Chapter 2: Initial Skills

Chi Yixuan’s understanding of this world basically came from He Nianyuan’s memories.

This world had a broad name: the Longevity Realm. Beyond that, some people also used terms like “all under heaven” or “the entire universe” to describe it.

He Nianyuan, whose ancestors had all been mortals, had never once stepped beyond the borders of Donglai Kingdom. He vaguely knew that there were other countries outside Donglai Kingdom, but as for how many there were or what exactly they were, he had no idea.

This world was different from the online novel settings Chi Yixuan had once read. Immortal cultivation did not care about spiritual roots, because everyone was born with spiritual roots. In other words, everyone had the potential to cultivate immortality. Unfortunately, that had not created a craze where the whole population cultivated.

If he had to find a comparison, Chi Yixuan felt cultivation in this world was like reading and literacy in Earth’s feudal era. In essence, commoners and high officials or nobles were not all that different in innate intelligence, but the vast majority of commoners had no chance to learn to read or write. The common people of this world were the same. Too many thresholds blocked them off, leaving them cut off from cultivation.

Still, just as there were always a few commoners in Earth’s feudal societies who broke free from their origins and leapt over the dragon gate, among the mortal commoners of this world, there were often people who managed to obtain an opportunity and enter the Dao to cultivate. That opportunity was naturally a life-bound artifact.

To Chi Yixuan, a life-bound artifact was a very unfamiliar concept. It was said that hidden within every person’s soul was a life-bound artifact. It could be a fan, a blade, a plank of wood, a book, or even a small animal… A life-bound artifact had no fixed form. Just as there were no two completely identical leaves in the world, the Longevity Realm would never produce two completely identical life-bound artifacts.

If its owner did not awaken it, it would slumber in the owner’s soul for their entire life. If the owner could awaken their life-bound artifact, then they could rely on it to enter the Dao and cultivate.

That was all there was to it. No secret manuals, no apprenticeship. After awakening a life-bound artifact, one simply trained with it nonstop. For example, if someone summoned a blade, then every single day without fail, they could bitterly practice swinging that blade a thousand times. Over time, they would enter the Dao.

It was said that the feeling was extremely profound. The moment you summoned your life-bound artifact, you would naturally have your answer to cultivation.

The common people of this world might not all be literate, but everyone knew the method to summon a life-bound artifact. Some summoned successfully, while others failed. The vast majority could summon one successfully, but the life-bound artifacts summoned by the vast majority of people were not very useful.

For example, a woodcutter’s life-bound artifact might be an axe. Every day, he brought his axe up the mountain to chop firewood, both supporting his family and cultivating at the same time. Harboring longing for the immortal path, he chopped wood day after day. Ten years passed like that, and he reached the first layer of Qi Refining. At long last, he had entered the Dao. Yet in the Longevity Realm, only those who successfully reached Foundation Establishment were called cultivators. Everyone below Foundation Establishment was still a mortal.

The immortal sects of the Longevity Realm stood in great numbers, but their lowest recruitment standard was the Foundation Establishment stage.

And so, the woodcutter continued to temper his axe. But cultivation was so difficult, and life was difficult too. He could not swing his axe every single day. He had to go into the city to sell firewood. He had to support his family. Whenever he brought up cultivation, his parents would tell him that getting married and having children was more important. But after he got married, his parents resented him for spending all day studying cultivation, while his wife and children resented him for neglecting the family all day… And just like that, decades passed, and he was still in the Qi Refining stage.

In cultivation, he accomplished nothing. In his family, his relationships grew distant. In short, he had neither prospects nor money. But by then, he was already old.

But if he did not marry and have children, if he even abandoned his family and livelihood to burrow into some cave and cultivate in seclusion, would he be able to reach Foundation Establishment?

Not necessarily.

This was the life of the vast majority of mortals in this world after summoning their life-bound artifacts.

After all, everyone had spiritual roots, and everyone was more or less the same. But mortal commoners had no inheritance, no wealth, and even less of a network. They could only gamble everything on their life-bound artifacts. Yet life-bound artifacts were naturally divided into high and low quality. Someone like He Nianyuan, who attracted immortal sect cultivators to actively recruit him the moment he summoned his life-bound artifact, was an extremely rare minority, even rarer than child prodigies on Earth.

A person like He Nianyuan, if he grew up in the future, would at least become an elder-level figure in an immortal sect, the equivalent of a scientist back on Earth. He was an absolute genius who appeared once in tens of millions!

And yet such a genius had been forcibly ruined by others.

That was why, when Chi Yixuan viewed He Nianyuan’s memories, he felt even more regret.

He knew very well that among a hundred million people, there might not be many geniuses like this. As for himself, his intelligence was utterly ordinary, and his luck was utterly ordinary too. Could someone like him summon successfully? Would the life-bound artifact he summoned be of any use?

He mocked himself inwardly. If he really summoned some completely ordinary little knife, then he could at least consider whether there was a way back home. Of course, mockery was mockery. Only an idiot would do anything that reckless.

The life-or-death crisis was right before his eyes, so Chi Yixuan could only gamble. Gamble that he was that one person destined by fate. Surely he would not be made to transmigrate once just to die for nothing!

He was extremely nervous. His heart was beating so fast it practically wanted to bounce out of his chest. If not for the truly harsh conditions, he would absolutely have bathed, burned incense, and fasted for three days.

Other people at least washed their hands before drawing gacha! His transmigration opening was way too lousy. For his sole life-risking opportunity, he could only barely rub some of the dirt and mud off his hands.

And yet what had he summoned?

The moment he heard that electronic mechanical voice, he almost thought he was dreaming.

Blinking his dry eyes, Chi Yixuan glanced from the corner of his eye at the utterly unchanged surroundings. After confirming that no one except him could see it, he finally felt reassured enough to direct his gaze at the game panel unfolded before him.

The familiar interface gave him the dazed excitement of having returned home. Although life-bound artifacts had no fixed form, and although there were plenty of strange life-bound artifacts in legends, surely… at the very least, it should not be this electronic, right? Could it be because his soul came from another world?

…

But no matter what, his little life should be preserved.

Chi Yixuan tried to calm his excited emotions, but unfortunately his fingers would not stop trembling. He pressed his useless hands under his thighs and, in a strange posture, began observing his life-bound artifact.

He did not know how other people understood cultivation after summoning their life-bound artifacts, but he felt that, at the very least, they probably were not like him, with a panel and a mechanical voice beside them giving a beginner’s guide.

That voice was still continuing. As it spoke, a transparent arrow on the panel guided him step by step.

However, the more Chi Yixuan looked, the more he felt something was off. Although it carried the label of “immortal cultivation,” wasn’t this thing just the base-building game he had invested in and produced himself?

As mentioned before, he was a second-generation rich kid who had become wealthy later in life. In other words, his family had not been rich from the moment he was born. His family circumstances during childhood had also been perfectly ordinary. It was only when he graduated from high school that his parents’ business finally succeeded, and he became a second-generation rich kid.

Because his worldview had already taken shape, after becoming a second-generation rich kid, he had not picked up habits of extravagance and debauchery. Instead, he excitedly discovered that he could finally choose a major that did not make money!

After graduating from university, he took out the allowance and New Year money he had saved for years, founded a game studio, and officially began making games. The first game was called Dynasty Founding Simulator. It was a base-building project that allowed players to experience the joy of establishing and managing a country from nothing.

Before he transmigrated, the game’s entire major framework had basically been completed. It only lacked actual testing.

Now that he had discovered the life-bound artifact he summoned was the game he had made before transmigrating, Chi Yixuan had a vague premonition that everything had been destined.

He shook his head and carefully watched the beginner’s guide.

As expected of his game. It even adapted to local customs so well!

Amazing!

Please select the smart assistant’s personality, voice…

Before he transmigrated, smart AI had already been developing very quickly. In quite a few games, NPCs could hold free conversations with players. Not only that, they also had their own character settings and voices.

In the process of making this game, his team had of course not forgotten to keep up with trends. They had likewise loaded in a smart AI to serve as the player’s guide and assistant, while also being responsible for chatting with the player to relieve boredom. Meanwhile, the player could freely set the assistant AI’s personality and voice.

But the current situation was special. He did not have time to slowly adjust his assistant AI, so he directly chose tags.

“For the voice, make it a young man’s voice about the same as mine! This world is, after all, a cultivation world. In the future, I’ll have to spend day and night with my own life-bound artifact. If a woman’s voice rang out beside me in the middle of the night, it would feel pretty embarrassing.”

“For personality, let’s choose lively. After all, my personality is too steady, so it’ll complement me perfectly.”

In less than two seconds, Chi Yixuan swiftly finished setting up the smart assistant. Only at this step did the game officially begin.

Player, hello. Initial settings complete. Connecting to the network. Connection failed… Autonomous reconnaissance expanding…

One constantly expanding circle after another appeared on the panel map. This was also part of the original game’s design, helping the player familiarize themselves with and explore the surrounding terrain when they had nothing, while also providing base-building planning suggestions. At the same time, it could also scrape together some nearby information.

While the game was conducting reconnaissance, its other functions did not stop either. A deep young man’s voice kept ringing beside his ear.

World map loading… Your Majesty, please conquer the four seas, rule the eight wildernesses, hold power over all under heaven, and ascend to become the great emperor of this world!

Chi Yixuan: …

At this very moment, he could not help recalling the scenes after the original body went mad, opening and closing his mouth every day with “We shall execute your nine clans.” He only felt as if he had been seized by fate in the unseen workings of destiny.

But a pauper had no right to think about the future. He could only manage the three meals right in front of him.

Chi Yixuan quickly tossed aside that premonition just now and focused on his skill column.

Although it was a base-building game, it also had conquest content. After all, the initial game setting included more than one country. During the base-building process, players would face the issue of fighting over resources. At the start, they had no people and no money, so of course they needed some ability to defend themselves and fight monsters.

After Dynasty Founding Simulator transmigrated into his life-bound artifact, its localization had been extremely successful, and the player skills had also undergone corresponding changes.

These skills were the support he now had to preserve his life.

There were currently three skills in the skill column.

Initial Skill: Shadow Guard Summoning — Has a chance to summon nearby ownerless lonely souls as guards. The higher their favorability toward the player, the higher the summoning success rate. Activation method: shout “Why have you not come to protect Us?”

Chi Yixuan: …

Oh no. It was kind of chuunibyou.

He looked at the second skill.

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