Opportunity to Leave the Blessing Star

[Looking at the mining pick before you and the gray, dusty mine, you feel a sense of déjà vu.]

[Starting in the mortal realm—carrying sandbags by the river.]

[Starting in the real realm—doing hard labor in a mine.]

[Fate could be so similar.]

[But this time, you’re not suffering.]

[With your cultivation at the sixth turn of Qi Transformation, mixing in with a group of ordinary people as a laborer makes the work feel like a leisurely walk to you.]

[Of course, working isn’t the goal—you’re just lying low and gathering information.]

[Eighth year. Age thirty-two.]

[Extracting traits...]

[Extraction successful!]

[“Someones Copying My Face” (Green, Rare): You can copy your face onto someone else, but you need their consent.]

[Do you want to adjust the traits?]

[Yes / No]

“This trait is useful!”

Chen Yi immediately thought of his five simulation avatars—all old men, nothing like him. In the past, if he had lived until old age, they might have resembled him, but now with the “Wolverine” trait, he wouldn’t age at all.

“Replace ‘Knight Safe Zone.’ With ‘Wolverine,’ who needs that trait!”

He was one to always go for the new and ditch the old.

[You chose Yes.]

[You replaced “Knight Safe Zone” with “Someones Copying My Face.”]

[You made your avatars wear your face. As your avatars, they only unconditionally obey your commands, so naturally, they could only choose to agree.]

[On the surface, at the Number One Mine on Fortunate Star, you earnestly play the role of “an amnesiac laborer from out of town.”]

[Behind the scenes, you’re secretly making moves.]

[The Winged God cult preaches “atonement,” forcing the human race living on Fortunate Star to do hard labor, digging ore.]

[These ores are not ordinary metal ores—they are source stones.]

[Think of them as the equivalent of crystal stones in the void realm.]

[The energy sealed within source stones is not celestial qi for cultivation, but a type of energy called source energy.]

[This energy can be used in various cultivation scenarios, such as arrays, powering large magical tools, or for cultivators to absorb and restore their true qi.]

[So, source stones are the hard currency among cultivators in the real realm, usable as money.]

[On Fortunate Star, there are many such mines.]

[The entire planet feels like a universe-sized source stone with a thin layer of dirt on top.]

[The Winged God cult’s management is even worse than the Black Stone Gang at the docks.]

[They don’t use whips to drive the miners to work, because that would mean their own people have to endure the wind and sun—how tiring.]

[Instead, they set a daily quota per person, collected on schedule. Those who fail get beaten harshly, but not killed.]

[If someone repeatedly fails, the quota is slightly lowered.]

[If someone always meets the quota, it’s slightly raised.]

[In short, they ensure everyone works to the point of exhaustion every day.]

[The mining area is tightly guarded by an army, with traps and arrays hidden throughout—no one can escape.]

[At first, two knight protectors from the religious order were always by your side.]

[This was arranged by White Priest Loku, to watch you and see what fortune or opportunity you might have.]

[Over time, those two grew lax, often just glancing at you from a distance.]

[Later, they simply made a routine daily check, took a look at what you were doing, and then slipped away.]

[With their surveillance gone, you started using the “Infinite White Porridge” ability to help your suffering human compatriots.]

[Don’t think about eating your fill here.]

[The Winged God cult’s principle is, “A dog that’s kept three-tenths hungry is easier to manage.” If you’re full, you’ll start thinking wildly; if you’re hungry, you’ll only think about one thing—when you’ll get to eat.]

[So the miners here are worse off than those starving villagers in Liu Family Village.]

[What a bowl of your white porridge means to them goes without saying.]

[Especially since your porridge, once drunk, restores their strength.]

[“Drink up, Old Zhang. Don’t let the aliens see, or we’ll lose it.”]

[Old Zhang is your fellow miner in the same tunnel.]

[He’s over fifty now, having toiled in the Number One Mine for a full thirty years.]

[The best years of his life have all been spent in the dust and dirt.]

[Because of a clerical error by the statistics clerk, Old Zhang’s quota got mixed up with a younger man of the same name, commonly called Little Zhang.]

[For days, Old Zhang could only work himself to death, nonstop.]

[What?]

[Appeal?]

[The Winged God cult never makes mistakes! Hmm? Kapeesh?]

[Old Zhang had to swallow his grievance in silence.]

[With more work but no extra food, Old Zhang now lies in the corner of the wall, at death’s door.]

[Seeing the white porridge in your hand, Old Zhang, all skin and bones, suddenly sobs.]

[“This… where did this come from?”]

[“Don’t ask. It can save your life.”]

[“Yes… yes…”]

[Old Zhang gulps down the bowl of porridge ravenously.]

[After he finishes, you casually dig a hole in the ground and bury the porcelain bowl.]

[Beside you, Liu Ying is blocking the view from others.]

[One bowl of porridge down, Old Zhang feels alive again.]

[He immediately tries to kowtow to you.]

[You hold him up.]

[“No need for that. If you’re hungry again, come to me. Just don’t tell anyone else.”]

[“Thank you, my benefactor! Thank you!”]

[One by one, you bring your white porridge to all the workers.]

[The laborers in the Number One Mine are still exhausted, but every night, they eat their fill.]

[From the day you arrived, the deaths from starvation have never happened again.]

[This makes the Winged God cult suspect whether your food rations have been too good.]

[Everyone keeps a tacit silence. Even though they all know it among themselves, no one ever mentions that you can conjure white porridge out of thin air.]

[Leaks are impossible.]

[Because here, there is a chasm between humans and aliens.]

[The aliens don’t trust humans.]

[And humans don’t pin their hopes on betraying their own kind to get any benefit from the aliens—everyone knows that’s impossible, as generations have proven time and again.]

[Old Zhang said that in his youth, he was actually a cultivator, apprenticed to a wandering master. But he hadn’t trained for more than a few years before the Winged God cult caught him and forced him into the mines.]

[So he still knows a bit about the basics of cultivation.]

[“A third-class star means a planet without celestial qi. A second-class star has thin celestial qi. A first-class star has abundant celestial qi. My master once told me there’s also a special-class star, where legendary figures are said to live.”]

[“Fortunate Star has no celestial qi. How did your master and those Winged God cult members get their cultivation?”]

[“I don’t know how the Winged God cult cultivates, but my master wasn’t from Fortunate Star. His star vessel was damaged while passing by, so he came down to repair it. He never expected the aliens on this planet to have such a hostile attitude toward humans—they arrested him on the spot.]

The master had no choice but to flee, wandering for a time on the planet Fubao.

It was during that period that I got to know him. Seeing that I had potential, he took me in as his disciple and, incidentally, had me help him collect materials to repair his starship.

In the end, the master was still captured by the people of the Winged God Sect. He died fighting them, and I was also taken prisoner. Alas...