System

Shi Lan let out a long sigh. Just as she was worrying over her future, a searing hunger suddenly rose from her belly.

Shi Lan frowned in discomfort, struggled to climb up, and staggered toward the wardrobe.

Pulling open the wardrobe door, Shi Lan deftly rummaged beneath several plain sets of men's clothes and pulled out a bundle.

The bundle contained dry rations the previous Shi Lan had prepared to fill her stomach. Sometimes Shi Tianlu summoned her to dinner. She had an inborn fear of Shi Tianlu; with him sitting nearby, she barely dared move her chopsticks, so she often failed to eat her fill.

After the meal ended, her timid nature kept her from going to the kitchen on her own and asking for more food.

Over time, the previous Shi Lan had formed the habit of keeping some dry rations on hand in case of need.

Shi Lan wolfed down the food, choking so badly on the dry rations that her eyes went wide. After catching her breath a few times, she finally regained some strength once there was something in her stomach.

Shi Lan took a breath, brushed the crumbs from her hands, shuffled over to the desk, and lifted the teapot to moisten her throat, which felt as though it had been parched for ages.

The cold tea slid down her throat. Shi Lan could not help shivering, then let out a long breath, feeling utterly refreshed from head to toe.

"Ding~ The Heavens Reincarnation System is binding..."

"Checking host sta... status..."

A mechanical voice rang out in Shi Lan's mind.

Shi Lan's hand trembled, and the teapot fell to the floor, shards flying everywhere.

Without sparing a glance at the soles of her feet soaked through with cold tea, Shi Lan stood frozen in place. Only one thought thundered through her mind: My cheat has finally arrived!

She did not notice that the system's voice had paused for a moment.

Deep within Shi Lan's mind, a black figure floated silently. Before it hovered a screen displaying all sorts of data about Shi Lan's body.

"How could it be a woman? My mission this time should have been to go to the Xuanyang Continent and bind to a man named Chu Yang."

The figure gave a soft cry of surprise and casually waved a hand, opening another screen. Streams of information flashed rapidly across it.

As the figure watched the information, it began to tremble slightly.

"Lingyang Realm? It isn't even recorded in Headquarters' terminal database?!"

At that moment, the screen abruptly dimmed before vanishing without a trace.

The figure froze, muttering in disbelief, "The coordinates have been lost? Contact with Headquarters has been cut off?"

After a long while, the figure suddenly turned around and waved a hand. A vast force of space surged forth, bursting from Shi Lan's body and shooting toward the sky.

Shaken by the force of space, Shi Lan instantly lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground.

That immense force of space did not pause in the slightest. It shot out of Tenglong City and soared into the heavens like a sharp sword, as though it meant to tear the sky apart.

This burst of spatial force alarmed many powerful beings within Chengtian Domain. One formidable divine sense after another crossed space and instantly enveloped all of Tenglong City.

Rather than rashly overturning Tenglong City to search for the source of the spatial force, these divine senses chose to wait and watch.

The spatial force tore open the heavens, and a black rift nearly ten thousand zhang long, visible to the naked eye, appeared in the sky.

Strands of the bone-scraping, soul-scattering Nine Heavens Gale howled and swept through it. Quite a few divine senses followed it into the gale, only to suffer varying degrees of damage and retreat one by one.

That force of space rushed into the Nine Heavens Gale and gradually vanished from sight.

The black rift in the sky began to slowly close, eventually returning to normal.

"The person who launched that strike possesses at least the fourth level of the Heavenly Human Realm."

"This person suddenly tore through space. Could they be planning to visit the Outer Starry Sky ahead of time?"

"Heh. Without Emperor Grade cultivation, how could one even dream of laying hands on the Outer Starry Sky? Utterly ignorant."

The surrounding divine senses briefly exchanged a few words. After searching Tenglong City several times and finding nothing unusual, they each withdrew.

From the appearance of the spatial force to the departure of those divine senses, only a few breaths had passed.

No one in Tenglong City, including its strongest expert, Shi Tianlu, noticed any of what had happened in that fleeting instant.

"Damn it. How is this world's level so high? The power I brought can't even break through the world barrier..."

After quietly cursing, the figure in Shi Lan's mind turned to the screen displaying her bodily data.

"This is the first time I've bound to a woman. It feels way too strange."

The figure twisted awkwardly. Once the system bound itself to its host, they shared the same origin; it experienced every sensation in the host's body without the slightest difference.

The various sensations coming from a woman's body truly left it at a loss.

Shi Lan groggily sat up and shook her head. At once, she felt as if someone had opened a skylight in her head, with cold wind rushing straight through it. It was like gulping down a mouthful of mustard—every one of her seven orifices felt completely open, and her head buzzed nonstop.

The sharp, exhilarating sensation made her shiver all over. It was a little too stimulating.

"System? System!"

The first thing Shi Lan did after coming back to herself was call out inwardly, somewhat anxiously.

In Shi Lan's impression, most systems coldly issued missions. Failure meant obliteration or some other severe punishment, forcing their hosts to improve their strength without daring to slack off in the least.

But this system that had suddenly arrived would be the crucial support determining whether she could gain a foothold in the Lingyang Realm. It was her only lifeline, and Shi Lan wanted nothing more than to clutch it tightly.

No voice answered in her mind. Instead, a transparent blue screen slowly unfolded before her eyes.

Host: Shi Lan

Cultivation: Mortal

Cultivation Method: None

Items: None

Resource Points: 0

Worlds Traversed: None

Worlds Available for Traversal: None

Overall Evaluation: Unknown error...

Besides the status panel, the screen had four major sections: missions, lottery, shop, and traversal of the heavens. Yet aside from the status panel, none of the other sections could be opened; they were all dimmed out.

Shi Lan stared at the status panel for a long time, unable to process it. Where was the beginner's gift pack? Where was the beginner's mission? Why was there no response at all?

"Where are the system's other functions? Where's my gift pack? Where are my missions?"

In response to Shi Lan's triple barrage of questions, a line of information appeared on the transparent blue screen.

"Information on the current world is incomplete. Please explore it yourself, Host."

Shi Lan stared quietly at it, then asked in confusion after a long while, "That's it?"

"That's it."

Seeing those two words appear on the screen again, Shi Lan instantly lost control of her emotions.

"That's it my ass?! Where the hell is my beginner's gift pack? If you won't give me a gift pack, then at least give me a beginner's mission with rewards! You give me absolutely nothing—what the hell do I need you for???"