Ling Bo strides through the winding halls with absent mind.

He cares not for the bowing servants and their curious glance as he passes them, nor the state of obvious poverty he lounges in.

His mind is in full overdrive, sorting all the information and fumbling with the new found gizmo, alias Inventory.

A wood splinter flashes in and out of existence, hovering just a few inches above his palm. Ling Bo found this to be a very addicting activity, easing his boredom as well as tempering his skills for the future.

After he proded around and twiddled a tad bit with the system he gained some helpful insights. For example that the shop is half-empty, the present commodities randomly unlocked, or that he can get terse clarifications of certain items if he bales up his whole concentration.

On the handful of Daos he got some information, although it could be easily conjectured from their names.

The Dao of Battle, obviously, pertains to a battle-rich lifestyle. It suits those best that do not fear a direct confrontation and don't mind getting their hands dirty. In such an environment the results of cultivation shoot through the roof.

He was surprised to learn that -after juxtaposing his memories with the Martial Shop- Daos are very rare auxiliary passive attributes. Only those that fully commit to their respective paths could feel the faintest of improvements in their training.

So it made one wonder, just what was the 'MC Cheat Sheet'.

In Ling Bo it stired peculiar emotions, one being vast rage.

His soul was torn from another world, one he lived in for nearly two decades, one where he made friends and found love, and now he gets presented with such an obvious scathe. That whoever did this to him thinks of it as nothing but a game.

On the other hand he is quite happy to have been granted such a great advantage over his peers, a free pass to a life of exuberance and relaxation. If he played his cards right he could construct a vast empire, one that he stood above and could truly cover with just one hand. He could become divine, attain immortality and surround himself with his most base desires, carnal and infernal.

Because why not.

There are too many people deriding themselves and others for the carnal pleasures they openly seek, here moreso than on Earth. But we are all human, we all seek pleasure, so why deny it?

Those two ideas and ideals clashed with one another. One told of immesurable sorrow only those could feel that were literally ripped from their true place, and the other whispered lullabies of riches and prestige, fame and power.

Ling Bo ruefully smilled. Those puerile thoughts had no place here anymore. Not in this world he himself had experienced untold cruelty and brutality, he too was one of the perpetrators after all! The scars hiding beneath Lan Xi's skin would sooner or later re-surface.

So be it then.

Throughout his spiritual musings Ling Bo's steps did not falter once, he kept walking his steady gait until he reached a groomed court. A lone servant brooming in the dawn, picking up shattered tiles and broken stones.

"Young master Zhu!", he bowed respectfully before placing himself in an inconspicuous corner.

Ling Bo waved the young man off, giving just a simple cursory glance before sitting down on the dew-laden ground.

He steadied his breathing like he had been taught for many years, the knowledge of martial arts arousing from their slumber.

Tuffts like white cotton billowed outwards from his nostrils, forming torrents and whirls when he breathed in again.

Like that he sat in meditation, for a hour and then two. He felt for what he had been accustomed to since his birth, a suplementary organ called the Dantian and its stretching network, the Meridians.

Just how a person feels his heartbeat if he harks long enough so too does one feel the pulsating splendour of power that radiates from the Dantian. Like the tides, deluge and ebb, it flows in and out of one's body, slowly drifting through the web-like Meridian before receeding back again.

Through this process one accumulates the energy that gathers in the veiny Meridians, the might of heaven and earth. It breaks apart even the smallest units of one's body only to rebuild it, stronger and more resilient than before; meanwhile the Dantian grows and stretches out through the continuous influx of essence, before collapsing and drowning the body in the purest energies.

These are the stages of cultivation one has to go through to shed mortality.

Empty Sky, mortal and without strength. The body is weak and the supply of heavenly and earthen radiance sparse. Just like the empty sky, vast and yet so lonely.

Once you can aggregate and give this energy substance you enter the Star Heart realm. Lustrous like a star and brisk like one's heart. The Star Heart realm describes the perpetual contracting of one's inner force. For the first time will you notice the most minuscle details of your body, illumed by the expanding energy that passes through your meridian.

Coincidentally this is Ling Bo's current cultivation.

His bean sized Dantian still needs improvement and has yet to even touch upon the third realm: Crystal Core.

Ling Bo put great emphasis on cultivation, the old Ling and the new. Because this is what makes the world go around, this physically impossible world.

The strong cull the weak, and no one can fault them. Where law enforcement is vague and corrupt, violence and chaos run amuck. In the periphery of sects and clans it is not so uncommon to see a cultivator kill an 'impudent' mortal man, for whatever trite reason. But no one stands up for the deceased, not even their family. Because that means utter destruction, extermination.

Grisly, is it not?

Though at the moment nothing could be done with his meager strength. To bolster his forces, reinforce his conviction and train harder than ever, that is what Ling Bo had to do; to protect those dear to him in the future and tear apart those that oppose him.

Focus and cultivate, nothing else mattered for him at that instant, and a soothing lull entranced him. A peak meditative state and Ling Bo would make full use of it.

"Senior-Brother Ling!"

Or he was just about to before he turned victim of a jarring voice. It had a certain scrappy overtone, as if the owner of the voice was a cyclopean asshole.

The words were unpleasent to listen to, grating to the ears, and Ling Bo suddenly felt the intense urge to beat whoever it was that spoke black and blue.

He stood up from his seated position, dusted off his linen pants and turned to the source of his irritation.

There stood a boy of fifteen years top, baby-faced without the slightest hair, he looked ordinary, too ordinary for comfort, with raven-black bangs covering the dark brown eyes. He had a toothy grin on his face and a slight tilt in the way he stood there, shoulders down and arms sagging on the sides.

Behind him followed a... uhm, yeah... one word: beauty.

A coquettish blush caressed her cheeks whenever her emerald green eyes rested on the common boy and an air of superiority and mystery exuded from her.

Seeing her so shyly stand behind the twat Ling Bo felt an oppresive rage gnaw through his heart.

It was indomitable and disastrous, a conflagration of crimson that wanted to devour the world.

And in that moment, as this hateful flame was kindled and an overbearing and sardonic smirk embellished Ling Bo's lips, a snide and taunting remark stuck in his throat, he realized. This was the main character.

And it all held true.

Zhu Kong Shi. Late stages of the Empty Sky, just a bit better than a normal mortal. An ordinary country-side boy born from the seventh elder, Zhu Kong Min, the black sheep of the clan. His father got grievously wounded in his early adulthood and now he tends the fields with his dutiful wife. A quaint family of three; four, if you add the orphan Xiao Murong, shrouded in mystery and wrapped in an enigma.

This... This is a true blue MC, truly in the truest sense of the word...

Ling Bo shuddered and braved the confrontation. He did not fear him, he could NOT fear him. What is Plot Armor? What is heaven defying-luck?! He would take it all from him and steal his title.