Chapter 25: The Inheritance of Water Mirror Peak

The teleportation brought him to the midway up Water Mirror Peak.

Clear springs sang as they trickled down from Han Bafang different directions, gathering into a lake.

The lake's surface mirrored the full moon and a sky full of stars, the stars and moon seeming close enough to touch.

A cold wind blew from the high sky, stirring up shimmering ripples.

All around the lake were unnamed tree species, ranging from a few meters to several dozen meters tall.

Beneath his feet seemed to be a long road paved with rough jade; to the left, following the jade steps upward, stood a wooden pavilion-style building in the manner of ancient Huaxia architecture—five stories high and nearly a hundred meters wide.

Halfway up the mountain, where the trees thinned out, there was a wooden pavilion.

To the right was a downward slope, with a few scattered buildings below.

Not far from where Su Lin stood was a wide, flat expanse of ground.

Like a plaza.

Occasionally withered leaves drifted down, scattering across the rough, archaic jade steps.

A cold wind carrying the scent of soil and leaves blew into his nostrils.

Gazing at the scene before him and breathing in those scents, Su Lin was for a moment at a loss.

After a while, he finally remembered what he was supposed to do.

He walked along the stone steps while taking in the scenery around him.

Thinking carefully, there had been a time when he, too, had fantasized about a landscape like this.

Back in his student days, he loved reading novels—he didn't turn any away, but cultivation novels were his favorite.

Everyone's youth is different. For some, youth is rich and colorful—idol dramas, an ordinary person's rise to greatness, the triumphs of top students, a regretless chapter of friendship and love balanced with studies.

But those who possessed such youths were, in the end, the minority.

And Su Lin belonged to that majority.

The heavy pressure of schoolwork, family pressure, pressure from every direction.

The only outlets were novels and manga.

Every time he was exhausted, he would fantasize about stepping onto the path of cultivation—joining a sect apart from the mortal world, training in a setting like this, watching the stars, gazing at the moon, discussing the Dao.

Compared to continuing to sink among the masses, struggling with the various troubles of real life, being chosen by the system was undoubtedly a stroke of luck for him.

As for what lay behind it all—let it be, leave it be.

He ambled toward the lake. Not far off stood another wooden pavilion, embraced by trees—an exquisite pavilion of elegant charm, with a clear crescent of lake water, the two complementing each other beautifully.

Beneath the pavilion was a stone table and a few bamboo and jade tubes.

Su Lin walked over curiously, sat down on the stone chair, and picked up one of the scrolls to examine.

The writing on it was a script he had never seen before.

It wasn't the common classical Chinese from Huaxia's history—no, it might not even be a script from Earth.

Su Lin guessed inwardly: if that were the case, perhaps Earth's waters weren't all that deep, and the system simply encompassed Items of the Realm from other worlds? A stroke of luck stirred within him.

If Earth's waters ran deep, wouldn't he have to race against time for the sake of power?

He'd been a wage-slave for two lifetimes—couldn't he just leisurely cultivate and enjoy himself a little?

Living a carefree pastoral life, popping over to some non-dangerous world for fun now and then—wouldn't that be nice?

Before Su Lin could examine it for long, a belated, dawning realization rose in his heart.

【Rain Transformation】

After a few seconds of blanking out, Su Lin hurriedly picked up another tube.

【Weaving Starlight】

These are spells?!

The next morning, Su Lin experienced a real-life Zelda—or you could say, real-life Genshin Impact.

After exploring a small portion of Water Mirror Peak, an indescribably strange feeling sprouted in Su Lin's heart.

Drawing Water Mirror Peak might have been a huge win.

All manner of arts and inheritances within it seemed preserved—this was the complete inheritance system of Water Mirror Peak within a cultivation sect called Xian Ning Sect.

What he'd drawn wasn't merely a floating mountain, but a complete immortal sect.

But...

It was too complete.

During his exploration, Su Lin felt a very strange sensation.

It was as if the people of Water Mirror Peak had simply stepped out for a moment.

In the pavilion at the summit were cultivation arts and spells.

Not to mention the tables, chairs, and tea sets, the brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones, the green plant decorations...

In some of the rooms he entered, there were even sect robes, and even personal clothing.

In the scattered houses below the plaza, books lay open on tables halfway through being read, teapots still held tea, and a bit of rummaging through chests and cabinets could turn up some pills.

In one room, there were also women's clothes—whose, he couldn't tell: senior sister's or junior sister's.

He couldn't shake the feeling that the more he thought about it, the more unsettling it became.

Back home, Su Lin stowed Water Mirror Peak and once again carefully read the system's description of this item.

Tens of thousands of words flowed by, until Su Lin reached the final passage.

【Founded in the 334th year of the Tianwu Calendar—Destroyed in the 1745th year of the Kuiyue Calendar】

He was silent for a while.

Destroyed?

Could Water Mirror Peak have been reconstructed?

Recalling the scenes within, Su Lin guessed the system might have restored a certain point in time—perhaps the moment before destruction, or perhaps even earlier.

The system had perfectly replicated and reproduced a moment of Water Mirror Peak.

As long as it wasn't something like moving someone's entire homeland over from another plane, that would be fine.

Otherwise, he could only say sorry about it...

The second night.

Su Lin sat inside the Wangshu Pavilion of Water Mirror Peak, with a pot of tea and a platter of Sea King cold meat on the table.

A few Fire Element Essence Stones exchanged from the system were placed at his feet.

There was no helping it—the temperature at ten thousand meters altitude was freezing enough to numb one's feet.

He ate while learning to follow the cultivation method for the Beginner Stage.

Have to say,

his talent was probably about at the level of an ordinary person......

Well, he didn't even know what level ordinary people were at.

If he had to learn entirely on his own with no one to guide him through the basics, it would probably take him quite some time.

No rush... no rush...

Although he could achieve it in one fell swoop through the system, this was still a rare experience.

If it really wouldn't work, find someone to guide him a bit?

Emmm...

Inside the Wangshu Pavilion was an independent space, far larger than it appeared from the outside.

Aside from not having many cultivation resources, it contained a core inheritance—a cultivation method pointing directly to the Immortal Path—along with various spells.

Those friends in the group... if he opened all this up to them just to find someone to teach him, wouldn't he become the group's opportunity?

Clearly, yesterday it was he who wanted to cling to someone's thigh, but after one trip to another world, the situation had completely reversed.

In the end, the opportunity turned out to be himself.

Not counting Luffy, he had actually only known the people in the group for a single day, and they hadn't even met offline yet.

Of course, the pole-vaulting male lead hadn't even surfaced in chat yet.

But when help was needed yesterday, everyone sent over a Pile of Items without a second word, providing him quite a bit of assistance.

Speaking in terms of bearing, although some people in the group were a bit black-hearted and others a bit cautious, they all shared one common trait—they were people who knew how to repay kindness and valued loyalty, provided they truly considered you a friend.

Taking these things out didn't cost him anything; it was just that the role reversal happened too quickly and he hadn't quite adapted yet.

Indeed, skipping straight past the Beginner Stage of starting out and arriving at the nouveau riche phase was a bit satisfying.

His fingers tapped leisurely on the wooden table, and he glanced back at the numerous bookshelves floating in the space behind him.

Ye Fan ignored the big black dog beside him bragging about its glorious past exploits, while egging him on to go find the Purple Mansion Holy Maiden to have children.

Casually reading Ye Zhetian, then lurking in the group—wasn't that far more interesting than having children?

Still think your romance arc isn't rich enough?...