Host: Wang Hao Cultivation: Mortal Realm First Layer Spirit: unawakened Soul: unawakened Corporeal soul: unawakened Mind: unawakened Qi: unawakened Essence: Mortal Realm First Layer (5/10) Fortune points: 0
"Was this mocking me for being a battle-power-of-five weakling?"
Looking at his status panel, Wang Hao was once again filled with gloom.
He was inside the system space at the moment, and that status panel was his.
According to his predecessor's memories, cultivators in the Nine Li Tribe were divided into three major realms in the early stages: Heaven, Earth, and Mortal. Each realm was further divided into nine layers. Supposedly, there were even higher realms beyond the Heaven Realm, but those were beyond Wang Hao's knowledge.
Every living being could cultivate in six areas: the most fundamental essence, Qi, and mind, as well as the corporeal soul, soul, and true spirit.
These six categories could not be cultivated from the start. First, one had to awaken the power unique to each of them.
For example, bloodline power was unique to the essence category. Wang Hao's predecessor had been a cultivator who had awakened his bloodline power and cultivated it to the Mortal Realm First Layer.
The "Mortal Realm First Layer (5/10)" after essence on the status panel meant that his bloodline power was halfway through the Mortal Realm First Layer. Once it reached (10/10), his bloodline power could advance to the Mortal Realm Second Layer.
His Mortal Realm First Layer cultivation might seem low, but it was actually very powerful.
The best proof was that You Lian had just kicked him through a stone wall and sent him flying over a hundred meters, yet he had not died on the spot.
With this body's toughness, he would definitely have been a superman on Earth. But in the mythical world of the Primordial Wilderness, he was worse than trash.
In the Nine Li Tribe, he did not even qualify to be an ordinary soldier. The minimum requirement for a Nine Li Tribe soldier was cultivation at the Mortal Realm Fourth Layer.
His Mortal Realm First Layer cultivation was three minor realms short of the Mortal Realm Fourth Layer. No wonder You Lian had said he had no hope of entering the Death Warrior Camp, and that even if he did, he would not live long.
The gap in their cultivation and strength was far too great!
But he had to enter the Death Warrior Camp. Only then could he escape the fate of being castrated into a eunuch.
More importantly, he absolutely could not go to the Yellow Emperor Tribe. As a slave from the Nine Li Tribe, he would never have a chance to rise there.
Even with the system's help, he could not display great talent or strength. Otherwise, the Yellow Emperor Tribe would surely suppress him, or even kill him.
No one could tolerate a slave from a hostile force possessing too much talent and strength.
So he had to increase his strength as soon as possible. But he had no fortune points at the moment, so he could only look into the function for traveling through the myriad worlds.
"Xiao Mengmeng, since we're doing the system thing, shouldn't there be a newbie gift pack or something?"
After examining his status panel, Wang Hao turned to the Loli Mengmeng beside him.
The Loli was watching TV with rapt attention. It was playing Boonie Bears, one of the famous four little classics.
He had no idea where the little girl had gotten the television.
"There is a newbie gift pack. Uncle, I'd have forgotten all about it if you hadn't mentioned it. Let me look for it!"
Hearing him, Xiao Mengmeng, who had been watching Boonie Bears, tilted her little head and pulled over a small schoolbag from who knew where. She stuck her entire head inside and rummaged through it.
"Why do I get the feeling this system isn't very reliable?"
Seeing the Loli's adorably silly appearance, Wang Hao covered his face in dismay, a sense of despair rising in him for no apparent reason.
Could he really rely on this unreliable system to complete the three main quests in the Primordial World?
"Forget it. I won't think about that. I'd better use the system's power to solve the problem of my impending castration first!"
"Found it! This is a manual for the same divine technique Great God Pangu had. Lucky you, uncle!"
After searching for quite a while, Xiao Mengmeng finally pulled a children's picture book... no, a divine technique manual out of the schoolbag. It was even the same one Great God Pangu had.
"I told you not to call me uncle. I'm not that old!"
The Loli calling him uncle left Wang Hao utterly helpless. Ever since he had entered the system space for the second time, she had kept calling him uncle, saying that her mother had told her to call anyone more than ten years older than her uncle or auntie.
"Nine Revolutions of Samsara Technique? The name has a nice ring to it... What the hell! Why is it Calabash Brothers?"
He took the manual and glanced at the five big characters on the cover. He was fairly satisfied with the name, but when Wang Hao opened it, he was dumbfounded on the spot.
On the second page were seven little children, each with a small calabash of a different color tied to his head. Weren't they the Calabash Brothers?
It really was a children's picture book!
"Uncle, you're opening it the wrong way. The book is just a vessel. You can't see its true substance with your eyes. Just slap it against your forehead, and do it hard."
With a casual wave of her hand, Xiao Mengmeng explained the proper way to open the divine technique manual, leaving Wang Hao utterly bewildered.
"I hope you're not lying to me!"
Wang Hao took a deep breath like a warrior marching to his death, filled with the tragic resolve of one facing the whistling wind and the icy Yi River. He grabbed the picture book... bah, the divine technique manual, and slapped it hard against his forehead.
"Smack!"
Wang Hao hit himself so hard that he fell onto his backside, but no strange phenomenon appeared. His body did not change, and no information about a divine technique manual appeared in his mind, either.
There was a change, though: the five characters for Nine Revolutions of Samsara Technique had vanished from the cover of the manual in his hand, replaced by the five characters for Vajra Calabash Brothers.
That turned the so-called divine technique manual into a genuine Vajra Calabash Brothers picture book.
"Did you trick me?"
Sitting up, Wang Hao stared with dead-fish eyes at the Loli watching TV on the sofa.
He had realized that the Loli had very likely played him!
"Who tricked you? Open your status panel and see if anything's changed."
His words seemed to provoke the Loli. She immediately jumped off the sofa and glared at Wang Hao, her brows lowered and eyes cold.
But given how small she was, no matter how wide she glared, she was not intimidating in the slightest. Instead, she looked even cuter.
Host: Wang Hao Cultivation: Mortal Realm First Layer Spirit: unawakened Soul: unawakened Corporeal soul: unawakened Mind: unawakened Qi: unawakened Essence: Mortal Realm First Layer (5/100) Fortune points: 0
"What changed? Wait, you don't mean that extra zero, do you?"
Skeptically, he pulled up the status panel and examined it carefully. At last, he found a difference after "essence." It had been (5/10), but now it was (5/100). The denominator had gone from ten to a hundred, gaining an extra zero.
What kind of change was that supposed to be?
"If you can't recognize a treasure, don't blame the divine technique for not being good enough. You don't need to actively cultivate the Nine Revolutions of Samsara Technique. It's basically a passive skill that can increase your potential tenfold.
"For example, at the Mortal Realm First Layer, you could normally cultivate at most ten points of bloodline power. But with the Nine Revolutions of Samsara Technique's boost, you can cultivate a hundred points, making your foundation and potential ten times stronger than other people's.
"This boost applies not only to your original body in the Primordial World, but also to the bodies you possess when you travel to other worlds, letting you have this cheat in the myriad worlds too.
"And it applies to almost every realm. Even if you cultivate to the Heavenly Dao Realm, you'll still get a tenfold boost. If you're still not satisfied, I'll take the newbie gift pack back."
Fuming, the Loli reached out as if to take back the Nine Revolutions of Samsara Technique, giving Wang Hao a terrible fright.
"Don't! Don't! Don't! Please don't take it back. I'm very satisfied! How could I not be satisfied with a newbie gift pack from our Xiao Mengmeng?"
Wang Hao hurriedly stepped back to evade the little hand reaching for him, smiling ingratiatingly as he placated the Loli.
"Hmph! At least you know what's good for you!"
With a proud little snort, Xiao Mengmeng let the matter drop.
"Mengmeng, how do I travel to another world now? And can I choose which world I go to?"
Wang Hao asked the crucial question. If he could choose the world himself, he could maximize his gains.
"The average level of combat strength in the world you travel to is linked to your original body's cultivation in the Primordial World. You can't choose what kind of world you travel to, though. But don't worry. The coordinates for those worlds are formed from the novels, movies, and TV shows in your memories, so you won't be sent to a world you're unfamiliar with."
Now that they were discussing serious business, Xiao Mengmeng stopped sulking and briefly explained the rules of world travel. Toward the end, her eyes suddenly darted about, and she took out a little notebook. With a serious look on her little face, she asked, "Before you travel, there's an initial setting we need to establish. It concerns the formation of the main quest in the world you travel to, so answer carefully."
"Do you like men or women?"
"Women, of course!"
Although he did not know why the little girl was asking, Wang Hao still gave the correct answer.
He was not one of those legendary gays, so naturally he could not possibly like men.
"Uncle, are you serious?"
"Of course I'm serious!"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm very sure!"
Xiao Mengmeng questioned him repeatedly, and Wang Hao gave a firm answer every time.
He had to stand his ground on his sexual orientation. He absolutely could not make the slightest mistake.
"All right, then. Uncle, you can travel now!"
Looking helpless, she put away her little notebook and waved her hand. A black hole suddenly appeared beneath Wang Hao's feet, and before he could react, he fell in.
"Aah-!"
The rapid fall made Wang Hao scream instinctively.
"Stop howling. It sounds awful, like a pig being slaughtered."
Xiao Mengmeng's tiny figure suddenly appeared beside Wang Hao, and she stopped his fall.
"Huff... huff... Why didn't you warn me first?"
Wang Hao gasped for breath, feeling utterly aggrieved.
The Loli had definitely done that on purpose!
"Wait, why has my soul body become like this?"
Wang Hao suddenly noticed that his soul body had become translucent, completely different from its almost solid form in the system space.
"Right now, Hongjun, the Heavenly Dao, and those saints are jointly overseeing the Primordial Wilderness. If I brought your soul across, it would cause too much of a disturbance and definitely attract their attention, so I only brought your true spirit.
"But don't worry. No matter how long you stay in the myriad worlds, I can take you back to the moment you left. In other words, your true spirit will only be separated from your body in the Primordial World for an instant, no matter what."
Xiao Mengmeng gave a brief explanation, then pointed at a large bubble ahead. "Uncle, your luck isn't bad. The world you're traveling to is The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, one you're quite familiar with."
Wang Hao accepted Xiao Mengmeng's explanation, but when he heard that the world he was traveling to was The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, his brows immediately knitted.
"The Smiling, Proud Wanderer? The one Old Master Jin wrote? I remember the level of martial strength in that world wasn't very high, was it?"
He recalled the various television adaptations of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer he had watched, as well as Old Master Jin's original novel. Only then did he realize that the world he was traveling to could not meet his needs at all.
After all, he needed to raise his cultivation to the fourth tier as soon as possible. That was also the minimum requirement for entering the Death Warrior Camp.
But from what he knew, even the descriptions of the combat strength of Dongfang Bubai, the strongest person in The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, were not all that impressive!
Compared with the cultivation levels of the Nine Li Tribe in the Primordial World, it was equivalent to the Mortal Realm Second Layer at best. Forget the Mortal Realm Fourth Layer; it was not even comparable to the third.
Even if he cleared The Smiling, Proud Wanderer and learned every divine technique in it, there was no way he could reach the Mortal Realm Fourth Layer.
And from what he knew, after every trip, he had to wait at least a month for the system to absorb space-time energy on its own for the next journey.
That meant that after returning from this trip, there was no possibility of traveling a second time within a month.
Never mind that he was going to be castrated tonight!
"Uncle, is your brain rusty? This is a real world, but you're actually stupid enough to judge it by the original novel and the TV scenes. How many tens of thousands of words are in the original novel? How many episodes can a TV series have? Can those things reveal every secret in an entire world?"
Frustrated at his failure to see it, Xiao Mengmeng took out her baseball bat again and smacked Wang Hao hard on the forehead, flattening the body formed from his true spirit into a lump. It soon bounced back to its original shape, however.
Ignoring the Loli's violence, Wang Hao nodded thoughtfully in agreement.
"You mean there are even stronger combatants hidden in this world?"
"What else?"
Rolling her eyes irritably, Xiao Mengmeng pulled up a dialog box and pointed to the main quests listed on it. "Take a good look at the dungeon world's quest list. Once you're done, hurry up and go in."
Wang Hao said nothing more and looked at the quest list, but the moment he saw the first main quest listed, he was dumbfounded.
"Are you sure there's no mistake with this quest?"
Pointing at the first main quest on the list, Wang Hao wore a distinctly unhappy expression.
It was not that he was picky. The quest was simply too damned unfair.