Transcendent's Shackles

Chen Nan thought, If I really were his father, then saying that would be inappropriate. Since it was made up, though, saying it was fine. Still, he agreed and put on an obedient look.

Seeing how well-behaved Chen Nan looked, the landlady reached out and felt his rib-thin frame and shoulders. "Poor thing. How about I move in too and cook for you?"

That frightened Chen Nan badly. He had come here for peace and quiet. If the landlady was around all day, then once school started, would he really be able to go to school?

Chen Nan immediately got dressed and said, "Auntie, there's no need. That wouldn't be right. If you moved in, you'd need to take up a room too. Wouldn't that still mean you were losing money? I have enough money here. Now that I'm away from my stepmother, I can buy whatever I want to eat. It's fine."

The landlady had clearly said it on a whim. Hearing Chen Nan's words, she dropped the idea. Smiling, she said, "You're so young, yet you say such pleasing things. All right, I have work too, so I can't spare the time. Let's talk about the room."

It was a three-bedroom apartment. The living room, kitchen, and bathroom were all small, the sort of place with an old-fashioned layout. Two of the bedrooms had been turned into shared rooms, each furnished with two or three bunk beds. The remaining bedroom was smaller and had been set up as a single room.

Since the single room was relatively expensive, no one had rented it. It was perfect for Chen Nan.

The landlady gave him a twenty-percent discount, and the final rent was set at eighty yuan a month. That was already quite cheap.

Chen Nan did not know how long he would be staying, so he only paid for three months. Normally, renting a place required a deposit, but that was waived for him as well.

After taking Chen Nan's two hundred and forty yuan, the landlady gave him a private phone number and told him that if he needed anything, he could call that number to find her.

Chen Nan naturally acted deeply grateful and saw the kind-hearted landlady out.

Once he had finally sent her away, Chen Nan went downstairs and bought toiletries, underwear, slippers, and other items from the convenience store in the residential complex. By the time he was done, he only had enough money left for one meal.

Sighing over how quickly money disappeared in any world, he could only withdraw more. For now, he only needed daily necessities, so he took out one hundred yuan and left the rest in the mouse hole.

No matter what, carrying a huge sum of money on him was unsafe. He would rather have the money disappear in the mouse hole than lose it on his person, because the latter might get him hurt—or even killed.

Since the elementary school students staying here did not come back at noon to rest, Chen Nan was the only one in the apartment. He immediately took out his phone and connected it to the local wireless network.

The wireless network here also used something like a router to transmit its signal. Yet Chen Nan could not see where the network cable was. Connecting to the wireless network did not even require a password; he could access the internet directly.

That was quite convenient. He opened the browser, lay on the bed, and began scrolling.

This time, he was finally settled. He needed to gain a comprehensive understanding of this world.

This world—or rather, this planet—was called Kabudan. Like Earth, it had more ocean than land. It was divided into two main continents: the Eastern Continent and the Western Continent.

The Eastern Continent was mainly inhabited by humans, while the Western Continent was mainly inhabited by Demonkin and Beastkin.

Chen Nan paused when he saw that information. Based on the circles he had encountered so far, the appearance of Demonkin and Beastkin felt rather abrupt. He had never even considered that creatures like them existed here.

Unlike in ordinary novels, the Demonkin and Beastkin here were not symbols of backwardness. On the contrary, they were stronger than humans in every respect.

Of course, through the rise and fall of history, humans had had their glorious days. But over the past thousand years, the Demonkin and Beastkin had suddenly risen to power and completely crushed humanity.

The two sides had gone to war, then returned to peace. At present, it was an age of peace, with warfare only occasionally breaking out in a few local areas.

The wars mainly revolved around the so-called Transcendents. They were the ones who determined victory and defeat. Ordinary humans could only participate in the fighting and seek their own share of benefits, but they could not influence the course of war.

The so-called Transcendents had originally been divided into Nature Masters and Transcendents.

Among humans, especially in the East, Transcendents were called Nature Masters. They followed an ancient method of cultivation that demanded harmony and unity between the cultivator and nature.

Transcendent was the term used by the Demonkin and Beastkin. These cultivators did not care about nature's ways. They only pursued their own strength, regardless of the consequences.

Nature Masters cultivated themselves in order to conform to nature. Transcendents, as the name implied, sought to rise above the ordinary; even the laws of nature had to step aside for them.

They placed greater emphasis on logic and science. Their cultivation methods were highly standardized, practical, and operable—far superior to those of Nature Masters. Nature Masters, on the other hand, required enlightenment, and enlightenment was something vague and ambiguous. It could not be quantified or digitized, so it was almost impossible to turn into a workable method. In this way, Transcendents kept growing stronger through scientific methods and concepts.

More crucially, with absolute scientific and standardized methods, they could easily train a Transcendent. But producing a Nature Master was exceedingly difficult.

As time passed, Nature Masters gradually declined, while Transcendents stepped onto the stage of history.

After the two wars a thousand years ago, the status of Transcendents was completely established. Thus, anyone in the world who possessed power beyond that of ordinary people came to be collectively known as a Transcendent.

Later, in order to preserve their place in the world, the Eastern humans also abandoned the path of Nature Masters and began studying Transcendent cultivation methods.

Thus, there were hardly any Nature Masters left in the entire world. Even the Eastern humans only cultivated Transcendents. Though Nature Masters had not completely died out, they were treated almost like intangible cultural heritage.

Transcendents had their own educational system, which still included Nature Masters as a branch. But it had basically become an elective subject for Transcendents, used for academic research.

The true Nature Masters in the entire world were all in the East, and there were only a pitiful few dozen of them.

Fortunately, rare things were precious. Since Nature Masters had become so scarce, the Transcendents had no intention of wiping them out entirely. That would amount to genocide, an extremely inhumane act.

They were treated almost like endangered rare animals. It was a form of protection, but for humans, it was also an immense contempt, because it was pity and charity.

If not for that pity and charity, Nature Masters would have ceased to exist long ago.

Only then did Chen Nan truly understand what the "Immortals" Little Black Ox had mentioned were. They were actually all Transcendents—powerful beings distinct from ordinary people.

Transcendents also had departments resembling government organizations. They stood above the world of ordinary people and served roles of protection and oversight.

At that point, some other information about Transcendents online shocked Chen Nan.

The information stated that Transcendents, regardless of whether they had entered an academy for formal training, were absolutely forbidden from doing anything that disrupted the normal order of ordinary society once they possessed transcendent abilities.

Transcendents could work with ordinary people to punish evil and uphold good, but they could not bypass the judicial institutions of ordinary people and impose punishment themselves.

For example, even if they knew someone was a murderer, a Transcendent could assist the judicial authorities in solving the case, but could not kill the criminal outright in order to avenge a grievance.

Another rule for Transcendents, or those with transcendent potential, was that they were absolutely forbidden from using transcendent abilities to profit in the ordinary world.

For example, if both people were moving bricks, a Transcendent could easily carry one hundred bricks at a time with their immense strength. Naturally, they would earn more. But that would take wages from ordinary people, and such a thing was not allowed.

Not to mention using transcendent abilities to rob or steal property from ordinary people.

Once any of those rules were violated and the offense was confirmed, the offender would be severely punished. If lives had been lost, their transcendent abilities would be stripped away directly, after which they would be handed over to ordinary judicial authorities for a second trial.

It had to be said that such punishment was extremely severe.

After reading all that, Chen Nan thought of a problem: if he used his ability to control small animals to kill Wang Yifu and his two siblings, he would be violating those rules.

For him, that would absolutely be a case of gaining little while losing much—a thousand damage dealt to the enemy at the cost of eight hundred to himself.

That was the problem. He had to enter the ranks of Transcendents. He never wanted to experience again the feeling of having his fate completely controlled by someone else.

The only way to prevent that from happening was to climb as close to the pinnacle of power as possible.

But if he entered the ranks of Transcendents, he could not kill Wang Yifu and his siblings. Yet if he did not kill them, they would remain an enormous threat to him.

He was almost certain that before he entered the Transcendent circle, Wang Yifu and the others would definitely kill him. Even if he truly managed to enter the Preparatory Academy, they would still have plenty of opportunities.

Because he was weak and had no backing whatsoever.

At the same time, he thought of Li Yu and Xun Xin, and sighed at how giving them those gifts had practically been digging a pit for himself. It had been stupid beyond measure!

But it was too late for regret now.

From the moment he escaped the orphanage, he and Wang Yifu had become irreconcilable, locked in a struggle where one of them had to die for the other to live. His situation was truly awkward now. He could not kill them, so what other way was there to remove this threat?