Chapter 1

On the worn-out table sat an oil lamp emitting a faint glow like a single soybean.

Li Ruoshui’s expression was somewhat dazed. It had been several days since she arrived in this world, yet she still couldn’t get used to it.

It was good, though. In her previous life, she had lain bedridden for over a decade, her body long since withered like a lamp running out of oil.

Her few joys had come from the holographic game pod, but now, unlike galloping through virtual worlds, she held a genuine ticket to experience the cultivation realm.

Transmigrating into a book was a form of liberation, a rebirth.

But she was just too poor.

The home was bare, and in the dilapidated shack with walls like mere fences, the most precious item was the white jade pill bottle before her eyes. Inside lay a pill brimming with rich yuan qi, which could fetch at least ten spirit jade pills on the market—equivalent to a month’s wages for her current status.

For the penniless Li Ruoshui, this single pill was actually significant property. Yet it buried a fatal crisis.

This world was built from a novel called After Discovering My Spirit Pet Was the Demon Venerable, I Ran Away. Its vast worldview dragged along massive romance-brain elements and an underdeveloped plotline, charging ahead until it collapsed completely, ending in a rotten tail.

Of course, that wasn’t the point. The entire plotline had nothing to do with Li Ruoshui.

In the story, she was just a nameless nobody. If she followed the path fate had laid out, she would already be flat on a board by now.

The problem lay with this spirit pill.

The pill had been a friendly gift from Xie Chaosheng, one of the novel’s female protagonists and a direct disciple of the Taiyi Sect.

She was the true disciple of the Taiyi Sect Master Lian Rusu. According to this world’s sect rules, aside from true disciples who could stay, other cultivators either formed their Golden Core and graduated directly or passed assessments to become new sect auxiliary teachers.

In her original world’s terms, Xie Chaosheng was a guaranteed admission student—straight to the Sect Master level.

Thus, Xie Chaosheng enjoyed extremely high prestige in the Taiyi Sect. She herself was a gentle, benevolent soul who often gave out wealth.

This time, the immense fortune had fallen upon the outer sect disciples, and Li Ruoshui happened to be among them.

In the plot, while her outer sect fellows all thought to sell the pill for profit, the original owner—desperate to grow stronger—took it and overdosed on the pure spirit qi, bursting apart from overexertion.

The incident alarmed the Taiyi Sect’s higher-ups, and Sect Master Lian Rusu personally ordered Xie Chaosheng punished.

But Xie Chaosheng refused to accept it, believing the sect treated outer disciples too harshly.

In truth, the sect had its reasons. Spirit pills were refined through special methods; if an outer disciple’s cultivation wasn’t up to par, consuming one brought only harm without benefit.

Yet Xie Chaosheng saw it all as excuses. She had given out wealth in the outer sect before and never seen anyone meet mishap.

While she was confined, the novel’s other female lead—the future Demon Venerable Cang Lang—made her appearance.

At that time, Cang Lang was still weak. Due to severe infighting in the demonic path, she fled and hid in the Taiyi Sect as a small snake, disguising herself as Xie Chaosheng’s spirit pet.

Though just a little snake, she could still amuse Xie Chaosheng.

But Xie Chaosheng had her white moonlight. Unable to distinguish fledgling admiration from love, she relentlessly pursued her benefactor teacher, Lian Rusu, whom she had never even seen face-to-face.

After that, the melodramatic chase between the two romance-brained women unfolded.

Li Ruoshui didn’t care about their love-hate entanglements. She only knew that eating the pill before her would kill her.

She could exchange the spirit pill for spirit jade, but if she accidentally got entangled again and turned into cannon fodder once more, what then?

After much thought, Li Ruoshui decided to proactively cut herself out of the plot.

Survival came first. As for the female leads’ world-shaking, ghost-weeping romances that unsettled all races—what did they have to do with her?

But there was a boundary between outer and inner sects.

She could only wait for Xie Chaosheng to emerge from the inner sect on her own, then return the spirit pill intact.

Fortunately, she had asked around among her fellow disciples, and Xie Chaosheng would come out in the next couple of days.

With a soft exhale of turbid qi, Li Ruoshui reluctantly shifted her gaze from the jade bottle.

Over these past few days, she had inventoried her possessions repeatedly: a Tianyan Mirror · Qi worth two spirit jade, three sets of sect uniforms, and twelve spirit jade—never increasing no matter how she counted.

Couldn’t she inexplicably discover a Universe Pouch stuffed with treasures that would make her rich beyond rivals?

Or unlock a golden finger, like a game system from transmigration?

Li Ruoshui stowed the spirit pill and took out the Tianyan Mirror to check. This cheap, commonplace artifact resembled a mirror but was far from simple. It linked the entire cultivation world’s heavenly net, born from the Tianyan spirit vein and refined by the Tianyan Sect’s guardians into a tool that reflected all registered orthodox methods. Any cultivator on the path, even the stingiest, scraped together two spirit jade to buy one and join fellow Daoists in discussion and exchange.

The Tianyan Mirror came in two versions. The one marked “Qi” was the basic model, like an old flip phone—text messages only.

The other, called Tianyan Mirror · Huan, projected figures and cost at least two hundred spirit jade. Once customized with decorations, its price soared.

Either way, the sucker footing the bill lost out. Li Ruoshui couldn’t afford it regardless.

Fortunately, the Tianyan Mirror’s functions were similar. Both versions offered the root bone testing “Ascend Heaven Gate,” the debate “Dharma Realm,” the quarreling “Law Realm,” the royal lecture “Immortal Altar,” the scripture storage “Langhuan,” and the spell practice “Martial Practice”—though only a tiny fraction were free.

Li Ruoshui infused a strand of magic power into the Tianyan Mirror and entered the free Dharma Realm.

Her low-end version showed only scrolling text, as the Daoists of Tianyan argued fiercely again. “Online” verbal spars weren’t enough; some even tried unmasking each other for offline duels.

Amid the mutual insults, Li Ruoshui spotted a fellow Daoist’s arrogant “Hahaha.” The reason? While mining, they unearthed something worth a fortune, swelling their purse.

Li Ruoshui: “…”

That laughter grated on her ears!

Before envy turned her red-eyed, she swiftly quit the Tianyan Mirror, pinched a calming incantation, and steadied her qi.

With effort, she diverted her thoughts from “poverty,” cast aside the two women’s emotional quests, and recalled that the novel still had its own plotline. At least before the end, the author had clarified the apocalyptic crisis.

It was now the 950th year of the Ninth Era of the Nine Provinces Supreme Nine Records. A millennium made an era, a minor calamity of water and fire; ten eras, or ten thousand years, birthed a world-ending great tribulation.

When the Tenth Era arrived, from the Return to Ruins Realm—representing the reverse of the Dao (Tianyan), symbolizing death and conclusion—a Lord of Return to Ruins would be born. It would destroy all existence, reshaping the Nine Provinces World.

In the book, Xie Chaosheng and Cang Lang were the saviors, embodying ultimate purity and turbidity, joining forces to suppress the Lord of Return to Ruins.

Fifty years remained until the calamity. Return to Ruins Gaps had already appeared across the Nine Provinces, spilling forth the vanguard of the Lord of Return to Ruins: the Spirits of Return to Ruins. Existing between real and illusory, the solid ones morphed into various forms—the highest indistinguishable from humans—while the illusory ones parasitized cultivators’ minds like worms, slowly replacing them entirely. But they had limits: abandoning their forms meant if the host died, they dispersed too.

Yet they shared a weakness: inability to use the Tianyan Mirror, emblem of the Dao’s orthodoxy.

The novel skimmed these final fifty years, focusing on the last decade.

Li Ruoshui couldn’t know that decade’s details from the plot—and this botched, rotten-tail world wouldn’t run mechanically anyway.

Her sole task was cultivation.

She needed self-preservation to survive until the two female leads slew the Lord of Return to Ruins and ushered in a new era!

But cultivation wasn’t easy. “Method, earth, wealth, companion”—lack any, and even specializing required strengths elsewhere to attract investment from big spenders.

Yet Li Ruoshui had no specialties. She was utterly ordinary, decades into the Dao yet stuck in “kindergarten.” No master would spot her and whisk her to the clouds. No purse-poor Daoist would deem her bones extraordinary and become her leg accessory.

Cultivation meant joining a sect or self-study.

But Nine Provinces sects weren’t free. Top ones like Taiyi required immortal aptitude plus two hundred spirit jade tuition.

Self-study was cheap—until qi deviation, with nine in ten bursting in some deserted corner.

Li Ruoshui had checked the Tianyan Mirror; a fellow poor soul listed sect fees. Obscure ones with a handful of cats charged ten spirit jade.

Any sect-founding group had at least one Golden Core cultivator, ample to teach her. But the catch: Li Ruoshui’s name was registered under Taiyi, albeit outer sect.

Inner disciples couldn’t quit outright, and outer ones needed sect approval—lest issues arise. The process dragged through departments, verifying no problems. Spirit jade could expedite withdrawal, of course.

But with enough spirit jade, would she linger in outer sect?

She’d apply for inner sect assessment!

Her best option now: remain nominally in Taiyi outer sect.

For both inner and outer disciples received a foundational scripture: the Supreme Profound Penetration Scripture. This supreme Dao canon penetrated all methods, ideal for foundations across aptitudes, though progress was slow.

Inner disciples learned derivative texts from great powers based on it—tailored shortcuts. Outer ones lacked that fortune.

What could Li Ruoshui do? Study.

Without references or great power highlights, the Supreme Profound Penetration Scripture‘s value remained undiminished.

The six cultivation realms: Shedding Mortality, Heart Fixing, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Cave Heaven—three layers each.

Li Ruoshui was at Shedding Mortality Third Layer, soon entering Heart Fixing.

Shedding Mortality washed marrow and cut meridians, birthing the first strand of “qi” to distinguish from mortals. Heart Fixing chose one’s path.

It opened three apertures: Heart Aperture for vows and heart seeds; Pill Aperture for future pill seeds—Dao insights, self-formed or acquired, basing the Golden Core; Law Aperture stored spirit power, the larger the better, up to thirty-six “law seeds.”

Three apertures unified into the core.

Heart Fixing allowed no errors.

Lacking a master, Li Ruoshui posted humbly in the Tianyan Mirror’s Dharma Realm.

Among glowing paid posts, hers dimmed unnoticed. After half a shichen, no replies.

Resigned, she paid her remaining twelve spirit jade.

Damn this poverty!

Had she needed a wealth scripture before even cultivating?