Chapter 1
She was a severe text addict and an Internet Community addict.
The first thing she did upon opening her eyes was turn on her Smartphone.
For over ten years, she had maintained a daily routine of refreshing her screen to devour posts or read web novels right up until she fell asleep.
Peeking into the daily lives of others and cramming all sorts of trivia into her brain served as the sole escape from her harsh life.
Reality was easily forgotten within the anonymity beyond the screen.
It was a boring early morning hour, no different from usual.
Only the bright light emitting from the Smartphone lingered in the room.
While she was lying in bed and habitually skimming through posts, a bizarre Banner ad caught her eye.
[What kind of life would you want to live if you were reincarnated?]
It was a crude phrase written in bold, white, brush-style font against a black background.
Normally, she would have snorted and immediately ignored such a low-quality ad.
But today, she had absolutely nothing to do, and a strange curiosity stirred within her.
As if possessed, she moved her finger and clicked the Banner.
The screen transitioned, leaving a single question and a blank space sitting there.
She answered the survey with a light heart.
“I want to be born as a privileged beautiful girl in a Xianxia World and live my life browsing the Community just like I do now.”
It was a silly wish heavily tinged with escapism.
She laughed it off lightly and typed out her thoughts.
At that moment, she lost consciousness as her eyelids fluttered shut.
* * *
She regained her senses.
She had been reborn as the Youngest Granddaughter of a historic Golden Core Clan.
Her new name was Baek-Cheong.
She had retained the memories of her past life completely intact from the moment she was born.
From the time she could barely babble, she carefully listened to the conversations of the adults around her and coolly assessed her current situation.
The place she had reincarnated into was a world of cultivators seeking to become immortals.
Among them, she realized she was born into the bloodline of a renowned, Prestigious Clan called the Yeonha Baek Clan.
The highest elder of the Clan, her grandfather, was actually a Great Cultivator at the Golden Core stage.
The problem stemmed from a terrible misunderstanding by the Clan Members.
Baek-Cheong’s well-behaved demeanor - never crying needlessly since infancy and reading the room to gauge the adults' moods - came across as a marvel in itself.
Looking at the infant’s bright, clear eyes, the adults cheered that a genius seen only once in ten thousand years had been born.
“Our Cheong-Yi’s comprehension pierces the heavens!”
“She is a great Talent who will lead the Clan beyond the Nascent Soul stage and all the way to the Soul Formation realm in the future!”
Led by the Golden Core stage Old Ancestor, her parents and numerous Uncles all cherished and revered Baek-Cheong.
Her late-night wish to be born as a privileged beautiful girl had certainly come true.
Spirit stones rotted in the storehouses in abundance, and rare, healthy spirit herbs were placed on the lavish dining table at every meal.
However, as she grew a year or two older, her Family’s excessive praise became an unbearably heavy burden.
Baek-Cheong was far from being a genius born with outstanding comprehension.
She had merely matured earlier than her physical body thanks to the memories of her past life.
Acting smart all the time and meeting the adults' expectations was accompanied by extreme, soul-gnawing fatigue.
Above all, her greatest suffering stemmed from terrible boredom.
Life in the Xianxia Era, where neither smartphones nor internet communities existed, was no different from a punishment.
Even when she was wearing splendid silk clothes and eating her fill of Delicacies, a severe thirst that could never be quenched settled in a corner of her heart.
She frequently found herself cooped up in her spacious room all day, staring into the void and sighing heavily enough to sink the ground.
Unable to endure it, Baek-Cheong would often stretch both arms in her vacant room toward the empty air and shout as if screaming.
“Status window! Gallery!”
The only answer that was returned was cold silence.
The memories of her past life, swimming freely through the Community, made Baek-Cheong suffer from severe Withdrawal Symptoms.
And so, her precarious life of acting continued day after day.
* * *
Time flowed helplessly, and she turned ten years old.
Today was an incredibly important day to test the spiritual roots of the Clan’s children.
Spiritual roots were the measure of one’s Talent to absorb and manipulate the Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth.
It was a solemn ceremony to confirm the minimum qualifications required to walk the path of a cultivator before the whole world.
Hundreds of Family members gathered tightly in the Baek Clan’s massive Training Ground, holding their breath.
Countless gazes focused on the small Young Girl standing tall on the Platform.
An unimaginable sense of anticipation filled the venue, as everyone wondered what kind of spectacular display the Youngest Granddaughter, who had boasted extraordinary comprehension and brilliance since childhood, would put on.
Everyone firmly believed without a doubt that a legendary Talent like an Earth Spiritual Root or a Heaven Spiritual Root would appear.
“Begin.”
Maintaining a calm expression on the outside, Baek-Cheong carefully placed both hands on the massive Spiritual Root Measuring Stone situated in the center of the Platform.
The rough texture of the stone was slowly felt through her palms.
Along with a dull, humming vibration, a brilliant Five-Colored light began to bloom from within the measuring stone.
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water.
The five spiritual roots mixed together in an extremely murky manner, spewing out an unpleasant hue.
Even the intensity of the light was so faint it seemed it would extinguish at any moment, and the speed at which it absorbed spiritual energy was frustratingly slow.
The breathing of the hundreds gathered in the Training Ground stopped all at once. A thick, heavy silence crushed the entire Training Ground.
“A Five-Element Spiritual Root is the lowest grade even among mixed spiritual roots.”
The voice of the white-haired elder in charge of the test trembled slightly.
The anticipation that had been as massive as Mount Tai was immediately replaced by terrible despair.
In the Cultivation World, a Five-Element Spiritual Root meant a Trash Talent that would struggle to cross the wall of Foundation Establishment even with a lifetime of blood-sweating cultivation.
The years of being revered as a once-in-a-century genius who would take full responsibility for the Clan’s future were rendered meaningless.
Shock, bewilderment, and deep pity rapidly crossed the faces of the Clan Members.
Faced with this unbelievable reality, no one could hastily open his or her mouth.
It was right at that moment.
A bizarre phenomenon that was incredibly hard to believe occurred in Baek-Cheong’s vision.
A Translucent Window suddenly floated in the empty air.
[It is connected to the Nameless Forum.]
Baek-Cheong stopped breathing and opened her eyes wide.
The murmurs and sighs of the people around her had long since faded from her ears.
The interface of the Translucent Window floating before her eyes perfectly mirrored the format of the Community she had looked at countless times in her past life.
Soon after, a vast amount of knowledge about the Nameless Forum forcefully flowed into her mind.
It was a mysterious Spiritual Connection that only those born with a special constitution called the Nameless Body could access.
The Nameless Body was an extremely rare constitution that appeared incredibly rarely, at a rate of one in tens of millions even among cultivators.
Normally, it was difficult to even brush sleeves with someone who had the same constitution in an entire lifetime.
However, the scale of the countless Lower Realms was so immensely vast that it couldn’t even be compared to Earth from her past life.
Because the Nameless Forum was a massive network that encompassed the entirety of the Lower Realm, the number of users currently connected to the Nameless Forum was by no means small.
On the Forum Board before her eyes, new posts were constantly being refreshed and uploaded in real time.
“Dao Friend (159.265): I made up my mind to Refine a Foundation Establishment Pill today, and the cauldron exploded. Pay me back for my precious spirit stones, you bastard Heavenly Dao.”
“Dao Friend (35.897): Does any Dao Friend want to buy some spirit herbs I just dug up from Black Wind Valley?”
“Dao Friend (932.38): Is the personality level of those Sword Sect bastards for real? They’re blocking the path and extorting tolls again.”
As she read through the posts, Baek-Cheong’s heart began to pound wildly.
The thrilling sensation of her long-held thirst being quenched in an instant swept through her entire body.
It was a true venue for anonymous communication where one could frankly discuss the real-time happenings in the boring Cultivation World.
When she moved her Divine Sense naturally, the Forum Board moved smoothly up and down as if scrolling with a mouse.
It was an intuitive structure where she could click on posts, read text, leave replies, or hit recommend using only her Divine Sense.
She was deeply moved that her silly late-night wish to be born as a privileged beautiful girl and to laze around enjoying the Community had been fulfilled completely, without a single error.
“Cheong-A…”
A thinly trembling voice, full of moisture, forcefully dragged Baek-Cheong’s consciousness back to reality.
She barely managed to tear her eyes away from the Translucent Window of the Nameless Forum and turned her head.
Her mother was standing beside her, biting her lip, her eyes red and flushed.
The numerous Family members gathered below the Platform couldn’t bear to meet Baek-Cheong’s eyes, bowing their heads in unison and staring only at the ground.
Everyone from the Baek Clan gathered in the Training Ground had fallen into a massive misunderstanding.
They had jumped to the conclusion that young Baek-Cheong, having received an indelible shock from the disastrous test result of a Five-Element Spiritual Root, had completely lost her mind and gone insane.
The misunderstanding deepened because she had been wearing a blank expression while staring at the Nameless Forum just moments ago.
“Did I focus too much?”
Baek-Cheong rationally and clearly recognized that her spiritual root was the worst kind of trash.
For a cultivator, the grand achievement of reaching the Soul Formation stage and shaking Heaven and Earth was forever out of the question.
She was now in a position where she had miserably betrayed the long-held expectations and devotion of the Clan Members.
However, deep within Baek-Cheong’s heart, an indescribable, overwhelming joy and euphoria were bubbling up.
What did a Five-Element Spiritual Root matter anyway?
Right before her eyes, a Community called the Nameless Forum that encompassed the Lower Realm existed in plain sight.
She had regained her sole and perfect escape within the boring lives of cultivators who lived dryly in pursuit of eternal life.
Filled with relief, Baek-Cheong smiled brightly and genuinely as she opened her mouth.
“Mother, I’m really okay. I’m perfectly fine.”
It was a sincere consolation welling up from deep within her heart.
It was a pure smile that came out because she had found something to live joyfully for, regardless of having a Five-Element Spiritual Root.
However, to her mother’s ears, it only sounded like the words of a young daughter desperately pretending to be okay with a harsh and cruel reality.
The sight of her forcing a silly smile dug into her heart even more.
“Oh, Cheong-A!!!”
Unable to hold back the surging sorrow, her mother burst into loud, wailing tears in the end.
In the embrace of her mother, who suddenly approached and hugged her tightly while sobbing, Baek-Cheong was quite flustered and rolled her eyes this way and that.
She intuitively sensed that the mood was flowing in a strange direction.
Soon after, her father, with his reliable build, approached with infinitely heavy steps.
Even his usually strict and cool-headed eyes were filled with deep pity and thick sorrow today.
Gently stroking Baek-Cheong’s head with his large, rough hand, he quietly coaxed her.
“Cheong-A, there’s no need to force yourself to smile. I can hardly even guess how torn to shreds your heart must be. Return to your Abode for today and get some good rest.”
She judged that it was nearly impossible to salvage this heavily sunken, funeral-like atmosphere immediately.
Baek-Cheong realized that repeatedly saying she was truly okay would only worsen the situation.
In the end, she obediently nodded and turned her body, preparing to leave the Training Ground.
She was heading toward her grand Residence after exiting the massive Training Ground.
Baek-Cheong’s footsteps were noticeably slower than usual.
It wasn’t because her legs had lost their strength.
It was because her gaze was fixed solely on the Translucent Window of the Nameless Forum anchored in the empty air, with every step she took.
Her walking speed couldn’t help but slow down significantly as she utilized her Divine Sense elaborately to carefully read posts and check reactions in real time.
“Dao Friend (35.897): Hah… I almost suffered a Qi Deviation from inner demons while breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage today.”
“Dao Friend (338.32): Breaking News) I heard that the Heavenly Sword Sect’s Eldest Senior Disciple Brother went down the mountain, got into a fight with some nameless country bumpkin, got his ass beat, and had his natal sword broken lol.”
“Dao Friend (79.502): Never buy that weird ring posted on the Marketplace. There’s some crazy old geezer’s soul inside spouting nonsense about teaching a Dual Cultivation Secret Art.”
The Family members, who were pitifully watching her slow and precarious back from afar, continuously let out deep sighs and wiped their eyes with their sleeves.
“Our poor Young Lady. How great must the shock have been for her to stumble like that, unable to even take proper steps.”
“The heavens are truly heartless. How could they bestow upon such a wise genius such a terrible curse as a mere Five-Element Spiritual Root? It is a tremendous loss for our Baek Clan.”
Without bothering to correct the sympathetic gazes and misunderstanding-filled whispers pouring onto her back, Baek-Cheong silently walked on.
Right now, she doesn’t even have the time to care about other people’s gazes.
Only the desire to read and process even one more new post in front of her eyes filled her mind.