Black Turntable

"Damn it!"

When Xu Xiaoshou opened his eyes again, everything had changed.

Before his eyes were a ceiling draped with cobwebs, a little wooden table coated in dust, a candle stub burned to the end, and a black sword brimming with spirituality...

Every last bit of it was utterly different from the furnishings of a hospital ward.

Xu Xiaoshou tilted his head and recalled that, after optimistically battling illness for three years, he had finally fallen stiff as a board.

The pain had ended. He had waved farewell to the clouds at the horizon, yet his heart was filled with bitterness.

Why were other people's lives so colorful, while his own consisted of nothing but nine years of compulsory education and a permanent residence in hospital wards?

School and hospital—those two painful nouns—had actually occupied his entire life.

And yet, at this moment...

He looked around at the unfamiliar yet somewhat familiar surroundings, pinched himself all over from head to toe, and found no pain whatsoever.

"Has Heaven finally opened its eyes? A painless transmigration?"

Xu Xiaoshou brought his face close to the bronze mirror on the table. Reflected before him was a brand-new yet still handsome face.

He looked like an eighteen-year-old youth, pale as though he had not seen sunlight in a long while. His nose stood high, neatly separating the few freckles on either cheek. His lips were dry and cracked, without a drop of moisture.

"Not bad. Get a little darker, put on some weight, and it'll have even more flavor—especially these freckles..."

Xu Xiaoshou smacked his lips and rubbed the dead skin on them as he read through the memories in his mind, figuring out why he was so thin and weak.

This fellow had originally been an outer court disciple of Tiansang Spirit Palace. Unfortunately, his talent was average. After three years in the Spirit Palace, he had only cultivated to the third realm of the ten realms of Spirit Refinement. To deal with the Wind and Cloud Tournament, he had entered seclusion for a month, determined to break through.

Succeed, or die trying!

And then he had died trying...

Xu Xiaoshou shook his head regretfully. This fellow had actually known he could not break through to the fourth realm. After enduring mockery and sarcasm for three years, he had long since developed the will to die.

He had merely used life-and-death seclusion as an excuse, following the current downstream and giving himself a reason to log off.

Different worlds, different pains. Xu Xiaoshou had suffered torment of the body, while this fellow had endured devastation of the spirit.

Both were equally miserable lives.

"Still, since I've been given this chance, I won't be defeated by such gossip and slander." Xu Xiaoshou thought to himself. He continued reading the memory fragments, only for his face to darken.

It turned out that this Wind and Cloud Tournament was equivalent to a final assessment. This fellow had ranked dead last for two years. If he lost again this year, he could pack up his bedding and get the hell out of Tiansang Spirit Palace.

No wonder he had entered life-and-death seclusion. It seemed he had been driven into a corner...

Xu Xiaoshou's head throbbed. Why had such immense pressure been dumped on him the instant he arrived? A final assessment? And a last-place elimination system at that?

As someone who had been through it before, what he feared most was exams—especially when both his hard and soft power fell short of the mark.

Worst of all, there was no advanced technology here, so cheating was impossible...

As his thoughts ran wild, he finished absorbing the memories. With a tremor of his soul, he seemed to completely merge with this body.

The next second, a Black Turntable appeared in his mind.

Xu Xiaoshou: "..."

So the advanced technology had arrived?

He hurriedly probed into his mind and carefully examined the Black Turntable.

The Black Turntable was exceedingly crude, like some roadside-stall junk. One glance was enough to tell it was nothing precious. Xu Xiaoshou seriously suspected that this advanced technology was just going through the motions.

At the bottom of the turntable were two sections, one gold and one red.

Interestingly, the gold section took up nearly ninety percent, while the red section occupied only a tiny corner.

"This is way too unfair..."

Xu Xiaoshou silently complained. According to the usual logic, the oppressed red section was often where the good stuff lay.

Yet the gold section was labeled "Active System," while the red section was labeled "Passive System."

"Active and passive?"

Xu Xiaoshou's expression turned strange. By gaming logic, active skills were naturally better than passive skills. After all, how could one kill enemies relying solely on passive skills?

He probably would not even be able to kill wild monsters!

Could it be that the Black Turntable had seen how pitifully he had lived in his previous life and expanded the Active System section as a reward?

Xu Xiaoshou grew excited. That had to be it!

"What a conscientious turntable. You don't see one of these often!"

Brimming with enthusiasm, he tried to find something like a "Start" button, but found nothing at all.

Other than this somewhat crude turntable, there was nothing else in his mind.

Could it require manual operation?

Looking at this incredibly shabby Black Turntable, he was afraid he would break it with one touch. But there seemed to be no other way. Did he have to force it?

Xu Xiaoshou looked toward the pointer on the turntable. It was long and thin, with the appearance of something too frail to withstand the wind.

He gave it a try, gently nudging the pointer with his thoughts. The turntable shook, seeming as though it was about to move.

—Then that was it.

"That's it?"

A tendency was only a tendency. In the end, the pointer remained perfectly motionless. Xu Xiaoshou felt that whoever had made this turntable had been far too careless.

Fine, it looked crude—but you had not even added lubricating oil. How was it supposed to work?

He applied a little force with his thoughts. The pointer seemed to tilt, but it still felt extremely stiff. Not enough!

Xu Xiaoshou added more strength. The slender, elongated pointer tilted even further. He inwardly cried out that things were bad and tried to withdraw his force, but the pointer could not bear the strain and snapped with a crack...

It broke?

It broke!

Xu Xiaoshou's face darkened. Damn it, this turntable had not merely looked crude—it truly was crude!

The pointer had originally pointed at the edge of the gold section. Once it broke, it immediately fell outside the boundary, into the red section.

Red... Passive System?

Xu Xiaoshou's face shifted from black to purple. This was no way to mess with people! Who had made this turntable? What a wicked piece of work.

Then a thought suddenly occurred to him. Perhaps the turntable was not meant to have its pointer moved, but rather its base spun?

"Uh... no way, right?"

Xu Xiaoshou flushed crimson and tentatively fiddled with the base. Sure enough, it smoothly began spinning with a whirr-whirr, showing no sign whatsoever of lacking lubricating oil.

"This..." Xu Xiaoshou's eyes went blank. His body staggered, and he fell straight onto the bed.

The next second, he sprang up and hurriedly tried to use his thoughts to pick up the broken pointer, intending to place it in the gold section before the Black Turntable could react.

Unexpectedly, the moment this thought appeared, the Black Turntable seemed to recover from his outrageous maneuver as well and vanished with a whoosh.

A line of text appeared:

Passive System activated, loading...

Xu Xiaoshou wanted to cry but had no tears. At this point, he could only let nature take its course and accept reality.

The text vanished, replaced by a small red interface. Xu Xiaoshou looked over with a sliver of hope.

There was only one section inside, with a large line of text above it:

Basic Passive Skill.

Within the section was familiar shabbiness and familiar crudeness:

Breathing Method (Houtian Lv.1).

Xu Xiaoshou instantly fell off the bed. His already pale face suddenly flushed red—his blood and qi surged in reverse, and he was beside himself with rage.

What the hell was this Breathing Method? Did he need it to teach him how to breathe?

Even a baby could breathe, all right?!

Xu Xiaoshou had originally held the faintest sliver of expectation for the Passive System, hoping it would pull off some godly reversal and stun him speechless.

Now he was utterly hopeless. This was truly passive—breathing, of all things...

What the hell was with breathing?!

So enraged was he that he involuntarily took several more breaths, only to suddenly feel the spiritual energy in his body erupt into turmoil.

"What's going on?" Xu Xiaoshou was shocked. He was currently at the third realm of Spirit Refinement. Unless it was time to break through, there should not be such a massive upheaval of spiritual energy. Could he be about to break through?

He hurriedly sat cross-legged. Just as he was about to act, spiritual energy wrapped around his entire body like a cocoon. A mysterious sensation surged from his sea of energy, as though a fish had returned to the ocean and broken through its restraints.

Invisible ripples spread through the air, even sweeping all the dust off the table clean.

"B-broke through?"

Xu Xiaoshou was dumbfounded. That fellow had been unable to overcome the bottleneck even after a month of life-and-death seclusion, yet Xu Xiaoshou had broken through simply because he was furious and took a few more breaths?

No...

Breathing?

Xu Xiaoshou's eyes lit up. "Breathing Method?"

Could it be that this Breathing Method was equivalent to a cultivation technique, and every breath he took absorbed and expelled the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, refining it for his own use?

"Heavens... I picked up a treasure!"

Xu Xiaoshou had thought that his itchy hands had landed him a garbage system, but it turned out this was the most incredible one. He carefully considered the word "passive" and seemed to grasp something.

"Passive breathing?"

"Passive cultivation?"

He sensed his own breathing and indeed discovered that, with every inhalation, a thread of heaven-and-earth spiritual energy was drawn into his sea of energy.

It was not much, but it was enough!

He had already been at the bottleneck before. Those extra breaths of spiritual energy had become the drop that broke the dam; naturally, the water had flowed into its channel!

Xu Xiaoshou's heart burned with excitement. Sure enough, the finest goods often existed in that oppressed little section.

If he had been given some divine active cultivation art, he would still have needed to go through the process of cultivating.

But this Breathing Method even skipped the cultivation process itself. What did that mean?

Xu Xiaoshou flicked his sleeve, swept aside the long hair before his forehead, and looked utterly radiant.

"I, Xu Xiaoshou, can become invincible without even moving!"

What a pity—no one could appreciate his elegance at this moment. Xu Xiaoshou secretly lamented.

He looked at the red interface again, and his feelings were now entirely different.

"Breathing Method (Houtian Lv.1)."

His gaze drifted to the suffix, and Xu Xiaoshou unconsciously muttered, "Houtian... Lv.1..."

That should mean it could be leveled up. Then what was used to level it up?

He quickly noticed a line of small text at the bottom of the interface, which he had completely overlooked in his excitement.

"Passive Value: 0."

Xu Xiaoshou rubbed his chin. Passive Value?

This should be what was used to upgrade skills, but how was it obtained?

Summer nights were always accompanied by cicada chirps and the buzz of mosquitoes. As Xu Xiaoshou sank into thought, the room became completely quiet.

Suddenly, he felt an itch on his forearm and instinctively slapped at it. When he raised his hand again, sure enough, his palm was mottled with bloodstains.

"Damn mosquito!"

Xu Xiaoshou felt this room needed a thorough cleaning. After all, it had not been cleaned in a month. The next moment, he froze, a helplessly amused expression appearing on his face.

An information bar had appeared beneath the red interface in his mind:

Attacked. Passive Value +1.

A new book needs support. Please bookmark and recommend it!

Much appreciated!