Max was enamored with his new outfit. It wasn’t the nicest thing he’s ever worn nor was it the softest, but it was the most magical. Something about that hit home the fact that he wasn’t on Earth anymore. Sure he had a character sheet and could talk to animals, but this was something tangible.

Today had been a great day, he had created a booby trap, increased both his level and cultivation, opened the chest, and finally was no longer in the nude. He was excited to see what else would be in store for him.

But before that, he checked his character sheet. He wanted to see if he got any bonuses from his new outfit. Nothing changed, there wasn’t any added equipment or inventory pages. Either his clothes didn’t have any stat increase or the system didn’t have that feature. Max had hoped that by prodding it, he could unlock a new part of the system just like what he did with his Agility stat, but he had no such luck. Satisfied for now that he wasn’t going to get anything new from the system, his attention was shifted back to the chest.

Under the clothes, there were two forearm guards.

“Hm, I think they are called bracers?”

Picking them up, they had a nice weight to them. Some bracers could be made out of metal, but he didn’t see any metal on these. They were mostly brown in color and the texture felt closer to leather or leather adjacent. Same with the clothes, there weren’t any designs on them aside from what looked to be the seams that held them together. The bracers were also too big for him. Now having the experience with the magical clothes, Max guessed that they were automatically adjusted to his size.

But before he put them on he wanted to see if Analyze would come up with anything. He should have Analyzed the clothes as well, but in his excitement, he had forgotten.

Analyzing…

Item: Cultivator Clothes

Can be resized to the wearer’s dimensions. ???

Analyzing…

Item: Bracers

???

As expected, Analyze didn’t give him much. Even the clothes that he was already wearing only had a basic description. There were also question marks after the description leaving him to think there are more features that he hadn’t discovered.

The Bracers were placed to the side, for now. He wasn’t as excited to put them on as he was about the clothes. He also didn’t know if they had any hidden properties that might negatively affect him. Looking back into the chest, he only saw two more items. A travel-sized bottle, it was cold to the touch. Max wasn’t sure what it was made out of, but it had the traditional eastern porcelain vibe to it. The last thing was about finger size and looked to be some kind of green-tinted glass. Picking it up, it was also cold to the touch and Max recognized it as jade. He knew this because his grandma had always worn a jade bracelet for as long as he could remember.

The jade started turning warmer and warmer. Noticing something was wrong the jade was quickly dropped back into the chest, but it was too late. In the next instant, the jade turned red and a wave of heat washed over him. The jade exploded and an invisible pulse of energy physically knocked into him. As he was flying backward, he saw an outline that vaguely resembled a human driving toward him. By the time Max had hit the ground, he was unconscious.

Ma Erk was outside the cave and as usual, taking a nap after his lunch, when he felt what happened, he immediately woke up. He went up to the Formation and started calling out for him. But there was no answer.

Back in the cave, his body now lay on the ground. His eyebrows were tightly knitted together in a furrow.

…

Max woke up and found himself no longer inside the cave. Panicking, he looked around. It was bright, he seemed to be floating in mid-air. Above him was a blue sky and below him seemed to be clouds. He hadn’t been this close to clouds so he wasn’t sure. Aside from the unfamiliar environment, he was also naked again. The last thing he remembered was an intense heat wave washing over him and knocking him back. Suddenly he recalled the human outline that came speeding towards him.

“Ahem, Junior behind you.”

Whorling around, there was an old man dressed in simple garments standing in mid-air. Max couldn’t control his movement, so when he spun around, his momentum carried him and he continued to spin. Max rotated in place two more times before he heard a laugh from the direction of the old man.

“Hahaha. Here, Junior. Let me help you.”

His body came to a complete stop and was facing the old man. Now that he had a clearer look, Max could see the old man was transparent, he could see the sky through him.

Standing up, or as much as he could, Max cautiously asked “Who are you?”

“ME? I AM YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE! I AM THE DEVOURER OF SOULS. I AM THE SECT MASTER OF THE STRONGEST DEVIL SECT IN THIS WORLD, THE SUPREME DARKNESS SECT! YOU DARE SPEAK TO ME, YOU PATHETIC MORTAL?”

The old man’s voice was so loud that even when Max covered his ears, it still felt as if his eardrums were going to pop. Due to how loud it was, it took a few seconds for his brain to register what he heard. He wasn’t sure if he should laugh or cry. He had spent the entire morning opening a chest but turns out he had freed some evil sect master.

‘FUCKKK, and just when I thought things were looking up for me.’

At the same time, he wanted to laugh at the absurd sect name “The Supreme Darkness Sect”? Just repeating the name in his mind made him feel a second-hand cringe.

The old man had interpreted his momentary hesitation as fear.

“Yes, yes mortal. Now bow to this —”

Before the old man finished his sentence, the cat-shaped pin that he was wearing above his right collar dissolved and morphed into a transparent cat. Using its paw, it hit the old man on the forehead once and then continued to morph. By the time it finished, it turned into an old lady. The old lady still had some of the features of the cat, namely the whiskers and the slitted pupil.

“Hush, husband of mine, stop scaring the poor kid.” The old lady admonished the old geezer just like how she would a child. The old man was slightly hunched over and held his forehead.

“Yes, yes wifey. I was just having a little fun.” He replied.

“Little Junior, please don’t take it to heart. We have been sealed for a long time and this old man couldn’t help but play a joke on you. Please accept this old man’s apology.” The old man said.

The old lady turned to him and said “Little Junior, I am Ye Mao and this stupid man is my husband, Ye Zong. Can I inquire what this Junior’s name is?”

Seeing how quickly things had changed, Max felt like he had situational whiplash and was speechless.

Ye Mao had given Max a couple of moments, but seeing him still dazed, she shot another glare at her husband and then said, “Junior, it’s okay. We won’t hurt you. It seems like this is the first time you enter your spirit space. Here let me help you.”

With a wave of her hand, Max found himself fully clothed again, it was the same thing he had put on minutes before. As the clothes appeared on his body, Ye Mao seemed to have gotten a bit more transparent. It looked like Ye Zong was going to say something, but with another glare from his wife, he shut up.

Realizing that he had just been standing naked in front of an old lady that could be mistaken for his grandma, Max awkwardly coughed and said “Ah, this Junior’s name is Max Oxford. Please call me Max.” He clasped his hands together and made a short bow. This was a traditional greeting in his stories, but there was no way to know if this was correct here.

“Ahh. So the Junior’s name is Max, hmm. That is an odd name. Wifey, a long time must have passed if the names had changed this much.” Ye Zong said.

Ye Mao nodded and directed a question at him, “Junior Max, would you care to enlighten these two fossils what year it is.”

Without much thinking, his answer was “2025.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Max internally cursed himself. He needed to think before talking. He had been left alone for too long with Ma Erk and forgot how to be more covert. While this was going through his head, Max didn’t let it show on his face.

Hearing his answer, Ye Zong followed up on his wife’s question “And does this Junior know what era we are in? And how many years has it been since the Resurgence era?”

Max had remembered that someone had once called the calendar a “Gregorian” calendar. It seemed like a safe answer and obscured enough. “We are in the Gregorian era, sir. And no, sir, I do not.”

The couple nodded at his answer and seemed to have bought it.

“Junior Max, can you tell us how you were able to find the cave?” Ye Mao asked.

Max made up a story about how he was a villager from the nearby town that he had seen from the top of the cave. He said that he was here picking berries and had stumbled into the cave. And how he thought it was a magical cave since it was different on the inside.

Ye Mao had questioned him about the Formation. Max described it the best he could, how the light was passing through it and what the system had named the different runes used in the formation. He purposely made it a bit more vague as if he didn’t know exactly what each of the runes did.

“Husband, if what this junior says is true then it must have been over 4,000 to 5,000 years for my Grand Formation to deteriorate to this point.”

Overhearing that, Max was surprised. How could this couple be this old? If they were 4,000 years old, that would put them in the same time period as the ancient Egyptians back on Earth. Ye Zong nodded to his wife, seemingly agreeing with her assessment.

This time it was Ye Zong who asked a question, “Tell me, Max boy, in what condition did you find my chest and the items inside?”

Max told the truth about how heavy it was and how he got it to open. What he had found inside and the events that led up to the explosion. He could see Ye Zong was nodding to his story. There was even a twinkle in his eyes when he heard that Max mentioned how he had gotten the chest to open.

At the end of his story, Ye Zong chuckled a bit and said, “Ahh, hahaha. Max, boy you have a good head on that shoulder of yours.”

“Junior Max, Thank you for indulging my husband and my questions. Please, you must have questions of your own. We will answer the best we can.” Ye Mao said.