Three Elder’s of the Blue Tiger, Green Dragon Sect were resting on top of a green cloud right above the Graceful Peace Mountain. “Clever, you made a mess.”

Clever Rain was scratching his head. He had curly shoulder length hair with a set of dark brooding eyes. The effect was discounted by his omnipresent smile. Behind him was Elder Flower scrambling around trying to tend to hundreds of disciples. She had help but for certain injuries, she needed to intervene.

“Do you know why?” The white-haired giant of an Elder was standing at the edge. Her eyes peered down. She was Sword Rain and his older sister. “These exercises are meant to foster a sense of teamwork. We make them miserable so that they have no choice but to rely on each other. It’s fine to pit them against each other in the later stages but not now, in this stage.” She paused, taking a deep breath. She wasn’t one for speeches, yet, she had to orate more than her fair share. “They’re going to hate each other.”

“Should I change the next test?”

She sighed, “No, leave it. The damage is done. Let’s have an excursion in a month.”

She felt no need to go down. Instead, she sent Clever Rain.

…

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Musnuf clutched first place. He had 13 Bronze, 12 Silver, 5 Gold and a single Ruby Ring. That set him above most disciples. The ones with no rings at all were disqualified.

Tiger and Dragon grabbed third and fourth place. Tiger was about to blow her top at the result. The second place was an interesting character.

She was rail thin with a pale complexion. Her laugh was the most prominent feature. It was infectious. Perhaps, she knew it and laughed a lot.

She giggled and walked up to him. “So you’re the one who stole first place.”

Musnuf shrugged. “I didn’t steal it. I just tried harder.” He was exhausted and he could feel a dull throbbing in his temple. He wanted to sleep. “I’ll see you in the next test.” He turned his back before she could reply.

They’d been granted a three-day rest period. The contents of the next period had been revealed. It was a tournament style competition. He handed in the rings, and they recorded his points.

Only eighteen people were left. He wanted to size up his competition but he was just too exhausted.

…

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He slept for a long time and it was full of dreams. He dreamt of his previous life, before he’d fallen into his Great Rut. There were days when he wasn’t just sitting in front of his computer, eating junk food and pissing away his life.

Those were the days he dreamt about but everytime he would end up in his chair, hands shackled to the chair in front of the PC, trying to play an infinite game and win. He would kick, scream and shout but his eyes wouldn’t move, they were trained on the screen. Over and over there he was.

He woke up with a start and started taking deep breaths. He got up and decided to grab some water. It was the early hours of the morning. He guessed that he’d slept for the entire first day.

He grabbed his webnovel and sat down on the front porch. It was calm and peaceful. Even the insects were asleep.

He started flipping through it. There were so many things he wanted to see with his own eyes, the battles, the worlds and most of all, the characters he’d created. Living breathing beings that were doing things. Things he’d written about.

He needed to live for that and most of all, gain some modicum of strength. On some fundamental level, he couldn’t stay in this sect. He had no ties to it and no desire to embroil himself in it.

The only thing stopping him was that Soul Lantern. He flicked it open and something was different.

This page wasn’t here before…

There was a blank page right after opening the cover page. He flicked to the back and there was an extra page. 2 extra pages.

It was a little dark so he got a candle and lit it up. Its flickering flame illuminated it. His instincts told him there was more to this.

Should I…write something?

He rooted around in his stuff. He didn’t have too many belongings but a quill was available. He dipped the ink in and stopped.

He started with his name. Musnuf. He raised his pen and something had changed. He just couldn’t place his finger on it.

He closed his eyes and it was as if those words were ingrained into his eyes. Carved into the marble of his consciousness. It was strange, off-putting and foreign. A sense he hadn’t explored before. A room in his mind, he never knew existed.

He grabbed the illusion manual and went through it. He was about to copy it verbatim but decided to condense it down to its core. He was working with limited space.

This time there was an even greater effect. He didn’t just remember it. He understood it. He had a disparate understanding before but this was whole.

[Enhanced Understanding] and [Memorization] seem to be there. What if I dropped a little bit of blood on it? He grabbed a needle and pricked his finger. A drop of blood fell on it and…nothing. There was no effect.

He laid down and started thinking. There were so many unknown factors but the greatest was that he didn’t know how these papers came to be. Would there be more or was he just limited to two?

He would operate from the assumption that only two were available. Four since they were double sided.

He cracked his knuckles and smiled. He grabbed a separate piece of parchment. His writing was too big. He needed to make it smaller. As small as humanly possible.