Gentle droplets of rain fell upon the neon city, a sprawling metropolis alive with colors where countless lights pierced through the darkness. The streets, ordinarily packed with hurrying crowds, had come to a sudden standstill, every eye focused on one terrible spot.
A body lay sprawled in the center of the intersection, surrounded by an ever-growing circle of onlookers. His breathing came in ragged, desperate gasps; his clothes were thoroughly soaked—not just from rain, but from his own blood spreading across the wet pavement. Before him sat a delivery truck, its front grille painted crimson, steam rising from its damaged hood.
The crowd began to murmur, voices overlapping as people processed what they were witnessing:
"Must've been a drunk driving accident."
"Someone! Call an ambulance!"
"Is he gonna be okay? There's so much blood..."
"His leg—oh god, don't look at his leg."
"Where's the driver? Did anyone see the driver?"
"Everyone! The ambulance has arrived!"
"Make way! Let them through!"
The piercing wail of sirens grew louder with each passing second, but for the man lying broken in the street, time had begun to move differently. His eyelids grew impossibly heavy; his vision started to blur at the edges, the neon lights above bleeding together into meaningless streaks of color. The voices around him faded, becoming distant and muffled, as if he were sinking underwater.
The cold pavement beneath him no longer felt cold. He felt nothing at all.
Then, cutting through the fog of his fading consciousness, a voice rang in his ears—crisp, clear, and utterly devoid of warmth.
"At last, darkness."
---
His soul—or what remained of his awareness—floated in an endless void. There was no up or down, no sense of time or space. Just infinite, absolute darkness pressing in from all sides.
In this emptiness, questions rose unbidden from the depths of his being, echoing through the nothingness:
*How does fate suddenly change its plans so completely? Was my life worth so little? Or was it simply that I was too incompetent to avoid this end?*
*What did I accomplish? What mark did I leave? Did I matter at all?*
The questions reverberated endlessly, unanswered, until suddenly—warmth.
It was subtle at first, like the memory of sunlight rather than sunlight itself. But it grew steadily stronger, wrapping around his formless existence like a blanket. It felt as though a small flame had been kindled somewhere deep within the core of what he was.
The absolute darkness began to shift and warp. The pure, empty blackness gradually lightened to a murky gray, swirling with unseen currents. Reality itself seemed to be unraveling and reforming around him.
His soul—if that's what it truly was—suddenly registered new sensations. Warmth. Then coldness. Then something else entirely: a distinct wetness on what felt like his forehead. The sensation was startlingly familiar, achingly real.
It felt like being alive.
His eyes snapped open.
Above him stretched a wooden ceiling, weathered and aged, with visible gaps between the planks. Through one of these gaps, rainwater dripped steadily downward, each cold droplet landing squarely on his face.
*Drip.*
*Drip.*
*Drip.*
Irritation flared. He sat up abruptly—too abruptly—his head spinning from the sudden movement. As his vision cleared and the dizziness subsided, he took in his surroundings with growing bewilderment.
The room was small and sparsely furnished. Traditional items surrounded him: porcelain cups decorated with faded designs, a low wooden table, paper screens with delicate paintings of mountains and rivers. Everything looked old, well-used, and distinctly... Chinese? But not modern. Not even close to modern.
His gaze fell upon a bronze mirror hanging on the far wall. Driven by confusion and a growing sense of wrongness, he stumbled toward it.
The face that stared back at him was not his own.
Or rather, it was and it wasn't. The features were similar enough to be recognizable—average, unremarkable—but younger, somehow different in subtle ways he couldn't quite articulate. His attire consisted of a hanfu, a traditional Chinese robe, but one that had clearly seen better days. The black and gray fabric was worn thin in places, covered with crude stitches where tears had been mended. His hair had grown long, falling past his shoulders in messy, unkempt tangles.
"What... what the hell?" His voice sounded strange in his ears—the same but different, like everything else.
Confusion gave way to frantic energy. His hands moved automatically, gathering his hair and tying it back using a strip of cloth he found nearby. The familiar motion helped ground him, gave him something concrete to focus on while his mind raced.
*How the hell did I get here? Where am I? What happened? The truck—the accident—I should be dead. I should be...*
The cold breeze carried the scent of rain through gaps in the walls, cutting through his thin robes and making him shiver. His stomach clenched painfully, reminding him that this body, whatever else it might be, was hungry.
The storm outside intensified. Thunder rolled across the sky like the drums of war, so loud and close that it felt as though gods were battling in the heavens above.
He began searching frantically through the small hut, pulling open cabinets and checking every corner. Food. He needed food. And something warmer to wear, if possible. The cold was seeping into his bones.
Finally, in a cramped storage room at the back of the hut, he found salvation: a loaf of bread sitting on a rough wooden table. It was hard and slightly stale, but it was food. Beside it lay a book—no, a diary—covered in a thick layer of dust.
He tore into the bread immediately, barely chewing before swallowing. The taste was plain, almost bitter, but his stomach didn't care. As he ate, his eyes kept returning to the diary.
Curiosity won out over caution.
Setting down what remained of the bread, he picked up the diary and carefully opened its aged pages. The characters were in Chinese—which he somehow understood perfectly despite never having studied the language—and as he read, his confusion began to transform into something else entirely.
This world... this place he'd found himself in... it wasn't Earth. Or rather, it wasn't the Earth he knew.
According to the diary's entries, this was a world of cultivation—a world where people could harness mystical energy called Chi, where martial artists could split mountains and immortals walked among mortals. The very world he'd dreamed about during countless sleepless nights, the world he'd read about in novels and imagined himself in when reality became too mundane, too disappointing.
His expression shifted from relief to pure, unbridled joy.
"My dream? It finally became real! Yes! YES!"
He jumped to his feet, the diary clutched in his hands, and began pacing excitedly around the small hut. He tried to recall everything he'd ever read about cultivation, every technique and method and principle. The diary mentioned something about gathering Chi, about channeling internal energy...
He planted his feet firmly, closed his eyes, and thrust his hands forward dramatically.
"Fire Blast!"
Nothing happened.
He tried again, adjusting his stance and putting more emotion into it.
"Raging Fire!"
Still nothing.
"FIRE! FIRE POWER!"
The only response was the continued patter of rain and the rumble of thunder.
He was about to try again when a lightning bolt struck a tree just outside the hut, so close that the flash was blinding and the crack of impact made his ears ring. The hair on his arms stood up from the residual electricity in the air.
Heart pounding, he rushed outside into the storm. The wind whipped his robes around him, and rain immediately began soaking through the thin fabric. Another lightning strike split the sky, followed by a sound that didn't belong to any storm—an explosion, massive and ground-shaking.
The source was close. Very close.
Against every instinct screaming at him to stay inside, to stay safe, his curiosity pulled him forward. He ran toward the sound, slipping in mud, branches catching at his clothes.
He found a crater.
At its center lay a figure bound in glowing ropes that pulsed with an eerie light. The man was old, his white beard stained with blood that poured from his mouth. His robes, once fine and elaborate, were torn and saturated with both rain and blood. His breathing came in shallow, rattling gasps.
As the young man—Zhung Hang, he suddenly remembered, that was the name that belonged to this body—approached cautiously, another roar of thunder split the air. But this time, it wasn't thunder.
The old man's eyes snapped open, focusing on Zhung Hang with desperate intensity. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse but urgent.
"You... passerby..." He coughed, more blood staining his lips. "I am... Shin Luo, grandmaster of the Heavenly Sect. You must... you must run. The beast is coming. Don't stay here! RUN!"
Before Zhung Hang could respond, before he could even process the words, the ground began to tremble. Not like an earthquake—this was rhythmic, pounding, the tremor of something massive approaching with terrible purpose.
From the darkness of the storm emerged a sight that defied comprehension: the Thunder Scale Dragon.
It was enormous, easily the size of a building, its serpentine body covered in scales that crackled with electrical energy. Its eyes glowed like molten gold, fixed on the crater—on them. Each step it took shook the earth. Lightning seemed to dance around it, attracted to its presence.
Fear, primal and overwhelming, seized Zhung Hang's heart.
But somehow, through the panic, he found his voice.
"I'm Zhung Hang," he gasped, already moving toward the old man. "And our goal today is simple—survive!"
He hauled the old man onto his back, grunting under the unexpected weight, and ran. The bound master was heavier than he looked, but adrenaline gave Zhung Hang strength he didn't know he possessed.
Behind them, the dragon roared, and the very air seemed to vibrate with its fury.
Zhung Hang crashed through the forest, branches whipping at his face, roots threatening to trip him with every step. His mind raced as fast as his legs, trying desperately to remember everything he'd just read in the diary.
"Fire Blast!" he shouted breathlessly.
Nothing.
"Raging Fire!"
Still nothing.
"FIRE! Any kind of FIRE! PLEASE!"
On his back, the old man let out a weak chuckle despite their dire situation. "Young man," he wheezed, "what... what spell are you trying to use?"
"Fire! I'm trying to use fire! As a distraction!" Zhung Hang's lungs burned, his legs screamed in protest, but he didn't dare slow down. The crashing and roaring behind them was getting closer.
"Then... listen carefully..." The old man coughed again. "Spells... don't work through shouting. You must feel your Chi. Close your eyes—"
"My eyes are definitely staying open!"
"—in your mind's eye, then. Feel the warmth in your heart, your burning desire to survive. Chi exists in everything around you, in the air, in the earth, in the life that fills this forest. Reach out with your senses. Feel it."
Zhung Hang wanted to argue, wanted to say this was insane, but desperation made him compliant. As he ran, slipping and sliding through mud, he tried to do as instructed.
At first, there was nothing. Just his own ragged breathing, his pounding heart, the burning in his muscles.
Then—there. A warmth that had nothing to do with exertion. It was subtle, like candlelight in a dark room, but it was there. In his chest, spreading outward. And not just in him—in the trees around him, in the very air, countless tiny sparks of energy floating like invisible embers.
"I feel it!" he gasped. "I feel something!"
The old man laughed again, this time with genuine pleasure. "Excellent! You have talent, young man. Remarkable talent for a beginner. Now—what spell were you attempting? Tell me its name."
"Uh—Fire Blast? No, wait, maybe Flame Burst? I don't remember exactly!"
"Flame Burst it is, then. One of the most basic techniques, so simple that children of twelve can master it." The old man's voice grew stronger as he fell into the familiar role of teacher. "Yet you must learn to walk before you run. Listen: visualize a flame within your center, where your Chi gathers. Feed it with your energy. Then push that burning Chi outward—through your meridians, down your arm, out through your fingertip."
Zhung Hang tried to split his attention between running and visualizing. The warm sensation in his chest intensified. He imagined it as a flame, small but growing. He fed it his desperation, his fear, his will to live.
The warmth traveled down his right arm, concentrating in his hand. His fingertip began to tingle, then burn—not painfully, but with gathering power.
He pointed his finger at a tree ahead and to the right.
"Release it!" the old man commanded. "Let your Chi flow free!"
Zhung Hang did.
A ball of flame, roughly the size of his fist, materialized at his fingertip. It hovered there for a moment, flickering but stable, responding to his will like an extension of his own body.
"It worked! It actually worked!"
"Now direct it! Use your mind! Make it fly!"
Zhung Hang focused on the fireball, imagining it shooting forward like an arrow. The sphere of flame obeyed, streaking through the rain toward the tree. When it struck, the explosion was tremendous—louder than any thunder, a blast of heat and light that momentarily turned night into day.
The tree didn't just burn; it shattered, wood fragments flying in all directions.
Behind them, the Thunder Scale Dragon faltered, its attention drawn to the sudden explosion. It turned toward the source of the noise, momentarily losing track of its fleeing prey.
That moment was all they needed.
Zhung Hang veered sharply left, plunging deeper into the forest, away from the crater and the dragon. The old man's weight on his back felt lighter now, or perhaps he'd simply found his second wind. They ran until the roaring faded, until the thunderous footsteps grew distant, until finally the sounds of pursuit disappeared entirely.
Only then did Zhung Hang allow himself to slow, his body finally giving out. He half-stumbled, half-collapsed against a tree, sliding down its trunk until he sat in the mud, the old man still on his back.
They'd survived.
They'd actually survived.
---
By the time they reached the hut—Zhung Hang never knew how he found it again in the dark—the storm had begun to subside. Dawn was still hours away, but the rain had gentled to a drizzle, and the thunder had moved on to terrorize some other part of the world.
Inside, Zhung Hang carefully lowered the old man to the floor, then immediately set about starting a fire in the small hearth. His hands shook from exhaustion and residual fear, but eventually he coaxed the kindling into flames. Warmth began to fill the room, chasing away the bone-deep chill.
The old man—Shin Luo—sat with his back against the wall, eyes closed. The glowing ropes that had bound him had faded away at some point during their flight. Zhung Hang noticed with relief that the master's breathing, while still labored, had grown steadier.
Food. They both needed food.
Zhung Hang returned to the storage room and scrounged up what little provisions remained: some dried vegetables, a bit of rice, and some preserved meat of questionable age. It wasn't much, but it would have to do. He prepared a simple meal over the fire, the familiar motions of cooking oddly comforting after the nightmare of the past few hours.
As they ate in companionable silence, Zhung Hang's curiosity finally overcame his exhaustion.
"Master Shin," he began tentatively, "what were you doing out there? How did you end up bound in that crater? And..." He paused, organizing his thoughts. "Where exactly are we? What is this place?"
The old master finished chewing slowly before answering. When he spoke, his voice was much stronger than before, the food and warmth having revived him considerably.
"Those are good questions, young Zhung Hang. Very good questions." He smiled. "Firstly, I was on a mission for the Heavenly Sect. There are rare spiritual herbs that grow only on Thundering Mountain—where the Thunder Scale Dragon makes its lair. I had hoped to harvest them while the beast was sleeping, but..." He chuckled ruefully. "It seems my footsteps were not as light as I believed. I woke the dragon, and it chased me across half the mountain range. The bindings you saw were the remnants of a sealing formation I attempted while fleeing. It did not work as well as I'd hoped."
Zhung Hang listened, fascinated. This was the world of cultivation novels made real—powerful masters, dangerous beasts, spiritual herbs. It was everything he'd dreamed of.
"Secondly," Shin Luo continued, his expression growing more serious, "we are in the Forest of Souls. This is not a place where the living typically dwell. The resentment of those who died here lingers, transforming the departed into vengeful spirits. They prey upon any warm-blooded creature unfortunate enough to wander into their domain." He looked at Zhung Hang with genuine curiosity. "I must ask—how is it that you survived here? The spirits should have consumed you long ago."
Zhung Hang opened his mouth, then closed it. How could he explain? *I'm not from this world, I died in a truck accident and woke up in this body*? That sounded insane even to him.
"I... don't know," he admitted finally. "I only recently arrived at this hut. Perhaps I was fortunate."
Shin Luo studied him for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "Perhaps. Or perhaps there is something about you that the spirits cannot touch. Interesting."
"And the Heavenly Sect?" Zhung Hang pressed. "You mentioned it's to the northwest?"
"Indeed. Travel northwest from here, and you will eventually find the Soaring Peak—a mountain so tall its summit touches the clouds. At its base, you will find ten thousand stairs carved into the stone. Climb these stairs to the top, and there you will find the Heavenly Sect, the greatest cultivation sect in this region." Pride colored his voice. "I have been a master there for over three hundred years."
Three hundred years. Zhung Hang's mind reeled at the number. In this world, such longevity was apparently not just possible but expected for powerful cultivators.
The old master's expression shifted, becoming contemplative. "Young Zhung Hang," he said quietly, "would you become my disciple?"
The words hung in the air between them.
"I saw something in you tonight," Shin Luo continued. "You gathered Chi on your first attempt, while running for your life, in a state of absolute panic. Do you understand how remarkable that is? Most initiates require weeks of meditation in peaceful conditions before they can even sense their Chi, let alone gather and channel it. You did it in minutes, under the worst possible circumstances."
He leaned forward, his eyes intense despite his exhaustion.
"I am old, Zhung Hang. I have lived for centuries, and I have trained hundreds of disciples. But rarely—perhaps never—have I encountered such natural talent. If you will accept me as your master, I will teach you everything I know. Every technique, every secret, every scrap of wisdom I have accumulated across my long life. I will guide you on the path of cultivation until you surpass even me."
Zhung Hang's breath caught in his throat. This was it. The moment where his new life truly began. Where fantasy became reality, where dreams transformed into destiny.
Without hesitation, he dropped to his knees and bowed, pressing his forehead to the floor in the traditional gesture of respect between student and teacher.
"Yes!" The word burst from him with all the joy and excitement he felt. "Yes, I will learn from you, Master! I will honor your teachings and walk the path of cultivation with everything I have!"
Shin Luo smiled, and in that moment, he looked younger, the weight of his centuries lifting slightly.
"Then rise, my disciple. Today, you begin your journey toward immortality."
---
*Three Hundred Years Later*
The autumn leaves drifted lazily through the courtyard, painted in shades of gold and crimson by the morning sun. The sky was clear, bright, peaceful—a perfect day.
In a room overlooking this courtyard, an old man sat by the window, watching the leaves fall. His hair was white as fresh snow, his face lined with the passage of countless years, but his eyes remained sharp and clear.
"Master Hang! Master Hang!"
Children's voices called up from below, filled with youthful enthusiasm. Zhung Hang—now Master Hang, elder of the Heavenly Sect—opened the window and looked down at the group of young disciples gathered beneath.
"Master Hang! Can you teach us the Flame Burst technique today? Please?"
He smiled, the expression creasing his weathered face. "I'm sorry, children. Not today. I have matters to attend to. Perhaps tomorrow."
Their faces fell in unison, disappointment evident in every line of their small bodies.
"Aww, what a bummer..."
"He always says tomorrow..."
"Maybe we should ask Master Chen instead?"
They wandered off, their voices fading into the general sounds of the sect going about its daily business.
Zhung Hang closed the window and turned back to his room. At two hundred and eighty-nine years old, he had earned the right to spend his mornings in quiet contemplation rather than teaching the same basic techniques he'd mastered three centuries ago.
Master Shin Luo had passed away many decades ago, finally succumbing to the accumulated wounds from his battles with the Heavenly Demon. That dark entity, that force of pure malevolence, had plagued the cultivation world for nearly a century. Zhung Hang could still remember the names and faces of every master who had fallen in that long war.
His own master had been among them—dying to buy time for the other sects to prepare their defenses. Then Master Wei, who had sacrificed herself to destroy one of the Demon's strongholds. Master Qiao, who had held the Northern Pass alone for seven days and seven nights before finally falling. So many names. So many faces.
In the end, it had fallen to Zhung Hang himself, the promising disciple who had become a legendary master in his own right, to face the Heavenly Demon in final combat. He had won—barely. The Demon was destroyed, its dark essence scattered beyond recovery.
But victory had come at a cost. The final exchange of techniques had left Zhung Hang with severe internal injuries to his Chi pathways. He could still cultivate, still teach, but his own advancement had stopped. He would never reach the level of immortality that had once seemed within his grasp.
He didn't regret it. How could he? The Demon's defeat had brought peace to countless people, had saved the cultivation world from darkness. His own stunted progression was a small price to pay.
Still, some mornings the weight of those memories pressed heavily upon him.
Sighing, Zhung Hang began tidying his room, letting the familiar routine soothe his thoughts. He needed to organize his scrolls, dust the shelves, perhaps finally sort through some of the old books he'd accumulated over his long life.
As he lifted a stack of manuscripts, his foot caught on something. He looked down to see a book he didn't remember owning—small, bound in leather that had faded to a nondescript brown.
Curious, he picked it up and brushed away the thick layer of dust that covered it. The moment his fingers touched the leather, a strange sensation ran through him—not quite alarm, but a feeling of significance, as though he'd stumbled upon something important.
He opened the book carefully, mindful of its apparent age.
The pages were blank except for the very first one. There, in script that seemed to shift and shimmer as he looked at it, were written three simple lines:
*Everything is an Illusion.*
*None of it is Real.*
*Heaven was Playing you.*
Zhung Hang stared at the words, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. His hands began to tremble—not with age or weakness, but with a feeling he couldn't name.
Deep in his mind, in a place he had long forgotten, a memory stirred: neon lights bleeding together, the sound of sirens, cold pavement beneath his back, and a voice speaking from the darkness.
*"At last, darkness."*
The book slipped from his fingers, falling to the floor with a soft thud.
In the courtyard below, the children's laughter continued. The autumn leaves kept falling. The sun kept shining.
And in his room, Master Zhung Hang stood frozen, staring at three lines of impossible text, while somewhere in the back of his mind, a truck's horn echoed across three hundred years.
---
**End of Chapter 1**