Cold Palace, Heavenly Si Royal Palace, Wangxiu:

Ximing was freaking out.

She had been caught by her fifth brother, Si Jintian.

The supposed “Useless Prince” according to everyone had been the first one to figure out her plans.

Sure, the guy wasn’t any bit “Useless”. Ximing knew that much quite well.

She knew that all that lazy behaviour was just his act to maintain a false public image.

This allowed him to do almost whatever he wanted without getting any suspicions coming his way.

But even though she knew about it, she didn’t think that it’d be this guy out of all her siblings and family to be the first to find her voice transmitting artefact.

“I’ll have to get out of here!

Otherwise, my poor mother might end up getting caught up in all this!”, Ximing said to herself as she rushed around trying to find anything she could use.

Her mother, Zhong Kaxiao, didn’t have much to do around their place of residence.

The only major things to do were light dusting of the areas the two of them frequently used and other daily necessities like eating, bathing, etc.

Other than those, she usually just spent time sleeping or lying in her room.

There wasn’t much else to do when one was exiled to the Cold Palace.

Her mother’s room was basically on the other side of the building from the entrance.

So, if she played it well, she would be able to limit the damage to her own life if things went bad.

There was also hope in the corner of her mind that her brother won’t attempt to kill her mother. She was still royalty. And trying to kill a royal member wasn’t a small crime.

So, unless he was horribly insane, Si Jintian wouldn’t dare to harm her mother.

Sure, he might still kill her since she tried spying on him.

Ximing was pretty sure that her father would allow that much. That’s why she had ensured that her mother didn’t know much about her spying activities.

As long as she kept her away from all this mess, the chances of her mother’s survival increased.

Ximing quickly hid all the other jade slips. She only kept one earpiece and one jade slip out in the open.

Even if she was found, only one set would get destroyed.

And the other sets might end up serving as enough evidence to allow her to drag the rest of her family under as well.

Sure, they would stop recording after one day. But Ximing had enough confidence in her family that they would never stop with their schemes and plots.

Not even for a day.

So, if an investigation was done, those slips should come out with enough evidence to screw her entire family over.

She knew that there were enough smart people out there who could figure out how to extract the recordings from the slips without harming them.

It took her just 10 seconds to hide the slips along with the earpieces connected to them.

With her worst-case scenario plan set, Ximing began her so-called “Plan-B”.

This was a set of simple arrays she had managed to create in the time she had spent here.

She placed bits of cloth over the several arrays she had placed around the house.

She called these the “Anti-Cultivator” Array formation.

This was a simple Qi-gathering array formation that was one of the basics taught to every child even before they start cultivation.

But this was a bit different in the fact that it was based on her design which also purified the qi to remove any of the impurities present in the Cold Palace qi.

She had also improved it by adding a qi detection feature. So it only targetted and worked on the person whose qi it had been given before it was activated.

She had used bits of Si Jintian’s clothes, which were saturated in his qi, to partially activate the arrays.

“Now, as long as long as I give a little stimulus in the form of a little qi burst from this little failed prototype voice transmitter, these babies would go all out.”, Ximing said to herself as she did one final check on her traps.

One might think that it was dumb to use a qi gathering array, keeping aside the fact that she was using several, on her enemy.

This array could only boost her enemy’s power and cause her to die faster.

But that’s where people would be wrong.

The thing was that it was only “based” on her qi purification design.

But in truth, even calling it a “Qi-gathering” array would be pretty wrong.

She had reversed her original design to create an array that would only gather the impurities and other wastes instead, leaving the pure qi and would then chuck it into the designated cultivator.

Not only that.

She had even modified it so that the impurities were shot with such force that it would be impossible to completely avoid it no matter how strong the target was.

Her fifth brother was only at the beginning of the Limits Shedding realm.

So there shouldn’t be any issues.

Finally, when all this was done, she packed up her stuff and ran outside towards the gates.

On the way, she didn’t forget to activate any nearby “Anti-Cultivator” arrays she would see.

Reaching there, gasping for air, she met the guards who were standing just outside the metal gates.

“Ah, young miss!

What brings you to the gates?”, asked one of the guards.

“I-I n-neehhd-

I mean to say, I need a little of your help.”, replied Ximing as she managed to catch her breath.

“Worry not, young miss!

We already have you covered!”, said the other guard.

“Already have me covered…”, Ximing started asking.

But then she realised something.

These two were unusually respectful and kind to her today. They barely even tried to acknowledge her presence on normal days…

“Unless someone important is involved…”, said Ximing out loud.

“And that someone is the great me, my dearest little sister Si Ximing!”, came the Si Jintian’s voice.

Ximing’s face turned pale.

Normally, cultivators were pretty slow at doing things.

But she had underestimated her enemy this time.

“Kanshou, Weibing, you two can now leave.

There is no need for you to remain here now.”

And with the wave of his hand, the two guards packed up and scurried away from their assigned positions.

“Wait! You two!

You’re supposed to be guarding the Cold Palace!

You-”

Si Jintian cut her words in between, “‘You will be punished by the king!’ is what you want to say, am I right?

Well, I’ll answer you before you say anything. Because I’m a nice person, you see.”, said Si Jintian.

“Actually, let’s head inside and talk.

The sun’s bright and it’ll be bad for our skin if we talk out here in the open.

And keeping up with my ‘nice person’ image, I’ll even accompany you on the way in!

You can walk while I’ll be flying by your side.”, Si Jintian added.

“Yes, fifth brother Jintian”

Ximing could only nod reluctantly as she started walking inside.

After a minute or so, Si Jintian spoke up.

“You know what, since the answer to your question is pretty simple, I’ll tell it to you on the way only.

I mean, it’ll take some time before we reach with your speed, no?”, said Ximing’s brother as he floated in the air, a few feet above the ground.

“Okay, so the thing is that I own those two so-called guards of yours.

That much should have been obvious.

People can’t just be created so easily.

So, when our dearest father was looking for people to guard you two, I slipped mine in.

And they were chosen.

And then, I ordered them to leave.

As simple as that!”, said Si Jintian as he boasted his smartness.

And just like that, they came inside the building.

Ximing didn’t bother calling for her mother.

Let the poor woman sleep.

No need to let her watch people die.

Once they walked in, Si Jintian asked his sister, “So, dearest little sister Si Ximing, tell me…

How do you want to die and when do you want to die?”

He was in no mood to let this thieving piece of sh*t sister of his be alive for any longer.

But if she had more of those artefacts that he had found himself, he’d be happy to use them to spy on others.

He had to hand it to her. Those things were good for someone of her cultivation talent.

In fact, they were too good!

That’s why it felt necessary for her to be reminded of her position and for Si Jintian to take all her inventions for himself.

“Brother...”, Ximing started saying in a scared and quivering voice.

“I wish to die of old age after a hundred or so years at the very least!”, Ximing’s voice suddenly did a backflip and became full of confidence.

“Y-y-”

Before Si Jintian could react, Ximing cut into his words.

“But I do have one thing to say.

You might have been nice to ask when how and when I’d like to die.

Me, I’m a bit less kind compared to you.

So, I say, you die today, here and now!”

Si Jintian’s eyes lit up in rage.

That’s when he realised a major issue.

His great and powerful body seemed to be overflowing with impurities.

That’s right!

Ximing had fully activated the “Anti-Cultivator” arrays a long time back.

So, all the time they took to come over, impurities were being machine-gunned into Si Jintian’s body.

Unfortunately for him, his time had come. That’s why even a cultivator like him couldn’t notice the fatal levels of impurities being stuffed into his body.

“You know, It’s pretty funny actually.

Your name is “Si Jintian”.

And if you mispronounce our family name just a bit, your name translates into your current fate.

So, brother…

You Die Today!”

These were the last words heard by Si Jintian as his Dantian was penetrated by the impurities in his body and he lost his life.

Shortly after, since the target was dead, the “Anti-Cultivator” arrays collapsed upon themselves.

They weren’t designed to last in the first place.

Ximing also had recorded the conversation where her brother confessed that he put his own guards for her and that he had had told them to leave her earlier.

This sort of technique still existed in the world.

So, Ximing had no worries about revealing her secret artefacts to anyone.

But at the very least, she did manage to take down a cultivator who was several levels above herself.

This must be quite an achievement!

Naturally, she had no idea that her “dead” brother (Harry, not the one who died just now) had pulled off a much greater feat long before what she had done right now.

Now, all she had to do was go report the incident to one of her father’s officials or someone similar.

As for why her brother had come after her life, she had the perfect alibi! He always asked her to work as his maid in an almost public manner and she used to refuse every time.

Her constant refusal would easily become a good reason for his actions.

She would probably have to reveal the arrays she used but that couldn’t be helped much.

***

????

Si Jintian opened his eyes.

He had died because of his sister’s trickery!

And he was furious!

“THAT B****!!

HOW DARE SH-”

However, just as he started venting out in rage, he noticed a book floating in front of his face.

‘A book?

Wait…

Now that I think about it…

Where the f*** is this place!?’

Si Jintian suddenly noticed that he was floating in what seemed to be a mysteriously lit yet completely black void.

He could see the book in front of his face quite clearly.

But everything around him was shrouded with a layer of the blackest substance that one could think of.

“Hmm…

Isn’t this the Legendary Tian-Ying Di-Po Dao-Zhen Technique of my Si family!?

The one said to make a cultivator strong enough to surpass the heavens, split the earth and attain the holy Dao!”

{A/N: Yes, that is just a rough translation of the name. Tian=Heaven, Ying=Win/Surpass, Di=Earth, Po=Break/Split, Dao=Path/Dao/Tao, Zhen=Reach/Attain.}

Such a legendary and high-levelled cultivation manual had appeared in front of Si Jintian’s eyes after his death.

“Damn!

I thought that this was lost several millennia ago and only existed in legends!

If I wasn’t dead, I could have started from scratch and even then manage to ascend to God-hood within just 500-600 years!”, said Si Jintian as he read through the contents of the book in his hands.

He quickly stuffed it in his clothes.

This manual was the definition of a heaven-defying cultivation technique!

How could he not take it with himself?

Just then, a huge flash of blinding light appeared out of nowhere and covered his entire view.

If the previous light setting were to be called a zero or a one, the current setting would be at a hundred or higher.

But unlike the dark void, the white light was so bright, he felt his eyes burning even after he covered them with both his arms.

After just a second, that horrible bright light faded and he opened his eyes in an unknown room.

There were weird things all around him.

He seemed to be lying on a bed with several pipes connected to him.

Si Jintian heard several beeping noises within a few seconds.

Unfortunately, before he could move, a large number of memories came flooding into his mind.

They weren’t complete, but they were enough to allow Si Jintian to make some sense of his current situation.

From what he could tell, he had died and had reincarnated into the body of a boy his age in some other world.

The boy, whose name seemed to be Simon James Tennyson, had been in a car accident and had to be hospitalised.

From what he could tell, it had been only a few days since then.

But he also found quite a shocking thing within the body’s memories.

This world didn’t seem to have any concept of real cultivation!

Things like cultivation only seemed to exist in fantasy stories in this world.

How absurd was that!

There did seem to be qi present in this world from what he could sense.

But the qi levels in his room seemed very low.

Si Jintian watched a lady rush inside.

The doors seemed to open on their own.

This was another peculiarity of this world, according to Si Jintian’s newfound memories.

This world had mortals ruling over it!

No immortals, cultivators or demonic beings!

But those mere mortals did manage to build quite some interesting and scary artefacts, or “technologies” and “devices” as they were called here.

‘Metal carriages that move on their own!

Huge metal birds that fly through the skies!

Even special carriages that can carry one to the great Chaos!

And nothing uses qi!

How crazy is this world of mortals!?’

Si Jintian started sweating buckets mentally as the nurse checked his condition.

Just then he noticed another item sitting in the corner of his mind.

It was the Legendary cultivation technique!

The one he had taken from the void he was previously in!

After the nurse went out to inform others about the patient’s recovery, a smile appeared on Si Jintian’s face.

‘I can cultivate!

Even with the poor conditions, I can still manage to ascend within a thousand years!

Not only that!

With the chants written in this technique, I can get strong enough to fight cultivators who are 3-4 levels higher than me!’

With such a great technique at his disposal, Si Jintian planned on spending all his time restoring his previous cultivation level.

He probably wasn’t the only cultivator in this world.

With the presence of qi, there were bound to be some people who must have tried to cultivate.

But Si Jintian was confident that his technique would allow him to surpass anyone that came his way.

As for the craziest of the weapons that the mortals had, things like cannons, lasers or even the so-called nuclear bombs wouldn’t affect him once he reached a certain level!

‘Those things called nuclear bombs are truly scary!

But with the level of destruction they create, those things cannot be used casually.

By the time they are used, I’m sure my cultivation level with be high enough to swat it away with a flick of my finger!’

He planned to eventually get take over the worthless mortals of this world and use their technologies to get back to his home.

And once he was there, all the knowledge and weapons he gained from this world would make him truly unstoppable.

Because this world had solved many of the great mysteries of the universe.

And this knowledge could be used by him to gain insights and make his cultivation even better!

His mouth was practically drooling while thinking of all the power he could gain.

So, he quickly started mentally chanting and gathering qi in his body according to the Tian-Ying Di-Po Dao-Zhen manual’s directions.

He was currently following the technique to artificially create a dantian.

His current body didn’t have one. But the manual had a method that allowed even a crippled mortal to form a dantian to start cultivation.

This was the power of having a great cultivation manual!

Using this, even the worst of the worst mortals could easily surpass the greatest cultivators!

As for Si Jintian, he was an ex-cultivator.

Using such techniques were easier for him since he could skip some basic steps that taught the reader how to feel and manipulate qi.

Thanks to his efforts, he had been discharged from the hospital within a few days.

He went back with his family, who stayed with him for a few days before departing.

His memories had allowed him to speak the language everyone else did. So, no one noticed much difference.

Any changes were quickly attributed to the accident that Simon had some time ago.

He had been heavily injured and had lost some of his memories.

Such small changes were to be expected.

And so, Si Jintian or Simon was left alone in his own house.

This was a place his rich family had bought in Boston to let him attend Harvard University.

Yes, Simon and his family were from the US only. No Asian genes were involved in his family. At least not in any noticeable quantities.

Unlike the other protagonists from cultivation stories, Simon didn’t reincarnate into somebody from China.

So, instead of the local markets, Simon was forced to look through the local Chinatown.

And he had to pretend to not know Chinese while he shopped for herbs.

Chinese was the language he found to be very similar to his old world’s language.

Over the few years that he attended his college, he kept cultivating in any free time he got.

Simon had to make up several excuses about his sudden interest in the Chinese culture.

But after spending a few years cultivating, he finally broke through the Mortal Realm and stepped into the Limits Shedding Realm.

And along the way, he had even managed to get a few of his friends to cultivate much weaker of his techniques.

He now had a small group of cultivator lackeys who were mostly resistant to any guns and other physical weapons.

Also, he was now completely immune to even tank shells.

If someone fired a tank shell at him, he could easily stop it with his shielding techniques.

And he used this group to step into the hidden circle of cultivators from Chinatown.

With how they lived and how weak they looked, Simon ended up forming his very own clan of cultivators very easily.

Sure, this made him look a bit like a rogue cultivator. But with how bad the conditions of the so-called sects was in this world, he felt that it was better to not join any.

So, after all this time, Simon was now standing in an underground fighting arena.

This was the place where spiritual treasures were being auctioned.

Every cultivator from all over the country had gathered here.

This was how great the treasure available here were.

Each spiritual treasure was fought over.

Ten people would have one-on-one fights until only one of them was left standing.

And the winner’s party would be the ones who would get the item.

Simon had beaten up three rounds of people so far.

His lackeys also had managed to get one.

Regular bidding with money was also going on but the treasures available there were of much inferior quality as compared to the ones being fought over.

The fourth round for Simon was about to start.

He was fully prepared after consuming restoration pills to bring himself back to full power.

Consumption of pills and elixirs was allowed in this competition as long as the ones using the items used their own things without stealing from others.

As Simon stepped onto the stage, he noticed a small can near his foot.

Before he could even think the next thought, the small can released a very heavy dose of some gas which made its way into Simon’s body just as quickly.

And before he could use any protective talismans, he felt his consciousness slipping away.

He thought that the mortals here had no way of dealing with cultivators. But he had forgotten about chemical warfare.

And as if to show how wrong he had been, he saw several men descend from the ceiling and start taking down any cultivator standing nearby.

As he finally fell unconscious, he felt himself being tackled to the ground by someone.

But he couldn’t manage to see their face before he passed out.

***

“Ah, Mr Simon James Tennyson. You’re finally awake!”

Simon heard someone greet him as he woke from his slumber.

“You can call me Agent Smith from the FBI. And yes, you are currently being detained in one of our secret special facilities.”

“Uh, okay…

But why am I here?”, asked Simon, who was handcuffed to the table.

“Oh, that’s simply because we caught you participating in an illegal event, namely that auction you went to.

And your friends are also being dealt with similarly.

So, I hope you don’t cause a scene, Mr Simon. Or should I call you Mr Si Jintian?”

Hearing this shocked Simon. 

This man knew his name!

But since it looked like he had picked it up from the pseudonym Simon used in the cultivation world, he decided to get serious.

“Well, Agent Smith.

If you know that I went to that auction for spiritual treasures and that my name is Si Jintian, you should know that any of you can’t hold me in this facility.

I can break free and cause a massacre anytime I want.”

And to show his power, Simon tugged on his handcuffs.

But a smile arose on agent Smith’s face as Simon’s face turned pale.

He could neither use his strength nor feel his qi!

“FYI, it’s called an MH dampening field, short for Meta-Human or Mutant-Human, whatever you wanna call it.

Your cultivation or whatever doesn’t mean sh*t in this facility.

Result of years of research by the brightest minds across the world.

You see, monsters arose on Earth. Even cultivators did.

And all of them tried to take over the planet.

There was a bitter war, the Third World War.

But the so-called ‘Mortals’, namely the normal Earthlings, managed to create and advance new technologies to take down any monster or cultivator that threatened our existence.

And in case you’re wondering, all this information is being suppressed by governments around the world to maintain peace.

Currently, no one knows about this. The ones who know have been forced into silence.

Miracles can truly happen when humans get together, you know.”

Simon was in utter shock.

No wonder there were no strong cultivators!

The strong ones were taken out by these guys!

“But you know, Mr Si, you were quite helpful.

Since we were monitoring you ever since you came to this world, we managed to track down and arrest every cultivator in the US.

Also, to fix any misunderstandings, your cultivation method thingy wasn’t all that special.

We’ve dealt with several cases of people about triple your strength transmigrating to Earth. You’re basically average compared to those beastly humans we’ve had to take down.

So, you currently have zero chances of escape…”

As Agent Smith said, ever since they detected unusual qi flow in his room all those years ago, his parents were informed about his death, a fake body was given for the funeral and his entire life till now had been set up by the FBI and the CIA to crack down on illegal cultivators.

Also, Si Jintian never saw the light of day again.