Fifteen minutes have passed since the geology exams were passed out. I had yet to write anything more than my name – and only because I wanted to have one right answer on my test, at the very least. The questions had made very little sense, as if written for an advanced level course rather than an introductory one.

Figures. I should have been a bit more wary about her warning at the start of the test, that she suddenly changed the exam the day before to ensure proper academic standards were being met. Someone apparently had snitched about the final, one that was to more measure how much they learned rather than be a comprehensive final. Perfectly fine and expected, given the teacher’s goal to foster interest within geology, or even science, itself rather than demand the highest forms of scientific excellence.

And now, the exam is a fifteen-page monstrosity with questions a paragraph long, expecting answers even longer. Reading the questions alone took ten minutes themselves. I had very few answers, a lot more speculation but still lacked the fluff to sufficiently answer most of them. What luck.

Taking a moment for a deep breath, I look around the room. Perhaps, I had somehow walked into the wrong exam room at the wrong period – might be the wrong day perhaps. I had been drinking more than a bit last night. Then spent the rest of the night working a xianxia wikia on some drunken high. Not my smartest series of decisions, but last night was the only time for all of us to have a party. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

But no, I recognize the majority of the faces, despite knowing only a couple of names, so I’m in the right place. Not the only one struggling – many stared at their pages as if they were collectively making a montage of confusion and frustration. I felt a little better now. It was one thing if everyone struggled and another thing entirely if it was just me.

No, I’m a psychology major, not geology. Just need a science lab credit and off I go. Thankfully, I planned around this little hiccup in advance – taking the course pass/fail, so I only need a thirty percent on this particular test for my goals. Before tackling the exam once more, I take a swig of my water bottle – rum and coke, not my favorite but the only thing available until Rael picks up in the afternoon.

I finish the exam within the next hour and a half – would have been faster if I knew more answers and did not have to sit there wishing an answer would magically pop up into my head, something that worked a lot more often than it should. Granted, given how much I did know, I was bound to remember something relevant here and there. Only after I estimated my grade would be around thirty percent, with some extra points for safety, that I turn the exam in.

No more exams. Third year of college is now over. Time to celebrate, I muse, walking out of the room.

The moment my right foot touches the ground, the world turns white, like some hyperbolic time chamber or like I have tried human transmutation. Overall, good signs everywhere.

A white vista, as far as my eyes can see, stretch out into the distance. Whether ten inches away or ten miles, I cannot tell, for the world has a uniform consistency: a monotone white that gave no hint of lighting, depth or edges. My feet buckle from confusion and I fall face first, my hands appear in front of me, somehow, but the ground is the same as the rest of the world and I misjudge just how far away it was. My head hits the ground, tingling along with my wrists.

I pat around the ground for my water bottle, but it’s gone. Of course, it’s gone. I left it back in reality, where I should be. I shake my head. This is just a dream. What other explanation is there for an exam switcheroo and sudden isekai?

I would like to say that my meditation practices has allowed me to keep calm in such troubling situations, but I have meditated like I have exercised: insufficiently. No, I have yet to scream not because I do not want to, but because my body seems to have disappeared somewhere along the way with my fears. So I’m left metaphorically twiddling my thumbs as I overcome a paralysis that renders my vision, hearing and smell completely moot.

Fear turns into boredom. The novelty of being trapped without senses can only last so long when nothing bad happens – my nerves may be frayed since that seems to be gone as well, or this dream has finally run out of ideas.

Then a golden scroll appears before me, slowly unveiling thousands of words as it opens:

“To whom it may concern:

I am Ratel, a Divinity of Quellion, a spokesperson of the Colorful Peaks. I reckon that you may be a tiny bit confused about your current circumstances – I have summoned you in hopes that you may save both Quellion and the Colorful Peaks from an untimely destruction. I wish I would be able to talk with you in person but, due to a minor hiccup on my end, I will cease to exist before that.

Your current state of affairs, with your dying body and all, is rather troubling, but fear not. I, or my partner mostly likely, will address such concerns. More likely, your lack of choice in the matter, compounded by the death of your body, does not sit well with you. I deeply apologize for this – although my premonitions told me that this was necessary for the survival of my and Li Angry’s homelands, this particular manifestation was unknown. The Divine Item that allowed the summoning to occur has broken, so I am unable to send you back.

Given that things have already transpired to this point, I can only offer a few options, all of which involve reincarnation given I fear you will not last long as an itinerant soul:

Being reincarnated into a fairly-sized merchant family, who would be able to provide you resources and cultivation techniques to live a fairly luxurious life but without heavy responsibilities and safe from world-wide political machinations. No punishment, but no help from me or Li Angry – but still a good situation nonetheless. As an apology for my inconvenience and your losses. Being reincarnated into the midst of the Colorful Peaks, also a merchant family, with some additional support by me and Li Angry to help you along with cultivation, with some responsibilities and tasks – which can increase depending on the amount of help you so desire from us. Being reincarnated into largest alchemy family, the Ying family, in the Orange Peak, which would provide vast resources of being part of such a family and even more specialized help from me and Li Angry. The difficult but feasible responsibilities, however, are as great as the benefits, to be carried out before the Spiritual Realm descends in 10,000 D.E. It’s currently 9984 D.E…..”

There are only the three options, but the letter continues for quite a bit longer: explaining the situation, the requirements, potential dangers. Overall, I’m quite satisfied with how upfront that Ratel is. Also given that my very soul is on the line, I actually read the terms and conditions to the best of my ability – would be embarrassing if I did not and was punished for it. Nothing explicitly insinuates retaliation in any three situations – that failure to comply in the third situation would activate an oath of silence, preventing me from telling anyone my unique status and some other measures ensuring that my family does not do anything to compromise Ratel’s goals.

What does seem clear is that this setting described within this letter is awfully reminiscent of the wuxia/xianxia web novel of Overturning the Heavens, though Xin Feng, the main character, is only mentioned as one of many fated individuals destined to create great changes, rather than the primary contributor. Then again, with the phrasing of the letter, it seems that Overturning the Heavens seems like one possible future considered by Ratel, with these other people mentioned perhaps considering different timelines.

While I do not know about the Ying family in particular – mainly due to the fact that the story started in 9995 D.E., where Xin Feng was unable to visit Orange Peaks or most of the later peaks due to personal conflicts that kept him away (ahem, typical xianxia early antagonist). Enough of a picture is created, combined with my own knowledge, so I can understand the situation. If I do read it correctly, being the child of a random merchant family and the Ying family results in a huge difference in status and resources. Not big enough to prevent me from cultivating altogether, but big enough that cultivation past the fourth realm in any reasonable amount of time would be a pipe dream. Not a problem if cultivation only allowed me to look cool, but it is directly tied with my socioeconomic standing and even survival.

So the first option is safe, as in Ratel will not smite me and the casual wind or stranger will not kill me. Not the I’m guaranteed to live to 15 kind of safe. Cultivator world is harsh man and say what you will about various flaws the 2000s but mortality rates have dropped considerably compared to the Middle Ages. Second option still seems the worst – I don’t know much about mortal to Divinity bureaucratic correspondence, but half-assed commitment is bound to get half-assed responses, especially when the Divinity has a vested steak in an affair I could not pretend to care about.

Third option only consigns me to, effectively, to ten years of service from 9990 D.E. to 10000 D.E. Removes almost all chances of me dying to casual discretion, though does introduce the chance of any major screw up on my part ending in the murder of poor little me. However, Ratel would be very unlikely to allow me to die without first helping them with their tasks, so early survival should not be a problem. Assuming they need my help, which is a really big if. And if this is really Overthrowing the Heavens, which I’m not quite sure it is. A lot of the details do add up, but not enough that I’m willing to bet on it with my life.

Coming to a decision isn’t easy – I debate between options one and three, flickering back and forth as I realize different possibilities, which include galaxy brain, one-hundred dimensional chess strategies, which I think is more my paranoia talking to me than anything else.

My rumination gets cut short with the intrusion of a new letter scroll:

“Hello,

This is your five minute warning before option one is automatically implemented.

Your greatest supporter,

Ascetic Li.”

Well that settles it. Option three it is. Go big or go home. According to the scroll, I should be able to reach the fourth realm in five years anyways choosing option three, a much better deal than the rank two or three I would achieve by myself otherwise. I choose option three, which brightens up as the scroll crumbles to dust.

Nothing happens for a few moments before everything – my sight, hearing, touch – begins to work again. Admittedly, each sensation feels soften and distant, with vision suffering the least. Walls soar into the mountains, which admittedly is not very hard when the clouds rest only fifty feet above the ground. Only parts of the walls reach the sky, the sentry outposts, with the rest of the wall half as tall.

I have very little control of where I am heading, but like water sinking down a drain, my spiral path gradually shrinks. Only I get faster and faster the further I go, so while I could calmly see the city walls at first, by the time I enter the city, everything around me becomes no more than a blur. The land does feel sparsely populated from what I can see, which seems odd. And given how high the clouds suggest this place is, children walk freely without any trouble breathing. Truly peculiar.

I slam into something and return to the darkness. In the womb, finally. For I cannot see my body, only sense that I am an infinitesimal dot. At least, the chances of dying in this darkness would be relatively small. Right? A Divinity would not reincarnate me only for me to die before birth right?

And, for the third time, in the day I have been conscious, I feel a sense of powerlessness overtake me. So I look at the shelf filled of scrolls in my mind.

Nothing like nine months of complete darkness and nowhere to go to incentivize some reading.