You Flipped Through...

Under the curtain of night.

Inside the Scripture Repository Pavilion of Shangqing Palace, a lamp burned as faintly as a bean. A purple-robed old man sat in a chair, dozing.

His beard and hair were completely white, wrinkles sagged across his face, and his head hung low. A decayed scent wafted from him.

He was an old man in his twilight years.

Outside the Scripture Repository Pavilion, spring water surged through a mountain gorge that dropped a hundred meters. It crashed down with a furious roar, exploding like thunder and startling the old man awake. His clouded eyes stared ahead.

Inside the room, the weak candle flame flickered, illuminating the wrinkles on the old man's face.

"Human life lasts but a lifetime, like grass and trees lasting through autumn. I, too, have reached my twilight years."

The old man's name was Li Jiusheng. He had arrived in this world several decades ago.

After transmigrating, he had been anxious and lost. Once he had settled down, he carefully inquired about this world, only to discover that it was a cultivation world.

Cultivation flourished here. People could fly through the sky and burrow into the earth, move mountains and fill seas, live long lives, and escape death!

Geniuses gathered here, powers crushed one another, war and danger ran rampant, and survival was a nine-in-ten chance of death!

After learning all this, Li Jiusheng had been wildly excited. The caution he had felt upon first transmigrating vanished, leaving only one thought in his mind.

He had to cultivate and become one of the prodigies praised by countless people.

He had also firmly believed that, since he had transmigrated here, he would surely be able to embark on the path of cultivation.

But reality dealt him a vicious blow.

By the time he had scraped together enough travel money and figured out the routes,

he went to a famous sect to become a disciple, only to be eliminated in the first round.

He went to a Daoist hall to learn its arts, but could not afford the apprenticeship fee.

He went to become a Buddhist monk, only to be told that he lacked spiritual wisdom.

He wanted to join a demonic sect, but feared being turned into material for a Myriad Souls Banner.

Nor did he encounter any fortuitous opportunities or ancient ruins.

And he did not dare jump off a cliff, since he only had one life.

He wandered and struggled, never ceasing his travels.

His dream of becoming a genius shattered.

Only then did Li Jiusheng face reality: he was merely an ordinary man. He had no outstanding talent, no Golden Finger that every transmigrator supposedly possessed, and he was already thirty years old.

Over the years, he had traveled far and wide and witnessed the cruel side of the cultivation world.

Grudges in the martial world, struggles between powers, feuds passed down from fathers, battles over territory—at the slightest disagreement, people would draw their blades against each other.

Beneath all its glittering splendor, this cultivation world was exceptionally hostile to ordinary people.

Perhaps two powerful cultivators would fight tomorrow morning, and the aftershocks alone might sweep over Li Jiusheng and take his life.

So he gradually gave up on it all, preparing to live out the rest of his life in peace.

Unexpectedly, on his way home, he rescued a Daoist priest. The priest said that he had fought someone with magic arts, suffered severe injuries, exhausted his strength, and fainted there. To express his gratitude, he asked Li Jiusheng what wish he had.

Li Jiusheng said that he wanted to cultivate and attain immortality.

The Daoist priest bluntly told him that he was too old and had no hope of immortality. After pondering for a moment, he said that he possessed a cultivation technique called the [Evergreen Technique], which could prolong one's life, and asked whether Li Jiusheng was willing to take him as his master.

How could Li Jiusheng refuse? He immediately knelt and kowtowed, becoming the Daoist priest's disciple.

Afterward, the Daoist priest took Li Jiusheng back to his sect, Shangqing Palace.

From then on, Li Jiusheng lived in Shangqing Palace and diligently cultivated the [Evergreen Technique].

His talent was not high, he was already old, and his innate bones had solidified, so his progress was slow. Fortunately, Li Jiusheng possessed great perseverance. He worked harder than others and never gave up, gaining some results nonetheless.

In the blink of an eye, several decades passed.

By now, he was exactly one hundred years old.

The [Evergreen Technique] he had cultivated in his early years had not brought him much achievement, but it could still strengthen his body and prolong his life.

Yet lately, he could clearly feel that his body was failing.

Although years of cultivation had not allowed him to fly through the sky or burrow into the earth, he still knew his own condition perfectly well.

The vitality within his body was constantly draining away with time. Like a dying lamp, he had reached the end.

Several decades had passed, and he had become a well-known old gentleman of Shangqing Palace. The Daoist priest from his early years had also suffered lingering effects from those injuries and passed away in sorrow.

As he grew older, Li Jiusheng requested to guard the Scripture Repository Pavilion. He had long since abandoned any thought of cultivating for immortality. He only wanted to read more collections and broaden his knowledge and horizons.

"I've really brought shame upon transmigrators." Li Jiusheng laughed at himself. He had not become famous across a region, had not risen against all odds, had not amassed wives and concubines, much less suppressed the ages.

He was only an ordinary sect disciple, with no particularly noteworthy achievements in his life.

Now that he was old, when he seriously looked back, he realized that there were no especially memorable moments in his life.

The waterfall surged beneath the night sky, washing away Li Jiusheng's past. From youth to old age, it all crashed down with the waterfall and flowed away out of sight.

Looking back on the past, Li Jiusheng sighed.

Logically speaking, in an era where people killed at the slightest disagreement, living to one hundred was already worthwhile.

But he lived in a golden age of cultivation, and he was a transmigrator besides, yet he had failed to make anything of himself.

"Where was the Golden Finger that transmigrators were supposed to get?"

For all these years, Li Jiusheng had never discovered anything different about himself.

He had been like this before transmigrating and remained like this afterward. Hadn't this transmigration been for nothing, then?

With a sigh, Li Jiusheng slowly rose to his feet, picked up a biography, and began reading it carefully.

From then on, whenever he had nothing to do, he read books. After several decades, he had read through most of the Daoist scriptures in the Scripture Repository Pavilion.

Some of these Daoist scriptures were simple and easy to understand, some were vague and obscure, and some were like heavenly tomes, impossible to comprehend.

Whenever reading Daoist scriptures tired him, Li Jiusheng would read biographies and learn about the lives of the various extraordinary talents in the cultivation world.

What he was currently reading was the life story of Li Tianxian, Shangqing Palace's stunningly talented disciple from three hundred years ago.

Li Tianxian had entered Shangqing Palace as a child. Born with an Innate Sword Body, she had been hailed as Shangqing Palace's hope for revival.

From childhood onward, this exquisitely beautiful little girl trained in swordsmanship day and night under the guidance of Shangqing Palace's many experts, amid mountain forests, rivers, and encircling grass and trees.

She cultivated all kinds of sword arts, drew on the strengths of countless schools, and fused together various sword techniques. Her cultivation advanced step by step, and at a young age, she reached the Other Shore Realm. She was peerlessly elegant and unmatched in beauty throughout the world.

Her swordsmanship was as devastating as her beauty, sweeping aside every enemy.

Wherever she went, she was the center of every crowd.

She was Shangqing Palace's undisputed core and hope of revival, as well as the greatest genius of the Old Land. Her fame spread far and wide.

Some even declared outright that before reaching thirty, she would surely touch the threshold of the Ancestor Realm and become Shangqing Palace's first Ancestor Realm expert in five hundred years.

But while exploring an ancient secret realm, Li Tianxian encountered Emperor Wu of Zhou, the newly advanced Ancestor Realm cultivator of the Luochuan Sect. At the slightest disagreement, Emperor Wu of Zhou, an Ancestor Realm cultivator, ruthlessly tried to kill Li Tianxian.

The young Peerless Sword Immortal faced the newly advanced Ancestor Realm cultivator, and a fierce battle erupted at the entrance to the secret realm.

Near the secret realm lay an enormous lake. That day, its waters surged without end, vast and mighty. An Ancestor Realm expert moved to block every route of escape, his killing intent fully exposed.

Li Tianxian stood alone, without aid!

It was precisely because Li Tianxian's talent had frightened certain people that an Ancestor Realm expert personally stepped in.

A quasi-Ancestor Realm cultivator before the age of thirty was no longer merely a genius. She was a monster.

They wanted to snuff out this monster.

Facing such a situation, Li Tianxian smiled coolly without saying a word. She merely plucked a blade of grass and slashed downward.

The sword techniques she had practiced over the years, the sword arts she had learned over the years, and the Sword Dao she had comprehended over the years all merged into one, becoming part of her own swordsmanship. To that part, Li Tianxian added her own insights and created the [Grass and Wood Sword Technique].

All things in heaven and earth could become swords. With one blade of grass, she could cleave apart the sun, moon, and stars.

In an instant, sword energy surged forth, dazzling and resplendent. It shattered the lake and shattered the invincible Ancestor Realm expert in the eyes of the world.

That sword strike shattered the Ancestor Realm cultivator's golden body and sent him back vomiting blood.

That sword strike also took Li Tianxian's life.

At last, the sword energy of that strike seemed to pierce through a hundred years from the pages of the book and rush straight at Li Jiusheng. With a boom, it shot into his eyes.

His body and mind trembled as he staggered backward.

Thud, thud, thud...

Each step seemed to land upon Li Jiusheng's heart, sending violent tremors through it.

The world before his eyes came to an abrupt stop.

Two lines of text appeared in his mind.

[You flipped through Li Tianxian's biography and gained insight, comprehending Li Tianxian's Grass and Wood Sword Technique.]

[You learned the Grass and Wood Sword Technique, achieving initial mastery and obtaining an Innate Sword Body.]

Li Jiusheng looked on in delighted surprise.

Was this his Golden Finger?

He could comprehend cultivation techniques and obtain a sword body simply by flipping through books?

The Golden Finger that had arrived a hundred years late had finally come!