The beginning

When heaven and earth first opened, all things were chaos. Amid the boundless purple mist, something indescribable, like a meteor or a bolt of lightning, flashed past, hurtling straight toward a newly created universe that was settling into stability.

It plunged into a great universe at incredible speed, then broke through its barrier and continued toward the Microcosm beside it. After entering the Microcosm and passing through three layers of universal barriers, it finally began to slow, hurtling toward one of the four continents that had just manifested within the Microcosm.

"Huh? Where on earth am I? Is anyone there? Hey, hey, hey! Can someone come help me?"

Rhodes, who had just awakened, was utterly falling apart inside. All I did was glance at my phone while walking! Besides, I walked that road every day. Even with my eyes closed, I knew where every bump and pothole was. But you can't just leave a manhole without a cover!

Rhodes thought about how, as a fine, unmarried young man of somewhat advanced age on twenty-first-century Blue Star, he had worked an ordinary sales job, but his parents had bought him a house and a car, so his salary was more than enough for him alone.

Every weekend, he helped boost the sales figures of the girls carrying boxes, and during long holidays, he traveled around the country. Life had been wonderful. His only bad habit was staying up late playing games.

Although his gaming skills were mediocre, he was first-rate at flaming people. As one netizen had once put it, "With keyboard in hand, I'm invincible beneath the immortals; against those above, I'll trade my life for one of theirs." With a cry of "Keyboard, come!" flaming away for three days and nights was no problem.

What a shame I never found a successor for my peerless keyboard-immortal arts. I wonder who got the two terabytes of torrents on my computer. What a waste of heaven's gifts.

Why couldn't I have gotten a little warning before transmigrating? I could have deleted them and left my good name unsullied in the mortal world. I wonder if anyone's still looking after Number 88's sales figures...

Immersed in darkness every day, unable to move, Rhodes could only recall the good times to comfort the desolate heart of a modern man deprived of a phone, the internet, and light.

The silver lining was that, aside from all those things, Rhodes still had sensation. He could feel himself immersed in some kind of liquid, which also told him that, at the very least, he had not become a vegetable.

Taking a bolder guess, perhaps he had transmigrated, like in those stories that had been so popular in recent years. There were all sorts of bizarre ways to transmigrate these days; one more like his hardly mattered.

He had only let his mom and dad down. As their only child, he had yet to marry or let the old couple meet their grandson. That was his greatest regret.

In the long darkness, Rhodes's only cause for relief was that, as time passed, he had begun to sense his body.

After an unknown amount of time, Rhodes could finally control his entire body. Once he could, he also understood that he probably was no longer "human," in the literal sense.

He felt as though he had become a "bird" rather than a human. Now he understood why he had been unable to move and what the liquid in the darkness was: he had been developing inside an eggshell!

An unknown amount of time passed again before bolts of lightning flashed outside. This was also the first time Rhodes heard any sound. Thunder boomed as though proclaiming something.

It was like the first opening of the world, a great undertaking completed, with all beneath heaven celebrating. A strange thought arose in Rhodes's heart. Why did I think of the first opening of the world? Strange! Strange!

After the thunder passed, Rhodes seemed to suddenly understand something. He frantically pecked at the eggshell that had nurtured him. Time trickled by, and cracks multiplied across the shell. The light outside seemed about to shine in.

With a crack, the first ray of light entered the egg. More cracking sounds followed, and the inside grew brighter and brighter until the shell finally shattered completely.

As the shell shattered, a gigantic bird appeared, its wingspan an unknown number of hundreds of meters across. With its appearance, lightning flashed between heaven and earth, as though celebrating the birth of the world's first life.

By this time, Rhodes had regained his senses and was absorbing and organizing the information he had just comprehended: the first life-form born in this universe.

The Divine Beast, the Wind-Thunder Divine Roc, was born with command over wind and thunder and possessed Heaven and Earth Extreme Speed. It was at the peak of Saint-level from birth and would automatically become a god upon reaching adulthood. It was truly a Divine Beast among Divine Beasts; even Heaven and Earth Extreme Speed was not its strongest Innate Divine Ability.

The information in his bloodline told Rhodes that only after becoming a god could he awaken the strongest Innate Divine Ability that truly belonged to the Wind-Thunder Divine Roc.

It was also filled with information about this universe's path of cultivation: Lowgod, Midgod, and Highgod. Heaven and earth had only just opened-where would Sovereigns come from? Thus, Highgods stood at the universe's pinnacle.

After gaining a general understanding of the information, Rhodes felt an inexplicable familiarity. Lowgod, Midgod, Highgod, and he was in the Infernal Realm. The world was divided into four continents: the Netherworld, the Infernal Realm, the Celestial Realm, and the Divine Realm. Wasn't this the Coiling Dragon Universe?

The Coiling Dragon Universe? Holy crap! How long is it until Linley's birth? Can I live until then and cling to a transcendent's coattails?

As he rapidly sorted through and digested the information in his mind, Rhodes thought things through and abandoned the idea of riding someone's coattails. The Seven Divine Planes had yet to be born, and life in the countless Material Planes was still gestating. Although the Material Planes had formed relatively early, the universe's laws were incomplete, and no life had been born there.

The entire universe had only just produced its first batch of Divine Beasts, let alone the Four Divine Beasts, whose births were considered relatively late even among Sovereigns. They probably had not even come into the world yet!

Just then, another piece of information entered his mind. Had anyone been near Rhodes, they would have seen a gigantic divine bird frantically bouncing up and down.

After absorbing the information from his bloodline and learning that he was a Divine Beast, more information had appeared in his mind: "First, the first life born between heaven and earth." In another universe, this would have made becoming a god and founding a lineage very easy. After all, the first creature in any world was never ordinary.

As the first life-form between heaven and earth, Rhodes had been rewarded by heaven and earth with fifty percent Willpower. How did he know it was fifty percent Willpower? It was all in the information that had just appeared.

Host: Rhodes (Divine Beast, "Wind-Thunder Divine Roc")

Cultivation level: Peak Saint-level

Willpower: Fifty percent

Rhodes was immensely excited. As a transmigrator, wasn't a system cheat practically essential?

After studying it for ages, Rhodes discovered that the system was rather rudimentary and had no other functions. It had even been activated because of his Willpower. If heaven and earth hadn't rewarded me with Willpower, wouldn't I have had to wait until I became a Paragon to activate it?

"Wouldn't that be like the system showing up after I'd already become invincible? Now it's activated, but it's completely useless. What the hell is the point of it besides displaying my cultivation level? This system must be some unbranded, uncertified junk made by an unscrupulous profiteer. It doesn't even have a manual. Forget it. I'll leave the system alone for now."

Rhodes could not help cursing aloud at whoever had made this system.

Rhodes wondered whether the original story had mentioned who the first life between heaven and earth was. It seemed it had not identified the first life-form. In other words, that being might have died over the long years. With strength that would have been invincible early on, before Sovereigns appeared, it had still failed to survive until the original story's timeline. "What a..."

Although he mocked the other being aloud, Rhodes secretly warned himself, Looks like I can't look down on others just because I have Willpower now. After all, they're also among the first batch of Divine Beasts born between heaven and earth. It's possible they have some tremendously powerful trump cards!

Rhodes tried hard to recall the original story's timeline. More than a thousand grand cycles had passed since the universe's creation, and one grand cycle was six quadrillion years. A Planar War took place every trillion years. Damn, wouldn't that mean eight or nine million Planar Wars over more than a thousand grand cycles?

No, no. The Sovereign of Death, the Sovereign of Life, and the Sovereign of Destruction were all the first Sovereigns of their positions and had survived all this time. That means the timeline wasn't that long.

Moreover, in the original story, only Orloff's faction had received the Planar War reward, and only once. If eight or nine million Planar Wars had really taken place, it was impossible that only the Sovereigns of the Fate System had received it once.

"Something must be wrong somewhere. Don't rush. Think it through slowly. I'm Saint-level now, anyway, so my lifespan is unlimited." Rhodes's head felt ready to burst. The timeline was far too long, and the original story had not given detailed information about the past.

"More than a thousand grand cycles! I didn't even live thirty years in my previous life. Waiting until Linley appears would take far too long. Besides, without being a Sovereign, who would dare guarantee they could survive until then? Even being a Sovereign wouldn't make it safe-not a Lower Sovereign or a Mid-level Sovereign. Looks like I'll have to take a gamble when the Sovereign Sparks appear." Rhodes encouraged himself inwardly, but whenever he thought of that immense span of time, he leaked courage as fast as he pumped it in!

"Hongmeng Space, Hongmeng Space... The original story mentioned that Hongmeng created the Main Universe first. Because its single-universe structure made it unstable, he then created the Subordinate Universes to stabilize it. Right, that must be it. No one transcended in the Main Universe for more than a thousand grand cycles, not that more than a thousand grand cycles passed in the Subordinate Universes. That must be it."

As though he had figured something out, Rhodes's eyes lit up, and his whole being seemed filled with vigor.

Rhodes consoled himself inwardly and made up his mind. I'll cultivate hard and become a Paragon High-God first, while building my own faction. Later, when the Sovereign Era arrives, I must seize a Sovereign Spark. Only by becoming a Sovereign can I be safe for the time being.

Only after deciding how to proceed did Rhodes have time to examine the place where he had just been born. His birthplace was the summit of a mountain that seemed to connect heaven and earth, amid an endless mountain range.

Countless bolts of lightning fell from the sky, as though guarding Rhodes. Huge fragments of eggshell littered the ground around him.

Looking at the eggshells scattered over the ground, Rhodes pondered aloud, "I remember birds can eat their shells after hatching, right? But this is a fantasy world. Couldn't I collect them and refine them into a suit of armor? This must be the material best suited to my own attributes. After all, it's the 'shell' that nurtured me. I'll put it away first."

After gathering the eggshells into a corner of the summit, Rhodes continued searching the mountaintop. I must learn from the transmigrators who came before me. Dig three feet deep and don't miss a single good thing. What if there's a Sovereign Spark hidden here? Rhodes muttered deep in his heart.

Time slipped by little by little as Rhodes searched his birthplace for treasures.

If the view were pulled higher, one could see that in the boundless ocean of the Infernal Realm, a gigantic kun leaped out of the sea, while within the Netherworld, a blurry, indistinct figure emerged upon the Sky-reaching Nether Mountain, holding aloft a gem resembling a heart.

In the Divine Realm, an enormous tree that seemed to reach the heavens also swayed, waving its branches. Within the sun of the Celestial Realm, shadowy beast forms teemed, as though some terrifying existence was gestating there.

The first batch of Divine Beasts between heaven and earth were all proclaiming their arrival to the world in their own ways!

The view returned to Heavenly Thunder Mountain, the name Rhodes had just given the peak beneath his feet while searching for treasure. Unfortunately, his lack of learning had cost him; he could only come up with a name that suited the scenery.

Looking at the pile of odds and ends on the summit, Rhodes said helplessly, "Wasn't the spawn point supposed to be rich in resources?" He gazed at the heap of stones and wood. Yet in his claws were a few faintly gleaming objects that were clearly anything but ordinary.

PS: New book, new book! Please add it to your collections.