Su Yan grumbled but finally raised the mirror again. "System, can you change Nie Chang back to his original appearance?"

[No.]

Su Yan furrowed his brows. "But why? It’s my novel, isn’t it? If I say he should look like the original Nie Chang, then that should be possible."

[The host is in the actual world of the novel, not in the special dimension where the characters are being crafted. To change the appearance of a character the host needs to return to the special dimension.]

Su Yan pursed his lips. "But we can’t go there until I reach the next level. And Nie Chang’s my boyfriend. I want to see the real him while we’re here. He’d certainly like looking at my real self much more too. So can’t you make an exception or something?"

The system kept quiet.

Nie Chang looked up at his little darling and sighed. "I doubt that’s possible. And even if the system could, wouldn’t that make the other characters suspicious? That Yue Mu Gang from before looked like he isn’t an easy character. If our appearance suddenly changes and we don’t even know about cultivation … Who knows if we won’t face a joined trial of the righteous path on account of killing Grandmaster Ziju and his disciple Dou Fang Hai and occupying their bodies? Isn’t that what normally happens in this kind of novel?"

Su Yan’s eyes widened. "Oh no! Aren’t we accompanying the Sect Master and that Elder Yue to the Jin He City tomorrow? Ah Chang! What if we still can’t cultivate by tomorrow?!"

Nie Chang furrowed his brow. Right. They wouldn’t be able to gain enough experience points to return home in just one night. So they wouldn’t get around this trip to the city. "In that case, we’ll have to find out how it works. We have to at least be able to use flying swords. The Grandmaster wouldn’t go to the city on foot."

Su Yan nodded and sat down next to Nie Chang again. "Then let’s cultivate, ah!" He closed his eyes and scrunched up his face, trying to concentrate on the spiritual energy around them.

Nie Chang sighed and picked up the mirror instead that was already showing the system again. "System, are we able to cultivate in this world?"

[The host can do anything that follows the rules of the world.]

Nie Chang nodded. "Alright, so it’s at least possible." That didn’t answer how they were supposed to learn how to fly until tomorrow though. "Mn … System, since we have taken over the bodies of the main characters, will their characteristics stay the same? Like will we retain their cultivation base and knowledge?"

[All passive attributes of the characters will be kept consistent.]

Su Yan opened his eyes and leaned over, staring at the main page of the system. "What do you mean with 'passive attributes'? Does this mean we are cultivators or not?"

The system kept quiet for a moment as if it had to think things through. [Passive attributes are all attributes of a character that don’t require the host’s cooperation to be displayed. For example belongings of the character, the character’s outer appearance or a character’s spirit veins.]

Su Yan frowned. "So we are cultivators. Then why can’t I sense spiritual energy?"

Nie Chang glanced at his darling and ruffled his hair. "That’s because it requires your cooperation."

"Ah? But I am cooperating! I closed my eyes and tried to sense the energy but it didn’t show up. Something has to be wrong."

Nie Chang chuckled. If it was that easy, then a lot of novels would be much shorter and not require the protagonists to spend tenths of chapters just on reaching the first stage of cultivation. He didn’t want to discourage his little darling though. Thus he turned back to the system. "We should also have the cultivation base since that is something the characters already had before and we don’t need to do anything for it. Since we have everything we need to cultivate, how do we actually do it?"

[The Lovely Writing System is meant to further the host’s experiences and skills and help the host to achieve greatness with writing bl novels. To learn how to cultivate, the host will need to acquire a cultivation system.]

Su Yan and Nie Chang looked at each other. It seemed the system couldn’t help them with this.

"Do you think we can get a cultivation system before tomorrow?"

Nie Chang shook his head. "We don’t even know why and how you got this Lovely Writing System. Trying to get another …" He sighed. "I guess triggering a special task will be much easier than that."

Su Yan nodded and stared at the mirror. Ah, there were so many valuable artifacts around them. Why couldn’t they cultivate? "System, even if you can’t teach us how to cultivate, you should at least have some kind of store where I can exchange experience points for a magical pill that will give me an ability, shouldn’t you? Is there one that will let me sense spiritual energy?"

[The Lovely Writing System currently isn’t equipped with a store.]

Su Yan frowned. "Why don’t you even have a store? What kind of system are you?"

[Special System, Type K81-3FA5-69]

Su Yan clenched his hands into fists but held back from taking the mirror from Nie Chang and throwing it against the wall. He still stared at it hatefully. "This thing is mocking me!"

Nie Chang made sure his lips didn’t twitch in the slightest and put the mirror as far away as he could. "Well, since the system can’t help us, we’ll need to put in some more effort. So let’s continue trying. With how smart my little darling is, I don’t doubt that you’ll be able to sense spiritual energy by tomorrow morning."

Su Yan pursed his lips. "That’s too late. When will we sleep then?"

Nie Chang chuckled and kissed Su Yan’s cheek. "Did you forget that we’re cultivators? We probably don’t need sleep if we cultivate and take in spiritual energy." With that, he leaned back, closed his eyes and tried to sense the spiritual energy himself.

Su Yan pondered and finally did the same. His boyfriend was right. And, well, since Nie Chang expected him to do well with this, he couldn’t disappoint him, could he?