Chapter 2: Thoughts
'Well...' Hei Tu thought as he watched Grandma Li walk away slowly down the hallway after offering him words of encouragement and comfort, as well as imparting some of her wisdom from her long years of life. '...it seems that this truly isn't my world.'
He closed the door slowly, taking his gaze away from the hallway, with a complicated expression on his face as he looked at the wooden door.
"Unless this awakening ceremony she mentioned is some kind of religious festival, but I doubt it." He lowered his gaze, which felt heavier than before. "It seems more logical that it has something to do with the cultivation aspect of this world."
He thought this for obvious reasons, as the "Awakening Ceremony" that's supposed to take place tomorrow, which all the young members of the clan are excited about, according to Grandma Li, really seemed like the basic formula for the first chapter of a Chinese novel where the protagonist awakens his dantian and begins his journey of cultivation, something he had read countless times.
But one thing that still left him somewhat puzzled was the term "Gu Master," which he assumed to be the title given to cultivators in this world. But he couldn't recall ever hearing it in any novel he had read, no matter how much he tried to remember, which made him let out a helpless sigh.
"I guess that makes sense since there's no way an author from my world could write about what the titles of cultivators from another world would truly be like, even by coincidence. The chances would be almost non-existent." He turned on his feet and began walking away from the closed door, heading back toward his bed, just as he had been before Grandma Li knocked.
"But I still think that my knowledge of cultivation novels shouldn't be entirely useless, right?" Murmuring this, he paused in his steps, still standing in the middle of his room. "So, where do I start?"
"First, I need to find out what kind of cultivation exists in this world!" Saying this, he started patting his body and lifted the top of his shirt to examine the muscles on his torso and arms, throwing a few punches and kicks into the air.
And as he expected, from what he could see of his physique even with the shirt on, he was quite slim, without much muscle to speak of, and his strikes didn't display much power behind them. This made him lean toward the possibility that this world might have a relatively low or even no focus at all on martial cultivation.
Of course, he didn't rule it out entirely, as there was still the possibility that the former Hei Tu was simply too lazy to cultivate at all.
Still, he considered this to be less than a 1% chance because the Awakening Ceremony that Grandma Li spoke about really seemed related to dantian which in turn is related to spiritual cultivation, which typically wasn't compatible with martial cultivation. Moreover, when both exist in the same world, spiritual cultivation is generally considered superior.
And for now, lacking further knowledge about this world, he assumed this to be the case here as well.
"Second possibility..." He sat down on the floor in the middle of his room, assumed a lotus position, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
To any outside observer, it was clear that he was trying to enter a deep meditative state. But after a few minutes, he opened his eyes, frowning with a disappointed look on his face.
"This also failed... possibly because I'm doing it incorrectly or because I haven't gone through the Awakening Ceremony yet," he quickly deduced, standing up from the floor without needing to brush off his clothes since the floor was impeccably clean.
"Of course, it's also possible that, like the title 'Gu Master,' the cultivation method in this world might be one I've never seen before," he said, hoping he was wrong about this, as it would significantly diminish his advantage as a transmigrator if he had any at all.
"Ahh, truly having the memories left in my mind in total disarray is a big problem," he shook his head in despair because if he had Hei Tu's intact memories now, he wouldn't be dealing with this problem. But there was nothing he could do about it at the moment.
So, he put that thought aside for the time being and focused his attention on the black rock covered by the disheveled blankets on his bed, walking back toward it once more.
"Fortunately, I was cautious in handling it..." That was his thought, as now he was almost completely certain that this was a cultivation world. He deduced that it was possible that the rock might be some artifact that could have caused either his transmigration or the original Hei Tu's death, or both.
"Wait... could this be my golden finger?" That thought quickly crossed his mind as one of the most common plots in novels flashed through his head.
It could be an immortal grandpa within a shabby ring left to his family, a powerful personal cultivation dimension belonging solely to him, or a system that could help him rise in cultivation at a shocking speed by completing missions, among other things. Almost every transmigrator receives some form of cheat after arriving in their new world.
Moreover, even without a cheat, there are always those transmigrators who are favored by the Heavens and constantly have fortuitous encounters, gaining unimaginable benefits at every step or with every jade beauty and arrogant young master they meet.
Of course, some transmigrators don't receive any cheat or divine favor, yet for some unexplained reason, just being a transmigrator makes them incredibly talented, which, if that were the case, he wouldn't complain about at all.
"But I'm not willing to take the risk for now..." he said, carefully removing the blanket from over the black stone without touching it or even getting too close. "This is real life, not a Chinese cultivation novel written to entertain bored readers..."
"If I really think of myself as a protagonist who can't fail or suffer setbacks, I might truly suffer significant losses due to reckless actions driven by that mindset." Thinking this, his expression grew more serious as he looked at the perfectly rectangular, pitch-black rock. "And considering how cruel a world governed by strength, like those of cultivation novels, can be, I could very well meet a swift end if I adopt that mentality."
But whatever the case might be, since he had no way to verify it at the moment, he intended to gain a better understanding of how cultivation worked in this world. And if the black rock truly was a mysterious artifact capable of causing harm, his best course of action would be to keep a safe distance from it until he could inspect it safely or be certain that it was just an ordinary stone.
Finishing this thought, he picked up the blanket by its four corners, lifting it above the bed so that the stone was in the middle, carrying it like a bundle so that he could move it without touching it directly.
And so he did, carefully walking to a corner of his room that wasn't near the door or window, where no one entering his room could easily see it, yet he still had a clear line of sight from his bed to keep an eye on the stone.
"Well, that's all I can do for now..." he murmured as he placed the blanket on the floor along with the black stone, not worrying too much since he imagined there were more blankets in his wardrobe.
Besides, he didn't know if the stone might have some cursed property that could infect whatever it touched, and he didn't plan to risk finding out directly. He had already decided long ago to sleep with another blanket. In fact, he was even questioning whether he should sleep in his bed at all because of this.
Then he quickly walked up to his wardrobe, which was quite large for what he would expect to be necessary for a young man his age to store his clothes. It was made from dark wood, which, despite its rough appearance, was pleasant to the touch.
But he didn't think much about it as he quickly opened the wardrobe in search of one or two blankets, which he easily found and threw over his shoulder. However, he didn't stop looking through the wardrobe.
He was searching for some kind of diary or something similar that could answer many of his questions, but unfortunately, after nearly half an hour of searching, he couldn't find anything, leaving him with a rather disorganized wardrobe to tidy up later.
"Wait, is that?" Just before he could let out a defeated sigh at his failure to find anything, he noticed a suspicious indentation in one of the drawers he was reorganizing.
Without wasting any time, he removed the clothes he had placed back in the drawer and inspected the wooden indentation, noticing that it could be pressed like a button. When he did, the drawer's wood shifted to the right, allowing him to carefully remove it, revealing a medium-sized false bottom.
Inside the false bottom, he found nine stones of gray color with a smooth texture, shaped in an oval form and varying significantly in size.
Seeing this, he stared at the stones for a moment, then shifted his complicated gaze to the corner of his room, where a blanket was thrown on the floor around a rectangular, completely black stone.
"Maybe I was overthinking, and he just likes to collect rocks?" He shook his head after hearing his own words, realizing they were foolish.
He realized that he was still unconsciously acting as if this was his world. But this is supposedly a world of Chinese cultivation, and I ask you, what is the primary currency in almost every Chinese cultivation world? Any novel reader would know this off the top of their head: Spirit Stones, of course!
Of course, they may vary in name and form from story to story, but the basics remain the same—stones that can be used as money for trade but can also be used by cultivators to replenish their qi or whatever name they give to spiritual energy.
"So, could the black stone be one of these, just of higher quality? Also, is nine a lot or a little?" He asked these questions into the air without expecting an answer.
After thinking a bit and realizing that there wasn't much he could do to check his deductions, so he continued searching the wardrobe for more hidden compartments. But aside from the one holding the nine stones, he found nothing else. So, he quickly set about tidying up the wardrobe, which he had thoroughly searched.
Once he finished, he quickly went to his bed and threw the two blankets on it, arranging them quickly since it was already nighttime after he had spent so much time searching the wardrobe. He intended to wake up early the next day since the awakening ceremony was scheduled for tomorrow.
And since he couldn't figure out from grandma Li words or dare to ask directly if he could fail this awakening ceremony and not become a Gu Master or even understand how the ceremony would work or what would happen to someone who arrived late, he felt a certain weight in his chest about it. So he wanted to make sure to wake up without any delays the next day.
But before lying down on his bed, he glanced at the simple light-colored wooden dresser next to the bed, with the small, delicate bonsai whose white leaves now glowed faintly, illuminating the entire room and giving him a sense of tranquility and relief.
"I thought it was just an exotic decoration when the sun was starting to set... truly, things in a cultivation world can be quite impressive," he murmured as he searched through the dresser's drawers with a bit of expectation that, like in his wardrobe, he might find something.
This time, unlike his search through the wardrobe, he didn't have to make a mess or find a hidden compartment. In the first drawer he opened, he found a book placed neatly in the middle.
The book had a smooth, hard cover, clearly well-made, with an ancient Chinese-style illustration on the front. It depicted a shirtless, muscular man seen from behind, with glowing white marks running across his body, while a small black-and-white spider spread its web everywhere above his head.
Finally, he looked at the book's title, written at the bottom of the cover in impeccable calligraphy, making the various Chinese characters seem like a piece of art on their own as they spelled out—The Legends of Ren Zun!
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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