Seventh Level

Cloud Water Sect.

Outer Courtyard,

External Affairs Hall.

"Mission No. 3721: reclaim three mu of low-grade spirit fields for the Spirit Field Courtyard. Completed. Mission reward: seven Sect Contribution Points. Senior Brother, is there anything else you need?"

The Female Menial Disciple stationed at the External Affairs Hall, who managed the issuance of Outer Sect missions, spoke with a professional smile,

and casually added seven Sect Contribution Points to Zhang Qingyuan's sect token.

Zhang Qingyuan pondered for a moment,

then asked:

"How many Contribution Points do I have left?"

"One hundred and three in total, Senior Brother."

"Then exchange them for one Spirit Stone."

After hesitating for a moment,

Zhang Qingyuan finally made up his mind.

The Female Menial Disciple looked at Zhang Qingyuan,

somewhat surprised,

but her smile did not change.

Although Outer Sect Disciples of the Cloud Water Sect were not worth much in the Outside world, their status within the sect was still somewhat higher than that of menial disciples like her.

"Alright, please wait a moment, Senior Brother."

As she spoke,

she headed toward the back to retrieve the Spirit Stone.

Inside the External Affairs Hall,

there were not many people, only twenty or thirty or so who had come to Hand over mission.

For the Cloud Water Sect's hundred thousand Outer Sect Disciples,

that was truly not much.

But that was only natural.

Poor scholars, rich warriors.

Those able to enter the Cloud Water Sect's Outer Sect to cultivate generally had Family Powers supporting them from behind, providing a certain amount of Cultivation resources.

Unless they truly lacked what they needed for cultivation,

otherwise,

most Outer Sect Disciples diligently cultivated to improve their strength, rarely sparing attention for the low-paying missions posted by the Outer Sect Miscellaneous Affairs Courtyard.

Unlike himself,

who had no supporting Lineage.

For resources and the like, he could basically rely only on the Cloud Water Sect's monthly allowance and miscellaneous missions.

Time and again, he had to scrimp and save,

just to barely maintain his Cultivation Speed.

Thinking of this,

Zhang Qingyuan could not help but sigh.

It had already been three years since he had Transmigrated to This World,

three years and another three years—

how many three years did a person have in life?

If he had been the Protagonist in someone else's book, he would probably already have proclaimed himself Emperor and become an Important Figure standing high above, suppressing an entire region. And him?

He had worked diligently for three years,

yet he was still just an obscure nobody in the Cloud Water Sect's Outer Sect.

In this Cultivation World,

he was not worth a fart.

Sigh!

A long, drawn-out sigh.

"Senior Brother, your Spirit Stone."

The Female Menial Disciple's voice interrupted Zhang Qingyuan's thoughts,

and his gaze shifted to the Jade Box in her hand.

Inside the Jade Box lay a fist-sized Spirit Stone, crystal-clear and translucent, with a faint, almost imperceptible mist curling endlessly around it.

Suppressing the faint excitement in his heart, he accepted the Spirit Stone and closed the Jade Box.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, Senior Brother. Take care."

After walking out through the Great Gate of the Miscellaneous Affairs Courtyard, he Looked at the Outer Sect Disciple token in his palm.

Sensing that only a solitary number three remained within it, even though he had expected it, his heart still twitched at the thought that more than a year of savings had been spent just like that. More than a year of savings!

Zhang Qingyuan took a deep breath.

Fortunately, he had finally exchanged for a Spirit Stone.

This counted as high-grade currency in the Cultivation World, something he could only reach by standing on tiptoe.

If that idea succeeded,

then he would truly Soar to the Sky from then on!

Even if it did not,

one hundred Contribution Points for one Spirit Stone could still be used for cultivation, so it was not a loss.

His figure swept swiftly onward.

He Passed through layer upon layer of buildings, without sparing the splendid residences even a glance,

and moved through the dense crowds of the Outer Sect.

Before long, he returned to the Outer Courtyard.

Half an hour later,

Zhang Qingyuan applied to the Outer Courtyard steward for a Secret Chamber to use for cultivation and a breakthrough.

These cultivation Secret Chambers had been built beside the Spirit Spring Eye.

Because of the Spirit Spring, Spiritual energy filled them, with clouds and mist winding through the air.

They were most suitable for cultivators to cultivate and make breakthroughs.

But the Cloud Water Sect's Outer Courtyard had a hundred thousand people,

far too many,

while the Secret Chambers were in short supply.

Naturally, it was impossible for everyone to be assigned such a cultivation Secret Chamber.

Thus, aside from three free chances to use them each year, every Outer Sect Disciple could only spend Sect Contribution Points to apply for their use.

Zhang Qingyuan had been rather frugal. Of this year's three free opportunities, he still had one left, so he did not need to pay any additional Sect Contribution Points.

After completing the procedures,

a short while later,

Zhang Qingyuan was already seated cross-legged on a Cushion inside a cultivation Secret Chamber.

He took the Jade Box from his robes,

and opened it.

The Spirit Stone inside glimmered with faint light.

"I hope it works."

Zhang Qingyuan's eyes flickered slightly,

as he Murmured.

He closed his eyes,

holding the Spirit Stone taken from the Jade Box in his hand.

His mind sank into the depths of his consciousness.

Before long,

a panel appeared before him in his Sea of Consciousness.

Name: Zhang Qingyuan

Realm: Spirit Essence Realm Sixth Level, Peak

Cultivation Method:

Water Essence Art (Third Layer: 987/1000)

Techniques:

Spring Breeze Fine Rain Technique (Third Layer: 871/1000)

Light Body Technique (Second Layer: 98/100)

Growth Induction Technique (Second Layer: 79/100)

Spring Return Technique (Second Layer: 43/100)

Martial Skill:

Nine Refinements Bone Forging Fist (Great Accomplishment: 726/1000)

Cloud Smoke Steps (Beginner: 9/10)

Cloud Water Thirteen Sword Styles (Minor Accomplishment: 32/100)

A spotless, clean panel,

like the character page from some small role-playing game, radiating poverty from head to toe.

"Three Pure Buddha Ancestor God of Heaven, Tathagata, bless me. It has to work."

Seated cross-legged on the Cushion,

Zhang Qingyuan kept chanting in his heart as he held the Spirit Stone.

Then,

he drew a deep breath.

"Recharge!"

No response.

"Recharge, recharge, panel recharge!"

Zhang Qingyuan: (o▽)o

Panel: ─━_─━

There was no movement whatsoever.

The panel data did not change at all,

nor did he hear the customary system notification, a single ding.

Just as always.

The Pay-to-Win Plan

had failed once again.

ヽ(＃`Д)┌┛〃

Damn it!

The last trace of hope in his heart

instantly scattered into nothing.

"As expected, I never should have hoped for anything."

A Bitter Smile appeared on Zhang Qingyuan's face.

He completely gave up on the notion of becoming stronger through paying money.

Ever since discovering this panel,

Zhang Qingyuan had tried many methods:

gold, silver, jade, writing books to gather faith, going out to kill monsters and level up, and so on and so forth.

Exchanging Contribution Points for a Spirit Stone

was the last attempt!

"Looks like this is merely a panel that can display and record my own status."

With a sigh,

a faint sadness welled up in his heart.

Zhang Qingyuan was not originally from this world. His soul came from another world.

Three years ago, during a thunderstorm, Zhang Qingyuan had been lying on his bed in a rented room, playing an idle immortal-cultivation game. Suddenly, a blinding ball of light passed through the wall like a ghost, utterly unhindered, and silently floated inside. Before his dumbfounded eyes, it instantly swallowed him whole.

Then, when he opened his eyes again,

the world had changed.

He had become a twelve-year-old orphan named Zhang Qingyuan, born into the Zhang Family, a tiny and utterly inconspicuous minor Lineage among the many forces under the Cloud Water Sect.

He was not the Clan Leader's son, nor was he the disgrace of the Lineage, a cultivation failure, or someone born with a mocking face who attracted hatred and bullying wherever he went.

He was merely an ordinary orphan, one who was not particularly noticeable within the Lineage.

An obscure nobody whom few people cared about.

He had none of the treatment standard for a Protagonist.

There was no transmigration-standard system, no ancient ring left behind by his parents, and certainly no fiancée who had climbed the branches and come to break off their engagement. Kicking a brick would not reveal some ancient divine artifact, nor had he found any bargains while shopping at the market. Instead, he had been swindled out of a portion of his savings by a crooked merchant, and Until Now, Zhang Qingyuan still bitterly remembered that merchant.

The person who had been scammed while trying to pick up a bargain could not help but extinguish certain thoughts as well.

Not long after that,

Cloud Water Sect happened to be recruiting Outer Sect Disciples within its sphere of influence.

Having basically become familiar with some aspects of life in this world, Zhang Qingyuan felt there was no future in staying with this small lineage where he knew nobody and nothing.

At the same time, he wanted to avoid revealing any flaws among people familiar with the family.

So Zhang Qingyuan sold the few plots of Spirit Field and several dilapidated houses left behind by this body's Cheap Parents to the Zhang Family.

In exchange for this favor, he obtained a spot in the Cloud Water Sect entrance examination from the family and went with the family's chosen seeds to Cloud Water Sect for testing.

During the year-long entrance examination that followed, he cultivated peacefully by relying on an adult's mentality and the useless junk game panel that had accompanied his transmigration into his mind.

A year later,

he finally caught the tail end of the several thousand Outer Sect slots and entered Cloud Water Sect.

He became one of Cloud Water Sect's hundred thousand Outer Sect Disciples.

This was largely thanks to the peculiar nature of Cloud Water Sect's Outer Sect test.

Within Cloud Water Sect,

there was no Magic Tool capable of easily determining a person's Cultivation Aptitude.

Thus, to reduce trouble, they generally arranged all participating Disciples in the Lower Courtyard, then provided them with a basic qi-refining Hand Seal to begin cultivating.

They did not care what methods one used.

After one year, roughly the top third by Cultivation Realm—around ten thousand people—would become Outer Sect Disciples.

As for whether one cultivated quickly because of aptitude or relied on a powerful family background and pills to improve through cultivation, none of that mattered.

What mattered was the result.

As the Cloud Water Sect Deacon put it,

family background was also part of one's advantage on the road of cultivation.

In any case, Zhang Qingyuan had worked diligently and cultivated bitterly throughout that year. He had also relied on a few tricks for using the Data Panel in his mind.

A few days before the examination ended, he finally broke through to Spirit Essence Realm Third Level, barely catching the tail end of the Lower Courtyard Disciples advancing into the Cloud Water Sect Outer Sect.

This surprised the family somewhat.

But with nearly a hundred thousand disciples in Cloud Water Sect's Outer Sect, an Outer Sect Disciple was truly not worth much.

Moreover, both parents of this body were dead, and he belonged to a collateral branch within the family, with exceedingly sparse Connections.

Therefore, the family merely followed convention.

They took a small portion from the family's welfare, giving him cheap Cultivation resources such as one stick of Spirit Calming Incense each month as a welfare benefit to maintain their relationship.

This counted as investing in family descendants, investing in the future.

Spirit Calming Incense

was a kind of Cultivation resource that could slightly improve concentration while meditating and cultivating. It was relatively cheap; in Cloud Water Sect, one Contribution Point was enough to buy a stick.

The family's welfare investment

could only be said to be better than nothing.

Zhang Qingyuan had heard

that one direct-line family descendant in the Outer Sect, who had a chance to charge into the Inner Sect, received as much as One Pill Spirit Stone every month from the Zhang Family's welfare.

His own year of hard work

was Nothing Special compared to that.

Though he felt somewhat envious,

Zhang Qingyuan did not feel any resentment born of jealousy or hatred of the rich. After all, the family was not run by his parents; nobody owed anyone anything. The fact that the family could provide some Cultivation resources to slightly outstanding disciples from distant branch lineages and collateral lines, while cultivating ties with them, already meant they had done everything humanly possible.

Perhaps

this was one of the reasons Zhang Qingyuan could never become the Protagonist.

After all,

the protagonists of those fantasy novels he had read in his Previous Life mostly wanted to fuck heaven, fuck earth, and fuck the air. At the slightest injustice, they would battle heaven and fight earth, possessing the courage to replace the sun and moon with a new sky.

And him?

He was merely a Salted Fish who went with the flow.

Recalling so many past events,

he could not help but sigh with deep emotion.

Fortunately,

after struggling for more than three years, he had finally managed to more or less Settle Down in another world.

As for his Previous Life,

he could only let it drift away.

If he had guessed correctly,

that ball of light before his transmigration had probably been something like the Ball Lightning from one of Liu's science-fiction novels.

In that world,

he should have vanished completely.

There was probably not even ash left behind.

What a pity for his father and mother.

But there had been nothing he could do about arriving in this world.

Although he had missed them somewhat over the past three years,

there was no use dwelling on it.

He could only hope to cultivate into the legendary True Immortal, gain the ability to traverse the universe, and return to take a look.

He only hoped that his foolish younger brother could temporarily shoulder the responsibility of taking care of their father and mother while he was gone.

Coming back to his senses,

Zhang Qingyuan returned his gaze to the motionless panel before him.

He shook his head in disappointment.

This panel

had come to this world with him.

Its interface was basically identical to the character page from the idle cultivation game he had once played, except the character's name had been changed to his own.

When he had first discovered the panel in his Sea of Consciousness,

Zhang Qingyuan had been delighted.

He had dreamed of Deep Blue adding points a hundred layers over, like the protagonist of some novel by an author surnamed Lu that he had read before, relying on "his own efforts" to reach the pinnacle of life.

Unfortunately,

his attempt to exchange Spirit Stones and activate the top-up function had still failed.

He had tried every common trope.

There had been no reaction whatsoever.

It was merely a panel that displayed his approximate data.

"Forget it. It looks like a shortcut to ascend to heaven in a single step is impossible. I should just cultivate steadily, one footprint at a time!"

Though he felt some regret,

having lived two lives, Zhang Qingyuan's character was fairly resolute.

He was not the sort to blame heaven and resent others.

This body's cultivation at the peak of Spirit Essence Realm Sixth Level had all been cultivated Bit by Bit through his own efforts over these past three years.

His Dao Heart was fairly steadfast as well.

Thus, this regret did not last long before it dispersed.

"Although it has no top-up point-adding function, it can at least display the proficiency of my cultivation skills. That barely counts as a very good auxiliary method."

In this world,

how many people could not persevere

because they could not see their Harvest or progress and thus lacked motivation?

Over these past three years,

the reason Zhang Qingyuan had been able to pass the Outer Sect entrance examination with little support from the family, then grow all the way to the peak of Spirit Essence Realm Sixth Level,

was inseparable from how the panel could display his own condition and spur him on to cultivate diligently.

At the very least, he was somewhat better off than the natives without a Golden Finger.

Thinking of it this way,

he felt much more at ease.

Afterward,

Zhang Qingyuan gripped the Spirit Stone tightly.

He gathered his mind.

He resumed his meditative state.

He intended to use this place to charge through the bottleneck of the Mid Spirit Essence Realm.

Although his attempt with the golden thigh had failed,

his time cultivating in the Secret Chamber was limited, and he could not waste it carelessly.

Besides, this Spirit Stone that had failed to activate the Golden Finger's top-up function

was perfectly suited for breaking through the bottleneck at the peak of Spirit Essence Realm Sixth Level.

Using a Spirit Stone to cultivate,

this was Zhang Qingyuan's first time being so extravagant.

He closed his eyes.

He concentrated.

After the time it took to brew a cup of tea,

he had already entered a meditative trance.

As the Spirit Essence Inside the Body began to circulate,

Whoosh!

The spiritual energy produced from the Spirit Stone being refined in his hand rapidly poured into the Meridians Inside the Body, striking against them. It actually produced a faint swelling sensation, and the vague sound of surging water could be heard.

As the spiritual energy was absorbed and circulated,

every Cell Inside the Body seemed to cheer with joy, absorbing frantically. It transformed into dense Spirit Essence with the circulation of the heavenly cycle, completing one full cycle within the Meridians.

The spiritual energy within the Spirit Stone in his hand was rapidly consumed.

Gray spread across it, Visible to the Naked Eye.

The conversion of Spirit Essence Inside the Body also grew increasingly dense.

Zhang Qingyuan could clearly feel it.

His bottleneck

had loosened!

Seizing the opportunity,

he pushed through All at Once!

Rumble!!!

The bottleneck shattered with a bang.

He had broken through!

Spirit Essence nearly twice as abundant surged through the Meridians Inside the Body. Even the air Around Zhang Qingyuan gave rise to Visible Air Ripples, which spread outward in trembling waves.

Zhang Qingyuan opened his eyes, unable to conceal the delight within them.

Spirit Essence Realm Seventh Level

had been achieved!