"Newly advanced Grandmaster 'Lone Wolf'..."
"SS-class assassins 'Shiva' and 'Vishnu' perished together with 'Lone Wolf'..."
"Unfortunately, it's too late..." Zhang Ning sighed as he looked at the latest news from the Dark World sent by the younger members of his family.
"If only I'd known decades earlier that this was Earth from the world of The Nine Cauldrons." Zhang Ning looked at his aged hands, feeling somewhat lost.
Zhang Ning was a transmigrator. In his previous life, he had been a fan of a certain vegetable-and-fruit author. Once, while reminiscing about one of that author's old novels—Coiling Dragon—he had felt inspired to write fanfiction for it.
However, after creating a new document and writing only a few lines, a wave of drowsiness overcame him. When he woke up again, he had arrived in this world, during the final years of the dynasty at the time.
At first, he had been afraid. Gradually, he began thinking of using his memories to spare this country a few hardships.
But in troubled times, human lives were cheaper than he had imagined. When he was five, the man who perhaps ought to have been called his "father" sold him to a foreigner for three silver dollars.
Fortunately, the foreigner who bought him did not abuse or bully him. Instead, he first let him and a group of other purchased children live well and eat well for a time.
After they had all grown sturdier, he arranged for the children to become disciples of many famous Internal Family Boxing masters and learn authentic martial arts.
As he gradually grew older, he learned that the foreigner who had bought him was named Levi. Levi had originally come from Great Eagle to do business. During one deal, he encountered an accident and was fortunately saved by an Internal Family Boxing master passing by. From then on, he became obsessed with "Kung Fu," but the various Internal Family Boxing masters of that era were unwilling to accept a foreign disciple.
Unwilling to give up, Levi came up with a solution. He bought some local children and had them seek out masters. Even if he could not learn himself, he would feel much safer if someone capable of learning martial arts could protect him.
Originally, the Internal Family Boxing masters had been unwilling to accept these children as well. After all, they had been bought by a foreigner.
Yet Levi's obsession made him willing to spend enormous sums of money. Besides, "poor scholars, wealthy martial artists" was no empty saying. Most of the masters Levi approached ran martial arts schools as businesses, so in the end, someone opened the door and accepted disciples.
Once one person did it, others followed. Apart from a very few martial arts schools that remained firm in their refusal, the children successfully found masters one after another.
As time passed, these children learned their skills and traveled between nations with Levi. He conducted business, while they protected him and handled matters unsuitable for public view.
Zhang Ning was naturally one of them. Although he was grateful for Levi's kindness, after protecting him for more than a decade and helping him earn some wealth through memories from his previous life, he felt he had repaid the debt. In the end, he resolutely bid Levi farewell and returned to his homeland.
Yet beneath the wheels of history, individual strength remained far too insignificant.
After returning home, Zhang Ning only hated that he had not studied that period of history more carefully. He could only do everything in his power to protect those few people he remembered.
Perhaps because his life constantly faced threats, his strength quickly broke through to Grandmaster. Furthermore, with the nation facing calamity, sectarian barriers vanished completely. He also learned many Secret Arts that had once been kept strictly hidden from numerous fellow practitioners: "Tiger Form Divine Art," "Sitting on the Golden Throne"...
Everyone taught one another their most treasured skills, asking only that whoever survived in the end would help pass them on...
Time flew by, and a new nation was established beneath the sunlight.
Zhang Ning endured one era after another. He was now 103 years old, and even his great-grandchildren had already married and begun their own lives.
Only when he received this news today did he realize what he had missed. "If I'd known earlier that this was the world of The Nine Cauldrons, perhaps I could have tried looking for the Little Nine Cauldrons."
"Xiantian, Void Realm, Hollow Void, Supreme Expert... I really want to know what the scenery beyond that looks like." Bathed in sunlight, Zhang Ning became somewhat absent-minded, as though he had seen something.
"Grandpa..." "Great-Grandpa..." The children's calls seemed to suddenly ring out beside his ears.
So my time has come as well... Zhang Ning seemed to understand something. In the next instant, his consciousness sank into true stillness.
"Hoo..." Zhang Ning withdrew his stance, ending his morning practice for the day.
I remembered those old events again. Zhang Ning sighed inwardly. No, perhaps he should more appropriately be called Jianing Dalut now.
That was right. After his previous life reached its end, after an unknown period of silence, when Zhang Ning woke again, he had become an "infant" once more. His name in this life was Jianing Dalut.
Since he was here, he might as well make the best of it. Having experienced it once before, Jianing quickly accepted everything.
Having learned from his previous life's lessons, once he had grown a little older and gradually learned to speak, he began actively investigating the world he lived in and comparing it with the information in his memories, hoping to find some familiar traces.
Fortunately, after becoming a Grandmaster in his previous life, his memory had improved greatly. When he learned that this world had a Level 1 to Level 9 ranking system for warriors and magi, along with the particularly conspicuous titles Saint Domain Warrior and Saint Domain Magic.
Combined with the most important fact—that reaching the Saint Realm granted one the ability to live forever—it immediately brought back memories of the end of his second life.
"Coiling Dragon." This must be the Panlong World...
At that moment, even with his temperament, he could not help feeling stirred. After all, immortality was within reach. The immortality that countless people had sought in vain now seemed to lie right before his eyes.
In this life, Jianing lived in a nation called the Korur Empire, which shared the Bana Continent beneath their feet with the Dinar Empire to the south.
The Dalut Family, to which Jianing belonged, was a ducal family of the Korur Empire. His ancestor, Duke Darut, had been a powerful warrior who helped God of War Corul carve out the Korur Empire's territory. More precisely, he had been an exceptionally powerful Saint Domain Warrior.
The war had been fiercely deadlocked, and by its later stages, everyone had suffered grievous losses. Yet unexpectedly, at that moment, God of War Corul and God of Thunder Dinar both became gods. Together, they ended the war in one stroke, divided the continent between them, and Darut, as a Saint Realm expert who had followed the God of War, was granted the title of duke after that great war and received his own territory.
After the war, the Korur Empire established its capital, Corul City, at the center of the empire. The nobles granted fiefs were also assigned their respective territories, where they built their own cities and domains. The Bana Continent began to recuperate.
Logically speaking, after fighting for so long, the victors should have had time to enjoy themselves. Yet after witnessing the divine might of gods firsthand, Duke Darut rarely appeared following the war, aside from the early construction period of Dalut City, the main city of his territory. Once the territory had stabilized, he remained in seclusion for long periods. Ordinary people seldom saw this legendary figure of Duke Darut's Territory.
Now, the Korur Empire had existed for more than fifteen hundred years. Duke Darut's title had naturally not changed in the slightest; he was still the legendary warrior, Duke Darut. However, his descendants had continued to multiply and received fiefs throughout his territory—earls, viscounts...
It could be said that nearly half the population of Duke Darut's Territory now carried the bloodline of the first Duke Darut. That was even accounting for the movement of population.
With such widespread bloodline inheritance, the prevalence of warriors throughout Duke Darut's Territory was extremely high. Battle Qi manuals were also nowhere near as scarce as they had been on the Yulan Continent where Linley lived in Jianing's memories.
At the very least, Jianing's family, which still held a baronial title, possessed a certain number of Battle Qi manuals.
Corrections are welcome.