Meeting Qing Lin

"You, you're awake."

"I cooked some porridge..."

A timid yet sweet voice rang out. In the room stood a girl who looked no older than eleven or twelve.

She wore an old shirt washed so often it had faded white, with patches sewn onto several places.

Yet it still could not conceal her pure, adorable face. Perhaps due to long-term malnutrition, her complexion was exceedingly pale, and her hair was dry and split at the ends.

Her large eyes were filled with innocence and kindness. Most striking of all were her pale jade-green pupils—the mark of a mixed-blood child of the Snake-People Clan and humans.

At that moment, she held a bowl of steaming rice porridge in her hands, looking nervously at the handsome youth sitting on the bed.

"Um... could you... not look at me like that..."

The girl's voice trembled slightly, and she looked on the verge of tears.

She did not understand why this strangely dressed youth kept staring at her.

In Stone Desert City, almost everyone looked at her with malice in their eyes.

The gaze of the person before her felt unfamiliar, yet somehow different from everyone else's. She did not know what it meant, but she truly was not used to being stared at.

Hearing the tearful note in the girl's voice, Qing Mo suddenly snapped back to his senses and realized he had lost his composure.

"Sorry, sorry."

"I just woke up, and my head's still a little foggy. I hope you don't mind."

Qing Mo spoke apologetically. Staring at someone so openly really was too rude.

Still, he could not be blamed entirely. Who could have imagined that after falling asleep, he would wake up transported into the world of Battle Through the Heavens—and run into Qing Lin?

More importantly, the moment he saw Qing Lin, several pieces of information suddenly appeared in his mind.

[Detected that the host has encountered Qing Lin, a major plot character from Battle Through the Heavens. Reward: Jade Serpent Divine Art, Pure Origin Art.]

[As this is the host's first encounter with a plot character, reward: one Marrow Cleansing, one Peak Dou Emperor Trial Card, and complete cultivation insights for Dou Qi.]

Qing Mo's heart pounded wildly. This system was simple and brutal, without any flashy features. As long as he encountered characters from the original work, he could receive rewards!

"It's, it's fine."

Seeing that Qing Mo was no longer staring directly at her, Qing Lin immediately let out a breath of relief and said timidly, "I saw you lying on the ground... so I brought you back."

"Are you... all right?"

"Thank you. I'm fine now."

"That's good..."

A faint smile appeared on Qing Lin's face, but she soon became a little embarrassed again.

"You must be hungry, right? This... is for you. I only have this..."

She pushed the clay pot toward Qing Mo and spoke somewhat sheepishly.

She knew that the strange-looking youth before her would likely look down on what she had brought out, but she had nothing else to offer him.

Qing Mo lowered his head and looked at the clay pot. Inside was a bowl of thick rice porridge. The grains had long since melted into the soup, giving off a faint fragrance of rice. It was clear that the person who cooked it had put great care into it.

Without any hesitation, Qing Mo picked up the spoon and took a mouthful.

The warm porridge slid down his throat. Its flavor was not complicated, merely the simple aroma of rice, yet it was unexpectedly delicious.

"It's been a long time since I've had porridge this good. Thank you, little Qing Lin."

Qing Mo smiled. Although the Fighter cultivation he had just received left him especially energized, this was Qing Lin's heartfelt gesture. There was no reason for him to refuse it.

"That's good..."

A bright smile bloomed on Qing Lin's face, but it quickly froze as a trace of confusion entered her eyes.

"H-how did you know my name?"

She had clearly never met him before. How did he know her name?

"Ah... well, um... I heard someone mention it..."

Qing Mo froze, not knowing how to answer for a moment. By the time he came back to his senses, the words had already slipped from his mouth.

"I-is that so."

Qing Lin's expression instantly turned rather ugly. Her already pale face became completely bloodless.

She forced out a smile even uglier than tears.

"Um, you eat first. I'll go out for a while."

Qing Lin hurried away. Watching her retreating figure, as though she were fleeing, Qing Mo finally realized that he had said the wrong thing.

Qing Lin lived in Stone Desert City, where the people had harbored an irreconcilable hatred for the Snake-People Clan dwelling deep within the Tagore Desert for generations.

As a mixed-blood child of human and snake-person heritage, Qing Lin could neither truly fit into human society nor return to the Snake-People Clan. She had become a "mongrel" rejected by both sides.

Naturally, her reputation was poor. From childhood to adulthood, aside from ridicule, insults were what she heard most.

So when Qing Mo said he had heard someone mention her, her first thought was that he must have heard those nasty rumors.

Qing Mo slapped his face in frustration. Later, he had to find an opportunity to explain things properly to Qing Lin.

For now, he needed to carefully examine the rewards granted by the system.

He first turned his attention to the Jade Serpent Divine Art.

The name alone made it sound connected to Qing Lin, and that was indeed the case. It was a high-grade Heaven-tier cultivation technique, perfectly suited to Qing Lin's Jade Snake Triple-Flower Eyes physique and capable of drawing out her potential to the fullest extent.

Not only could it elevate Qing Lin's ability to control snake-type Magic Beasts to unprecedented heights, it could even seize the innate abilities of serpent-type magical beasts.

It was downright tyrannical!

The only pity was that it had been tailor-made specifically for Qing Lin, so Qing Mo could not cultivate it.

However, he could cultivate the other technique, the Pure Origin Art. It was a low-grade Earth-tier cultivation technique.

This technique had no attribute, but the Dou Qi it cultivated was fifty percent more vigorous than that of Earth-tier techniques of the same grade!

As for the Marrow Cleansing and those so-called cultivation insights—

After sensing his body for a moment, Qing Mo found that he had indeed become lighter and stronger, and that a strange energy had appeared within him.

When he closed his eyes, a vast amount of cultivation knowledge also surfaced in his mind, including complete cultivation insights from Fighter all the way to Battle Emperor.

Following the cultivation route of the Pure Origin Art in his mind, he circulated that energy through his meridians. Each time it completed a cycle, it grew a little stronger.

"Tsk, tsk. Who would've thought that I was an ordinary person yesterday, but today I'm already a Fighter? How marvelous."

Qing Mo could not help but sigh as his gaze fell upon the final item—

The Peak Dou Emperor Trial Card!

He understood the value of this thing better than anyone.

There were only a handful of experts in the entire Jia Ma Empire who had reached the Dou Emperor level. The publicly acknowledged strongest expert, Yun Shan of the Misty Cloud Sect, was only at the peak Dou Emperor level.

That meant that as long as he used this Trial Card, he could swagger through the Jia Ma Empire at this stage!

"Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful! There's never been such a magnificent beginning."

Qing Mo's heart surged with excitement. Wasn't this opening far better than Xiao Yan's?

So this was what it felt like to cheat!

Heh heh heh!

Battle Through the Heavens Continent, I, Qing Mo, have arrived!