The Clichést of Starts

A bright flash of light blinded my eyes. I felt like my soul was being sucked out of my body.

「Initiating chosen genre: Wuxia」

「Downloading terrain layout: Yin City」

「Downloading characters…10%」

~Master, I have calibrated the settings to perfectly suit your taste. The stage will be the Yin City where the Three Cultivator Clans - Jiang, Bai and Huo - struggle for political power.

~Good work, DeusOS. A good story always has conflict. What's my role this time?

~You will play the fifth son of the Jiang Clan, Jiang Hao La — a talentless good-for-nothing. Master told me that the bigger the reversal of circumstances, the larger the impact it will leave. So, I have ensured that your character starts off from a lowly status.

~Yes, yes. You remember my teachings on peripeteia well.

「Download complete」

I woke up in a large courtyard. Several willow trees were swaying with the gentle breeze.

"Still have time to nap? I guess trash will be trash." An obnoxious voice broke the comforting serenity. He looked about one or two years older than me, with a slightly muscular built beneath his hanfu. He could be regarded as moderately handsome if not for the crooked smirk currently splitting his face in half.

My fake memories implanted by DeusOS told me that he was my elder brother Jiang Meng, third son of the Jiang Clan. His cultivation was already at the peak of Body Strengthening Stage 3 while I was still at Stage 1.

Alas, I had my first target.

"Good weather huh, bro? Want to come here and sleep next to me?" I grinned at him and patted the ground.

"Are you stupid? Who would want to sleep next to trash?" Jiang Meng made a disgusted face.

Oh? A quip? Not bad at all. But trying to outmatch me in trash talk? Not in a thousand years.

"Apparently Bai Ru Gong would. You should've seen her face when she choked on me last night." I made a few obscene thrusts with my hips. I knew Jiang Meng was secretly infatuated with the daughter of the Bai Clan. His face began reddening at an alarming rate when he realised what I meant.

~Master, please be mindful of your target audience's age. It would be wise to keep it PG. Also, your current character Jiang Hao La is only twelve years old.

~Cut me some slack, DeusOS. I am a precocious, sexually mature twelve-year-old.

…

"Y-you, how dare you sully the Snowy Princess' name?"

"Could it be that brother also wants to plough those virgin fields?" I snickered at his scarlet face resembling a tomato.

My laughter was rudely interrupted by a merciless punch to my stomach, leaving me heaving for breath.

"Jiang Meng, this is how you should treat garbage. You dispose of them and burn them." The person who punched me was a tall man in his early twenties, his face was devoid of any expression except for the slightest hint of a sneer. He was the first son of the Jiang Clan, Jiang Hu. As the rising star of the Jiang Clan, he carried a natural air of arrogance.

~Master, why did you not activate Plot Armour just now?

~Then it wouldn't be fun, DeusOS. Remember, I am the underdog here.

"Jiang Hao La, take this as a warning. If I hear you mention Bai Ru Gong's name one more time, I will make sure you won't be able to say it for the rest of your life."

In the cultivation world that I was in, cultivators were divided into four main layers — elementary, intermediate, master and profound. In the elementary layer, there were three stages — Body Strengthening, Qi Refining and Qi-Body Union. And, each stage had nine levels. The first son of the Jiang Clan, Jiang Hu was already at Qi-Body Union Stage 1. If he had infused his Qi into his punch, I definitely would have died with my current cultivation level. But he couldn't kill me because of the clan rules prohibiting the killing of clan members.

"Let's go, big brother Jiang Hu. Leave this idiot." Jiang Meng circled around Jiang Hu like an obedient dog.

~This is fun. My teasing tactics may work on Jiang Meng, but Jiang Hu is not the type to take the bait. Now all I need is an opportunity.

~Master, why don't you first take the enrolment test of the Yin City Academy? Improve your cultivation and show them who's boss during the Jiang Clan Ranking tournament in two months' time.

~Good idea, we need to set up the stage.