"By the mandate of Heaven, the supreme sovereign issues this decree: all living beings of the Three Realms shall enter the path of tribulation! Survive this journey and prove the Mandate of Heaven. The decree is issued. Your journey begins in three breaths!"
Zhu Jiusi was lying in bed when a half-transparent scroll of sacred decree suddenly appeared before him. He sprang up with a whoosh and scrambled toward the kitchen.
With one hand, he scooped up ten jin of sweet potatoes from a net bag; with the other, he grabbed two heads of Chinese cabbage.
He tried to rush into the living room to lug away the half-barrel of water, but before he could get there, a flash of light washed over him, and his surroundings had already changed.
A narrow path wound away toward an unknown destination. The area was deserted, and on either side of the path stood only a three-meter strip of shadowy forest. Beyond that stretched a dense fog so thick it seemed impossible to disperse.
Zhu Jiusi sighed. The Jade Emperor's word was law. Three breaths meant three breaths—not a second more.
But the Jade Emperor had kept his word and truly given him another chance! He had entered this damned world once more—Mythic Road Survival!
A scroll unfurled before him, and words appeared on it.
[Path Seeker, welcome to Journey Survival, the 66th Dao-Seeking District of the Immortal Seeking Realm. Here are three rules for survival. Do not treat them as child's play.]
[Rule One: The path beneath your feet is your Dao Path. You must travel a set distance each day. Be sure to complete it, or the Heavenly Tribulation will descend. Do not say you were not warned.]
[Rule Two: Your Dao Path is shrouded in fog. Do not enter the dense fog on either side!]
[Rule Three: The road holds opportunities, but fortune and disaster go hand in hand. Tread carefully as you go.]
The same warnings, the same world. The surroundings were exactly as they had been three years ago, when he first entered.
Journey Survival had later come to be known as Mythic Road Survival.
It was really just a mythic version of road survival. One road stretched beneath your feet, and you kept walking. You either died, or grew strong!
Zhu Jiusi had struggled here for three years in his previous life. He had hated this place to the bone, and loved it just as fiercely!
Living here was truly difficult. Death lurked at every turn, though it wasn't even the most frightening thing.
Fear, betrayal, despair... those were the true hallmarks of this place—or at least, of life for the lower and middle ranks of Path Seekers.
Yet this place truly lived up to its name: a place to seek the Dao. A Path Seeker could obtain anything here!
Fame, wealth, divine powers, even... immortality!
The only condition was that you had to survive!
After the three warnings, the scroll flashed, and the words changed:
[The Great Dao has countless paths, and countless taboos. Discover the remaining rules as you go. Path Seekers may choose an identity and embark upon their Dao Path.]
The three rules at the start were only the basics. Only after setting foot on Journey Survival did one learn the truth: there were far more than a hundred taboos!
The scroll changed into three illustrations.
A white cloud, a cave, and a handcart.
Beneath them was a single line: [God? Demon? Human? Think carefully before you decide!]
There were three identities in Journey Survival: human, god, and demon.
When you first chose an identity, you were given an associated item. For instance, a god might get a flying sword or a flying boat, a human might get an ox cart or a horse cart, and a demon might get some kind of lair.
But there was a huge trap here: you must not choose god!
Anyone who chose god immediately vanished, becoming an NPC in Journey Survival. And not just any NPC—they were castrated, their souls stripped of their humanity.
After choosing god, they had no connection whatsoever to the life they had lived before. They still retained their old memories, but looking back on them was like watching a stranger.
Even when faced with the person who had once cheated on them, they wouldn't feel the slightest anger.
Their past had nothing to do with them anymore!
Just like his first time, the god option this time was a white cloud.
He had wanted to choose it last time, too, but he had been too slow to react. He had stood there dumbstruck for several seconds, and by the time he tried to choose, it was no longer available—the NPC slots were full.
Now that he knew the truth, he avoided it like a snake. His gaze fell on the other two options. The handcart was an ordinary wooden wheelbarrow, the kind used by farmers.
Zhu Jiusi was silent for a long while. In the end, the hand he had raised slowly lowered.
Being human wasn't so easy!
Humans had countless advantages, but they also had countless disadvantages.
For example: infighting!
In Journey Survival, this trait was explicitly carved into human nature!
Only after seeing through oneself and breaking free of delusion could one escape its shackles.
Besides, last time, he had barely managed to survive with a wheelbarrow. Only Zhu Jiusi knew how much he had suffered, and how much of it had come down to luck.
Starting over, he didn't think he would be that lucky again.
Zhu Jiusi's gaze settled on the cave in the middle.
After a long while, he broke into a grin. "I'm done being human!"
A person had to know their own limits!
That was the biggest reason he had gotten a second chance!
The last time he had ventured into the cave abode of a great power, luck had been on his side. He had made it all the way to the central palace alongside the other Path Seekers—though he had fallen to infighting just as he rushed through the palace doors.
Still, he had encountered the true heart of the place.
There, they had enshrined a scroll bearing the Imperial Decree of the Heavenly Emperor.
It contained only one sentence: [The Heavenly Emperor asks: What does it take to endure?]
The Heavenly Emperor clearly hadn't been asking about immortality. He must have meant how to endure in Journey Survival.
While everyone else fought desperately to seize the decree and tried to claim it, Zhu Jiusi, on the verge of death, had somehow dipped his finger in blood and written an answer on it.
[Self-knowledge!]
Combat strength, ability, and luck weren't the most important things. Self-knowledge was!
With self-knowledge, one could endure!
With his abilities, he had no business entering that cave abode in the first place! Unfortunately, he had been on the verge of death, and had realized it too late.
Then, as Zhu Jiusi stared in disbelief, the words on the decree changed to: [Approved!]
And then Zhu Jiusi got a second chance.
The decree held immense power. It had given him another chance to start over, to see if he could know himself and endure!
He shook off his memories and looked at the cave in the middle of the scroll. It seemed to depict some kind of quadruped.
Starting as a Demon Cultivator didn't make you a demon right away. You began as an ordinary beast.
A four-legged beast had a huge advantage.
Every day in Journey Survival, there was a set distance you had to travel. At first, it was fifty li.
Someone had started as a bird and thought they had hit the jackpot. But it turned out that even with wings, a human turned into a bird still couldn't fly!
Until they learned to fly, they couldn't cover the required fifty li. The Heavenly Tribulation moved faster than a bird on foot!
On the first day alone, who knew how many people had failed to travel the distance and died beneath the Heavenly Tribulation?
"Jade Emperor, please bless me—not a carnivore!"
Zhu Jiusi cupped his hands toward the heavens. Surviving as a carnivore would be far too hard!
He raised a hand and tapped the screen.
The scroll shimmered. In the next instant, his body grew heavy, and his point of view dropped by half.
When he opened his mouth to speak, only a series of grunts came out.
He lowered his head for a look—perfect! Four sturdy hooves, with bristly brown fur.
A Wild Boar!
Zhu Jiusi shook his head. The scroll floated before him, its words now completely changed.
[Path Seeker: Zhu Jiusi]
[Dao Name: Undecided]
[Identity: Demon Cultivator · Mountain Boar]
[Essence: 4]
[Life: 28]
Sure enough, he was a Wild Boar!
Zhu Jiusi felt no disappointment at becoming a Wild Boar. Instead, he burst into laughter—though it came out as a pig's snort.
In Journey Survival, race, appearance... none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was staying alive!
A Wild Boar's ability to survive was beyond question.
Zhu Jiusi glanced at his Essence and Life, and felt even more pleased with his own wisdom.
In Journey Survival, there were no complicated stats—only Essence and Life.
Cultivating both Essence and Life was not the same as the Daoist concept of cultivating one's nature and life.
By way of comparison, Essence was roughly equivalent to the strength of one's spirit and soul.
Life, meanwhile, was the strength of one's body.
In an absolutely ideal state, an adult man had ten Essence and ten Life.
That meant being truly healthy and regularly engaging in high-intensity training, like a soldier!
Zhu Jiusi's Essence was only four. His beast body must have dragged it down. Even an ordinary, frail college student should have had at least six.
But his Life had reached twenty-eight—three times that of an ordinary person, if not more. Even reaching seven was no easy feat for an average person.
His Wild Boar body hadn't let him down!
But it had cost him years of his life!
When you took the demon's Dao Path, you became the animal you had turned into.
A Mountain Boar lived for no more than twenty years. If he failed to break through, he would grow old and die in just a few years—assuming, of course, that he managed to survive Journey Survival long enough to die of old age.
Zhu Jiusi looked at his stats with satisfaction, and grunted and snorted through his pig's snout.
The scroll flashed. "Congratulations, Path Seeker Zhu Jiusi. You have earned the title: Blockhead!"
Before you continue