Gateway to Myriad Wonders

Sunlight filtered through the window.

Zhou Yi woke up from a nightmare.

It's good to be alive...

Memories flowed through his mind like water; the terrifying experience of yesterday still left Zhou Yi shaken.

On a street that had been bustling and peaceful, a wild wolf the size of a bull had suddenly lunged out, running amok in the city.

Zhou Yi was lucky; he had huddled under a car and prayed to the heavens, narrowly escaping the ordeal.

After a series of complex procedures involving police statements, a psychologist, and confidentiality agreements—and being sternly warned several times not to leak any information—he was finally allowed to go home.

Go to work?

What a joke!

Zhou Yi confirmed that his brain was functioning fine; until he was certain the giant wolf wouldn't reappear, he wasn't going to work for anyone.

He bought a dozen bags of rice, added several locks to his security door, and kept a fire axe for self-defense; he didn't plan on leaving his home unless absolutely necessary.

Between life and death, there lies great terror!

Zhou Yi had experienced it firsthand.

Lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, he didn't know how much time had passed.

His wrist suddenly felt scorching hot, pulling Zhou Yi's scattered thoughts back as he looked down at the door-shaped birthmark on his wrist.

Perhaps it wasn't a birthmark; both his father and mother had told him for certain that he didn't have it when he was born, and it had appeared inadvertently when he was ten or eleven.

As Zhou Yi looked at the door-shaped mark, a stream of information flooded his mind.

"Profound and mysterious, the Gateway to Myriad Wonders!"

"A magic treasure called the Gateway to Myriad Wonders that can take me traveling through the heavens?"

"It must have been dormant because there was no Spiritual Energy Revival between heaven and earth, so I mistook it for a birthmark. It wasn't until the world changed that it absorbed enough spiritual energy to activate!"

Zhou Yi sat up abruptly from the bed, suddenly feeling bewildered and at a loss; the information contained within was too vast.

Magic treasure.

This meant that gods and immortals existed in the world, or at least had existed once.

The heavens.

Earth was not the only one, or rather, it was not the only plane of existence.

Spiritual energy!

Earth had suddenly developed spiritual energy!

In his spare time, Zhou Yi had read novels on Qidian, so he naturally understood what Spiritual Energy Revival meant.

"No wonder they kept insisting the giant wolf was a mutated animal that escaped from a laboratory; it must be to cover up the Spiritual Energy Revival!"

"I was wondering before, how could a mutated animal cast a spell that could slice a car in half? It seems that giant wolf was a legendary demon that had gained sentience, a Wolf Demon!"

The expression on Zhou Yi's face shifted—shock, ecstasy, indifference—rivaling the face-changing of Sichuan opera.

Spiritual Energy Revival, the reappearance of myths.

The giant wolf was definitely not the first, nor would it be the last; perhaps Demonic Monsters and Ghosts would become increasingly common in the future.

Blue Star was becoming more and more dangerous. The Wolf Demon wasn't even the most terrifying; at least it had a physical form and was visible to the naked eye.

If one day vengeful spirits or ghosts suddenly appeared to wreak havoc, he wouldn't even know how he died!

"Next time, I might not be so lucky..."

Zhou Yi suppressed the fear in his heart, and with a thought, a purple panel appeared before his eyes.

Name: Zhou Yi (True Self)
Race: Human
Cultivation: None
Lifespan: 27/89
Origin: 1000 (+1 point/day)
Talent: Great Luo;
Aptitude: None
Technique: None
Spells: None
Divine Abilities: None
Equipment: None

The attribute panel evolved from the Gateway to Myriad Wonders was merely a tiny function compared to traveling through the heavens.

Zhou Yi's stats were the definition of a blank slate, but the only eye-catching entry was the talent column; the Great Luo talent, shrouded in purple mist, made Zhou Yi's eyes light up.

Talent: Great Luo

Traits: True Self; Other Self;

True Self: The True Self is unique, unchanging through ten thousand kalpas.

Other Self: Other Selves exist throughout the heavens and myriad worlds; merging them into the True Self is to achieve Oneness.

True Self, Other Self? Could it be that there are other versions of me across the heavens and myriad worlds?

Zhou Yi could not fathom the meaning, so he decided to take it one step at a time and study it slowly.

"1000 points of Origin, at a growth rate of 1 point per day, means the Spiritual Energy Revival has been going on for at least three years."

"Heh, they've kept the news under tight wraps; everything still seems so peaceful and prosperous after all this time..."

Zhou Yi gently stroked his wrist, his mind made up.

The heavens and myriad worlds—he had to go!

To be offered a gift by Heaven and not take it is to invite disaster!

With a thought from Zhou Yi, the Gateway to Myriad Wonders emitted a dazzling light.

Consume 1000 Origin to search for Other Selves in the heavens!

Search successful, Other Self coordinates confirmed!

Traversing the heavens!

A flash of purple light swept by.

In an instant, the room was empty.

The sun was high.

Zhou Yi walked along a dirt road.

Occasionally, a carriage would pass by, kicking up dust and leaving him covered in grime.

"Huff, huff..."

Zhou Yi was panting like an ox, his tattered long robe no longer showing its original color.

It wasn't until evening that he saw a city in the distance.

"Finally, almost there."

As he drew closer, he could see the ten-foot-tall grey-green city walls, covered in the mottled and chaotic marks of history.

Above the city gate were three large characters: Guo Bei County.

Getting closer, he noticed a section of the city wall had collapsed and remained unrepaired.

A few soldiers squatted at the city gate; they glanced at Zhou Yi's wretched appearance and couldn't even be bothered to stand up and extort him.

Guo Bei County had a fair number of residents, and as it was evening, the streets were quite lively.

Zhou Yi's stomach growled, and he was just about to sit down at a steamed bun stall.

A man carrying a saber had finished his buns and refused to pay.

"Damn it, you dare charge me!"

Crash!

He flipped the table and drew his blade, hacking at the bun shop owner.

The bun seller was no pushover either; the cleaver he used for mincing meat was wielded with surprising skill.

The man who tried to dine and dash was eventually decapitated by the bun shop owner, and the shop hands dragged the corpse to the back kitchen, followed by the sound of chopping on a cutting board.

Zhou Yi was standing nearby and got splattered with blood.

He wiped the still-warm blood from his face, turned, and walked away, heading straight for the only martial arts school in the county, the Golden Saber Sect.

In the mere two or three miles he traveled, he encountered four more fatal brawls, and Zhou Yi's heart gradually turned cold.

Guo Bei County... it feels strangely familiar.

Zhou Yi had been in this world for six days; aside from traveling today, he had spent the previous time in Zhou Family Village.

His predecessor's father was a scholar with considerable wealth in the village, but unfortunately, he was robbed by mountain bandits a while ago and beheaded on the spot by the bandit leader.

The scholar's son was already frail, and after the sudden tragedy, he died, leaving his body to the transmigrating Zhou Yi.

After lurking for a few days to get a grasp of the situation, Zhou Yi sold his ancestral farmland for silver and made his way to Guo Bei County.

Zhou Yi had already found out that the most famous martial arts school in Guo Bei County was the Golden Saber Sect, which taught real skills.

The master of the Golden Saber Sect, Chen Xiangyan, wielded a thirty-six-pound Ghost Head Saber and was undefeated throughout Guo Bei County. More than once, outsiders had tried to establish their own schools in Guo Bei County, only to be carved into human sticks by Chen Xiangyan.

Arriving at the entrance of the Golden Saber Sect, there were disciples specifically responsible for receiving new apprentices.

The martial arts school opened its doors to collect tuition fees.

Zhou Yi paid the five-hundred-wen apprenticeship fee and became a registered disciple.

It was already evening, and the Golden Saber Sect was preparing rooms for visiting apprentices, though naturally, they charged a fee: ten copper coins a day.

The price was neither cheap nor expensive, but the conditions were rather poor.

The room contained only a hard wooden bed, and the bedding reeked of mold, clearly showing it was rarely rented out.

Zhou Yi moved in readily; what he had seen and heard along the way to Guo Bei County had left him terrified.

This was no longer the peaceful and stable Great Dynasty, but an ancient dynasty in utter chaos, and who could say if any given inn was a den of thieves?

The Golden Saber Sect was safer by comparison, or so Zhou Yi could only pray.