his training if Grandpa wasn't available.
Grandpa told him that he is going to go into a deep sleep for some time to save his lifespan and would leave Huang's training to Yuan Jia. This big sister has been in the sect's matriarch position for about five years as of now.
Heavenly sword sect has always had both patriarch and matriarch positions so that there won't be any gender discrimination in the sect. With her talents, Yuan Jia easily was a valid candidate for this position and with her achievements sect elders were easily convinced about selecting her for this position.
Now that after 5 years her position is as solid as it can be grandpa chose to go to deep sleep to save his life span and leave sect matters to her.
The reason grandpa is going to deep sleep is that advancing in the Taoist Palace realms is too difficult and even after two hundred years of cultivating he just advanced to the second river of Taoist Palace and this is him who is known as the number one genius of his generation.
In the Taoist Palace realms, you have to build a Taoist Palace and fill nine rivers with the understanding of rules. These rivers, in the end, will decide your future cultivation path.
historical
From what grandpa explained to Huang the way of heavenly Dao has gotten thinner so cultivation in the Taoist Palace realm is way more difficult and if you don't want to wait for your death the only way is to go to deep sleep in the hope that in the meantime there would be some treasure of heaven and earth that could help in understanding the way of heavenly Dao and the sect can get his hands on it.
From that day onwards he started his Qi cultivation under Yuan Jia and at the same time, he trained in one of the sect's strongest and hardest sword techniques, [Eclipse Devourer Sword Art].
This sword art focuses on lethality and the main goal in its creation was to kill the opponent as soon as possible. If you want to translate it to simpler terms, the goal is to "360 no scope" the fool before he finishes his trash talk.
Like that 2 more years passed and Huang was 14 and last night after training and a bath he got in his bed and slept.
This roller coaster ride came to an abrupt end and I was looking at Huang.
"Li Huang..." I said.
"...Heavenly sword sect" I added.
Taking a deep breath, I talked to my reflection in the mirror.
"Li Huang, The young master of heavenly sword sect."
After all the memories that I experienced, I know for a fact that I have somehow transmigrated into this body and this is a world of cultivation.
If I was naive I would be glad like some third-rate MC and would be vowing to heavens that "now that I got a second chance I will live my life to the fullest" but I have read too many Chinese novels to ignore the patterns.
Have you ever seen a Chinese novel in that MC doesn't face slap a young master from a powerful background for no reason at all? Not me!
What about a Chinese novel in that MC doesn't confront and trash talk to a genius and prove to the world that the other geniuses are trash compared to him? Not me!
How about a Chinese novel in that MC doesn't Fuck with Heavenly sword sect for a treasure/girl/not giving face or some other bullshit reason? Not me!
Not only I am a "young master" but also a "genius" from the god damn "heavenly sword sect". Aren't I the last villain of the lower realm or something? I'm just a stepping stone for the son of the plane aka the MC.
In this situation, I could only say one thing.
"Well... shit."
[A/N: I'll add an auxiliary chapter for Qi cultivation and body cultivation so worry not;
Other auxiliary chapters about characters and whatnot would be added when needed. As of now, they would do no good except spoiling the story...]