Three Purities Temple was especially quiet at night.
Zhang Qingyuan wore blue-and-white Daoist robes, with a wooden hairpin tucked into his hair. With his sharply defined face, high nose, and phoenix eyes, he looked especially handsome and dashing when he smiled.
Right now, however, he looked a little melancholy.
He sat on the steps, gazing up at the sky. His master was dead. He had died of natural causes seven days ago.
His master had been an endearingly clueless man whose greatest dream in life was to create a cultivation method and establish a sect.
He had pored over the scriptures until his hair turned white, hiding in his room all day to comprehend Daoist texts, research martial arts, and study internal cultivation methods.
Over the years, he had developed quite a few martial arts, but he had never been satisfied. He had demanded too much of himself, ultimately suffering Qi deviation.
His master had taken seven disciples in total. Over the years, he had devoted most of his efforts to studying internal cultivation and researching martial arts, spending very little time teaching his disciples. As a result, although the senior brothers possessed martial skills, their dispositions had gone astray.
Zhang Qingyuan ranked seventh, and his six senior brothers had gone their separate ways today.
Every one of them wanted to become the temple master and inherit their master's Three Purities Temple, along with the martial arts he had developed over the years.
They had nearly come to blows over it. Zhang Qingyuan had been the one to suggest that, since they were all their master's direct disciples, they all had the right to inherit. There was no need to hide anything. If they were capable of it, they could copy out all the internal cultivation methods, sword techniques, fist techniques, and palm techniques a few times and divide everything among themselves.
Their master's greatest wish had been to see the sect flourish. They could each take a copy of the Three Pure Ones Sect's martial arts and compete again in ten years to see who was the strongest.
Everyone had agreed to this proposal, allowing them to settle the matter peacefully. After each copying out a set of the martial arts their master had left behind, they had split up.
He would be leaving tomorrow too, because his third senior brother, Zhao Qingyin, had inherited the temple.
Ah, thinking back, it's already been three years since I transmigrated. He remembered that when he first arrived, the body's original owner had been a little beggar, pitifully wandering the streets and begging, his eyes full of envy as he watched the great heroes leap to and fro.
To keep from starving to death, Zhang Qingyuan, who had taken over the original owner's identity, had chosen to seek out a master.
Unfortunately, his talent had been too poor. In the end, only the old Daoist of Three Purities Temple had possessed the discerning eye to recognize a pearl and take him in.
And today was a very sorrowful day.
The seventh day after the old Daoist's death, and the anniversary of the system's demise.
"Pah!"
Zhang Qingyuan spat. This was too damned miserable.
He had a system. When he first transmigrated, it had displayed a message saying that the Great Wuxia System was loading.
Otherwise, Zhang Qingyuan would hardly have gone looking for a master to learn martial arts. With his knowledge from his previous life, what couldn't he have done to make a living?
But since he had already transmigrated, and into a wuxia world at that, with a system to boot, wouldn't it have been a waste not to practice martial arts?
Yet today, the system had deceived him. It had deceived an innocent, kind, adorable young man as perfect as you esteemed readers!
The moment the system finished loading, Zhang Qingyuan had been overjoyed.
The system interface was just like the wuxia games he had played in his previous life. He even had to create a character first, and there were plenty of character templates to choose from.
Naturally, Zhang Qingyuan wanted someone powerful. He chose Zhang Sanfeng as his template.
But just after he selected the template, at the very moment he began to feel his body changing...
The system disbanded.
He hadn't even adjusted his luck, talent, or anything else yet!
What utter bullshit.
He was depressed,
very depressed,
especially depressed!
The system had died too quickly. He had clearly seen martial arts from his previous life further down, things like the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms, Lingbo Microsteps, and the Nine Yin Manual. Before he could choose any, that damned system had taken them away.
Zhang Qingyuan sat on the steps, wanting to cry but having no tears.
Fortunately, he had at least gained something.
At least his body now had Zhang Sanfeng's template. He hadn't come away empty-handed.
After much deliberation, he had picked Zhang Sanfeng from among a host of wuxia protagonists, including Chu Liuxiang, Lu Xiaofeng, Yang Guo, and Zhang Wuji.
Zhang Qingyuan had his reasons for choosing Zhang Sanfeng. Yang Guo, Zhang Wuji, and the others might have been protagonists, but Old Zhang was absolutely ceiling-tier in the wuxia world.
No matter how formidable Zhang Wuji was, he only learned other people's martial arts.
No matter how formidable Yang Guo was, he couldn't establish a sect of his own.
Zhang Sanfeng was different. As a wuxia fan in his previous life, Zhang Qingyuan's admiration for Old Zhang had been anything but ordinary.
Old Zhang was someone who could create his own cultivation methods. His talent was no less than those protagonists', and might even have surpassed theirs.
With just one-third of the Nine Yang Divine Skill, he had created the Wudang Nine Yang Skill, and later even developed the Pure Yang Wuji Wuji Skill. His talent was on the same level as Huang Shang's.
He had single-handedly founded the Wudang Sect and created Wudang Swordsmanship, along with Taiji Fist, Taiji Sword, and the Thirteen Swords of the Divine Gate, building up the Wudang Sect until it leaped into the ranks of top-tier sects alongside Shaolin Temple.
With talent like that, who else could compare?
Before he transmigrated, whenever he watched Douyin, people online always said Zhang Sanfeng was using cheats: everyone else practiced martial arts while he cultivated immortality.
Why could the Two Elders of Xuanming be considered first-rate experts? Because they had joined forces to take a palm strike from Old Zhang without dying. That was why they were rated as first-rate experts.
When the five great sects went up Wudang to question Zhang Cuishan about the Golden-Haired Lion King's whereabouts, the Shaolin monks had said, "True Person Zhang, by the time you exhaust your True Qi, you may not have managed to kill everyone from all five great sects."
He could force the Shaolin monks to say the most cowardly words in the most pretentious tone. That was the oppressive presence of Zhang Sanfeng.
Why hadn't any powerful evil forces emerged in the martial world during the decades between the timelines of The Return of the Condor Heroes and The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber? Wasn't it because Zhang Sanfeng had spent sixty years sweeping away demons?
And now that he had obtained Zhang Sanfeng's template, he could clearly feel the subtle changes taking place in his body.
Principles he had failed to understand when reading Daoist scriptures suddenly made sense now,
moves he had been unable to master in practice now revealed their intricacies without him even having to practice,
and the internal power he had always struggled to control during training now obeyed him effortlessly.
All he could say was that Old Zhang's talent was absurd.
After consoling himself like this, Zhang Qingyuan felt considerably better.
He stood up and returned to his room to pack his belongings.
His master had been a Daoist who spent his entire life researching martial arts and internal cultivation methods. He had rarely gone out and had little reputation in the jianghu. The same was even more true of his seven disciples.
Every day, they either practiced martial arts or received worshippers who came to offer incense. All their income came from the offerings of the faithful.
Their income was low, and even less money made its way into the disciples' hands.
He really couldn't understand it. What was there for his senior brothers to fight over in such a poor temple?
It wasn't some prestigious great sect, nor was it a wealthy merchant's business or a bank. So what if they inherited it?
After packing for quite a while, Zhang Qingyuan realized there really wasn't much to take: just two changes of Daoist robes and one tael of silver.
There was also a sword and a horsetail whisk...
Pitifully poor!
As for the martial arts and internal cultivation methods, he had already committed them to memory.
He set his bundle aside and lay down on the bed.
His master's martial arts had seemed very powerful when he practiced them before.
Now, with Zhang Sanfeng's template bolstering him, he felt that some aspects were only barely satisfactory.
It was like an elementary school student suddenly becoming a university student.
In an elementary school student's understanding, a problem might have only one solution.
But in a university student's eyes, that same problem had countless solutions, all simpler and faster than the elementary school student's method.
Zhang Qingyuan suddenly sat up. A thought struck him. Should I improve Master's martial arts?
I'm fully capable of doing that now!
Zhang Sanfeng had been able to create the Wudang Nine Yang Skill and the even more powerful Pure Yang Wuji Skill from one-third of the Nine Yang Divine Skill.
My talent is exactly the same as Old Zhang's now. I should be able to do it too...
Fuck it. No more sleeping.
Time to train!