Endless darkness. A towering platform.
Looking at the majestic book before him, Wang Ping felt a myriad of emotions. "So my golden finger had to wait until I died to activate, and it didn't even give me a hint."
If it had warned me earlier, wouldn't I have died sooner?
But quickly, a look of wild joy crossed his face.
After all, in this day and age, what was the point of transmigrating without a cheat? Rather than feeling sentimental, examining his golden finger took priority. This was his capital to survive and settle down.
"Let me see..."
Wang Ping walked forward slowly. His gaze fell upon the handwriting on the page before him, and then he couldn't look away. A massive amount of information forcefully poured into his mind.
It was an incredibly wondrous experience. The information pouring into his mind was automatically integrated and categorized. The knowledge felt distinctly familiar, as if he had mastered it long ago but had been forced to forget it, and now he was merely recalling it.
"Huu... Haa!"
But thanks to that, he remembered.
This place was the internal space of the Taiping Sutra. To put it bluntly, it was the Great Peace Mortuary—perfectly suited for a "dead man" like him, in a sense.
In short, this scripture's ability was "settlement." When the holder personally experienced an "Event" involving human hearts, destiny, and popular support, they could use this book to contain the corpse of the "Event Protagonist" and transform it into a usable scripture scroll to buff themselves.
Take, for example, the current "Scroll One: Outer Heavenly Demon."
"Using my transmigration as the 'Event' to convert it into this Outer Heavenly Demon scripture scroll... Does this mean I swallowed my own pre-transmigration corpse?"
The resulting scripture scroll's effect was also excellent.
"Revive once after death, with a seven-day cooldown, and I can even choose different worlds... So, this thing is actually the culprit behind my transmigration?"
Wang Ping came to a realization.
Judging by the effects, he might have obtained this golden finger back on Earth. After dying, he randomly transmigrated, which was how he ended up in this wretched place, Great Shun.
Wang Ping grew instantly excited.
Having transmigrated twenty years ago and lived half a lifetime in mediocrity, no one knew better than him that the notion of being "destined for greatness after transmigration" was total bullshit.
You couldn't even make a name for yourself on Earth, so what made you think you'd take off just because you transmigrated?
If it were possible to go back, who would want to stay in this garbage place?
Although his belated cheat had finally activated, allowing him to resurrect after death, the cooldown drastically lowered the value of this revival.
"Seven days? It'll be far too late by then!"
"And how is one time enough? A hundred times would be more like it. It would be even better if I could rewind time after resurrecting... The room to maneuver would be much bigger."
"Even without that, just giving me a plus sign to upgrade things would do."
Wang Ping grumbled for a good while. His gaze fixed intently on the Taiping Sutra in front of him, reading the Outer Heavenly Demon scripture scroll word by word.
"...No Earth." Wang Ping let out a long sigh.
Under the mechanics of the Outer Heavenly Demon, Earth apparently didn't count as a "world he had been to," so his current choices were actually extremely limited.
"I can only gamble and randomly transmigrate to a new world."
At this thought, Wang Ping's expression turned somewhat ugly. "If I'm lucky, I can transmigrate to a safe world, lay low for seven days, and wait for the cooldown to end."
If his luck was bad and he dropped directly into some disaster zone or battlefield, he would be dead on arrival.
Entrusting his life to luck was something Wang Ping absolutely despised.
Of course, there was another choice: stay in the Great Shun Dynasty after reviving. However, that spawned an unavoidable problem:
"I just died. God knows how this revival mechanic actually resurrects me. If I respawn in the exact same spot, won't I run right into the soldiers who killed me?"
"Huu..."
Wang Ping let out a long breath. Finally, gritting his teeth, he walked up to the majestic book and looked at "Scroll One: Outer Heavenly Demon." There were two lines of text on it:
[Pierce the primordial chaos, open the ancestral aperture to reach the profound gateway.]
[Light is born in the empty room; walk through this door to enter the heavenly grotto.]
Gleaming with golden light, the characters—resembling dragon and phoenix scripts—arranged themselves on the left and right. Finally, they transformed into a towering portal, as if inviting him to step inside.
"...Fuck."
Wang Ping gritted his teeth and stomped his foot. He paced around in circles for a full half-hour until his stomach rumbled with hunger, finally making up his mind.
He had no choice. This Great Peace Mortuary clearly didn't provide meals.
If this dragged on, he would either starve to death here or have to gamble that he wouldn't be killed immediately upon landing. Thus, Wang Ping quickly gave up on this pointless hesitation.
"...I'm going all in!"
Wang Ping strode forward, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
The next second, golden radiance swiftly flooded Wang Ping's vision, like a gentle palm slowly caressing him, or a light breeze brushing past.
Immediately following that, an indescribable sensation swept over his entire body, as if he were soaking in a hot spring. It was so warm and cozy that he couldn't help but lose himself in it. At the same time, his hearing, his touch, and his innate five senses left him one by one, making him feel as though he had returned to the womb.
He had no idea how much time had passed before he jolted awake.
He still couldn't see anything clearly. His vision was a hazy, illusory expanse of gleaming gold. Faintly, however, voices drifted over from extremely close by:
"A major incident happened in the sect recently. Did you hear?"
"Of course I heard. It was the Immortal Prescription Courtyard, right? Apparently, the Divine Farmer Cauldron malfunctioned. The spiritual elixir ran wild, and the furnace nearly exploded. A lot of people were punished."
"Tell me about it."
"If you ask me, the Immortal Prescription Courtyard was too ambitious. They wanted to refine a supreme immortal pill but failed to control it properly, which caused the accident."
"It's nothing out of the ordinary. If we're talking about real disasters, who could top the mess the Divine Weapon Courtyard caused back then? To refine that supreme treasure, the Patriarch invested God knows how much manpower and resources, only to turn the entire sect into a foul-smelling ruin. It took a massive effort to repair it."
"Shh... Watch your mouth!"
Wang Ping listened to this conversation in silence, committing it to memory while vaguely realizing that he seemed to have truly hit the jackpot with this transmigration.
'A world of immortal cultivation?'
Wang Ping was instantly thrilled. After all, who didn't dream of cultivating to immortality and living forever? Did he transmigrate as a disciple of an Immortal Gate this time?
Yet in the next second, his fantasies were cruelly shattered.
A cheer full of joy rang out. "The refinement is finally a success! This batch of strongmen is out of the furnace and ready for delivery."
Refined? Out of the furnace? Delivery?
While Wang Ping was still bewildered, the hazy, colorful illusion before his eyes suddenly rippled. This was followed by a sharp burst of pain as a massive wave of information and memories surfaced once more.
The good news was that he had indeed transmigrated into an immortal cultivation sect.
The bad news was that he hadn't become a disciple of the Immortal Gate.
'I am a strongman of the Protector Courtyard.'
In other words, he was a puppet—a servant specially refined by the Immortal Gate to serve its disciples. His status in the Immortal Gate was about on par with a robot vacuum.
Right then, the voice sounded again:
"Alright, hurry up and plant the talisman seals."
After those few brief words, Wang Ping felt a cool sensation spread from the top of his head. It drove away the scorching heat that had filled his entire body, extending into his limbs and bones.
This should have been a very comfortable experience, but Wang Ping felt as if he had been plunged into an icy abyss.
That was because, as the cool sensation spread throughout his body, the thought of serving the Immortal Gate for the rest of his life suddenly sprouted in his mind. This change was clearly abnormal.
'Is this... the Immortal Gate's method of controlling the strongmen?'
Terrified, memories surged into Wang Ping's mind:
'All strongmen are blank slates when they first emerge from the furnace. This cooling sensation directly generates their personalities and even forms a mental brand.'
'But I'm different. I'm a transmigrator. My own memories and inherent personality have long since been established, and the Immortal Gate clearly didn't anticipate this. Although this will impact my personality and cause a certain degree of cognitive confusion, as long as I have a moment to recover, I can still tell them apart.'
At this thought, Wang Ping finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Just a moment ago, when he was hit by that cooling sensation, he had almost cried out in shock. The feeling of cognitive dissociation was extremely unpleasant.
At the same time, he also developed some rather ominous premonitions.
Refining puppets, instilling memories, mental branding... How should he put this? Even though Wang Ping could somewhat understand it, it still felt fundamentally wrong.
Then there were the duties of the strongmen. According to the embedded memory intel, they were practical and durable tools. This description made it hard for Wang Ping to erase his inner worries. After all, no matter how you looked at it, a strongman's outward appearance was human. Were they intentionally shaped like humans, or were they originally human?
'Is this Immortal Gate legit?'
It couldn't be a demonic sect, could it?
Wang Ping subconsciously tried to communicate with the Taiping Sutra. However, when he focused his mind, even though he could still see the boundless Great Peace Mortuary...
...that was all there was to it.
He could see it, but he couldn't enter. This was the current state of the Taiping Sutra. To enter the Great Peace Mortuary with his true body, he had to borrow the mighty power of a scripture scroll.
Unfortunately, he only had one scripture scroll right now.
Outer Heavenly Demon.
Looking at the grayed-out scripture scroll that had entered its cooldown phase—requiring seven days before it could be lit up again—Wang Ping forced himself to stay calm.
He immediately thought of another plan:
'How do I increase the number of scripture scrolls?'
If he could enter the Great Peace Mortuary with the help of a scripture scroll, then since the Outer Heavenly Demon was unavailable, he just needed to unlock another one. After all, it was a lifesaving measure.
Seemingly sensing his thoughts, the majestic book within the Great Peace Mortuary sprang into action once more. On the frozen page, golden light converged into text again.
[Mundane Object, Terrestrial Essence, Heavenly Splendor, Cosmic Marvel, Singular True Relic]
[Collect items of the above categories and merge them into the book. Collecting one item adds one scripture scroll. The quality of each collected item must be higher than the last.]
'...Ah.'
Wang Ping instantly realized the extreme difficulty of this condition. 'The category of each collected item must be higher than the last. This means I can't just collect things casually.'
For example, if the first item he collected was a Terrestrial Essence, then no matter how many Mundane Objects he collected later, it would be utterly meaningless. It was equivalent to completely giving up on that tier, even though the benefits brought by the two were functionally identical.
Both added a single scripture scroll.
'So the most efficient method is to start from a Mundane Object and slowly upgrade step by step. Only then can I avoid meaningless waste.'
Besides this, the function had another use.
And that was 'Appraisal.'
'In the future, if I find something I don't recognize, I can just show it to the Taiping Sutra. It should immediately give me the most objective judgment.'
Of course, all of that was for later.
Although the future was promising, if he didn't have a future to speak of, any promise was just bullshit. Wang Ping knew this well. The desire to survive in his heart was practically exploding.
'Since things have reached this point, even if I had medicine for regret, I'd have to wait seven days to take it.'
'And as long as I survive this wave, I can collect materials in the future, unlock more scripture scrolls, and grow stronger and stronger. I need time to develop.'
'Though... then again.' Wang Ping's train of thought suddenly shifted.
If he thought about it carefully—putting aside the terrifying implications from earlier—the Immortal Gate was actually quite good. It expounded the principles of being a good person in every aspect.
'I really should be grateful.'
Grateful to the Immortal Gate for giving him the chance to serve immortals.
Grateful to the Immortal Gate for giving him the chance to approach the Immortal Dao.
Grateful to the Immortal Gate for giving him the chance to be reborn entirely.
'I am a brick of the Immortal Gate, ready to be placed wherever I am needed—... Fuck!' Wang Ping shivered, tearing himself free from the inexplicable thoughts that had just popped up.
But even so, he couldn't suppress a sense of agreement with those thoughts of 'gratitude.'
As a strongman, the greatest happiness was receiving the Immortal Gate's approval. The more approval he earned, the higher his value as a tool.
This is what human livestock truly is...
'...No!'
The next second, Wang Ping regained his clarity once more, his scalp tingling with dread. 'As long as I'm a strongman, will my mind continually be influenced by this?'
Though he could hold on for now, if this continued, he couldn't guarantee he'd remain lucid. By then, he would probably be reduced to nothing more than a living weapon for the Immortal Gate.
'Are you kidding me?!'
At this thought, only one notion remained in Wang Ping's mind:
'Seven days. I just need to hold on for seven days. Once the Outer Heavenly Demon's cooldown ends, everything will be fine. I just have to lay low and survive until then!'
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