Bibbidi-Bobbidi, Open Sesame

The Classic of Mountains and Seas Fragment had endless uses. Though it could not serve as storage space or shelter anyone for long, it offered a place to practice skills one wanted to keep secret and gain precious combat experience. Pan Lei had honed his Left-Hand Swift Sword and light-footed techniques in the little world it created.

That alone made it an astonishing treasure, but its wonders did not end there. The Bamboo Slip could turn illusion into reality, conjuring treasures that had never existed. Its value was almost impossible to measure!

The Pan Lineage's ancestors had mastered formidable martial arts in this bitterly cold land, where resources were scarce, and survived one perilous battle after another. The treasures they had brought back from the Illusory World were probably the chief reason why.

Pan Lei had meant to wait a while longer before passing the treasure to his son. But he had provoked the Purple Cloud Palace and would have to keep his tail between his legs for the foreseeable future. He could no longer roam the Martial World. If he could only train at home, he might as well pass the treasure on and let Pan Long start early.

In the past, the Pan Lineage's ancestors had waited until their lives were nearly over before passing the treasure to their children. It had not worked well. Their descendants were often forty or older by the time they received it, leaving little opportunity to benefit. Then Pan Lei's grandfather, Pan Sheng, changed course and handed the treasure to his son Pan Shou when he was only twenty-five. Sure enough, with its help, Pan Shou broke through to the Innate Realm that ordinary martial artists dreamed of reaching and became one of Dingfeng Town's handful of top fighters.

Pan Shou, in turn, gave the treasure to Pan Lei when he was twenty-five. More gifted than his father, Pan Lei took less than twenty years to enter the Innate Realm. He had even gone a step further, mastering Fetal Breathing, one of the Four Innate Mysteries, and becoming a Transcendent who had truly risen above the ordinary.

So this time, Pan Lei decided to hand over the treasure even earlier, to his son at just sixteen.

Perhaps his son could go further still, master all Four Innate Mysteries, and even attain perfection of body and mind to become a True Person...

It might be a little early, but each day sooner that his son received the Classic of Mountains and Seas Fragment was another day he could benefit from it. Perhaps Pan Long would one day surpass him, grow strong enough to fear no enemy, and even fulfill the Pan Lineage's generations-old wish...

Watching his son walk out on slightly unsteady feet, Pan Lei coughed twice. A smile of anticipation appeared on his pale face.

"Son, this is as far as your old man will get in this life. Each generation has to be stronger than the last for the family to prosper. You must surpass me!"

After leaving his father's room and returning to his own, Pan Long still wore a dazed look, and his steps felt light and uncertain.

He touched the Bamboo Slip tucked against his chest, now warmed by his body heat. Even now, he half suspected he was dreaming.

After dying and crossing into this world, he had become the son of a martial arts master. He had already thought that counted as an unfair advantage—at the very least, he had been born into a good family.

In the world he had come from, his family would have ranked alongside the richest in a prefecture-level city. They might even have been a local colossus with power spanning business and government, and plenty of political connections.

Being born into a family like that meant starting where many people hoped to finish. No, many people's finish lines fell far short of this starting point! Pan Long had no complaints about his new life or the identity he had gained. On the contrary, he was grateful for the crossing.

He got to live again, and he had been born into a wealthy, harmonious family without any of the intrigues of a palace drama. He could even train in outstanding martial arts. He was more than satisfied.

But he had never imagined an even greater gift awaited him in this life!

As he touched the Bamboo Slip against his chest, he could not help recalling the many web novels he had read.

What does this make me? A transmigrator with a cheat? I never thought I'd get the protagonist treatment... But my cheat is interesting. It's a treasure passed down through the family, not a system that activates with a ding, or some spirit treasure that brought me across...

After letting his thoughts run wild for a while, he finally calmed down, shut the doors and windows, and took out the Bamboo Slip.

The yellow-brown Bamboo Slip looked ancient. A few indistinct characters marked its surface, but Pan Long lacked the learning to read them. Although generations of Pan Lineage heads must have kept it carefully, it showed no sign of having been rubbed smooth, much less developed a patina. Instead, it looked rough and battered, without a single remarkable feature.

Perhaps this was what people meant when they said a divine object concealed its own splendor.

Following his father's instructions, Pan Long silently circulated his True Qi and slowly channeled it into the Bamboo Slip.

Ordinarily, feeding True Qi into an object made its surface glow faintly and greatly increased its strength. A master like Pan Lei could even concentrate that glow into a single ray powerful enough to shatter metal and cleave jade. That was what people commonly called Sword Aura.

Yet after absorbing his True Qi, the Bamboo Slip remained as old and battered as ever, without the slightest visible change. To Pan Long, it felt like a bottomless Abyss. No matter how much True Qi he poured in, it showed no sign of filling up.

He was not worried. He simply kept feeding it True Qi. When he ran out, he sat down to regulate his breathing, then slept. After waking, he spent all the time he could spare from eating, drinking, and resting either meditating to restore his True Qi or channeling it into the Bamboo Slip.

He kept this up for five full days before he finally felt the bottomless Abyss inside the Bamboo Slip fill with True Qi.

By his reckoning, he had poured in more than ten times his own store of True Qi. Forget someone of his generation—even a seasoned master like his father probably could not supply that much at once.

This treasure truly was extraordinary!

Once he had filled the Bamboo Slip with True Qi, Pan Long had intended to activate it immediately. But Pan Lei told him to wait. His grandfather, Pan Shou, had to be there.

Pan Long had no choice but to wait patiently for several more days.

A few days later, the merchant caravan that came to Dingfeng Town each year to buy Demon Beast hides, bones, and meat arrived. With it came his grandfather Pan Shou, who had moved to the Central Plains, and several of his trusted disciples.

Pan Shou had not made a special trip. He visited Dingfeng Town every autumn or winter to see his descendants and old friends, and to guard against misfortune.

The Autumn Hunt was dangerous. However skilled a fighter might be, he could hardly guarantee he would emerge without a scratch. The old man came each year in case his son was injured during the hunt and the family was left without a master to hold it together.

At sixty-three, Pan Shou would have been frail, even long-lived, by ordinary standards. But for an Innate Master, he was still in his prime. Breaking through to the Innate Realm not only increased one's fighting strength; more importantly, it extended one's life. Even someone like him, who had only just entered the Innate Realm and had mastered none of the Four Innate Mysteries, could live past a hundred and remain in his prime until around eighty.

Pan Shou had nearly twenty years of his prime left. He might yet advance further along the martial path and prolong it even more.

With him holding the fort, even if Pan Lei was gravely injured while hunting demons, the Pan Lineage would still have someone to rely on. No one could easily take advantage of their weakness and deal them a crushing blow.

As things stood, Pan Lei was badly injured, and there was no reliable person to protect Pan Long while he activated the Classic of Mountains and Seas Fragment. They could only attempt it with peace of mind once Pan Shou arrived.

After arriving, Pan Shou first sent the disciples who had accompanied him to handle official business delayed by Pan Lei's injury. Then, claiming he was going to circulate his energy to heal his son, he took all three generations into the underground secret chamber.

Pan Long thought they could begin at last, but his grandfather took out a bundle of yarrow stalks and announced that he would perform a divination. Ever since moving to the Central Plains, the old man had met quite a few people from the Daoist School and picked up plenty of their mystical habits.

They waited and waited. The "auspicious hour" he had divined did not arrive until after lunch.

And even when it arrived, they still had to burn incense, pray, and pay respects to their ancestors before activating the Classic of Mountains and Seas Fragment.

Pan Long was so impatient he felt he might burst into flames, but there was nothing he could do about his grandfather. He kept waiting. When the rites were finally over, he immediately pricked his finger with a steel needle and let a drop of blood fall onto the Bamboo Slip.

The moment the dull Bamboo Slip touched the blood, it blazed with light. If they had not been hidden in the underground secret chamber, the radiance might have reached the sky and lit up half the heavens.

Within the light appeared mountains, vast seas, countless islands and stars, and more strange people and beasts than Pan Long could count. Visions of every kind revolved around him, brightening and dimming like images in a revolving lantern.

Pan Lei and Pan Shou started and exchanged a look.

Nothing like this had happened when they activated the Classic of Mountains and Seas Fragment!

And in the world of consciousness, which they could not see, Pan Long was even more shocked.

He saw the Classic of Mountains and Seas Fragment suddenly unfold into a great gate that pulled him inside. That much matched what his elders had told him. But beyond it lay neither empty chaos nor the grasslands or Pan Residence he knew. Instead, he found himself in the vast Sea of Stars. Countless stars, large and small, shone within it, flickering in and out.

As a highly educated man who had once received a systematic modern science education, Pan Long knew enough astronomy to understand that stars were enormous suns at immense distances. But he dared not apply that knowledge to the sight before him. One foundation of scientific thinking was to seek truth from facts, and he knew next to nothing about the Classic of Mountains and Seas Fragment. How could he make assumptions?

Worse, the "instructions" that were supposed to enter his mind were still nowhere to be found. Instead, each star gave off a strange sense of familiarity. He could even feel a faint pull coming from them.

It was as though... they wanted to draw him in.

He groaned inwardly, but he could not move a muscle. His family was right beside him, yet he could not give them the slightest warning.

What on earth is happening?

He shouted the question in his mind, but could not stop his body from suddenly soaring upward and hurtling toward a giant star.

A roar rang out. Before Pan Long could even react, he lost consciousness.

The first three chapters were over. At last, the story was about to take a fantastical turn...

(End of chapter)