Transmigration

"Get your spirits up!"

"You're all limp as noodles. What, didn't you eat?"

On Luoyan Peak of Mount Hua, in an open clearing, an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old young man was leading a group of boys in sword practice. His manner was so stern that he might as well have been a great demon king.

Perhaps it was only his imagination, but a trace of worry always lingered between the young man's brows, as if the sky were about to fall.

It all started three months ago. Heaven knew which deity had blessed him, but Li Mu had somehow hit the jackpot with an event as unlikely as transmigration.

A wage slave in the new century, where "996" was called a blessing and "007" was the norm, Li Mu had reached his thirties without climbing the ladder. He had become a thorn in HR's side, an eyesore they wanted gone.

To keep the company from finding an excuse to "optimize" him out, he went to work every day as wary as a mouse, treading on thin ice.

To put it in a nutshell: "He got up earlier than a chicken, went to bed later than a dog, worked harder than an ox, and earned less than..."

After working himself to the bone and scrimping and saving for seven or eight years, he had finally become a glorious "mortgage slave," with help from his parents.

Everything had been so ordinary. He never expected that after a company outing, where his coworkers had made him drink a couple of extra glasses, he would wake up in another world.

He wondered if this counted as a work-related injury. He could probably get compensation, since he was insured, after all. At least his parents' retirement funds would be taken care of.

Thinking of that, Li Mu couldn't help admiring their foresight. They had known early on that they couldn't count on him, so they'd trained up a backup.

Having been battered by society, he got through his initial confusion, accepted that there was no going back, and quickly came to terms with reality.

Since he was already here, he might as well make the best of it. Returning to his youth from his thirties was a gain by any measure. Besides, he'd even gotten to fulfill his childhood dream of living in a martial arts world.

But what was the deal with "Feng Qingyang," "Feng Buping," "Yue Buqun," and "Ning Zhongze"? After sorting through the original owner's memories, Li Mu was utterly despondent.

"Five Mountains Sword Sects," "Shaolin Temple," "Wudang Sect," "Sun Moon Divine Cult"... Everything pointed to a familiar martial arts world. It was practically a prequel to Smiling Proud Wanderer.

The Sword and Qi Factions hadn't started fighting yet, and the Mount Hua Sect was still the mighty leader of the Five Mountains. But the atmosphere on the mountain had already grown tense.

In the space of just three months, the disciples of the Sword and Qi Factions had broken into no fewer than five brawls, though their elders had managed to suppress them each time.

If he hadn't been quick on his feet, Li Mu would have gotten dragged into one himself. Now he was already making preparations, planning his escape.

That's right: he was going to run.

At its peak, the Mount Hua Sect's strength had rivaled Shaolin and Wudang. It had more than thirty first-rate experts alone.

There were hundreds of inner disciples as outstanding as Li Mu, but he had no say in the sect's important affairs. Trying to stop the Sword and Qi Factions from clashing? Dream on!

The conflict between the two factions wasn't just about their differences in philosophy on the surface. More importantly, it was about the distribution of resources and the struggle for power.

The saying "it takes wealth to study and riches to practice martial arts" was no joke. Life in the martial world wasn't as glamorous as people imagined. Training not only devoured money but resources as well.

The sort of person who picked up a martial arts manual and mastered peerless techniques was always a protagonist favored by Heaven.

For ordinary people, a master had to pass down the principles of cultivation by word of mouth. And if they didn't get enough nourishment, they could die from it.

That was the difference between a great sect and a small household. Many people in the martial world didn't know the ins and outs—or simply lacked the means. They damaged their bodies training when they were young, and when they grew older, the problems caught up with them.

Both factions had a great many disciples, so competition for resources was unavoidable. Their dispute over martial philosophy was just a fig leaf. The real cause was the conflict between two interest groups.

Until then, the Qi Sect had always been stronger and had held the position of leadership. In the martial world, might made right. It was only natural that the stronger faction got the bigger share.

But things had changed over the past decade or so. Talented swordsmen had emerged in the Sword Sect, and the strength of the two sides had gradually evened out. That was when the conflict began.

As the Sword Sect grew stronger, it became unwilling to keep settling for the smaller share and wanted to change the distribution. The Qi Sect naturally refused, and the conflict between them was born.

Beyond their conflicting interests, there might also have been a struggle for power. But Li Mu wasn't high-ranking enough to know more.

Having lived two lives, Li Mu understood the preciousness of life even better. To avoid becoming cannon fodder in the coming clash between the Sword and Qi Factions, he decisively chose to follow his instincts and retreat.

There was no helping it. He was simply too weak. After transmigrating, Li Mu had worked hard at his training, but there hadn't been enough time. Even with his cheat assisting him, he had only just broken into the second-rate realm.

(Martial arts realms: Unranked, third-rate, second-rate, first-rate, peak, innate)

Among disciples of his generation, that already counted as excellent. He had a chance of reaching the first-rate realm before he turned thirty and becoming a pillar of the sect.

If he was lucky, he might even get a glimpse of the peak realm. As for the higher innate realm, no one had reached it in a hundred years.

In truth, disciples admitted to the Mount Hua Sect's inner circle were never lacking in talent.

Perhaps a good-for-nothing could rise to greatness, but cultivating a good-for-nothing into an expert usually took dozens, or even hundreds, of times the resources required to train a genius.

Everyone knew how to do that math.

In this world of the strong devouring the weak, weakness was a sin. If their descendants lacked talent for martial arts, their parents usually wouldn't let them enter the martial world.

"Junior Brother Li, Master wants to see you."

After nodding to the newcomer, Li Mu waved a hand and called, "Stop!"

"Practice on your own for now. I want all of you to take it seriously. You know what will happen if you fail the assessment!"

On the way, Li Mu asked, "Senior Brother Liu, do you know why Master wants to see me?"

Liu Bufan thought for a moment before replying, "Master didn't say, but I overheard him talking with Uncle-Master Yu. It seems to have something to do with the sect's tournament."

At the words "tournament," Li Mu's nerves tightened at once. How could he not be nervous? As far as he knew, the Sword and Qi Factions had come to blows because of a martial arts contest.

The original story hadn't described the details. Yue Buqun had said: "The Sword and Qi Factions of Mount Hua agreed to hold a martial arts contest on Jade Maiden Peak. The Sword Sect suffered a crushing defeat, and in a fit of rage, its members turned their swords on themselves. The Qi Sect restored order and became the orthodox faction of Mount Hua..."

History had always been written by the victors. Li Mu clearly couldn't accept such a perfunctory answer.

Even if all the Sword Sect disciples had been thickheaded fools, ashamed and grief-stricken enough to kill themselves after losing, surely the victorious Qi Sect disciples wouldn't all have followed suit and killed themselves too?

But judging from the beginning of Smiling Proud Wanderer, only a handful of people remained in the Mount Hua Sect after the conflict between the Sword and Qi Factions. That clearly didn't add up.