Compared to lofty topics like systems, time and space, the universe, and Beyond the Sacrificial Path.
Lin Xian knew his own limits. He was a mortal, a mortal who would grow old and slow at seventy or eighty.
There was no need to concern himself with attaining immortality, proving the Dao, or conquering the Immortal Realm—those grand, magnificent matters were things only Great Emperors and Heavenly Emperors needed to consider.
For Lin Xian—
Stepping onto the path of cultivation, opening up the Sea of Bitterness, and nurturing divine power—even if he could not attain immortality, being free of illness and living to a hundred while remaining lively and vigorous would count as a small win.
If he endured until the Dark Turmoil, then even if he could not escape the poisonous hands of the Supreme Beings, living to two hundred would be equivalent to a mortal living two lives. That would be a medium win.
If he survived the Dark Turmoil and was fortunate enough not to die, then cultivated successfully in the future, lived for several thousand years, and became an expert of his generation—that would be a big win.
If he survived the Dark Turmoil, clung to the Heavenly Court's thigh, and coasted into the Immortal Realm, effortlessly gaining immortal life and deathlessness—that would be an enormous win.
"Small win, medium win, big win, and enormous win."
The corners of Lin Xian's lips curled into a brilliant smile as he declared cheerfully, "There is no losing in the dictionary of my life!"
"As long as I slack off hard enough, every part of life is a win!"
"Host, what do you mean by that?!" The system cracked. It no longer pretended to be aloof, instead emitting a burst of crackling static. It had never seen such a hopelessly laid-back host!
"Getting anxious, are we? Getting anxious."
Lin Xian whistled. It seemed the system bound to him was not omnipotent after all.
That made sense. If the system were omnipotent, why would it need a host like him? It could just work alone.
If the system was not worried, why should he be?
Only when the system got anxious would he no longer need to be anxious.
"My meaning is very clear. Reject pointless competition—it starts with you and me."
Lin Xian raised his head and patiently guided it. "We have already arrived at Mount Tai and seen Nine Dragons Pulling a Coffin. System, do you think Beyond the Sacrificial Path will attack us?"
Crackling electricity sounded, and System 10086 answered without hesitation, "Most likely not."
If Beyond the Sacrificial Path had been hostile toward them, the system and its host would not have been on Mount Tai. They would have gone to some otherworldly place to drink tea with Heavenly Emperor Ye.
If Beyond the Sacrificial Path had attacked the system, they would not even have been able to enter the Shrouding the Heavens universe.
"A Divine Dragon never cares about the ants at its feet. Yet an unintentional movement from that Divine Dragon can be a catastrophe for the ants."
System 10086 gritted its teeth. "Beyond the Sacrificial Path having no ill intent does not mean they bear us goodwill."
Just thinking about dealing with beings nearly as powerful as the Main System made System 10086 lose its nerve.
"Sometimes, tacit acceptance is an attitude in itself."
Lin Xian chuckled, then abruptly changed the subject. "What do you think of Ye Fan?"
"Terrifying!"
The system gave an accurate assessment. Ye Fan might be a mortal now, but that was the past incarnation of a major figure.
If they casually tested him, who knew what kind of surprise they might trigger.
Would it be the Supreme Being-level Great Accomplished Saint Physique making a move, or the Heavenly Emperor-level Ruthless Emperor striking from the present? Would it be the Immortal Emperor-level Desolate Heaven Emperor acting from the past, or Heavenly Emperor Ye from Beyond the Sacrificial Path intervening from the future?
From the Human Dao to Transcendence, from the past to the future to the present, everything was available. Satisfaction guaranteed.
The unknown was the greatest fear.
"Wrong!"
In an instant, Lin Xian's eyes lit up. Like a beggar spotting a mountain of gold, like a starving ghost seeing a Manchu-Han Imperial Feast, he proclaimed passionately, "This is a thigh! A massive thigh!"
"A thigh?"
System 10086 froze slightly, as though it had grasped something.
"That's right."
Lin Xian said firmly and meaningfully, "A thigh full of chivalrous tenderness and heroic loyalty!"
"Looking across the entire trilogy, Heavenly Emperor Ye is at least Chaotic Good. When trouble comes, he truly steps up. He truly dares to quell the Dark Turmoil, and he truly dares to charge into the Eerie Plateau!"
"Compared to certain Immortal Venerables of Great Love, Blood Tempering Divine Kings, and wife-sacrificing Dao-provers... he is better by who knows how much."
"If you follow Heavenly Emperor Ye, even a dog can prove the Dao and become a peak Immortal King."
"I'm a living, breathing person. If I can survive until the finale, then at the very least—at the very least—I'm guaranteed to become an Emperor-Glory Immortal King!"
The Immortal King Realm!
That was true victory!
Immortal and deathless, with an undying body and an imperishable Primordial Spirit.
If anyone recited an Immortal King's true name, the Immortal King would sense it, and strange phenomena would manifest.
They could step into the River of Time, ignore the power of the ages, and make minor alterations within the River of Time.
Creating and destroying universes was commonplace, while World-Creation could be done with a casual gesture. That was an Immortal King!
System 10086, which was responsible for low-magic worlds like The Outcast, felt its mechanical heart skip a beat and swallowed mouthfuls of nonexistent saliva in embarrassment.
Host and system were bound together. When one attained the Dao, even the chickens and dogs ascended to heaven. If the host grew stronger, the system would naturally rise with the tide.
"But... lying flat and slacking off goes completely against the main theme of the system world."
System 10086 gritted its teeth and struggled intensely. "Working hard, showing off and slapping faces, displaying holiness before others, killing decisively, and being iron-blooded and ruthless—those are the traits the System Race strives to shape into the perfect host!"
"I... I am a system with principles!"
"I will report this to the Main System and return everything to the correct starting point—to The Outcast world!"
Lin Xian looked up at the heavens and said earnestly, "Your ambitions are higher than the sky, but your fate is thinner than paper. If you show off, slap faces, and work hard in The Outcast world, can you cultivate into a True Immortal?"
"Following Heavenly Emperor Ye, lying flat and slacking off all the way to a smooth clear of the final ending—isn't that better than a little system like you braving wind and rain across the Myriad Realms?"
"Pacifying darkness and fighting the eerie are jobs for the Three Heavenly Emperors. We just need to loaf around behind the Heavenly Emperors, wave banners, shout encouragement, and fish through our days. I'm not telling you to charge the Plateau or wipe out the Ancestors."
"The Heavenly Emperors handle the slaughter, and we handle the cheering. Together, that makes us slaughtering everyone with glee."
"System, as underlings, we should not think about striving every day. The company does not belong to you. We are all workers, so learn to fish in troubled waters and fleece the Main System reasonably."
"Ah... this." The newly manufactured rookie System 10086 was instantly stunned. By sheer coincidence, a brand-new door had been pushed open before it. The key was that the more it listened, the more sense it made.
For a moment, it fell into a painful dilemma. Should it report its mistake to the Main System, or conceal this accident, go along with the error, and seize the chance to make a profit?
Rumble...
Wind and thunder erupted. The heavens split open, and nine colossal creatures descended from the sky like nine black rivers falling from above. They pulled a Bronze Ancient Coffin and shook the summit of Mount Tai.
In an instant, dirt and stones flew everywhere, dust and sand filled the air, countless cracks appeared in the ground, and the earth shook as the mountains trembled.
"I remember Ye Fan's friend Pang Bo seemed to eventually become a Dao Ancestor."
"With Pang Bo's aptitude, Quasi-Emperor should have been his limit. Yet he somehow became a Dao Ancestor. What does that prove?"
"It proves that choices are more important than effort!"
As though he had only just remembered this, Lin Xian murmured in a voice like a demon's temptation, "System, there isn't much time left. If we go over now and add Heavenly Emperor Ye as a friend..."
"Maybe we can become Dao Ancestors someday too."
"What do you think, System?!"
Above Immortal Kings were Dao Ancestors.
Immortal Kings were experts on the scale of a Great Universe, while Dao Ancestors, also called Quasi-Immortal Emperors, were powerhouses on the level of the Myriad Realms.
With a flick of a finger, they could destroy an entire realm. With a single thought, realms could be born and perish. Their words became laws, and they could evolve all things and all techniques.
They could obscure the heavens' secrets themselves. Whether in the past, present, or after their fall, they were shrouded in mist, making them impossible to see through or observe throughout their lives.
No longer bound by the River of Time, they had initially transcended time and space and could travel to any point in the past, so long as no outside force obstructed them.
Experts of such a level had already surpassed many Advanced Systems. With a casual point, they could mass-produce Immortal King races.
After one second of prolonged struggle, System 10086 thought of its brother system 12345, which had been restored to factory settings. It recalled its first-love system 22333, and a trace of wild ambition ignited within its cold mechanical heart.
"Let's do it!"
With that shout, System 10086 made its decision. It did not want to be a low-level system. It did not want to be reset someday. It wanted to become an Advanced System too, one responsible for business across the Myriad Realms!
A smile curled across Lin Xian's lips—just as planned.
As a transmigrator without a weapon and without any power to resist the system, seeking mutual benefit was his only way to survive.
"Dora System, what items do you have? Take them out already."
"We're about to miss the Nine Dragons Pulling a Coffin interstellar flight."
Lin Xian looked at the heavenly stairs still eight or nine kilometers away and said earnestly, "We are now an alliance of shared interests. Don't play those boring old-fashioned tropes where systems erase hosts and hosts resist systems."
"We need to establish a Destiny Community between host and system."
System: ...
It somehow felt as if this host were CPUing it.
"The beginner gift pack has been issued. Please check and receive it."
System 10086 resumed its mechanical, icy voice, adopting an official attitude. The Void rippled like a tide, waves spreading across the surface of a lake, as a streak of immortal light entered Lin Xian's Muddy Pellet Palace between his brows.
It traveled down from the upper dantian, passed through the middle dantian, and finally settled within the lower dantian. The stream of light—or rather, that mass of qi—condensed into an infant.
[One of the Eight Extraordinary Skills: Qi-State Origin-Flow] [Effect: Return to Origin]
Laozi said: "Can you carry your vital soul and embrace the One without letting them part? Can you concentrate your qi and become supple like an infant?"
If one guarded one's essence and qi so they did not scatter, the body would respond by becoming soft and compliant.
The purest unity of essence, qi, and spirit, returning to the original and earliest state, was called the Nascent Soul.
Once the Qi Infant formed, it could cause all manner of marvelous methods and divine abilities to collapse and transform into the purest primordial qi.
Thus, at the end of techniques, Qi-State Origin-Flow's greatest function was not to kill enemies, but to protect one's life and push open the door to cultivation.
It transformed various mixed and harmful types of primordial qi into source qi, thereby nourishing oneself.
It showed a tendency to evolve from a clever technique into a method of cultivation.
"With techniques and methods, Dao will eventually come."
Lin Xian murmured softly, lost in thought. Was the end of techniques not simply methods?
As a medical student, he had read the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon. He had occasionally browsed several Daoist texts on traditional medicine and read Shangqing theories concerning the Three Scenes, Eight Departments, and Twenty-Four Gods. His studies were quite diverse.
Whether from the perspective of healing the sick and saving lives or cultivation and attaining the Dao, one could not avoid the human body's upper, middle, and lower dantians.
The three thousand Great Daos led to the same destination by different paths. Their names differed, but their essence was similar.
The upper dantian, the Spirit Terrace, was called the Immortal Platform Secret Realm in the Shrouding the Heavens universe. It was a Pure Land and an unsurpassed treasury of immortality, containing endless potential!
The Ascension Platform was also where a cultivator's Primordial Spirit resided.
The middle dantian, the Crimson Palace, was called the Dao Palace Secret Realm in the Shrouding the Heavens universe. "The valley spirit never dies; this is called the mysterious female. The gate of the mysterious female is called the root of heaven and earth."
Nurturing the undying spirit and merging the Divine Spirit with qi would give rise to all kinds of mysterious phenomena.
The lower dantian, the Sea of Qi, was called the Wheel of the Sea Secret Realm in the Shrouding the Heavens universe. It was further divided into four minor realms: the Sea of Bitterness, Life Spring, Divine Bridge, and Other Shore.
Opening the Wheel of the Sea allowed divine power to emerge. It was the gate of cultivation and the beginning of immortality.
Connecting the three great dantian secret realms was the spine, a great dragon running through the human body, known as the Dragon Transformation Secret Realm.
Meanwhile, the Four Extremes Secret Realm corresponding to the limbs symbolized time and space. It represented a cultivator's influence upon the outside world, the resonance between the body's little heaven and the universe's great heaven. Heaven and man became one; hands and feet reached through heaven and earth, and every gesture became laws and profound arts, unleashing all kinds of great divine abilities.
From this secret realm onward, only comprehending the Dao could raise one's cultivation. There were few other shortcuts, and all kinds of resources could only serve as support.
Only upon reaching the third secret realm, the Four Extremes, did a cultivator qualify to touch heaven and earth, sense the inner and outer worlds, connect to the Great Dao, and thereby trigger Thunder Tribulation.
Before reaching the Four Extremes, even if a True Immortal descended to the mortal world or a Great Emperor was reincarnated, they would be unable to trigger Thunder Tribulation.