In one of the rooms of the Heavenly Inn, which is actually one of the cheapest inns of the 5th prefecture, was a man sitting on the floor with his hands by his side, without any strength. His face was adorned with tears both fresh and dried. Most of his body was covered by bloodied bandages.

This man was Lye. Yesterday, the merchant caravan he had hooked a ride with, dropped him in this inn. They also paid for his accommodations for 3 days. When he just reached his room, he had fallen asleep on the bed. A few hours later, he awoke because of a nightmare.

After waking up, he finally actually realised what had happened. That realisation broke him. Not because, his family died. He was actually prepared for it ever since he had come to know of the treason. He was broken because he didn't even try to help his family during the calamity. Neither did he feel anything when he saw his parents’ head with Kok. Nor when everyone died to save him. He didn't even understand why they sacrificed themselves for him, dammit! That broke him! He spent the rest of the day crying. He wanted to break something but he still wasn't strong enough to do anything.

After a few hours, the angel and devil Lye appeared on his shoulders.

“Come on. You are the Main Character. Every Main Character needs to be ignited. They should be honored that they could be the fuse that pushed the Main Character on his path.”- Devil Lye.

“Just forget that, Lye. You are the Main Character. No one is so bad as to kill his MC’s whole family. You just need to get stronger and revive them.”- Angel Lye.

“This is a cultivation world so there must be some cycle of reincarnation or whatever too. Even you were reincarnated.”- Devil Lye.

“Yeah Lye. There is still hope. You can bring them back! Now, get back up and start working. This author definitely isn’t like those ‘slice of life’ ones. You need to do work here.”- Angel Lye.

“Lye.” He absentmindedly turned his head to the right and looked at his shoulder. “This author is a cunt. He wants you to experience utter despair. Do you want to give in to his cuntyness?” He shook his head. “Then come on, get back on the track and start working.”- Devil Lye.

All this talk gave some hope to him. There was finally a small hint of light back in his eyes.

To start off, he decided to finally, actually see his status. He still didn’t know how much his stats had increased, or what that new skill did.

Name Lye Kartlyn Age 16 y Sex Male Titles

Former Heir Of Kartyln Clan 8th Branch

Main Character

Affiliations

Kartlyn Clan

Green Dragon Empire

Mental Conditions

Attention Deficiency

Face-Name Dissonance

Strong Memory

Physical Conditions Kartlyn Bloodline MC Traits

Other World Knowledge

Unconventional Dao: Science

Occupations Scholar 4 Fighter 2 Cultivator 1 Constitution 29 Strength 25 Endurance 34 Dexterity 29 Wisdom 36 Intelligence 33 Lifespan 20 (200y) Plot Armor 1/10 Mind's Eye Max Essence Concealment Max Plot Armor Max Absolute Mind Wall Max Life Saver Max Leaping Stag's Step 8/20 Flying Cheetah's Feet 6/20 Divine Turtle's Punch 8/10 Body of Titans 5/15 Kartlyn Fighter's Manual 9/50 Alchemy 5/100 Artificing 2/100 Formation Setting 10/100

Lye felt the most scared than he had ever felt now. His plot armor was almost empty. There was just 1 point left. Also the changed title just drove home the fact that his branch was most likely dissolved now.

‘I need to be more careful in the future. I should check the skill too.’ So, Lye checked his skill. But after seeing his skill, he was broken again. This time, everything in him broke. He cried till the owner of the inn came to get more money the next day and threw him out because he didn’t have anything other than the bandages covering him.

Skill Information: Life Saver Requirements

Main Character

Cultivator Lvl 1

Effect

User can transfer part of his plot armor to those he wants to protect. Use requires physical contact and full trust from the other party. Can tranfer at most 3 points of durability to a single person. Tranferred durability will be deducted from user's own armor.

If only he wasn’t so lazy, he could have saved everyone. At least it wouldn’t have ended so easily.

Now, Lye was absent-mindedly walking on the streets. After two full days of just sitting on the floor, just his passive cultivation was enough to treat some of the injuries. Even though he wasn’t at his peak form right now, just walking around wasn’t difficult.

As he walked around, he also formulated the plan that he should follow. The plan was actually very simple. As the heir of the 10th province, he knew about the ruling clan here, but it was only till their name. He didn't really know much. So he needed to know about this place, get some backing, grow powerful, get revenge, then try to revive his parents. As simple as that.

GROWL!!!

‘Change of plans’ thought Lye. 'First order is to get money and eat something.’

And with his newfound motivation (hunger), he started going from shop to shop, looking for any kind of work. Most of them rejected, of course. No one would employ a person who only has bandages for clothes, is clearly very injured and is a newcomer to the city.In the end, he was back to where he started, The Heavenly Inn. Lye thought to try his luck here and asked for work. It turned out because they knew where he came from, the work didn't require much native knowledge and one of the employees just resigned, he got the job. The job was actually an all purpose servant job. It filled both his stomach and ears (from gossips) so he immediately accepted.

Now he could at least get some food to replenish his energy. The higher level a cultivator has, the more energy he/she would need to stay awake. That is why, most of the cultivators at the higher levels would stay in closed door mediation. Qi isn't a good source of energy. It only gives energy enough for survival. To stay awake and use the intelligence higher levels provide requires more energy. That is also why, most of the senior cultivators who tried to deal with the Main Character in those novels acted like retards. They were hungry.

Now that he had eaten some food and used it to heal himself back somewhat, it was time to gather some info. And what better way would there be than to ask his employer.

The owner was a short, old man. He seemed to be in his late 40s. No other family, he had never married and parents had died. The name was Leo.

“There are 4 types of people here- those who shouldn’t be offended, those who really, really shouldn’t be offended and those who can’t be offended-”

“Can’t be offended?” Lye cut in.

“There has never been any news of them getting offended because all those who did are dead. Okay as I was saying, the first category includes all those who are like us. They are our main source of customers. Don’t offend them. The second one has those above us. They are those who are in one of the lower or mid level clans, sects and academies or have an otherwise decent status. The third one has those who are above them. The members of the Lu and Chu clan and the Sunshine Devourer Sect fall in this category. Usually they have good temperaments so they wouldn’t get offended because of small things. But be careful of the more idiotic ones in them. They are the real headaches.”

Here a sect and an academy are different. A sect is like a university. It is focused on one thing, while trying its hand in other areas. An academy is like a school. It teaches everything. Usually new cultivators who don’t know what they are good at would join an academy. They would try many things and then join a sect that suits them. That is why academies have never been a top force of any region, save for those where there is no competition for them.

After asking him some more questions, Lye managed to fill in the spaces that were left in his plan. The annual entrance month was approaching. In this month, all the clans, sects and academies would open their doors to all those who want to join them and can pass their examination. There was a week left so Lye decided to nurse himself back to his best condition in this time and also get some money. The exams ain’t free.

The week passed uneventfully, there weren't any young masters coming, getting offended and then chasing after him nor were there any heaven defying beauties coming and falling for him. In fact there wasn't anyone that came. Only the few customers that had made this inn their home had come here. It was all very uneventful.

And Lye's progess had gone smoothly. Only some of the bigger injuries were left, otherwise he was wholly well now.

Now was the day that the admission month was starting. For today, Lye had borrowed some clothes from one of the customers and some money from Leo. He was actually a good person who cared about his employees.

Lye was now thinking of first going to the Sunshine Devourer Sect and then going downwards till he is accepted. He had some traces of thoughts that his MC status would let him join the sect but based on what he had experienced, it was truly difficult for him to believe it. All his childhood, he never got a cheat. His cultivation was behind his peers. He wasn’t a fighting genius who could stand his own against those above him. In fact, he could barely stand his ground against those with the same cultivation level as him. Even though plot armor is a pretty big cheat in itself, but it is a passive ability, out of his control. It can’t be termed as a true cheat.

Now that he had reached his destination, he stopped his thoughts. He really didn’t want to offend a young master right now, just because he thinking about the lack of cheats and heroines.

In front of the gates was a short queue of people, just a few tens of people long. From what Leo had told him, the queue could get longer than a few thousands at times. Since the month had just started and the sect didn’t allow people to queue up before today, moreover because this is an annual event and only has significance in the 5th prefecture, the people who would come weren’t a lot.

The Sunshine Devourer Sect was the the most powerful sect here, not because of some secret fighting skill but because of their endurance skill. If a normal cultivator would faint from lack of energy after a day, the students of the Sunshine Devourer Sect could keep themselves up for at least a couple of days. And this difference only increased as the cultivation level and technique level increased. Based on their name and special skill, Lye had thoughts over what their technique could be. And this really excited him. He had tried absorbing the ambient energy from his surroundings, but it only made him hotter. He couldn’t get his cells to use that energy. He really wanted to see what their technique did to make it happen.

The testing was divided in a number of levels. And 10 people were tested at a time. Whenever a person advanced or was eliminated, the next person came to take up the test. After an hour of so, Lye’s turn came. The first test was to punch a strength measuring pillar that was on the stage. The harder the punch was, the higher the colour on it would climb. To pass, one had to make the light climb to his height. It was because a child would naturally have lower strength than adults, but they wanted future potential in their students. Those without potential but with strength are instead employed as guards.

Lye called fired up his qi and concentrated it in his palm and arm. He made his qi cover up his palm and give it an aerodynamic shape with a pointy edge. The qi in his arm was used to give a lot of impulse to his fist. Some qi, he sent out to reduce the air from the front. He didn’t want air resistance to reduce his force. After making his preparations, which took almost half a minute and had almost called the examiner to send him away to save time, he finally punched the pillar.

BOOM!!! The sound was a lot more subdued than those before him. It was because he had removed a lot of the air that would have transmitted the sound. The light slowly started climbing up. Lye could hear the people talking.

“That strike was trash.” “How dare he waste our time with such a trash strike!” “I had almost thought that we would see an upcoming legend in his making here.” “I bet the light wouldn’t climb higher than his heart.”

Lye was calm on the surface, but his heart was partaking in olympics in his ribcage. He fully believed that he could pass at least this round. But in his strike, at the last moment, a cut in his underarm opened and reduced his power. Slowly the light climbed up. Up and and up it went. From his feet, it reached his kneed, from there to his balls, his kidneys, liver, diaphragm, heart, throat. At the light climbed till his face, the rate of ascent kept on decreasing. Many of the people were already shocked as the sound was a lot less than what the pillar was now showing. Slowly the light reached his eyes and… stopped. The elder overwatching his punch came to send him away. He was a 3 star cultivator and could see what had happened. It was already a lot that the punch was that powerful. But he also knew that it wasn’t a practical punch as the preparations took a lot of time. Moreover, they had to be impartial, or it wouldn’t be good for their image.

Lye sighed and went down the stage. He wasn’t expecting to join this sect but a person can hope, right? The next in line was the Star Seeker Sect.