Chapter 1: Fallen Fairy
Night.
With a low rumble of thunder, a torrential downpour arrived unannounced, instantly becoming a deluge that pounded the ground.
Amidst the pitter-patter of footsteps.
Lu Changyuan closed his umbrella and walked into the old temple on the mountain.
The downpour was so heavy that despite his umbrella, he was soaked to the bone. His straw sandals, saturated with water, left a trail of wet footprints as he entered the dilapidated temple.
Placing his umbrella by the temple entrance, Lu Changyuan patted down his clothes. He caught the scent of dust from within the dilapidated old temple but paid it no mind. Instead, he took two steps forward and pressed his palms together.
"The downpour is too heavy. Allow me to borrow this temple to rest my feet, fellow Daoist."
CRACK!
The violent clap of thunder roared, as if trying to split the earth, and in doing so, lit up the scene within the ruined temple.
Before Lu Changyuan stood a dust-covered altar. Atop it sat a small, four-legged bronze cauldron, long devoid of burning incense and coated in its own layer of grime.
Looking up, he saw a Buddha Statue of the Thousand-Handed Guanyin that seemed to be carved from white jade. The once-compassionate figure was now shrouded in cobwebs, as if veiled in a fine gauze.
Under the hazy web, the Guanyin statue resembled a many-legged spider.
If one stared too long, its slender, divine hands seemed to contort into spider legs, ready to squeeze the very breath from a person’s lungs.
Lu Changyuan did not let his gaze linger on the Buddha Statue. He found a worn-out meditation cushion, patted the dust off it, and sat down.
There was no light in the ruined temple, and Lu Changyuan, sitting on the cushion with his eyes closed, was as still as a dead man.
「A moment later.」
The scent of blood suddenly filled the air.
Someone stumbled into the temple.
It was a woman with fair skin, dressed in simple, light gauze. A red floral marking adorned her forehead, and her otherworldly aura was like the pure snow on a mountain peak, making it impossible for anyone to look away.
But now, the Fairy was clearly injured. Her face was deathly pale, and damp strands of dark hair clung to her cheeks. A mixture of rain and blood slid down her fair fingers, onto her sword, then ran down the blade to drip onto the floor.
She spotted Lu Changyuan and cried out, "Who’s there?!"
Lu Changyuan replied politely, "I was gathering herbs on the mountain when I was caught in the downpour. I’m only here to take shelter for the night. You can pay me no mind."
The woman’s expression turned chilly. Her delicate brows furrowed as she seemed to consider her next move.
After a long moment, she bit her lip, used her sword as a crutch, and slowly lowered herself to sit by the door.
Lu Changyuan knew this Fairy’s identity.
Qiu Yuehan, the lead True Disciple of Miao Yu Palace, which was part of the Righteous Dao’s Nine Gates and Twelve Palaces.
「One month ago.」
As Lu Changyuan was washing his face one morning, he nonchalantly recalled the memories of his past life.
He had transmigrated into a realistic VR cultivation game from his past life called *Emotionless Immortal Path*.
Billed as a "second life," the game boasted an extremely high degree of freedom and realism. Not only were the NPCs incredibly lifelike, but even the food had authentic flavors.
As for cultivation, the options were endless. Players could choose from a multitude of branches—the Painting Dao, the Puppet Dao, the Sword Dao—all of which were all-encompassing paths that could lead directly to the Immortal Path.
Among all the available cultivation paths, the one Lu Changyuan had chosen was rather heretical.
Playing as the Chang’an Daoist, Lu Changyuan had cultivated not only the Emotionless Dao but also the Killing Dao.
His entire playthrough could be summed up in a single word: Kill!
Forget romance, forget chivalry under the moon and flowers—nothing beat a good old-fashioned slaughter.
He didn’t care who it was, where they were, or why. Lu Changyuan ignored it all, focused only on unleashing a great slaughter. Kill, kill, kill!
He threw both the Righteous and Demon Daos into such chaos that he wiped out an entire generation of their strongest experts. Later, in a truly heretical move, Lu Changyuan even propped up a Demoness to become the Sect Leader of one of the world’s major sects.
He never imagined he would have to pay for the sins he’d created. Who would have guessed that in the blink of an eye, he would transmigrate into this world?
After slowly integrating the memories from his two lives,
Lu Changyuan discovered something rather unsettling.
He had arrived too late.
The time he found himself in was five hundred years after his character, the Chang’an Daoist, had cleared the game and "left."
[The Five Deficiencies Body cannot practice cultivation.]
Before Lu Changyuan could even process this, strange words appeared before his eyes.
Only then did he take stock of his own body.
This body was as if it had been struck by a Thunder Tribulation—it lacked everything. It was missing all five elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The Magical Power apertures in his meridians weren’t just sealed; they’d been blasted out of existence, making it utterly impossible to open them.
Aptitude is paramount in cultivation, and Lu Changyuan had clearly drawn the short straw. Any Spiritual Qi he absorbed would flow right back out, none of it ever entering his body.
Although Lu Changyuan was familiar with his old Swordsmanship techniques, he couldn’t even reach the First Realm of Cultivation. His battered body was already expending all its energy just to stay alive, let alone attempt cultivation.
He spent a month scrambling to prepare a few trump cards, but it was ultimately useless. In the end, one’s Realm was all that mattered. To cultivate, he first had to repair his body. But to repair his body, he had to be strong enough to obtain the necessary Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.
It was a catch-22.
Fortunately, the text appearing before his eyes seemed to know what Lu Changyuan was thinking and helpfully provided a solution.
[One month from now, on a stormy night at the Compassionate Temple on the mountain, Fairy Qiu Yuehan of Miao Yu Palace and the Heart-Eating Monk of the Eating Buddha Sect will fight and leave each other grievously wounded.]
[Fairy Yuehan, Qiu Yuehan, is seen by the disciples of Miao Yu Palace as the True Disciple most likely to become the next Palace Master. Miao Yu Palace possesses an item capable of repairing the Five Deficiencies Body.]
Hundreds of years ago, after the Chang’an Daoist ascended to the Immortal Realm, the world was thrown into chaos for a full century.
The so-called Nine Gates and Twelve Palaces were twenty-one major sects newly established in the Cultivation Realm after the Chang’an Daoist’s ascension. And as a True Disciple of Miao Yu Palace, and a candidate for the next Palace Master no less, Qiu Yuehan just so happened to be injured right here, not far from him.