Purple Star Continent, Old Province, Setting Sun County, Sinking Star Pass.
This place lies near the Eastern Sea, where not far from the shore stands an immortal island known as the Carefree Isle.
In recent years, this island may not have been widely renowned, but if we were to look back a hundred thousand years, it would undoubtedly have been hailed as the number one island in the world!
And why? Simply because...
The island housed an immortal sect, where the spirit of the land nurtured a prodigy!
Chen Lingxiu, just as her name suggested, was a peerless woman blessed by heaven and earth—brilliant, extraordinary. In an era teeming with prodigies and countless heroes, she rose from humble beginnings, suppressing the proud scions of great factions as a mere commoner, ascending to the pinnacle as the second strongest in the world!
And thus, the Carefree Sect on Carefree Isle flourished, leaping from a third-rate faction to a sacred land, basking in glory for a time!
Alas, the good times did not last. After Chen Lingxiu ascended, the Carefree Sect could no longer hold its own. Though it barely maintained its dignity with the legacy she left behind, the sect suffered from a lack of successors, failing to produce another prodigy capable of shouldering its legacy. Eventually, it declined...
As if Chen Lingxiu’s rise had drained all the sect’s fortune.
But that wasn’t the case!
Had it not been for Chen Lingxiu, how could a mere third-rate faction like the Carefree Sect have endured for three hundred thousand years?
"Ah... May Ancestor Lingxiu bless us. I hope this year’s recruitment brings a few talented disciples. Times are truly getting harder..."
In the grand hall of the Carefree Sect’s main peak, the current sect master, Huo Hai, bowed reverently before the ancestral tablets.
The prayer talisman burned fiercely, its curling smoke rising as if to carry the descendants’ pleas to the ancestors’ ears.
Among the forest of longevity tablets, Chen Lingxiu’s tablet stood prominently in the place of honor, sharing the central altar only with the sect’s founder, Xiaoyaozi.
Just then, an elder hurried in, his voice grave as he reported, "Sect Master, urgent news! The newly appointed City God of Sinking Star Pass has ordered us to cease operations indefinitely for 'rectification.' If we don’t surrender control of Stormwind Harbor and the Azure Route, we’ll be barred from recruiting disciples!"
Huo Hai’s hand, still holding the burning talisman, trembled slightly, his face darkening instantly.
The world was changing rapidly, swept along by an unstoppable tide of reform. The emergence of new systems had steadily eroded the living space of traditional local powers!
When the Immortal Court was established, placing the Four Seas Hall in charge of maritime affairs, the Carefree Sect had managed to endure, albeit with some constraints. So long as they retained control of Stormwind Harbor and the Azure Route, they could still maintain their dignity.
But with the rise of the new Divine Incense System, everything had changed!
This move was like a knife plunged straight into the lungs of every local faction!
First, they stripped local governance, empowering the common people to rule themselves, no longer subservient to the Carefree Sect. Then came the land surveys, reclaiming the sect’s long-held spiritual lands for public redistribution and development!
If that had been all, the Carefree Sect could have endured it—after all, it was his doing. A little bloodletting was tolerable, so long as the sect’s foundation remained untouched.
But now, they were coming for the sect’s ancestral birthright!
Stormwind Harbor—built through the tireless efforts of countless ancestors—was a vital trade hub and transportation nexus!
And the Azure Route? A legacy left behind by none other than Chen Lingxiu herself, a safe passage straight into the Endless Seas! Even in this era of upheaval, the Azure Route remained invaluable!
And now, they just wanted to take it?
What of the sacrifices made by generations of our ancestors?!
Even the Tribulation Transcender couldn’t just ignore reason, could he?!
Huo Hai sighed deeply.
As his gaze swept over the hall filled with longevity tablets, for a fleeting moment, he seemed to see towering figures materializing before him, their stern eyes glaring down in judgment.
"Our ancestors’ legacy will not be surrendered on our watch!"
"If they want to take it by force, then we fight!"
"If this escalates, we won’t be the only ones resisting. Let’s see how they handle the fallout!"
"All this talk of ‘serving the people’ and ‘harnessing fortune’—are we not people too? Are we even human in their eyes?!"
"Sect Master!" The elder hesitated before adding helplessly, "But they have his backing. And their methods are cunning—they’re not openly seizing anything. The land is still technically ours."
"They just want oversight, to ensure we don’t endanger public safety. Any ‘irregularities’ must be stamped out. If we resist enforcement violently, we’ll likely be made an example of, publicly denounced..."
"Hmph!" Huo Hai sneered. "‘Endangering safety’? ‘Irregularities’? Those are just words they can twist however they please!"
"How many years has our Carefree Sect managed Stormwind Harbor and the Azure Route? When has there ever been a problem? And suddenly, the moment they show up, it’s ‘unsafe’?"
"If we yield now, will Stormwind Harbor and the Azure Route even remain ours in truth?"
"And what of him? So what if he’s the Tribulation Transcender? When survival’s at stake, who cares about that?!"
"I say the Tribulation Transcender has lost his mind, grown senile, become a tyrant! This world is bound to—"
The last word—chaos—caught in his throat. His face turned a sickly purple as if an invisible hand had seized him by the neck, the suffocating pressure like a coiling serpent, black spots dancing before his eyes.
The elder reporting to him stiffened, his pupils shaking like an earthquake, eyes bulging as he stared at the figures who had abruptly appeared in the center of the hall. His heart nearly leaped out of his mouth.
Heavens above!
The melancholy man in plain swordsman’s robes, clutching a life-sized divine statue—he didn’t recognize him.
The ethereal, floating ghost woman—he didn’t know her either.
But the young man in deep indigo Daoist robes, his aura transcendent?
Oh, he knew him all too well.
His face bore a ninety percent resemblance to the portraits of the Tribulation Transcender.
Every citizen of the Purple Star Continent knew: you could look exactly like the Tribulation Transcender’s portrait, but you must never look ninety percent like it.
Because the Tribulation Transcender’s portraits were only ninety percent accurate to the man himself.
The missing ten percent?
The ineffable divine essence—the very essence that could never be captured in brushstrokes.
Yet the moment you laid eyes on him, you knew—this was the Tribulation Transcender in the flesh.
Oh no...
The Tribulation Transcender truly was omnipresent. The sect master had just loudly proclaimed rebellion against tyranny, even cursing the Transcender to his face...
At this thought, the elder’s hanging heart quietly began to give up.
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
