Chapter 1: Great Desolation Immortal Scripture, Helping You Ascend
In the center of the dim hall, a body with its limbs severed and a dagger stabbed into its chest lay quietly on the floor. Blood slowly flowed from the wounds, and body temperature gradually faded away.
Suddenly, the already cold fingertips trembled slightly.
…
[Great Desolation Immortal Scripture spirit synchronization complete!]
[Time: Year 427 of the Corpse Moon calendar. Casting Nation, Year 14 of Tianfeng. Lunque Path, Chaozhou Prefecture, Huang Shushan, Dagou Village.]
[User identity: Dagou Village east entrance mill artisan. Tofu Li, Li Shouyi. Property: one donkey. Cultivation aptitude: low. Spiritual Root: none.]
[Great Desolation Immortal Scripture realism 100%, starting from zero, soul transmigration, otherworld immortal path real sandbox game. This game combines body snatching rebirth, seeking immortality and the Dao, otherworld exploration, realistic travel, food experience, enjoying life, espionage and scientific research, wilderness survival, rising through ranks and getting rich… Freedom 100%, please explore the mysteries of the immortal path world on your own, and synchronize to the backend server in a timely manner.]
[Dataized soul protection program now activating.]
[Game sprite activated: “One life to pass, helping you live a wonderful second life!”]
[Basic mission 1: Quickly search for immortal opportunity, absorb spiritual energy resources, activate spiritual root shaping function, and embark on the cultivation path.]
[Warm reminder: Among countless cultivation rules, safety is the most important. Your life has only one chance, please be cautious with disguise. Based on intelligence feedback from multiple users before death, do not exhibit anomalous behavior to avoid suspicion from surrounding natives, being mistaken for possession and beaten to death.]
Beep——! Beep——!
[Warning! Warning! Detected unknown polluting energy invading and cracking soul firewall, self-contained energy about to be depleted, please handle immediately!!]
…
Continuous prompt sounds rang in his mind, awakening the dormant soul. Chaotic memory fragments flashed and surged wildly, stirring thoughts into chaos.
On the stuffy and noisy street night market, pedestrians’ conversations and car horns created a cacophony. Red taillights flickered nonstop, and the air was filled with the smell of cumin barbecue and spicy crayfish.
Inside the dimly lit factory with rising steam, dilapidated old steam engines emitted deafening roars, and simply dressed workers with dull eyes numbly dug products out from the machines.
Transcending concepts of time and space, the universe starry sky stretched into colorful abstract lines, speeding backward past the eyes. Spacetime lost meaning here, everything becoming indescribable.
In an ordinary living room, a 40-inch TV played a wuxia movie from over a decade ago. A tabby cat lightly jumped onto the coffee table, lowering its head to lick its paw.
Sci-fi styled flying vehicles densely swarmed the sky like bees, speeding through sky-scraping steel buildings in a space opera-like city.
In the stinking brick-lined sewer, a kerosene lamp swayed violently, urgent breathing sounded by the ear. In the darkness, two shadows wielded capture nets and steel forks, chasing a screaming fleeing green-skinned short monster.
Fingers continuously swiped the screen, refreshing video after video of spicy-dancing girls in tight outfits. Big data, remember me.
Appearance charming, figure alluring, skin sky blue, lower body with eight thick tentacles covered in suckers—an octopus girl passionately wrapped and bound herself, tightening until near suffocation.
In a rundown warehouse, amid frenzied shouts, a vertical-pupiled burly man with bandaged fists and fine scales on his cheeks revealed a bloodthirsty smile, swinging a hook punch forcefully at himself.
Massive disordered memory fragments played continuously, making it impossible to distinguish reality from falsehood. Before understanding it all, the scene abruptly ended. Thoughts were suddenly overwhelmed by sharp beeping alarm sounds.
Beep——!——!
[Warning! Detected unknown polluting energy invading and cracking soul firewall, please handle immediately! Otherwise, it will cause irreparable consequences… everything… will be borne by……]
The chaotic memories began to settle, consciousness regained dominance, and Yuan Zhu awoke from coma.
Cold, trembling.
Who am I? Where am I? Who is Yuan Zhu? Huh… is that me? But I shouldn’t have the surname Su… what was it? Who is Li Shouyi? Chaozhou Prefecture, Lunque Path, Casting Nation… what places are those? Why no impression at all.
As recollection and self-questioning continued, the paralyzed thinking ability was reorganized. Yuan Zhu quickly recalled information about this current body:
Yuan Zhu, 18 years old, high school dropout, orphan, has a half-brother from the same mother different father. Legal resident of Running City, part-time employee at Fire Fang Cleaning Company. Though not very knowledgeable, definitely unrelated to Dagou Village’s Li Shouyi.
So, what exactly is this [Great Desolation Immortal Scripture] illusion?
As for information before transmigration, the more he tried to recall, the more blurred it became. After laborious searching for a while, he only remembered useless info like Earth, nine-year compulsory education, university graduation and mistakenly entering a veterinary medicine company to become a corporate slave…
The more related to himself, the more unclear it was.
He desperately searched his memory, only recalling that he seemed to have the surname ‘Su’? As for the name, was it Su Shi, Su Xun, or Su Zhe? No, knowledge points mixed up, those three are Song Dynasty people, I am… hiss, headache! Can’t think further.
[Warning! Warning!]
Warning sounds rang in his mind again, reawakening Yuan Zhu, forcing him to abandon pursuit of past life memories and focus energy on the present.
As perception gradually returned to the body bit by bit, he felt cold, weakness, exhaustion, intense pain, and suffocation.
The body was like under ghost oppression, unable to move an inch. Completely powerless as if paralyzed, lying on the wet icy floor, whole body soaked, breathing weak and labored, feeling like suffocation and death at any moment. Even slightly trembling a finger was extremely difficult.
Due to extreme weakness, tactile perception was instead amplified to an astonishing degree.
He clearly felt a pool of cold liquid between body and floor seeping through clothes taking away body heat, nostrils smelling bursts of blood stench. Combined with faintly aching wrists and chest, this was wrists slit? Chest also stabbed? And posed in a suffering posture with arms spread open, placed on the floor.
What deep hatred and great grudge is this?
His eyes were blindfolded, could only hear not see. Around him, low indistinct chants continued, dense with numerous people.
So, this wasn’t just a simple murder case, more like some dark underground sacrificial ritual. Himself passively becoming the ritual’s protagonist, C-position funeral, then dying and reviving, and due to excessive blood loss, about to weakly die again…
Where’s the promised one life to pass, helping me live a wonderful second life? System? Cheat? Game sprite? If not dead, come out and work!
Unfamiliar sacrificial prayer voices continuously entered his ears, and with this body’s memories surging, he easily understood these languages.
“Corpse Moon’s nameless main god, I have presented the sacrifice, please bestow boon blessing… grant me youthful beauty.”
“Northern forest elf… fresh and strong virgin body… offered up…”
“Nameless mist lord… thirteen hearts… escape this bankruptcy crisis…”
“Wandering dream realm’s golden king… I offer gems and gold worth 100,000, please refill my body with vitality.”
Noisy sacrificial prayers unending in the ears, Yuan Zhu couldn’t understand why this group prayed to so many deities at once? Could this body be invaluable, hiding great secrets, worth multiple deities descending to divide it?
After that tycoon’s prayer voice adding extra 100,000 rang out, the unknown polluting power impacting the soul firewall instantly surged over 10 times, the brain again drowned in piercing warning sounds.
[Warning! Warning! Soul firewall breached, Great Desolation Immortal Scripture database suffered unknown pollution tampering, user safety protocol failed… forced activation… failed… energy insufficient, please quickly supplement spiritual energy resources. Restart, failed…]
Noise in the mind suppressed by mysterious power, voice intermittent and growing weaker.
That external mysterious power (polluting energy?) also used ground blood as medium, pouring into limbs and chest via wounds, injecting vitality into the body, driving away weakness. Pain began to recede, a cool sensation seeping into the soul following.
Like drinking an ice-cold bottle in scorching desert, refreshing!
A bemused smile appeared on the dead corpse’s face, Yuan Zhu feeling long-lost comfort. Even breathing became strong and powerful, able to gasp in big mouthfuls.
The feeling of free breathing, so comfortable!
However, good times didn’t last; just refreshed for a few seconds, he heard that unique sharp brain explosion again. [Great Desolation Immortal Scripture] came back to life twice, once more occupying all his mind.
[Warning! Warning! Pollution sharply increasing, cultivation data severely lost… detected unknown energy invading host body and spirit, causing irreversible mutation! Pollution progress 2.3%↑]
[Detected user unable to actively initiate self-rescue, emergency evasion mode activated.]
[Unable to analyze unknown polluting energy properties. Unable to acquire spiritual energy resources. Unable to load matching spiritual root for utilization, soul… pollution intensifying…… 7.5%↑]
Waves of alarmist scare info fiercely screenspammed in the spirit channel, but what could Yuan Zhu do lying as a corpse? He only felt silky refreshment and continuously recovering stamina.
Pollution? Erosion? Mutation?
Completely nonexistent, can’t feel it at all! I feel great right now.
Also, [Great Desolation Immortal Scripture], didn’t you fail to start and auto-shutdown? How’d you pop up again, volume even louder than before!
Yuan Zhu’s stamina continuously recovered, body and mind comfortably joyful, like undergoing deep massage, so refreshing it was exquisite. That so-called [Great Desolation Immortal Scripture], he only found it noisy and annoying, didn’t want to bother.
But he wasn’t stupid. After being forced to read the string of warnings, he too fell into suspicion. What if?
What if he really suffered some pollution? The comfort just its numbing disguise. Unfortunately lacking reference info, hard to judge for the moment.
Though this unknown energy entering the body brought joy and power, he was indeed in a ‘seemingly sacrificed’ state…
Could an evil god really descend on this body, fool perception, and frenziedly perform rescue massage, providing false joy, true purpose secretly marinating bit by bit?
Unfortunately he had no choice, could only wildly speculate in his mind, unable to make any changes, only silently endure.
