When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying down on the floor of a dimly lit underground cave. The only source of light was the rays that slipped through the fissure above his head. From what he could make out from the limited sight, the cave was quite big. But that was not the important thing.

Did I really reincarnate? The memory of that evening in his hospital room, for some reason, felt hazy and faraway; it was like it happened in some very distant past.

He propped himself up into a sitting position. Barely had he done it when a notification appeared before his eyes.

Integration of your soul with the body has been completed! You have successfully reincarnated in Grand Shang!

Please choose a name for yourself.

He took a deep breath to calm his raging heart. There was still a part of him that believed everything that was happening to be a sham, something his weak mind had fabricated. But for most part, he accepted it as his reality. The insane vividness and attention to detail he was experiencing was something an imagination would never be able to match, that’s what he felt.

Besides, it wasn’t like there were no precedents. He had read about similar incidents in books before, although they were all fiction.

“Su Ren,” he muttered. It was a random name that occurred to him. At first, he thought about using his previous name but later changed his mind. This was a new life. He didn’t want it to be marred by the misfortune of his previous one.

The name ‘Su Ren’ has been added to your profile.

You can now view your status.

Taking cue from the novels he read, he yelled, “Status!”

He was not disappointed. The texts in front of his eyes disappeared and a panel displaying his stats appeared instead.

Name: Su Ren Age: 10 years old

Race: Hybrid

Cultivation Realm: None

Lifeforce: 10/10 (Regeneration: 0.01% per second)

Qi: 0/0 (Regeneration: 0.01% per second)

Occupations: None

Cultivation Techniques: None

Attributes:

Physique: 1 Movement: 1 Soul: 2

Fate: 11

Traits:

Myriad Physique (Innate)

Innards of Primordial Taotie (Innate)

“Oh!” A little murmur of surprise escaped his throat.

Collecting his thoughts, Su Ren, as he had baptized himself, went through his status screen and tried to comprehend it.

Physique: The physical strength and the physical toughness of your body. With increase of 1 stat point in Physique, your lifeforce will increase by 10.

Movement: The overall bodily speed of your body.

Soul: The mental faculty and learning capacity you possess. With increase of 1 stat point in Soul, your Qi will increase by 10.

Fate: The fortune you possess.

But that was all the information he got.

Why was he ten years old? Why was his race a hybrid? And why was his maximum Qi limit zero when it should be twenty? There was no explanation provided for these queries. Absolutely none.

He could vaguely understand the stats due to the few role-playing games he played and the few cultivation novels he read. But what he wanted was concrete knowledge on how everything worked exactly. Where was his help menu? Where was his chatty AI? Or for that matter, where was his know-it-all grandpa in the ring?

Fortunately, he was able to check the details of his two traits that confounded him the most.

Myriad Physique: You can train all of the Immortal Physiques.

Innards of Primordial Taotie: You can eat anything in the universe, as long as it is tangible. You have chances of acquiring traits from what you have consumed – higher the level, higher the chances.

Sweet! He grinned. In his previous life, he had always desired for a strong body and the free will to eat anything he wished. In this life, he had been given two traits that made sure he had both of them. Also, he liked the sound of getting more traits. With more traits, he would have more options. As far as the starting points went, Su Ren couldn’t have asked for more!

His stomach rumbled, bringing him out of his reverie.

Time to look for something to eat. His bare body caught his attention. There was not even a single thread of cloth on it. And something to wear while I am on it, he thought.

The ceiling of the cave was not that high. With some effort, Su Ren managed to climb up to the fissure and squeeze his tiny body out through it.

The first thing that greeted him when he came outside was the endless trees and vegetation that stretched before his eyes. It wasn’t just in front of him. When he looked around, he found that it was the same everywhere around him. He was in the middle of a huge forest! He had seen such scenes on television footages before but seeing the real thing personally was a different experience altogether. It was daunting, to say the least.

He took several deep breaths to calm his nerves.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Steeling his heart, he moved his feet forward. It was the start of his hunt for food.

But after searching for more than thirty minutes, he came up with nothing. He had thought that such a huge forest would have no shortage of animals in it. He was betting on running across some small animals that would pose no threat to him. But so far, he had seen no sign of life in this forest, apart from the plants and the trees. Not even bugs and insects!

It was unnatural. It was eerie. Su Ren couldn’t help but feel creeped out. The urge to turn back to the cave he woke up in and seek refuge in it increased with every passing second.

The thought of eating the plants around him occurred many times to his mind. But he was not able to identify the edible ones from the inedible ones. Although the description for [Innards of Primordial Taotie] said that he could eat anything, he wasn’t sure whether that gave him immunity to poisons and other effects. He didn’t want to risk it if it was possible, so he left eating plants as the final resort.

Besides, he preferred meat!

His empty stomach lurched. Over the course of his search, it had happened many times and it was growing more frequent.

He upped the pace of his search.

But before long, he was forced to stop. A transparent barrier that looked like glass blocked his advance. From the way it looked, it enclosed the whole area around him, including the underground cave and the huge forest that surrounded it.

Su Ren had the inexplicable feeling that the barrier was beckoning him.

Before he knew it, he had stretched his right hand and touched it.

Crack! A tiny crack appeared where his hand had touched it. The crack grew and spread everywhere over the barrier like a web within a few moments. Before Su Ren could collect himself, the barrier shattered and disappeared, as if it had never existed in the first place.

You have broken an ancient barrier formation! +1 Soul

It was a baffling incident indeed. But it was just another one; Su Ren had already experienced many inconceivable things since he woke up. He was surprised but that was all. He pushed this matter to the back of his mind and crossed the area where the barrier used to be. There were other urgent matters at hand than to mull over something he wouldn’t understand no matter how hard he thought over it.

As he stepped onto what could have been considered the other side before, Su Ren couldn’t help but feel as if he had walked over into a different world. Visually, there were no changes to his surrounding. But the sounds – although he had yet to see them, he could hear the cries of all sorts of animals, birds and insects.

A few moments later, Su Ren saw the very first live being since he had crossed over to Grand Shang.

And he was left gaping!

Humongous! That was the only word he could think of that described the creature adequately. Appearance-wise, the creature resembled a hawk. But the size was all wrong. It was at least twenty meters tall and fifty meters long.

The giant hawk soared in the sky without a care in the world.

The scene was both shocking and moving.

Just what kind of world did I end up in?

Although the creature was nowhere near him, Su Ren found a thick thicket and hid himself in it. The presence alone made him cower. He didn’t dare to come out from his hiding place until the giant frame disappeared beyond the horizon.

This little episode taught him a valuable lesson.

Dangers were everywhere in this forest. If he didn’t tread carefully, he would lose his little life before he knew what hit him.

Su Ren decided to give up on his dream of eating meat for now. It wasn’t worth the risk. Through a miracle, he had got this second chance at life; he didn’t want to waste it.

But when he was about to turn back, he heard some small sounds coming from his right side. It didn’t seem like a big animal. He crouched down and crept towards it, making as little noise as possible. He gently parted the shrubs to see a small clearing. A rabbit was nibbling on some grass there.

He gave a celebratory pose inside. There were small animals here, after all. It had been an oversight on his part. After seeing the hawk that was extraordinarily huge, he had thought misguidedly that all the life forms in the forest would be huge.

His dream of eating meat was revived.

He wanted to wait for an opportune moment and catch the rabbit by surprise. But for some baffling reason, Su Ren found himself on all fours like some sort of savage animal, his saliva dripping nonstop down his mouth. A deep guttural growl came out of his throat.

What the hell is happening?

He tried to rein in his body but –

Your soul is not strong enough to control the instinct of your body!

It was of no avail.

An indistinct grinning face with a huge mouth momentarily appeared in his mind. But when Su Ren tried to catch more details, it was gone, making him half-believe that it was all simply a part of his imagination.

The rabbit gave a startled look in his direction. When it saw him, it got on all fours and ran.

Fast! In the span of one second, the rabbit had travelled more than fifty meters.

Su Ren gave chase. Or rather, his body or whatever that was controlling it chased after the rabbit. But it was already too slow. Before long, the rabbit disappeared into the darkness of the forest.

An unwilling growl came out of his throat and Su Ren regained the control of his body.

What was that? But he didn’t have time to ponder over it.

His stomach gave a huge rumble. His hunger had been slowly building over time. That last stunt had broken some sort of dam, he was ravenous all of a sudden. Su Ren had the sensation that if he didn’t eat something soon to ease it, he would be devoured from inside out.

There was no other way.

He grabbed whatever plants came into his hands and stuffed them into his mouth.

He froze.

Delicious! The plants were simply too delicious.

Su Ren chose a different plant this time and ate it. Then, he went for the next one. Then next. Then next. Over the course of the following few minutes, he tried out all the plants around him. Leaves. Stems. Roots. Everything. The final verdict – all of them were delicious.

He had experience of eating vegetables before. It shouldn’t be this delicious. That meant only two things, either the plants in this world were different or his taste bud was broken.

Leaving that to ponder later, he continued eating.

After an hour or so of ceaseless eating, his hunger was alleviated somewhat. His stomach was no more revolting.

Another hour later, his stomach could be considered to have returned back to normal.

Another hour passed. Then another. Then another…

Su Ren watched as the sun slowly sank down the horizon. He decided to head back to the cave. It didn’t feel safe to be in the wilderness, especially during night.

He rubbed his stomach in dissatisfaction. It was an insatiable bottomless pit. Even after several hours of eating, it showed no sign of becoming full. In fact, he had the feeling that it was not even halfway there.

He made his way towards the underground cave.

Although it was not at the level of photographic memory, his retention power had increased drastically after he had reincarnated into this world. He had no problem remembering his way back.

On the way, he grabbed whatever plants he could get his hands on and kept eating.

In his previous life, he had all the wealth to afford anything he wanted to eat but he was unable to eat due to his body constitution. This life, he had the ability to eat anything but the things that he wanted to eat were beyond his reach. What an irony!