Great Jin, Shaolin Temple.
"Junior Brother Xuanbei, are you only going to watch from the shadows, without going over to take a look?" Cao Ya glided through the woods and stood in the shade, speaking softly to the handsome yet melancholy yellow-robed monk beside him.
In the woods, several young monks carried water along a flagstone path, with gray-robed monks occasionally supervising them.
The yellow-robed monk Xuanbei kept his eyes on a young monk of twelve or thirteen, whose eyes were dots of ink and whose brows resembled distant mountains, his features as finely carved as jade.
His expression was rather complicated.
There was nostalgia, sorrow, and affection.
"The time hasn't come yet. Being in the chores courtyard can temper Zhending's character." Xuanbei's voice was low, but not heavy.
Cao Ya smiled, his face calm, though inwardly he grew wary.
Zhending is Meng Qi, the protagonist of The Masters of This World! His arrival at Shaolin Temple means the plot of The Masters of This World has officially begun!
Ah, it's been forty-eight years since I transmigrated into this world. I've become someone of standing in Shaolin Temple, second in strength among the Xuan Generation only to Junior Brother Xuanbei, who became a monk later in life. That's hardly weak, and I have a modest reputation in the martial world, but in truth, I'm only at Outer Scenery Seventh Heaven.
A few decades from now, the plot of The Masters of This World will go completely off the rails. When that happens, never mind Outer Scenery-even Dharmakayas will be ants!
At that thought, Cao Ya's brows furrowed slightly.
He was a transmigrator.
He had transmigrated from Earth into the Real World of The Masters of This World. While he was still an infant, famine struck his hometown and all his relatives died. As he lay in his mother's arms on the verge of death, a passing eminent monk from Shaolin fortunately rescued him.
Afterward, he grew up in Shaolin Temple and practiced martial arts, showing decent talent.
Cao Ya soon learned that this was the world of The Masters of This World, where the mighty figures of the Other Shore wantonly trampled timelines, turned causes into effects, and destroyed universes!
He had thought he was like Meng Qi, having transmigrated from the Earth within The Masters of This World-a fish, a beacon belonging to some mighty figure.
Later, the appearance of a certain space made him realize that his guess had been wrong.
The Clone System Space!
When I transmigrated, I didn't just enter The Masters of This World. I simultaneously transmigrated into multiple worlds: Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, Detective Conan, The Return of the Condor Heroes, and Mysterious Revival. Those are the worlds that have appeared so far.
Six versions of me appeared in that System Space. It gave me quite a fright at first.
I wonder if anyone new will appear tonight?
Hmm, hopefully they'll be from a world with a high power ceiling, like Mysterious Revival. The plot of The Masters of This World is about to go off the rails. Outer Scenery Seventh Heaven... I feel so unsafe.
Cao Ya sighed inwardly.
The protagonist had appeared and the plot had begun. Soon, this world's power levels would spiral out of control: Outer Scenery cultivators would be worth less than dogs, Dharmakayas would roam everywhere, and only Legends could throw their weight around!
In the cosmology of The Masters of This World, the Real World stood high above everything else. In ancient times, it had also been called the Immortal Realm.
Beyond the Real World, countless universes and planes arose and perished, naturally giving birth to the alternate selves of mighty beings at the Legend level and above.
At such a realm, Cao Ya could not even glimpse their silhouettes when he looked up.
The path of cultivation began with a hundred days of foundation building, followed by qi accumulation and body forging, then opening the nine apertures. Once all nine apertures were open and the inner world was fully developed, true qi could be projected outward.
After the nine apertures came cultivation of the glabellar ancestral aperture, establishing Heaven-Man Communion and reaching the realm of Unity of Heaven and Man. As for Return to Simplicity, that was a realm only a tiny number of geniuses could attain.
But none of this amounted to much. At most, they were third-rate; only Half-Step Outer Scenery cultivators counted as second-rate experts.
Outer Scenery had nine heavens. Those in the first, second, and third heavens were first-rate experts, while those in the fourth, fifth, and sixth heavens were supreme experts, also experts on the First Heavenly Ladder.
The seventh, eighth, and ninth heavens formed the Second Heavenly Ladder, collectively known as Grandmasters.
The Third Heavenly Ladder faintly transcended the Outer Scenery realm, and was therefore also called Half-step Dharma Body, or Great Grandmaster!
Above Half-step Dharma Body was, naturally, the true Dharmakaya Realm.
Cao Ya was at Outer Scenery Seventh Heaven and could be called a Grandmaster.
Xuanbei beside him was even more formidable,
at Outer Scenery Eighth Heaven, the strongest of Shaolin's Xuan Generation! Cao Ya could only rank second.
Dharmakaya could be subdivided into Human Immortal, Earth Immortal, and Heavenly Immortal.
Only above Heavenly Immortal came Legend, where one could call oneself a mighty being even in a super-world like The Masters of This World.
But never mind Legend-even Dharmakaya was something Cao Ya could only look up to.
Jin Yong Wuxia is low-powered martial arts, below Outer Scenery.
Individual combat power in Detective Conan is even lower than in Jin Yong Wuxia, and there's no way I can produce its various technological weapons here.
Only Mysterious Revival... but that world is far too unusual!
In Mysterious Revival, there's no cultivation path. All manner of vicious ghosts ravage the planet, and those ghosts basically have no intelligence. Aside from a tiny minority, the vast majority act according to rules, without anything like resentment or baleful energy.
Rather than vicious ghosts, they're more like products of rules.
Controlling a vicious ghost makes you a Ghost Controller, but the ghost corrodes the human body. Normally, you won't live long. Even if the ghost crashes, there's still a danger of its revival.
That's a world of despair!
If I could master the rules those ghosts represent...
Cao Ya shook his head inwardly. He could only entertain the thought. In the world of Mysterious Revival, vicious ghosts were products of rules, and he had no confidence he could withstand their corrosion.
There would be no problem in the short term, or even for several decades, but what about a hundred years later?
After all, even the very strongest Ghost Controllers could not stop death from coming.
He should focus on cultivating the system of The Masters of This World instead.
First, he would set a small goal: attain Dharmakaya!
He glanced at Xuanbei. Since Xuanbei had become a monk later in life, he was still Cao Ya's junior brother despite being stronger and older.
Cao Ya's Dharma name was Xuanjie.
His roots were sound and his pedigree impeccable!
Cao Ya knew why Xuanbei paid attention to Meng Qi, the protagonist of The Masters of This World, also known as Zhending.
Meng Qi was his name before transmigration. His secular name in the Real World was Su Ziyuan, and he was the only son of Xuanbei's younger sister from his secular life. He had been sent to Shaolin Temple because of internal strife in the Shendu Su Family.
However, Meng Qi had not inherited Su Ziyuan's memories, so he knew nothing of this.
Few people knew this secret. Cao Ya only understood it fully because he knew the plot, was close to Xuanbei, and had been present when Xuanbei took the tonsure.
After watching secretly for a while, Xuanbei left.
Cao Ya also glided away.
At this point, Meng Qi did not yet require too much attention.
Night.
Inside a meditation chamber.
Cao Ya sat in meditation, looking every bit the ascetic cultivator, though his mind had long since drifted into the System Space.
It was a boundless, gray, misty space, where several figures appeared.
They looked exactly alike, differing only in their clothing and slightly in their bearing.
Some were taciturn, some domineering, some indifferent, and some exuded an air of laziness.
The Cao Ya from The Masters of This World looked around, and his eyes lit up.
"Oh, newcomers! Quick, share your memories!" The languid Cao Ya seemed to take an interest.
At this moment, there were eight Cao Yas in the System Space: six old hands and two newcomers.
The two newcomers were naturally also Cao Ya, though they too were dressed differently.
One was refined and gentle, like a teacher.
The other was silent and aloof, with an air that warned strangers away.
The two were exact opposites.
"The System Space told you everything about this place when you appeared here. You understood it, right? My comprehension isn't bad," the Cao Ya from The Masters of This World said, pressing his palms together.
The imposing, domineering Cao Ya rolled his eyes. "Has being a monk addled your brain? I'm Cao Ya from The Return of the Condor Heroes. These are Cao Ya from The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, Cao Ya from Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, Cao Ya from Mysterious Revival, and Cao Ya from Detective Conan. And that big bald fellow is Cao Ya from The Masters of This World, currently the most badass of us all."
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