LunaTheGhost

  The servant's library.

  No, to call it a library might be an exaggeration. It was a simple brick shack rarely visited by anyone, one of the few recreational facilities of the servaor. Inside, dozens of old shelves were lined ly, dust and cobwebs lining their tops.

  Half the books here were reted to servant activities, including books on effit harvesting and crop formations. But the rest were books discarded by disciples of the sect, collected by her than the resident light spirit.

  Baiyun sat on one of few avaible seats in the meagre library with a ntern oable close by, holding a book in hand.

  Close by, the spirit iion floated above him, looking through the pages as well. For whatever reason, it had taken i in him in the past years and would visit him whe felt like it.

  "The great immortal reinates as a dragon."

  That was the title of the book in his hands. It was a shallow read, but it portunity to ask a question he wao ask for years.

  "Hey hey, miss spirit! Do you think it's possible to reinate like this book says?" Baiyun asked ily.

  "Reination? Hmm... I think I've heard the elder spirits talk about it in the past." the spirit mused. "Something about a new heavenly w about reination being passed down? But I'm not sure."

  "It's real?" Baiyun looked up with eyes of child-like excitement. "Then, in my life, I be reinated as a cultivator?"

  "Huh? O-oh, maybe?" the spirit stumbled over her words in a fluster. "But as far as I know, people reinate without their memories. You probably won't remember this life."

  "Aww..." Baiyun pouted.

  But he recovered quickly. With excited waves of his arms, he spouted question after question endlessly. The light spirit seemed troubled by the naive questions of the child.

  Baiyun was equally pained by how he had to put on the facade of a clueless child; it was both embarrassing and tiring. If anyone from his past life saw him like this, he felt like he would bury himself in a hole for a hundred years. But tonight was a rare night the spirit had time to spend with him, he wouldn't let her go without asking his fill of questions so easily!

  The questions tinued food few minutes, before he could finally ask the question he wanted. After all, a young child wouldn't know what a heavenly w was.

  "-and boom! A brilnt fsh of light!" the spirit said.

  "Ohhh! So it shines with a golden light when they announce a new w! That's so cool! How does it happen? I want to see it!" Baiyun ractically jumping iement.

  "The heavens don't just pass down ws so casually. Those ws were passed in the 27,980th year, and this year is the 28,088th so that's um..."

  "A hundred a years ter! That's so long!" Baiyun excimed.

  "Yeah... haha."

  The light spirit dimmed, seemingly ashamed of itself.

  Baiyued a little. He answered that reflexively! Even if he osing as a bright child, perhaps it was a little too much for him to be faster at arithmetics than a spirit of unknown age.

  108 years, huh? He felt a deep mencholy.

  His soul had been in suspension for that long? Baiyun thought he had been reinated instantly, but it made se took time for his soul to be transported this absurd distance.

  As he had suspected, reinating with intact memories was not normal. Not everyone would think to keep it hidden, and there would be a lot of chaos if many children were born with knowledge of their past lives. Would his memories be erased if the heavens found out about this error? Baiyun could not help but worry.

  If he tio cultivate, the ce the heavens would find out would grow. But the thought of spending the ey of this life as a servant was worse. Even if his life ut on the line, he knew he couldn't give up.

  Baiyun shut the book in his hands, a faint puff of dust floating into the air.

  "Miss spirit!" he said suddenly. "I'm bored, so tomorrow I want to go to the mushroom chamber!"

  "What?!" The light spirit practically jumped. "Why would you want to go there?"

  "When you took us there st time, I thought the glowing mushrooms were cool!" Baiyun put on the look of a smug child. "I have a lot of tribution points anyway, so what's wrong with taking a break for a day?"

  If a servant did well, they could spend their tribution points to get a request of theirs fulfilled.

  The two of them bickered for a few minutes before the spirit finally relented, letting out a sigh.

  "Fine... I know I 't ge your mind when you're like this. But be careful! I'm not allowed to go down with you. And the earth spirit supervising the chambers isn't as g!"

  The spirit spent the 10 minutes nagging and drilling him with safety protocols. Baiyun could only sweat.

  "I'll sleep early siomorrow is big!" he said, desperate to flee.

  He practically rushed out of the library with a book under his arm, hurrying home. He ran down a stone road and made a few quick turns, before arriving at a small brick house.

  Baiyun quickly pulled the door open only for his eyes to twitch at the sight before him. His brother was hunched over the bamboo box full of delicacies the chefs had given him, eating a bowl of shaved iced leisurely by the spoonful.

  "Ah! You thieving rat!" Baiyun yelled.

  "Hah! You thought I wouldn't find it if it was under your bed? Blehh!" the kid stuck out his tongue.

  Baiyun flung the book in his hands, smag him right in the head. He would have kept the bamboo box ie bag the sect had given him, but it was of low quality and items inside had a tendenble around and flip over.

  "Ow!"

  Well, not that he really was angry, he told himself. He was just ag as a child, after all. He fought his brother off and ate the rest of the delicacies before heading off to bed, hugging the book to sleep.

  "The Fuals of Earth".

  It was a cultivatioed book, not one a child could be expected to uand. Baiyun didn't want to expin to the spirit why he was flipping through such books, so years ago, he figured out an ve excuse.

  "If I sleep with the books, maybe I'll absorb their knowledge!"

  That was what he decred to her years ago, much to her speechlessness. In the end, the spirit still catered to his childish demands and handed him a few old cultivation books she found lying around.

  Hugging a book to sleep an easy way for him to read books with soulsense while his body rested. They were far from as refined as the teiques his old sect had, but Aoyang did not like spending the night idling til his body woke. Even if they weren't particurly refiheories, he still enjoyed p them from time to time.

  Hours, followed by the night passed as the soul read and pted ead every page. Baiyun opened his eyes to the light of daut the book aside. He did not wake his brother today and simply left. It wasn't his problem if that kid overslept.

  The light spirit flew over, holding a giant bag.

  "Here, wear this!"

  Baiyun squirmed as she tied a helmet to his head and stuffed him into a thick coat. At the helmet's front, a small qi stone was embedded, shining with a faint light.

  "You don't o go that far..." Baiyued. "I'll be fine."

  He wasn't sure how he felt about the spirit ag like an overprotective mother. When had she gotten that attached to him? But it recisely that very care that made it difficult for him. Too much attention only made it more difficult for him to act discretely.

  "Repeat the safety protocols from yesterday!" the spirit said sternly.

  "Okay, okay!"

  Only after firming he remembered the protocols did she nod a him off. Baiyun took off his helmet briefly to adjust his hair, staring at the qi stone wistfully. How easy would it be if he could just eat it to advance his cultivation?

  For a moment, he was tempted to gobble it up on the spot and pretend it was just the impulse of a weird child, but he held back.

  "Bye miss spirit!"

  Baiyun waved goodbye to her before heading off.

  He followed long winding paths and made his way to the nearby mountains, where caves reached far down. Other servants were on their way as well, but they did not look as prepared. They did not have coats and merely put on a few yers of clothing. They did not have the luxury of a miner's helmet, instead holding rge oil nterns.

  Most of them were adults, so quite a lot of them were staring at the child joining them in puzzlement. But they miheir own business and did not ask.

  Before long, the gaping maw of a cave in the midst of the mountain revealed itself. Baiyun followed the servants as they desded the dark caves, entering the bowels of the earth.

  The slow trek downwards began. The servants did not seem in the mood for talk, tho they let out slow boured breaths as the air grew colder. Baiyu a little bad and offered the leasted dressed servant a rge rag as a makeshift cold, and she nodded in thanks.

  An hour of walking passed before they ehe mushroom pntation. The servant hahe rags back to Baiyun, and he finally nodded ba response.

  The other servants did not pay the slightest heed to him, dispersing in every dire. They pulled out pickaxes with an axe head with one end, getting to work immediately.

  Baiyun looked around and took in the sight.

  Even deep underground, the caverns were far from lifeless. Massive roots from a strange woody pnt dug into the stone walls, tless mushrooms iing them. Save for the light of nterns and some luminous mushrooms, the caverns were darker than night.

  The faint sounds of grinding and g could be heard as servants slowly dug into the stone walls, tendering to the roots and harvesting the ripe mushrooms.

  Baiyun did not lie to the light spirit about finding the mushroom caverns "cool". He thought there was a certaiy to the atmosphere here.

  He recalled something from a few years back.

  Back when he was 6, the light spirit rounded up the young servants and brought them here to visit. To them, it was dark, freezing cold and the still air felt suffog. Who would enjoy digging into stone walls in such ditions for hours? They were told if they did poorly at their jobs, they would be seo work for the rest of their lives.

  The scare proved effective and the very day, the young servants worked with tenfold effort.

  But Baiyun did not e here to get any work done.

  He walked past the many servants hard at work, as well as those merely idling around listlessly, their eyes dulled by boredom. Baiyun shook his head; it was as the light spirit said.

  The earth spirit supervising them simply did not care. It would merely note down the tribution of the servants ahe caves sturdy with new reinforced pilrs. If any undergrous appeared, it would sughter them. The servants who chose not to work were only making it worse for themselves; it meant they would have to put up with the suffog cavern for yet more hours.

  Baiyun touched the walls silently and mused to himself. They were not artificial caves, but part of a rge undergrouwork of natural caverns. The earth spirit had a radius it marked as the "safe zone". If any servaured beyond that point, they would no longer be us prote.

  He walked deeper and deeper into the caverns. The servants around him grew fewer and fewer, until it was only him alone.

  The edge of the safe zone was now in sight, marked by a faint yellow light. He hesitated for a moment and took a deep breath. Then, he walked past the light.

  Free of surveil st! Baiyun ughed in silehen focused for a moment and opened his mouth.

  A thin thread of qi sewined with soulsense shot out. Soulsense was to draw upon the senses of one's soul. Qi sense was to use external qi to sehe surroundings. To bihem both was the art of divine sense.

  With how he cked external meridians, he had to use qi directly from his stomach.

  Now that he was i stage of Qi Gathering, he could end a tiny fragment of his soul safely. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough for him to sense danger 3 metres around him. Along with that, his ck of external meridians would help him stay hidden from spirit beasts. There was no qi wafting off his body to give him away, nor would his body take in the surrounding qi.

  He put his helmet bato his bag wordlessly. The st of the helmet's light peered out of the bag, before being engulfed, plunging the surroundings into pitch darkness. Baiyun had no choice. Light was far too dangerous.

  With soundless footsteps, he ventured.

  The silence was suffog. All he could hear was faint winds whispering through the caves. Every now and then, he could hear distant creatures scuttling about. But just as abruptly, the deafening silence would return.

  Ihe caves, he was not the only orying to hide.

  This was nothing. He had gohrough far worse in his training against inner demons; such a small thing could nhten him.

  But Baiyun clutched his chest, armed by the sensation within him. Why was his heart pounding so fast? Why was his breath shaky? He did not realise, or perhaps chose not to realise, but being reborn in this young body had ged him.

  He took deep breaths and steadied himself before tinuing onwards.

  Minute by miep by step, an hour passed. How far away was he from the safe zone now?

  On his way here, he felt the qi sense of spirit beasts sweeping their territory many times. Each time, he could only leave quickly, ging the route he took in the darkness. His divihread might have a small effective range, but it was far quicker than qi sense, darting out before they could sense him iurn.

  Though, if he tried to use divihread uhe surveilnce of the sect spirits, he was certain they would out in an instant. They were not simple beasts after all.

  Baiyun's thoughts paused as his divihread ced upon a faint qi in the darkness. His breath quied as he walked towards it slowly.

  A rge grey fleshy lump coated in foul bck ooze stuck out of the cavern walls. It irit fungus of sorts. Baiyun reached to it with divine sense and analysed it, reag the unsurprising clusion that it was a very poisonous mushroom.

  That was only natural. If it was a free treasure for the taking, a spirit beast would have eaten it long ago.

  Baiyun took a hand scythe from his bag and spent the minute sawing it off, a fork in his other hand. As the fungus began to wobble, a sliver from being cut off from the wall, he stabbed the fork into it and plucked it off. If he let it fall to the ground, the sound might attrawatention.

  How ironic, to hold what was inedible on a rock. Baiyun wasn't in the mood to appreciate that little thought. He rolled the fungus in a pile of rock dust to stop the dripping of the ooze, then began his journey back to the safe zo was far too dangerous to process the mushroom here.

  The memory of a Transdent expert's soul was not to be s. Even if it was a week ter, he would still be fident in finding his way back.

  He tinued in the darkness for half an hour, but suddenly halted.

  Something’s qi sense was blog the path back.