Chapter 1 — Trash Root, Same Name, Strange Green Script
Part 1 — Waking Up in Poverty
Lu Yuan opened his eyes and stared at a roof that looked like it might collapse if the wind blew a little harder.
The ceiling was made of uneven wooden beams and straw stuffing, patched in places with old cloth and mud. Thin lines of sunlight stabbed through the gaps, cutting the dim room into slanted strips of light and shadow.
The air smelled damp—like wet soil, stale smoke, and mold that had lived here longer than any person. Each breath felt heavy, as if the hut itself was tired.
He blinked, once, twice, trying to understand where he was.
This wasn't Blue Star.
On Blue Star, he remembered concrete, glass, and electric lights. He remembered noise that never stopped. He remembered his own name being printed on IDs and screens.
Here, the only "screen" was a cracked window paper trembling in the breeze.
Lu Yuan lifted his arm, but his body protested immediately. A dull ache spread from his shoulder into his ribs, and when he inhaled a little deeper, pain pinched his chest as if something inside was bruised.
He gritted his teeth and sat up slowly.
The bed was nothing more than a wooden board with a thin straw mat. The quilt on top had been stitched and restitched so many times that its original color was impossible to guess.
His eyes swept the room.
A broken clay bowl sat near the wall. A water jar with a chipped mouth leaned against a stool missing one leg. A small charcoal brazier held cold ash. In the corner, a pile of worn clothes and dried grass served as "storage."
Poor wasn't the right word.
This place was the kind of poverty that didn't even have the energy to look messy—it was simply empty.
Lu Yuan stared at his hands.
They were rough, calloused, and stained faint green in the creases, as if he'd been crushing leaves and handling herbs for days. His knuckles were scraped, and there were old bruises on his forearms that hadn't fully faded.
His throat tightened.
"Lu… Yuan…" he whispered.
The name came naturally, as if his tongue had said it a thousand times.
That was the strangest part—because on Blue Star, his name was Lu Yuan too.
Same name. Different world. Different body.
Before he could form another thought, a violent wave surged through his mind.
Memories—sharp, heavy, not his but somehow already carved into him—flooded in like a broken dam.
He grabbed the edge of the bed, breathing hard, as scenes and emotions slammed into his awareness.
A dirt road. A crowded town gate. A mountain in the distance with buildings perched like immortal palaces. A boy's heart full of fire.
Another Lu Yuan's life.
A loose cultivator's life.
And—absurdly—this loose cultivator also had the same name as him.
Lu Yuan shut his eyes, and the memories continued anyway, threading themselves into his mind as if they belonged there from the beginning.
Part 2 — Aspirations Crushed, Life on the Outskirts, A Dumb Death
He remembered the first time "he" entered this cultivation world with great aspiration.
Back then, he was just a youth from a mortal country—one of countless people living under the shadow of a sect. Mortals farmed, traded, and survived, but the sky belonged to cultivators.
The town he lived near was controlled by a sect, and the sect had a Supreme Elder—a Golden Core cultivator—an existence spoken of like a living storm.
In a place like that, a Golden Core was not just strong. It was law, fear, and destiny combined.
The memory shifted.
The Spirit Root Testing Ceremony.
A stone platform. A tall stele carved with ancient patterns. A line of youths, eyes shining as they waited for their turn, believing that Heaven would choose them.
Lu Yuan—this body's Lu Yuan—stepped forward with his heart pounding, palms sweating, and dreams so loud they drowned out the crowd.
One youth pressed his hand to the stele—only one color bloomed, pure and bright.
The elder overseeing the test straightened slightly. "Single root. Heavenly talent."
Another youth had two colors. "Dual root. Good."
Another had three. "Three roots. Acceptable."
Even four colors appeared for a few. The elder's voice remained indifferent, but the meaning was clear: "Four roots… can enter as a servant disciple."
Then it was Lu Yuan's turn.
His palm touched the stele.
Light exploded—five colors, tangled together like muddy paint: metal, wood, water, fire, earth.
For one breath, it looked magnificent.
For the next breath, it turned into humiliation.
The elder's eyes dulled as if he'd seen something boring. "Five-element spirit root. Mixed."
Whispers stabbed from every side: "Trash root." "Slowest." "Waste."
The elder spoke the rules like reciting weather. "Only those with three spirit roots and above may enter the sect."
His gaze swept the crowd coldly. "Even servant disciples must have at least four element spirit roots."
Then the final slap: "Five-element… leave."
No discussion. No second chance. No mercy.
That was the moment Lu Yuan's aspiration shattered.
High talent meant everything—Single/Heavenly roots cultivated fastest, like they were born running on the sky-road.
Low talent meant suffering—Five-Element or Mixed Roots cultivated slowest, so slow they were called "trash roots," the kind that ate resources but never produced results.
Yet this Lu Yuan refused to go back to being only mortal.
He stayed near the town, stubbornly stepping onto the path as a loose cultivator.
The memory showed him at twenty-five years old—thin, tired, and still not broken.
He lived in the outskirts, where the town walls ended and poorer huts began. Mortals there didn't have protection, and loose cultivators had even less. If something went wrong, nobody cared.
He barely made a living.
Some days he carried sacks for merchants. Some days he escorted carts for a few copper coins and a tiny spirit fragment if he was lucky. Some days he went into the wild hills to gather herbs, risking beasts and bandits just to sell leaves that sect stores wouldn't even glance at.
The sect disciples looked down from above. The town guards bowed to sect tokens. Even arrogant servant disciples—people rejected everywhere else—walked through the streets like they owned them.
Strength was everything in this cruel world.
Without strength, everything was dangerous.
If you were weak, you didn't even know which shadow would kill you.
Lu Yuan's cultivation was Qi Cultivation, 2nd layer.
At twenty-five, with a five-element spirit root, he didn't have the chance to break through to the mid stage of Qi Cultivation. Mid stage was layers four to six—a wall built from pills, techniques, and resources he could not afford.
Still, he worked like an ox.
He saved everything.
Every copper. Every spirit fragment. Every chance.
In the memory, the turning point arrived: he finally bought a cultivation pill—one meant to help a Qi Cultivation cultivator break through from layer two to layer three.
It wasn't some legendary treasure.
But to a trash root loose cultivator, it was a year's worth of hope compressed into a single round bead.
He held the pill close to his chest, walking home with trembling excitement.
And then came the dumb reason for his death.
Not a mighty enemy. Not a grand conspiracy. Not a sect elder's wrath.
Just stupidity, poverty, and bad luck—because weak people didn't get "worthy" deaths.
On the way back, he tried to save a few copper coins by taking a narrow shortcut behind the market—a muddy lane where waste water ran in a shallow ditch.
It had rained earlier. The stones were slick with moss.
He was too focused on the pill in his pouch—too happy, too careless.
His foot slipped.
He fell hard.
His head struck the edge of a stone step with a dull crack.
For a moment he couldn't breathe. His vision spun. His ears rang.
He tried to stand, but his limbs didn't listen.
In that half-conscious blur, he felt hands—quick, shameless hands—ripping at his clothes.
Someone stole his pouch.
Someone stole his pill.
He heard laughter—distant, muffled, like it came from underwater.
He wanted to shout, but his throat wouldn't open.
He tried to gather qi, but his meridians felt like clogged channels.
And then the cold crept in.
With insufficient strength, he didn't even know who took his life—only that the world had swallowed him without effort.
The memory ended with a simple truth: in this world, weak people died for dumb reasons all the time.
Part 3 — The Green Script and "Alchemic Enlightment"
Lu Yuan gasped and opened his eyes, snapping back to the poor hut.
Sweat clung to his back as if he'd run for miles, yet he hadn't moved more than a few breaths.
The memories were finished.
He—Blue Star Lu Yuan—had transmigrated into the body of that dead loose cultivator Lu Yuan, inheriting his name, his wounds, and his bitterness.
He pressed a hand to his chest and breathed carefully through the pain in his ribs.
"So I died… and woke up as a man who also died," he muttered, voice hoarse.
Outside the hut, the town was waking. He could hear footsteps, carts, and distant shouting.
Somewhere beyond the town walls, the sect's mountain buildings still sat above the clouds, untouched by the suffering below.
Lu Yuan's expression turned cold.
Strength was everything here.
Without strength, even walking home could kill you.
Without strength, you wouldn't know who murdered you, and nobody would care enough to ask.
He closed his eyes and looked inward again.
Qi Cultivation, 2nd layer—thin, sluggish, and slow to move. A five-element spirit root was like carrying five heavy sacks while everyone else ran unburdened.
If he continued like this, the ending was obvious.
Another dumb death.
Another stolen chance.
Another corpse nobody remembered.
Lu Yuan exhaled slowly, forcing his heart to steady.
"If the sect won't take me… and talent won't save me… then I need something else," he whispered.
Just as that thought formed, something strange happened.
Inside his mind—where memories had just finished settling—an unfamiliar light appeared.
A green script.
It looked like lines of ancient characters, glowing softly, floating as if suspended in water. The script wasn't written on paper or carved in stone—it simply existed, turning slowly, circling him within the darkness of his consciousness.
Lu Yuan froze.
He stared at it, mind blank for a breath.
"What is that…?" he thought.
The green script drifted closer, as if responding to his attention.
He leaned in mentally, trying to read it.
The characters were unfamiliar yet oddly understandable, like a language his soul recognized even if his eyes didn't.
As he focused, the green script suddenly pulsed.
Before he could react, it shot forward like a needle of light.
It entered—straight between his mind and something deeper, like slipping into the space between thought and existence.
Lu Yuan's whole body trembled.
A clear echo resounded inside his head, not spoken by any person, but ringing like a decree carved into stone:
"Alchemic Enlightment."
The words repeated once, slower, heavier, as if stamping themselves into his consciousness.
"Alchemic Enlightment."
Lu Yuan sat there, stunned, chest rising and falling.
The green glow faded into the background, but he could still sense it—like a hidden page waiting to be opened.
His heart pounded, not with fear this time, but with something sharp and hungry.
A five-element trash root couldn't cultivate fast.
But if this "Alchemic Enlightment" meant what it sounded like…
Then maybe he didn't need to be chosen by the sect.
Maybe he could refine his own chances.
Outside, a gust of wind rattled the hut's door.
Lu Yuan slowly stood, pain biting at his ribs, and looked toward the town—toward the market, the herb stalls, and the places where pills decided life and death.
In this world, strength was everything.
And now, for the first time since waking up, Lu Yuan felt like he'd been handed the smallest spark of a weapon.
He clenched his fist.
"If I can't climb with talent," he whispered, eyes narrowing, "then I'll climb with pills."
The hut remained poor. The world remained cruel.
But something in Lu Yuan had changed.
The furnace door had not opened yet—
but the flame had already appeared.
End of Chapter 1