"Hey Sora," I muttered to my AI assistant, the only rational voice left in my head, "I can't live among these irrational, illiterate maniacs anymore. If I stay here much longer, I'll become just like them."
Through my window, I watched the Celestial Harmony Sect descend into absolute chaos. Again. Because apparently, a weekday wasn't complete without someone threatening to "exterminate nine generations" over a perceived slight.
The current drama? A walking cliché named Zi Qing had just committed what I could only describe as the perfect storm of stupidity, sociopathy, and main character syndrome. Let me paint you the full picture of era's "hero."
Originally, Zi Qing was the sect's designated punching bag, zero cultivation talent, mocked by everyone, called "trash" at every opportunity. Your typical downtrodden protagonist setup. Then one day, surprise! He discovered some mysterious golden figure, and overnight went from village idiot to cultivation prodigy. His power growth was matched only by his explosive arrogance, because in this world newfound strength comes with a mandatory personality transplant.
The real nightmare began when this "heaven-chosen" decided to visit a secret realm. There, he encountered a girl whose beauty was supposedly "heaven-defying", and despite already having multiple gorgeous "cold beauties" from his own sect worshipping the ground he walked on, our boy's lust knew no bounds. When the girl had the audacity to reject his advances, Zi Qing's response was swift: he murdered her male companion.
When the girl's sect patriarch arrived seeking justice for his slaughtered disciple, Zi Qing should have become a very attractive corpse. Instead, at the crucial moment when death seemed certain, some mysterious "grandpa" figure conveniently appeared to save his worthless hide. Classic cultivation logic, why face consequences when you can have a deus ex machina?
Within one week—one week—Zi Qing's cultivation had somehow skyrocketed to even more ridiculous heights. He returned not just to settle scores with the patriarch, but to exterminate the entire sect. Men, women, children, elderly, everyone. Complete genocide because someone had dared to object to his harassment and murder of their people.
But here's the truly twisted part that made my brain want to file for divorce from my skull: the very girl whose sect members had died trying to protect her was now in Zi Qing's possession as the seventh member of his harem collection. And she was considered the lucky one. The other disciples were actually envious of her "fortune" in attracting such a "heaven-chosen partner" who would commit genocide for love.
The cherry on this insanity sundae? When Zi Qing was executing the patriarch, the soul of an even more powerful cultivator manifested, the patriarch's own master. This ancient expert delivered a crystal-clear ultimatum: "If you dare kill my disciple, I will erase your entire sect from existence." Zi Qing's declared that "nobody can stop me, not even the heavens." Cue dramatic lightning, billowing robes that moved independently of any known wind patterns, and hair that somehow achieved perfect cinematic motion. The very air crackled with the power of his defiance, like some cosmic film crew was shooting his "heroic" moment in slow motion.
Now the entire sect was preparing for war against that higher cultivator, who reportedly had connections to actual immortal beings. Instead of, punishing or even questioning the psychopath who had just committed genocide over a girl's refusal, everyone was rallying to defend our "glorious" Zi Qing.
I rubbed my temples, the familiar throb behind my eyes intensifying, a side effect, I'd discovered, of trying to apply logic in a world that had banned critical thinking. In my previous life as theoretical physicist and former resident of the only sane dimension in existence, this would have been called Stockholm syndrome. Here, it was called "romance."
"Even Patrich's master's soul manifested to threaten revenge!" a wide-eyed disciple shouted from the courtyard below. The words echoed through the sect grounds like a bell tolling bad omens, but the reaction was anything but solemn.
A crowd surged forward, excitement bubbling like cauldrons left unattended. Faces pressed close, eyes gleaming, not with fear, but with that same feverish thrill you saw at public executions or when the sect treasury announced half-price spirit stones.
"He says if Young Master Zi Qing dares harm his lineage, he'll eradicate our entire sect!"
"But didn't Zi Qing already kill the patriarch?" someone snorted from the outer ring, drawing a few nervous chuckles.
Another voice chimed in, louder, breathless: "How lucky are we to have someone so selfless! Who else would stand in defiance of a vengeful soul to protect us all?"
"And Fairy Chu Yuechan!" a girl near the lotus pond added, "She looks so good with Young Master Zi Qing, like the Dao itself brought them together. A match made in the Nine Heavens!"
"Damn right," someone grunted. "He even declared not even the heavens can stop him now!"
I rubbed my temples, their voices blending into a shrill hum that made my headache throb like a war drum. Why me? I thought bitterly after listening their honed words . Out of all people in all timelines… why was I the one who had to transmigrate into this mess of a world?
Ten days. Ten days since I'd transmigrated into this fever dream of a universe, and I was already planning my escape route.
The transition had been like waking up from anesthesia, except instead of a hospital room, I'd opened my eyes to find myself in a world where physics, science, and technology had taken a permanent vacation. My previous body, Dr. Michael Chen, Nobel Prize candidate, published researcher in quantum mechanics, had been swapped for Xu Qing, whose greatest achievement was successfully breathing and being the brother of this heaven-chosen protagonist. At least it was good that he didn't play any malicious part in Zi Qing's cripple time.
At least I hadn't arrived alone. Sora, my AI research assistant, had somehow fused with my consciousness during the transition. The presence of this AI consciousness merged with mine remains an enigma. When I asked about my survival chances, Sora's assessment was brutally honest: Five percent chance of survival. Ninety-five percent of the cultivators here could eliminate me without effort.
The hostility radiating from them was palpable, and understandable. Why wouldn't they despise me? My brother was shattering every cultivation record in existence, accomplishing in mere months what took them decades to achieve. Their impotence in the face of his meteoric rise left them with nowhere to direct their fury except at me, the convenient target, the weak link.
I wasn't just at the bottom of the food chain; I was practically the bait.
Sora voice echoed in my mind. "Recommendation: Immediate relocation to anywhere else in this world."
"My thoughts exactly," I whispered.
The worst part wasn't the violence or the constant threats of mutual annihilation. It was the complete, mind-numbing absence of rationality. These people had discovered immortality—immortality—and their response was to spend eternity having the same argument about who disrespected whom at the quarterly sect social.
They breathed special air called "qi" and became superhuman. Just... breathed. No exercise, no study, no understanding of the fundamental forces involved. When I'd tried to explain basic anatomy to prove that their "dantian" energy centers were anatomically impossible, they'd accused me of being drunk. When I'd asked where qi actually came from, they'd looked at me like I'd questioned the color of the sky.
"It's the way of the heavens," they'd said, as if that explained anything.
The way of the heavens, presumably, was random number generation. Sometimes lightning struck you during "tribulations" and made you stronger. Sometimes it killed you. No pattern, no coherence, just cosmic dice rolls determining whether you got a power-up or became charcoal.
They had infinite energy sources but couldn't power a lightbulb. Spirit stones could fuel complete cities, but ask how they worked and you'd get blank stares and muttering about "ancient wisdom." They could split mountains with a sword swing but couldn't figure out the wheel.
And dear god, the conversations:
"You dare!" "How dare you!" "You dare question how I dare!"
It was like being trapped in a world where everyone communicated exclusively through indignant questions and death threats. No art, no music, no literature, no fields of study beyond "how to breathe better" and "creative ways to murder people." Just cultivation, face-slapping, and the occasional genocide when someone's ego got bruised. They were killing each other purely to level up, like NPCs stuck in an eternal grinding loop. Trillions of people with exactly one purpose in life: breathe special air, get stronger, repeat until someone stronger kills you.
"Analysis complete," Sora announced. "This society exhibits all symptoms of a closed-loop system designed for perpetual conflict. Purpose appears to be entertainment for unknown observers."
"Entertainment," I repeated, watching two disciples argue over who had the right to avenge their sect's honor first. "We're living in a badly written power fantasy."
Great. I'd gone from researching the universe to being trapped inside one. After studying these people for ten days, I'd reached an inescapable conclusion: this wasn't just irrationality, this was a systematic malfunction. A complete society living in what could only be described as a matrix designed for one purpose: cultivation.
They had infinite sources of energy but couldn't invent anything rational. No dreams, no ambitions beyond the next power level. Billions died every era, yet somehow trillions remained, where were all these people even coming from? And not a single rational person among them. It was like the universe was mass-producing identical NPCs programmed with exactly three functions: eat, breathe qi, kill.
The more I observed, the more convinced I became that this whole system was fundamentally broken. I couldn't just leave these people to their endless cycle of murder and stupidity while I enjoyed life in some distant corner of this world. Call it my scientist's conscience, but watching an entire civilization trapped in such a magnificently pointless loop felt wrong.
Even after cultivating for billions of years, they'd still find someone stronger to kill them. It was the ultimate exercise in futility, powered by infinite energy and zero brain cells. I'd spent my previous life trying to understand reality through mathematics and scientific method. Here, the universe operated on narrative convenience and the principle that looking cool was more important than making sense.
But I had something these cultivation addicts didn't: twenty-first-century Earth knowledge. Science, technology, actual rational thought processes. While they argued over who had the most impressive killing technique, I could introduce concepts like "supply chains," "basic sanitation," and "not murdering people over minor disagreements."
The question was whether I could implement any real change before someone decided my revolutionary ideas about "questioning things" warranted the traditional solution of removing my head from my shoulders. In this world, suggesting that maybe, just maybe, there might be better ways to solve problems than immediate violence was considered heretical thinking. I hadn't even shared my ideas yet, but I already knew their response: "You dare question the heavenly dao!"
In other words, I had better odds of winning the lottery while being struck by lightning than surviving this place with my sanity intact. "Those are better odds than I expected," I said, closing the window as another dramatic proclamation echoed across the sect grounds. Something about bloodlines and eternal vengeance. The usual afternoon entertainment.
I turned away from the chaos outside, the noise muffled now by thick wooden shutters. My small room felt like a pocket of sanity in an asylum, sparse, organized, and blissfully free of mysterious glowing artifacts that hummed ominously.
If this world wanted to operate on power fantasy rules, fine. But it was about to get a very rude awakening courtesy of someone who understood that real power came from knowledge, not from sitting in a cave breathing really, really hard.
While they perfected their "Thousand Sword Technique" and "Dragon Slaying Palm," I'd introduce them to revolutionary concepts like "the scientific method," "advanced infrastructure," and "conflict resolution that doesn't involve mass murder." Let's see how their ancient wisdom held up against actual wisdom.
And if they came in my path with their typical "You dare!" nonsense? Well, I was eager to see how weapons from Earth, pistols, explosives, maybe even nuclear technology if I could figure out the materials, would fare against these so-called immortal cultivators. Ancient techniques versus modern firepower? That would be an interesting experiment.
Time to show these "immortals" what genuine progress looked like.
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I'm uploading this novel here as a test to gather feedback. The official release is planned for next month on Royal Road, so I'd really appreciate your honest thoughts and suggestions to help me improve it. Thanks for reading this.
One Chapter Daily.