The bck o faded away. A swirl of hundreds of chaotic colours bombarded his vision.

  Only after several hours did they part, revealing the sight of a pin wooden ceiling. He was in a small room that stank of old lumber.

  The deafening scream of an infant filled his ears. Before him, an old woman was frantically waving a rattle.

  No. That cry was from him.

  A dry pain wracked his tehroat. Only now did he realise how hoarse his throat had bee.

  How long had he been screaming?

  He reached his hand to touch his throat. At that moment, he saw his tiny grubby hand.

  This...

  This was not his body! It was frail and mortal, without the slightest hint of densed qi. Yet, he could still feel his soul sealed within it.

  Inceivable. It was as if an elephant had been stuffed into a small paper bag. If his soul made the slightest movement, the ey of his body would be shredded so finely, there wouldn't even be blood mist left to spray!

  How was that possible?

  The situation thrust upon Aoya him with too many questions.

  A strong nausea shook him ached. But there was nothing in his stomach to spew out. A splitting headache struck his very being. His body was rejeg his soul!

  He clutched his head, his entire body trembling.

  His vision grew blurry as a tremendous fatigue fell upon his very soul. His weary eyes began to close. For a moment he fought to keep his eyelids open, but the realm of sleep took him moments ter.

  "Hah..." the old dy heaved a sigh of relief.

  She picked up the sleeping infant ahe small room, heading down a hall. With the gentle creak of an old wooden door, she entered a rge room with over a hundred small beds, tless infants sleeping on them. She pced him onto one of the empty beds.

  The infant child had been screaming at the top of his lungs as soon as he was biving the mother quite the fright.

  Newborns would cry... but the screams of this one were especially haunting, like that of a pig being sughtered.

  She had no choice but to isote him in a room briefly, not wanting the other infants to be frightened.

  The old womahe room with a sigh, patting her ag back.

  Days passed ufully.

  The cloudless night skies were crystal clear, dotted with the brilliant light of tless stars and steltions.

  But he could nnise a single one. Galloping Qiliial Tiger, Heaven's Hand... of those he had learnt in his past life, none were present.

  It was clear he was an unimaginable distance away from his inal world.

  He stared at the faint moonlight from outside listlessly. It had taken a while, several days filled with unending nightmares before his memories settled.

  The sed heavenly w came to mind. Ih, to reinate anew. Having experiehe w first-hand, he had gained a certain instinctual uanding. Wheached his soul from his ruined body, the heavens decred him dead and dragged him into the cycle of reination.

  But an uneasy feeling weighed on him. He had a strong feeling he was not supposed to retain his memories, nor the cultivation of his soul.

  It had been so long since he had been unscious. He had not slept in over a thousand years.

  On his clothes, a piece of cloth was carelessly stitched, "Baiyun" scrawled on it. It was his name in this life.

  Aoyang, no, Baiyun raised his hand into the air, gazing at it. So small and frail.

  White Cloud. Perhaps his parents wished he could be as free as the clouds in the skies, s wherever he pleased.

  An ironiame.

  This body was that of a servant, one of the most unfortunate and cursed existences in the universe. They were unnatural, pitiful people brought into life against their will.

  Across the vast os, there was not a single sect that did not need bour.

  Mortals were cheap. They did not need cultivational resources; even the most ordinary of food and water would keep them alive. Even paying them tional, for they could not lift a finger against the might of an immortal.

  Be it a subtle mercy from the heavens or a ic ce, mortals were unsuited for sect bour. When a mortal was exposed to impure qi, their bodies could not expel it. Slowly, they would fall ill as impurities accumuted, dying a slow painful death.

  The solution was simple, to hire cultivators as bourers at a higher price.

  But human greed was insatiable.

  Paying such a cost was uable. Even if they ensved cultivators, the mere act of them breathing stole precious qi from their sects!

  Across the universe, demonic cultivators settled on the same solution.

  Meridians. They were the culprit. If mortals did not have them, they would not be inated.

  Qi was the essence of life. All life had meridians, be it flora or fauna.

  To be born without them was akin to being born without lungs. A cursed existence, uo take in the breath of the os.

  But the demonic cultivators did not care.

  tless mortals screamed as they were kidnapped and tossed into death chambers. Inside were dense seas of impure qi, a miasma of decay.

  Thuds echoed as bodies colpsed to the floor. Only the most resilient of mortals survived, spared from the grasp of death by healing arts. But they were no less miserable. The survivors were treated like livestock, forced to produce the geion.

  The process repeated. Little results were seen in the first turies.

  But immortals were patient. They had all the time in the world.

  No one knew when the first true servant was born. But as aeons passed, servant races devoid of meridians began to appear all over the os, like weeds overtaking a barren field. Eves that criticised the demonic sects for this heinous crime eventually took in servants of their own, uo resist the allure of profits.

  What a cruel joke for him to be born as one.

  Baiyu panic brushing its withered fingers against his heart. But he took a deep breath and calmed down.

  He suddenly remembered the hollow eyes of his disciple, as dark as the void sea. The moments before his death were the most distorted memories he had. He could not even remember why they had fought.

  He had to return to the sed find out what happened!

  Baiyun raised a hand and ched it into a fist.

  He would still find a way to cultivate.

  He would still find a way to return.

  Immortals were patient. Even if it took him a thousand years to returrusted the people he knew would remain.

  But it truly was a shame. He could not withe sight of his disciples growing up. Perhaps they would already have fotten about him by the time he returned.

  He sat there in silence for a moment, feeling a deep sadness for a moment at that thought.

  But there was no time to waste. Baiyun put his worries aside and got to work.

  Days passed in the blink of an eye.

  The caretakers would feed him from a rubber gourd occasionally. Inside was a strange mixture sisting of water, milk and a trace of spirit herbs.

  As the essence of life, qi was essential even to mortals. Servants did not have the meridians to absorb qi from the air, so if sects did not provide it through food, they would die as infants.

  Baiyun hardly noticed the caretakers tending to his infant self. It was as if his body acted on instinct, c for him, while his mind worked round the clock.

  A transdent soul did not need rest.

  Even as his body slept, his soul tio think.

  Baiyun sehe qi from the herb milk cirg within his body. It altry sum, but it showed all hope was not lost.

  The streams of qi were weak, like the almost imperceivable ripples in a still gss of water, disturbed by a slow breeze. But his soul watched with almost bloodshot eyes for hundreds of hours, b on obsession.

  In his current state, he could not take notes. But the memory of his soul was suffit.

  With the meals he was given each passing day, the streams of qi grew slightly denser, strengthening his physique.

  The body of a servant was like a prison without doors or windows. Any qi, good or bad, would remain trapped within, often meaning short lives for servants despite their qi-strengthened physiques.

  But this helped greatly in his research.

  It was as if he was watg the growth of a small vilge into a bustling town. As the poputiohe people began to build new amenities and workpces. New paths formed in the barren dirt as more and more people travelled, finding more and more shortcuts.

  A town elder lived in a grand hall, the dantian. Each day, the citizens would gather and pay respects to him.

  The barren ndscape ged. Grass and trees grew, buildings fell and were rebuilt.

  Baiyun was the mapmaker of his body.

  Outside the window, the cycle of day and night became an indistinguishable blur of bd white. His prehension of his body grew by the day.

  When he snapped out of his trace, his body was much rger, capable of walking. Before he k, he had bee 3 years old.

  The cultivation teique was plete.

  If his body was a bustling try, Baiyun had learnt every facet of ead every inhabitant. His new body no longer felt strange and alien.

  He raised a hand, opening and closing it before his eyes. It felt so natural now. When he first came to this world, it felt as if he had been stuffed into a skin suit against his will.

  For the first time, body and soul truly accepted each other.

  Adapting to a new body after living in his old one for thousands of years was not easy.

  While every person's qi pathways were different in their own unique way, as humans, they remained rgely simir. But servants had been so "deformed" by eugenics that their qi pathways barely resembled that of a regur human.

  Some researchers even argued servants could no longer be cssified as true humans, instead putting them iegory of variant humans.

  Baiyun ughed bitterly to himself.

  If only he had studied the stitution of servants more in his previous life. But just as quickly, he brushed the thought away.

  No.

  He had already swainst human experimentation. It was a mistake he made in his careless youth when all he knew was his father's teags.

  Humans, even servants, were not to be treated as pill beasts. He first decred that when he was 337 years old, much to his father's fury. It was one of the many things his father called him immature for, for daring to put value into the meaningless lives of mortals.

  Baiyun gathered up the qi within his body, following the teique he had carefully devised. Slowly, so as not to harm the frail toddler body, the qi entered his dantian in a slow trickle, like water from melting snow.

  Mist from a cloud, gathering to form a single droplet of rain. A small wisp of qi formed within. It flickered and blurred as if it could fizzle out of existe any moment.

  Baiyun exhaled.

  Success.

  It was a tiny step, not even a huh of the way to the first stage of qi gathering. But a deep relief washed over him, and he ughed in joy. The biggest hurdle had been resolved! He had adapted the cultivation teique from his past life to this strange body.

  Now, all he needed was to gather enough qi.

  Time tio flow.

  At the age of 4, the sect began to educate him with his many fellow servants. Literacy. Housekeeping. Cooking. Spirit gardening.

  At the age of 6, they were deemed ready for work a into the fields.

  With how servants trapped qi that would refiheir bodies, even at the age of 6, they were as strong as a 10-year-old. The sect was taking full advantage of the greater strength servants had pared to normal mortals.

  Baiyun soo how the sect rewarded their servants.

  Each day, spirits would observe the servants and assign tribution points based on their performahe servants who did well were treated to vish meals, but those who did poorly would only be given kit scraps for dinner.

  Meals did not cost any tribution points, to ensure servants would not deprive themselves of good food merely to save for a rge reward.

  That motivation really showed during the day, where servants would go about their jobs with gusto. It was inparable to his previous sect, where lifeless servants went about their tasks like puppets. Whoever mahe servants here was quite skilled. Suthusiasm for the mere price of proper food was more than worth it.

  Baiyun could see the manipution, but he was helpless.

  If it came down to this, he was going to make the most out of his past experience. He teo the fields as fast as an adult servant, sowing the seeds perfectly. When he harvested, he was even faster and would never damage the crops! Even the herbs he pnted were the rgest and most vibrant.

  Meanwhile, the rest of the child servants struggled, their hands shaking as older servants chided them.

  The caretakers were impressed. Normally, there were too many servants for them to notice a specifie, but Baiyun was like a e brazenly standing in a flock of chis.

  One day, he overhead two of them as he worked the fields.

  "That servant. Do you think he has some rare stitution?" one of them, a gruff old man spoke.

  "Hahaha! Perhaps, perhaps. Iure, he could be a seed for future servant geions." the hed.

  Baiyun's face darkened. Filth that treated humans like livestock! If he had his past might, he would behead them immediately. But he snuffed his rage out in an instant. There was no point in being angry if there was nothing he could dht now.

  The skies soon turned golden. It was su.

  One by ohe servants carried baskets of herbs to the colle point, a rge stone warehouse where yet more servants would categorise and store the harvest. Baiyun's basket was 10 times rger thaher servants', yet, it was still brimming with herbs. The other children stared at him in envy. But they did not dare to even think of stealing. If they were caught, they would be senteo a month of kit scraps!

  But Baiyun was still a small child and could only push the basket across the ground awkwardly.

  After all the servants pced down their baskets, wiping off their sweat, a bright white light showed itself in the skies. It was a light spirit, in charge of managing the servants of this division.

  "You are all dismissed!" the spirit said enthusiastically. "Head over to the kit for your meals, a well for tomorrow!"

  Some servants let out a cheer, rushing into the distahers merely sighed and trudged off.

  Baiyun followed the trail of servants, heading te aravagant dining hall. It was uhe simple brick housing the servants were used to, built of white marble and even engraved with formations that kept it impeccably .

  For the servants, only dinner was catered, something to look forward to after a day of hard work. For their other meals, servants had to subsist on grain balls the sect issued.

  As he ehe hall, he heard the loud indistinguishable mumble of many servants chatting, ughing and g. Thousands of servants were feasting away, many of them ill-mannered, without the slightest table manners.

  Yet, despite their brutishness, little food ilt.

  From the er of his eye, he saw a servant cry out in arm as his bowl of noodles fell to the ground. The serva down to the ground, stuffing the noodles into his mouth voraciously, before slurping up the soup from the floor directly and lig it .

  The servants around him roared in ughter, some even cheering him on.

  Baiyun shook his head before making his way towards one of the many chefs, reag out his hand. Each servant had an invisible seal engraved into one of their hands, rec their tribution points.

  The chef touched it and nodded, before heading bato the kit.

  In a few minutes, he came out, holding a rge tray. On it ing hot pte of food; low-grade spirit rice, ginseng leaves, sliced roots fried with flour and wilted beans. Beside it was a small bamboo box full of delicacies, for Baiyun to take home and savour ter.

  This was why he had to show his worth.

  While the food did not seem like anything special, because of his tributions, all the dishes were made with various offcuts from spirit pnts. Domesticated spirit herbs had most of their qi and medial properties trated in their most prized se. For example, a spirit ginseng would have 99% of its qi trated in its root, much like how a cultivator had most of their qi densed in their dantian.

  But even that st amount remaining was invaluable for him right now. They were needed for him to reach the 1st stage of qi gathering!

  Baiyun did not want to spend decades gathering qi from ordinary food.

  He slowly savoured the food, chewing with a tent look. How could herb discards be that delicious? Was it because he haden food in thousands of years in his past life? It was no wohe servants here were so motivated. Spoiled by such luxurious food, how could they stand to eat kit scraps for a single day?

  After polishing the st grain of rice off his pte, he wiped his mouth and headed home with the bamboo box in hand.

  It was a quaint little brick cottage. Inside were two simple beds, a table, two chairs, a closet and a door to a storeroom stuffed with various supplies. Not a single speck of dust could be spotted. Baiyun took it upon himself to keep the room in perfect dition. Even if he had to do the ing himself, he thought it would be undignified for an "elder" to live in an u room.

  Most servants lived in cramped quarters with dozens of others, but with his tribution points, he had purchased the privilege of having an abode to himself, where he lived with his brother.

  Baiyun ed himself with a wet cloth before switg to a new set of servant robes. On its back, "WanLi Servant" was shoddily embroidered.

  He sat on his bed, meditating as he dehe qi from his meal into his dantian.

  Now to expel the impure qi. He swallowed several mouthfuls of air, befathering unwanted qi into it. He patted his stomach, before burping it out.

  It was awkward but necessary. The mouth of a servant was the only pce qi could enter or leave. He could not even expel it through his rear end.

  Baiyun did not want to talk about his newfound mortal bodily funs. In his past life where he was born a cultivator, he had not even defecated even ohis accursed body! It was humiliating for him to sit on a toilet, expelling unspeakable things. He had to reach qi gathering as soon as possible.

  At that moment, a ball of light flew through the walls, entering his room.

  He looked up. It was the light spirit.

  "Haa... You're copying the immortals again? I told you so many times, you won't get anything out of it!" it sighed. "It's not about how you sit. Cultivators only cultivate because they absorb qi from their pores and lungs!"

  Baiyun made an annoyed face, rexing aing his body fall ft on the bed.

  "Yeah yeah. You don't have to nag me again!"

  "Urgh. You never listen." the spirit grumbled, but suddenly lit up. "Oh! But I came here because I had big news!"

  "Really? What is it?" Baiyun got up from bed, practically jumping with excitement.

  He had learnt to a a slightly childish manner, what he thought befitting of his body's age.

  "Hmhm!"

  The light spirit materialised a small ste bag, dropping it into Baiyun's hands. The cloth was old and slightly tattered. A simple depi of a pavilion ainted on with bk, but it had begun to fade and leak.

  "Tada! Your very own spatial bag. Now you hold all the stuff you want! Well, to a certaient."

  "Yay!"

  Baiyun grabbed the bag and ran around the room in glee. Perhaps it was an act, but his joy was genuine.

  Having experiehe luxury of ste artefacts for the ey of his past life, not having one was one of many things that made him feel incredibly stifled. It was as if he had regrown an arm he had lost for years.

  "Those stingy old men made such a big fuss because of ye! I had to pester them for months before they approved."

  Baiyun tilted his head.

  "Ah, you're probably not ied in hearing about the higher-ups and their dumb ma. Okay okay... What about this, about 20 years ago, there was the Golden Flood i!"

  The light spirit began to ramble to Baiyun about various old stories, while he nodded every now and then.

  When he had first reinated, he had been quite armed by the spirits. Spirits were strange lifeforms born without bodies. As uered souls, their spiritual senses were unparalleled. If he used qi sense or divine sehey would probably notice immediately and alert the elders.

  Naturally, this would force him to restrict the use of all spiritual senses within the seot that he could use any currently.

  But for whatever reason, the light spirit got quite attached to him. Baiyun did not think much of the caretakers here, but he did not mind the spirit's pany.

  The two of them talked food long hour. Finally, the spirit left, not wanting to disturb his sleep schedule.

  Baiyun looked around in the empty room. It seemed his brother was sleeping elsewhere today. If servants performed especially poorly, they would sometimes be forced to work te into the night and sleep in the fields.

  He headed to the storeroom, the ste bag in hand.

  With a creak, the door opened. Baiyun waited a few minutes for the stale air to clear before heading in.

  Grain balls, farm equipment, rags, a stool, ropes, a random giant bowl...

  He walked around the room with a grin, stuffing all sorts of items into his ste bag without much thought.

  While these bags were given to outstanding servants so they could store herbs with ease, they were allowed to put in personal belongings as well. After all, it was not only a tool that let servants carry more. It was also a reward, meant to motivate servants to tinue w hard.

  This was quite surprising to Baiyun. Spatial bags were quite an expensive odity even in his old world; he found it hard to believe a sect would be willing to give them to mere servants. Did the people of this world have advas that made them easier to produce? He was quite intrigued by the possibility.

  In any case, he had learnt an important lesson from his past life.

  Even if he wasn't sure what he'd do with the item, he should stash it into his bag anyway! The future was uain, even the silliest of items could e in handy one day. The st thing he wanted was tret not grabbing an item in advance.

  The bag was retively small, only able to tain a small room of goods. If not for that, Baiyun would probably have emptied the storeroom in his frenzy.

  He walked out of the cottage, stopping at a tiny shed stocked with firewood. He stuffed several bundles into his bag before stopping.

  Baiyun sighed. It hadn't even been an hour, but his bag was already half full! It was such a shame that the remaining space had to be reserved for harvested herbs.

  While ste bags often damaged the essences of herbs, servants were in charge of growing low-quality spirit herbs. Ironically, such shoddy essences were hardier and could be transported in spatial enviros safely.

  He stared at the bag with slight sadness.

  A "proper" ste bag would be able to tain several mountains at minimum! He used to own dozens of Mountain Swallowing bags. When they got full, he would stuff them into various drawers, each belled ly.

  He stared at his bag relutly before returning to his bed a his body rest.

  Once more, he immersed himself in the flow of time. Months passed in an instant.

  With the ste bag and the help of his growing physique, he was able to gain far more tribution points than ever, now no longer hindered by weight.

  Eaight, the chefs prepared food of even higher quality for him. Occasionally, there would even be shavings of actual spirit herbs mixed in.

  His cultivation began to advance faster and faster. His iimation was 4 more years to reach qi gathering, but the bag had singlehandedly doubled his speed!

  On the exact day of his 8th birthday, te at night, Baiyun was meditating on his bed as usual.

  Inside his dantian, hundreds of small wisps of qi had accumuted.

  "Huuuu..." he took a deep breath.

  Another wisp of qi was extracted from his stomach, joining the ke of qi.

  It was time.

  For months, he had already been able to make a breakthrough, but Baiyun decided to accumute a little loo be safe. He decided his 8th birthday would be an auspicious date for such a huge matter.

  The ke of qi began to stir. The wisps floated out, gathering around a single point. They began to yer themselves until the ke ran dry, f a sphere of qi brimming with light.

  A tremor shook the dantian without warning. A soul hand had materialised, ing itself around the qi sphere.

  Baiyun trembled as an immense pain shook his entire body, tless small wounds f internally. Even after his soul had synergised with his body, such a small a could cause such damage.

  press!

  The soul hand crushed the sphere of qi, a blinding fsh of light erupting.

  Hong!

  Baiyun dissolved the hand before it could cause further harm. A blinding fsh rushed through his body, but he quickly suppressed the glow with his soul.

  Within his body, his dantian was bruised purple. The sphere of qi was no more, now repced with a sirand of qi. It was a thick strand of white energy, now clear and defined.

  The first stage of qi gathering!

  He stood up and ughed heartily.

  The tension that had coiled around his heart dissipated. For the first time in years, he felt free once more. His body felt as light as a feather.

  In the past 8 years, he had tried his best not to think about the possibility of failure. If the path of cultivation was truly cut off from him... he did not even want to imagihe despair it would bring.

  A boundless joy filled every er of his soul, and his smile lit up like the sun.

  It was a feeling he hadn't felt in thousands of years.

  Good, good.

  Baiyun looked at the superior qi within his dantian and nodded with satisfa.

  Now, he could carry out the stage of his pn. Aoyang would never be tent dying in old age as Baiyun the servant.

  LunaTheGhost

  Thanks for reading the first chapter! It's a giga chapter 4.7k words ih, but most chapters ter on will be 2-3k words each. The inal version of this chapter was actually 6k words, but some people found the "fshback" ses fusing, so I decided to omit them for now.

  In Chp2, I will attach a gdoc with the "cut-tent", if you want to see the fshback ses that were removed from this chapter. They provide a lot more insight into Aoyang's past life