Darkness.
That familiar feeling returned, as if he'd been tossed into a washing machine and spun around.
There were no ox-headed guards or horse-faced guards, no heaven or hell.
Only this boundless void and the pale blue panel before him, bright enough to hurt his eyes.
Su Li floated in midair—assuming his disembodied consciousness could still tell up from down.
He casually struck a comfortable pose, even though there wasn't a chair in sight.
"All right, let's settle up."
Su Li repeated the words silently in his mind.
This was his third time going through the process. He was more familiar with it than shopping for groceries at the market.
The panel flickered with a jumble of garbled text, then several lines of large print popped up.
[Reincarnation settlement in progress...]
[Name: Su Li]
[Identity in this life: Blacksmith in Wading Village]
[Time survived: 78 years. Rating: E+]
(Note: In a world where the average person doesn't live to forty, you managed to outlast even the Old Locust Tree in your village. That's no small feat. You spent most of your time keeping your head down, but living a long life is what counts.)
[Accumulated wealth: 15 gold coins and 20 silver coins. Rating: E]
(Note: A few chests' worth of funeral savings, not even enough to cover one meal for those goblin merchants. Still, for a village blacksmith, not starving to death counts as a success.)
[Social standing: Village notable. Rating: E]
(Note: You can play Xiangqi and forge metal, and you're Old Kanlun's chess buddy. In the little corner of Wading Village, you're somebody. But that's as far as it goes.)
[Legendary status: None. Rating: F]
(Note: The boldest thing you ever did was probably brag to your wife during a thunderstorm that you were the savior of the world.)
Su Li pursed his lips.
What a heartless evaluation. He'd worked so hard just to get through life, and he still barely scraped by.
But then the next line appeared, and Su Li's invisible jaw nearly hit the floor.
[Offspring: One son and one daughter. Rating: C+]
(Note: Your daughter became a notorious, hot-tempered blacksmith, but that's not important. What matters is your son, Su Xiaochui. He's now the infamous "Bloody Hand Butcher" of the Baris Empire, a ruthless man who carved out a unique path of slaughter in this low-magic world. A father is judged by his son, and you earned this score.)
Su Li froze.
C+?
That idiot?
The Bloody Hand Butcher?
Su Li didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
No wonder he'd never heard from the boy. So he'd gone off to the enemy camp and become a big shot. If anyone in the Orenda Kingdom found out, they'd dig up the grass growing on his grave.
"Damn brat. You've got a knack for staying alive."
Su Li cursed him, but his disembodied self felt warm inside.
As long as he was alive.
Even if he'd become a menace, that was still better than turning into a flimsy death notice.
[Overall rating: D]
[Drawing reward...]
The familiar wheel appeared again, its pointer spinning rapidly.
It swept past a sea of brightly colored sections before finally wobbling to a stop on a vivid red one.
A razor-sharp glint seemed to gleam within the red.
[Congratulations, you have obtained the inherent trait: Sword Dao Leader (Special Growth Type)]
[Sword Dao Leader: The first time you held a sword as a young man, you knew you'd become the Sword Dao Leader of jianghu legend, the greatest under heaven. Your understanding of the sword surpasses the ordinary. You can learn any sword art after watching it once and master it after practicing ten times.]
Su Li blinked.
Had they given him the wrong cheat?
He was a blacksmith. He'd spent his whole life holding a hammer. He could understand getting a [Master Forger] trait, but what was he supposed to do with [Sword Dao Leader]?
Go fight people with his blacksmith's hammer?
Before Su Li could finish complaining, the system panel suddenly blazed red, flashing wildly as if it had caught a virus.
A line of bright red text appeared.
[An exceptionally compatible combination of traits has been detected!]
[Combine traits?]
(Note: After the combination, the [Introvert] trait will disappear permanently. As the price, you will lose the social-anxiety camouflage that lets you "automatically blend into a crowd," but you will gain an ascension in the very nature of your power.)
Su Li studied the formula, lost in thought.
The [Introvert] trait.
To be honest, it was pretty useful.
In these chaotic times, when you had no skills to speak of, being a nobody was the safest option. As long as he kept his clothes on, people wouldn't remember his face, even though he was devastatingly handsome. It was practically a divine skill for staying alive.
But it was still a passive, defensive skill.
Then there was this new combination option.
It was a question mark, but whatever came out of it couldn't be bad.
Take a gamble and turn a bicycle into a motorcycle?
Su Li thought back to his previous life.
Su Xiaochui had wanted to learn the Knight Breathing Technique and attend an academy, but the exorbitant tuition had kept him out. He'd eventually scraped together the money to enroll, but couldn't afford the medicinal baths.
All Su Li's strength had been good for was blacksmithing. When he faced those high-and-mighty nobles, he didn't even dare lift his head.
He'd had enough of living like that.
He'd spent a lifetime keeping his head down. In this next life, it was time to try living differently.
"Combine them!"
Su Li gritted his teeth and made his decision.
It was only a "socially anxious" trait, after all. He could live without it.
[Combination beginning...]
The text on the panel twisted and fused.
The gray mist representing [Introvert] was forcibly extracted and tossed into the furnace like fuel. Then the golden light of [Sword Brows Starry Eyes] and the keen edge of [Sword Dao Leader] intertwined.
Boom!
Su Li felt as if lightning had struck his soul. A tingling sensation shot up his spine and straight to the crown of his head.
A new trait was born.
[New trait obtained: Sword Spirit Root (Incomplete)]
[Sword Spirit Root (Incomplete): Even in this world, where magic is scarce, you are Heaven's favored child. You no longer need those crude, inferior Knight Breathing Techniques. Your body itself is a bridge connecting you to heaven and earth. You can directly sense and absorb the spiritual energy drifting through the air, which the locals call aether, taking in energy and making your body a sword.]
[Effect 1: Cultivation speed increased a hundredfold. Even when you're lying down asleep, spiritual energy will automatically circulate through your body.]
[Effect 2: Retains all the traits of [Sword Brows Starry Eyes] and [Sword Dao Leader]. You're still devastatingly handsome, and your talent for swordsmanship is still unrivaled.]
[Friendly reminder: Without the [Introvert] trait to hide you, your damned charisma will have nowhere to go. You'll be like a firefly in the night—there's no keeping a low profile. Trouble will come looking for you, but now you have the power to deal with it.]
Su Li looked at the words "Incomplete" and felt a headache coming on.
It was this powerful and still incomplete? What would the complete version be like? Cultivating immortality?
Still, when he saw the description "cultivation speed increased a hundredfold," his irritation vanished at once.
In a world where people painstakingly honed themselves through the Breathing Method, this was basically a cheat code.
Knights? Mages?
They were all weak.
He was cultivating immortality!
Before you continue