After a long while, the youth woke up. He instinctively clutched his head.

“Huh?” he loudly exclaimed to himself and realized that the pain was no longer there. He looked around.

Except for the pool of blood underneath him, there were no changes to the cave. His clothes were sticky from the blood and stuck to his body.

Suddenly, a voice reached his ear, “Are you okay, dude?”

The youth looked towards the voice and saw a guy in his late teens looking at him with a lazy expression.

“Who are you?” he backed off vigilantly. He would have thought he was one of the Monarchs but unlike them, he had a feeling that this guy was physically present in front of him.

“Well, they all ask that at first,” the teen sighed. He had short hair and a clean-shaven face. His looks were ordinary; you wouldn’t be able to tell him apart had he been in a crowd. But what surprised the youth was his choice of clothing. Unlike the aesthetic sense of this era, the teen wore a baggy red hoodie and jeans.

“Well, if you introduced yourself first, then I wouldn’t have to ask!” his words were dripping with sarcasm.

The teen smiled, “I am Observer.”

“Observer?” the youth looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Are you perhaps the god of this world?”

“No,” Observer calmly shook his head. “I am a system bound to you.”

“System?” all these new terms were making his head spin. “Like from those novels?”

As soon as he finished his words, Observer glared at him. “Bastard, I am nothing like them!”

“In the sense that?” the youth added to his words hoping he would continue.

“In the sense that, you won’t be getting any cheats!” he smiled playfully.

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m here to do as my name implies.”

“How does observing me benefit you?”

“It doesn’t benefit me in the least. But since you have a fragment of the 『Creator’s Soul』, I am obligated to do so.”

“Who’s the 『Creator』?” this conversation felt like a rabbit hole. One that the youth can’t help but find himself lost in.

“You keep asking the most obvious shit…” Observer shook his head helplessly.

“Dude, you try being in my position then!” the youth clicked his tongue, feeling annoyed. “Also, I’m asking if the 『Creator』 created this world or something bigger.”

Observer thought for a moment and said, “Actually, I take my words back.”

“Why?”

“Because even though he’s called 『Creator』, he didn’t create any sort of world.”

“Then what did he create?”

“He created a book.”

“What book?” the youth gnashed his teeth. If only this bastard said everything completely…

“I can tell you but right now it won’t benefit you in any sort of way!” Observer shook his head.

“Then why’d you tell me!?” the youth wanted to strangle someone.

“Why’d you ask?” Observer turned around and gave him the side-eye.

“…fuck me!” the youth took a deep breath and cursed. “So, you’re just going to be with me from now on, is that it?”

“Yep!” Observer nodded.

“Fine,” the youth got up and looked around. On the ground in front of him was the book for the Monarch of Hell’s Cultivation Art. He got up and patted the dust off it.

“What’re you going to do now?” Observer came from behind and asked.

“Cultivate, what else?” he replied nonchalantly. Looking at the long name on the cover of the book, he decided, “This will be the Celestial Monarch’s Art!” As soon as he declared the new name, the words on the cover were swallowed by crackling flames. After a short moment, the fire fizzled out and a new set of words were on the paper cover. It read- “Celestial Monarch’s Art”.

“Ooh, nice name!” Observer remarked. The youth hummed in agreement and opened the book. After reading for quite a while, he exhaled loudly and sat down again.

He rubbed his head, “My god, this is so profound! It’s a bit hard for me to comprehend but I’ll get it don-” Before he could finish his words, another thought hit him, “Hmm? Why is it hard for me to comprehend? Didn’t I get all of their knowledge? It should be easier, no?”

“Oh, you finally found out?” Observer chuckled in the background.

“What do you mean?” the youth looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“Well, just as you might’ve guessed, you can’t contain the combined knowledge of all eight Monarchs.”

“Do not tell me I suffered through all that pain for nothing,” he spat out angrily.

“Of course not. The amount of data and Spiritual Energy injected in you acted as the impetus for the System to awaken.”

“So, does that mean you have all the knowledge?” the youth asked with hope in his eyes.

“Not me. Status has them.”

“Status?” the youth was caught off-guard by this new term.

Observer explained, “You were assigned two Systems- Status and Observer. You’ve seen me but not Status.”

“Why isn’t he coming out then? You took the initiative to greet me so why didn’t he?”

“That’s because he operates differently. I have both a physical and corporeal form. While he has them as well, he can only come out when you command him to.”

“Why?” the youth felt that he had asked this question a lot in this one day.

“Since my job is to ‘observe’, I’m made to do so efficiently. And the same goes for Status.”

“Ugh,” he groaned. “Fine, how do I call him out?”

“Just say ‘Status’.”

“Status!” with his command, a blue screen appeared in front of him. There were lines of text on it.

Status Settings Search Upgrade

Name: N/A

Status: Unsynchronized

Race: Human

Constitution: Perfect Harmony Body(Divine Grade)

Spirit Root: Myriad Elements Spirit Root(Divine Grade)

Level: Fifth Stage of Qi Refinement Realm

Proficiency: Poison(0.1%), Archery(1.9%), Daggers(0.8%), Herbology(0.2%),

Pharmacology(0.1%), Mathematics(5%), Musical Talent(100%), Processing(1%), Anatomy(0.1%), Business(75%) +

Combat Power: Sixth Stage of Qi Refinement Realm

Sanity: 77

Cultivation Art: None

Status Effect: Slight Bleeding.

“What?” the youth's eyes bulged. He looked at Observer with sheer disbelief written on his face. He was about to ask something when those words got caught in his throat.

Right, I haven’t even left Huangye town when there’s an entire nine realms left to explore. It’s no fucking wonder I don’t have that high of a proficiency.

“Hey, I just remembered!” Observer slapped his forehead. He looked at the youth, “This is an eastern martial arts world, right?”

“…yeah?”

“Wait a sec!” After saying that, Observer was engulfed in a flash of fire. The fire devoured him completely and disappeared just as quickly as it came. When Observer emerged he looked completely different. His previously short hair now went down to his shoulder and was tied in a bun using a hairpin. His hoodie and jeans were gone and instead of that, he was wearing flowing black robes. It gave him an aristocratic feel to him. His clean-shaven face was still there.

“Damn, you got a complete makeover,” the youth remarked.

“Yeah, I thought that my previous look was pretty weird in this world,” Observer agreed.

“Wait, can other people see you, Observer?”

“Stop, stop! Don’t call me Observer anymore, just call me Jian Gong[1]!”

“…okay, but you just said the same thing twice. What’s the difference?”

“Previously whenever it was written, you would’ve read it as Observer but now you read it as Jian Gong!” he laughed. “Also, it goes with the aesthetic.”

“I-I see,” the youth felt flabbergasted. He did not what Jian Gong was talking about but he figured it was better to just agree. After a while, he asked, “I have a few questions.”

“Ask all of them at once.”

“Why doesn’t it show my name? Why am I ‘unsynchronized’? Why is my Sanity at 77 points? Why is my Musical Talent at 100% proficiency? What is the ‘Perfect Harmony Body’? What is the ‘Myriad Elements Spirit Root’? What is Divine Grade? What’s the upgrade tab? Can other people see you?”

After hearing his questions, Jian Gong clicked his tongue. “Damn, he really got that Spirit Root with that constitution?” He took a deep breath and looked at the youth, “I’ll start from the bottom. No, other people can’t see me unless you allow them to, though I don’t recommend you do so.

The upgrade tab is to upgrade the system and no, it won’t give you any cheats. It’ll only make your life the slightest bit easier.

Divine Grade is the highest grade of anything, be it- Pills, Cultivation Art, Spiritual weapons anything!”

Without noticing the youth’s disbelieving look, he continued, “It’s a spirit root which allows you to have control over all ten elements. The Perfect Harmony Body is a body that allows you to fully utilize Qi and the elements in your body. One of its key characteristics is a body built in the Golden Ratio!”

The youth stopped him, “Wait, wait! Body built in a Golden Ratio?”

“From your looks, you can be called handsome, right?” Jian Gong asked a seemingly unrelated question.

“Yeah but-”

“But you haven’t been called handsome the most, have you?”

The youth fell into deep thought at his words. After a while, he opened his eyes in realization, “Is that why they said I was ‘pleasing to look at’?”

“Yep, your body is perfectly symmetrical. It oozes harmony and symmetry. Everything created by nature has a golden ratio somewhere in it, whether it is on a microscopic scale or even smaller. You, however, are truly built in the Golden Ratio. Your cells bear the Ratio up to your tissues and your entire body. That’s why the Perfect Harmony Body has another name- the Nature Body!”

“I…” the youth became tongue-tied. The amount of information he got today was more than what he got in his entire life.

“Continuing on with the Q and A! Your Musical Talent is at 100%. That’s just a perk from your soul. Quite useless in battle really.

The Sanity point of a normal adult human being is at 80-95. Only children who have not felt that much pain nor seen much of the cruelty of the world are at 96-99 while only newborns are at 99-100 and are perfectly sane[2].

Both of your last questions have the same answer.” Jian Gong smiled mysteriously.

“And what’s the answer?” the youth took a minute to digest the new information and asked.

“This body is not yours, right?”

“Yeah, I know that,” the youth agreed with him. “I knew this after a few days of waking up.”

“Well, where’s the original owner?” Jian Gong asked again.

“Probably dead.”

“Let me change the question. Where is his soul then?”

“Wait,” the youth’s face paled as he came to a conclusion. “No, if I devoured his soul then I would have had his knowledge as well.”

“That’s true,” Jian Gong grinned. His grin seemed wicked. “But that’s the thing! You haven’t devoured him, not yet. Yang Yunfan’s soul inside you constantly resists as your soul continuously tries to devour him.”

The youth fell silent. The truth was too hard for him to stomach.

“Every soul in a world bears the code or a sort of ID that proves that they’re from that world. Since you haven’t consumed his soul yet, you don’t have that ID. That’s why your soul is unsynchronized with this world. This world refuses to acknowledge you! There is no ‘you’ in this world!” With every sentence, Jian Gong’s pitch rose. “Tell me, in these six years, has anyone once referred to you by name?”

The youth couldn’t answer that. Even though he knew the answer, he did not have the heart to say it out loud.

“That’s why it shows that you have no name. But don’t worry too much, even if they don’t remember your name, they’ll remember that ‘you’ were there.”

“Haha…” he didn’t know if the consolation made him feel any better. All he could do was laugh mirthlessly.