Outside Holy Soul Village, dawn was just breaking.
A thin morning mist hung over the entire village, hazy and indistinct.
A boy in coarse hemp clothing ran steadily out of the village in the morning light. His wheat-colored skin set off a pair of clear, innocent eyes, and his breathing was even as he jogged toward a small mountain outside the village.
As he ran, he seemed to remember something. He turned and headed for a little wooden house at the eastern end of the village.
In front of the house, a little boy about his age was napping in a rocking chair.
The boy had delicate features, but his eyes held a somewhat vacant look.
He lay in the rocking chair, chewing with relish on a stalk of Blue Silver Grass, which grew in clumps everywhere.
"Han Qiu, want to work out with me today?" the boy asked as he jogged up to the rocking chair.
"No way am I going to work out. I'll never work out in this lifetime. What's the point of exhausting myself with all that pointless exertion every day?"
Han Qiu lazily opened his eyes and casually spat out the Blue Silver Grass stems and leaves. He slumped deeper into the rocking chair, his whole body radiating lazy ease.
"You..." Tang San seemed at a loss for what to do with the boy and changed the subject. "Didn't we agree to train together this morning? Why aren't you going today?"
Faced with Tang San's slightly exasperated question, Han Qiu lazily rolled over, pillowed his head on his arms, and smiled nonchalantly.
"That was then, this is now." He spoke slowly, his tone languid and unabashed. "Yesterday was yesterday, and today is today. Running on brute strength to train the body is far too crude. It only drains your physical strength. The loss outweighs the gain."
Tang San frowned slightly, his eyes full of bewilderment.
As he had understood it since childhood, only by tempering and honing the body day after day could one grow stronger. There was no such thing in this world as growing strong through laziness.
"Training the body is a gradual process to begin with. How could the loss outweigh the gain?" he argued earnestly. "The Martial Soul Awakening is only a few days away. Every bit of exercise makes the body that much stronger, and it'll be better able to bear Soul Power in the future."
"Not going, not going. How could working out compare to lying down?"
Han Qiu's full name was Han Qiu.
He was a few months older than Tang San and a well-known little simpleton in Holy Soul Village.
Because he was simple-minded and often acted without thinking, always using his fists rather than words when he could, everyone in the village called him "Han Qiu."
Most importantly,
Han Qiu was a transmigrator too. Unlike Tang San, he had transmigrated as a fetus and been here since infancy. He had no heaven-defying background, no grandpa in a ring, and no system chiming in his ear. He didn't expect to have any badass Martial Soul, either.
And after six years in this world, it had taken a fall yesterday to make him remember his previous life.
"You're utterly hopeless."
Tang San waved his hand and nimbly started climbing the little mountain outside the village.
Though Tang San was still young, his limbs were remarkably agile. The little mountain, over a hundred zhang tall, was like level ground to him, and in just a few breaths, he reached the summit.
"As the saying goes, the rich rely on wealth, the poor rely on mutation. Being the protagonist of Douluo Continent really makes you different."
After Tang San left, Han Qiu sat up in the rocking chair. Watching Tang San's swift, precise movements, he looked thoroughly sour.
What six-year-old child should have been capable of that?
By comparison, Han Qiu couldn't even run for a little longer without gasping for breath and running out of strength, let alone climb to the summit.
"We're both transmigrators, but you're a powerful expert reborn." Han Qiu sighed wistfully. "I was just an ordinary, law-abiding little shut-in in the twenty-first century, a certified piece of trash. Somehow I ended up on Douluo Continent. Transmigrating was bad enough, but I just had to be reborn as some inconsequential extra."
"Where's my golden finger? Where's my cheat? How am I supposed to play this game when I haven't been given anything?"
"Before long, the main storyline of Douluo Continent will begin. 'Blind Douluo' Su Yuntao should be coming to the village soon. Will I awaken a sickle, a hoe, or Blue Silver Grass?"
"I'm tired. Just destroy it all!"
Han Qiu shook his head slightly and looked toward the little mountain not far away. Tang San was concentrating on his breathing, cultivating the Tang Sect's Mysterious Heaven Skill and Purple Demon Eye.
No matter how envious he was, it wouldn't help.
Before he had recovered the memories of his previous life, he and Tang San had gotten along fairly well and trained together. Yet even then, Tang San hadn't taught him a single move. Instead, the gap between them had only grown wider.
"I read plenty of Douluo fanfiction before. The protagonists in those books were always becoming sworn brothers with Tang San, and he'd casually teach them every last Tang Sect Secret Art. Looks like it was all fucking nonsense!"
At that thought, Han Qiu couldn't help cursing those idiotic authors.
Tang San was no saint. What kind of good person could a sect resembling an assassin organization produce? He had even run the Tang Sect's higher-ups around in circles.
He hadn't even taught the Tang Sect Secret Arts to his own father, Tang Hao, let alone an inconsequential outsider like Han Qiu.
Besides, this was Tang San's greatest secret. Why would he tell an outsider?
"Luckily, this is the first part of Douluo. Even if I can't cultivate, there won't be much danger in staying in Holy Soul Village for a few decades."
"If I really can't cultivate, I'll use the knowledge from my previous life to develop Holy Soul Village, make a nice environment for myself, and live out my life in comfort..."
"I'm so bored. I really fucking want to go back! No phone, no computer, no short videos to scroll through, no games to play. I wonder who got my Delta?"
"And my one terabyte of resources..."
Han Qiu couldn't help letting out a sigh.
Ever since recovering the memories of his previous life yesterday, he had spent the entire day trying to summon a golden finger. His ambitions had soared to the clouds as he imagined awakening one, roaming freely across Douluo Continent and fighting fierce battles in every direction.
With several beauties at his side, he would establish illustrious achievements and leave behind a legend for generations to come.
Unfortunately, he hadn't summoned a damn thing.
Forget it. He would be a salted fish.
The ultimate goal of working was to lie flat anyway. By lying flat early, he could avoid decades of detours.
Before long, the rising sun broke through the clouds in the east, pouring down countless rays of purple light and bathing the whole earth in a brilliant glow. Gentle warmth slowly spread and settled over Han Qiu.
"Normally, Little San should be back around now."
Han Qiu had barely finished muttering to himself when he saw Tang San walking back from outside the village, full of vigor.
"Han Qiu, why do you still have Blue Silver Grass in your mouth?"
Tang San spoke as he looked at Han Qiu, who was still lying in the rocking chair and basking in the sun.
[Ding-dong! A transmigrator from Blue Star has been detected. You have received Mother Blue Star's gift. Your Choice System has arrived.]
The voice rang like a morning bell and an evening drum, instantly piercing through all his salted-fish thoughts and making Han Qiu, who had been ready to give up, go rigid.
The next second, almost as if by reflex, he sprang to his feet from the rocking chair with a kip-up!
His previously languid, unfocused gaze burst into life. Dazzling light flashed in his dim eyes, and his whole bearing changed from the relaxed air of someone waiting around to die to one brimming with vigor.
"Good heavens, a system?!"
Han Qiu screamed wildly in his heart. The resentment and frustration he had suppressed for an entire day erupted at that moment!
I knew it! A golden finger might be late, but it's never absent!
Thank you for the gift, Mother Blue Star. Mother Blue Star really does love me!
[Option one: Tell Tang San loudly, "I saw at a glance that you aren't human. You're an extraterrestrial demon." Reward: Spirit Binding and General Dispatch, one of the Eight Extraordinary Skills.] [Option two: Tell Tang San loudly that you already know all his secrets and make him hand over all the Tang Sect Secret Arts. Reward: Feng Hou Qimen, one of the Eight Extraordinary Skills.] [Option three: Tell Tang San, "Don't look down on Blue Silver Grass. The Martial Soul you awaken later will be Blue Silver Grass." Reward: Qi-State Origin-Flow, one of the Eight Extraordinary Skills.]
As a shut-in from Blue Star, he was naturally no stranger to anime and novels of all kinds.
The Outcast was an extremely popular anime.
The entire anime could be said to revolve around the Eight Extraordinary Skills.
Heh, but how was this a choice between three options? There was clearly only one choice, all right?