Li Bai the Trash

Marks were part of one's body even when they were just born. Marks were located in the area below the chest but above the stomach. The marks represented a 12-year cycle: zodiacs.

Each of these zodiacs had a specialty to them, so when one was born, once the mark was determined, his future would be planned. No one opposed to these rules, with the exception of mark geniuses.

A mark had different levels to it, each one darker than the last. When one was born, the mark would be faint.

In addition to this, there were different colored gems inside the body, not visible to the naked eye. Only when one was meditating would they see the gems.

The gems had varying colors and sizes, with the green one being the smallest, the yellow gem being a little larger, the red gem larger than the yellow gem, the violet gem larger than the red gem, and finally, the biggest, the blue gem.

One had to absorb and circulate the Earth's energy into these gems to darken the mark. When one gem lights up, the mark blackens. Once all the gems are lit up, the mark absorbs these gems and adds a little more detail to the mark. It becomes more visible.

This increases one's strength, and if they wanted to darken the mark more, they had to repeat this process, but with an increasing number of gems each level!

Everyone had difficulty lighting up all the gems. The only people that were at ease when cultivating were the mark geniuses. Anyone with a mark abnormality was called a mark genius.

These mark geniuses only appeared once every half a century, but every time they did, the nation where this genius was born would prosper. This mark genius would excel at all subjects, very much so that even a genius at that subject would have to bow down to this man.

However, there was a case of a supposed Marked Genius not being able to cultivate at all. His name was Li Bai.

.....

A young man was sitting in his room, dejected. Staring at the mirror, he was looking at his reflection disappointedly, as if he expected - no, wanted to see someone else inside the mirror, rather than his own face.

"Ugh, why did I end up in this body?"

It has been ten years since Li Bai was born, but not once did he feel lucky. His soul was a special one - it was one that preserved memories of the previous life.

That was the reason why in all of the previous lives this soul had, most of them rose to be influential people in their time. They have been written in books even now. Their legends have been preserved.

When Li Bai had the time, he would bask in self-pride while reading in the library about his past selves. He would feel extremely proud of himself when he read these books about him.

The only exception towards the tradition this soul had of raising geniuses was the first few bodies he had, and also a few sprinkled throughout.

The first had extremely high potential, but he was born in the slums. He did not have the resources to raise himself nor the knowledge to compromise.

Everything changed when he died and he was born again. He lived in the slums too, but now, he discovered that memories were preserved within his soul, so it mattered not if his current body was strong, he only needed the knowledge.

In his first ten lives, he studied profusely. He even got lucky when in half of those ten, he became the child of a rich person or even the leader of a country. Of course, all of these bodies had extremely high potential, a mark abnormality, not comparable to these so-called geniuses that he kept hearing about.

But now, the body he was residing in was certainly the weakest one he has ever been in, probably even the weakest in his current generation.

He had the fortune of being born into a moderately rich family, the Li clan, but other than that, nothing was good. This body's constitution was that of a cripple. He wasn't a cripple, but he certainly felt like he was.

Every time he trained, he would feel like his body was in immense pain from all of the energy trying to flow into him. His body couldn't take it.

The cultivation methods the soul had knowledge of were too high level, even the lowest level cultivation method this soul could come up with was too risky for this weak body. He had to come up with a different way to train, or else he would just think of killing himself and possessing another body.

.....

A young man and a middle-aged man were sitting next to each other on a ledge. The young man had a sad expression on his face, while the middle-aged man was examining this face, trying to understand why his son was so downcast. He finally realized why, it was because of his son's body's abnormal condition - his mark was broken.

This was not a mark abnormality, as a mark abnormality added fierceness to whatever zodiac the mark genius got. His son's mark was a weird mesh of all the zodiacs together. It was like they were crying for help. This middle-aged man tried to hide this from his son, but what he didn't know was that his son knew about it already, given his extreme intelligence. He tried to comfort him.

"Bai er, why are you so depressed? This father has done all he can, and you have too, so we should just silently accept this fate."

Li Fu, Li Bai's father, was too passive to understand the emotional torture this body was bringing him. He was so used to being the strongest that when he learned that this body was very weak, he wanted to die immediately.

This was not a normal thought for a once four-year-old, who even had the luck of being born into a clan's main family. Sure, this clan was not highly ranked at all, but at least he didn't have an insufficient supply of food, of which a number of kids in this city had the unfortunate experience to feel.

After years of residing in this body though, he slightly matured from his prideful stance and stopped blaming his body, instead blaming himself for not studying lower level techniques.

Even when he was poor and living in the slums, he didn't feel like the low-level techniques were worthy for him, rather he risked his life and broke into various clans' forbidden libraries, perusing the books and scrolls they had.

Now that he had the fateful ordeal of a weak body, he silently cursed and muttered to himself. He regretted his decisions.

Now that those low-level scrolls were ancient artifacts, and the lowest level scrolls of now were not suitable for his body, he was now repenting his actions. He once again seriously considered killing himself. His face turned solemn.

Li Fu saw this expression on his face and remembered the time where his four-year-old son tried to kill himself. He was worried and smiled wryly.

"Bai Er, please don't consider killing yourself as it will make this father feel lonely. Your mother has already passed away, and you're the only one left I have a close blood relation to."

Li Bai was usually apathetic, not involving himself in the world of anything other than training. But now, he felt sympathy for his father. He had tons more experience than this man beside him, and he felt emotions this old man couldn't imagine, much less being lonely.

Loneliness was the price one had to pay in order to succeed in the path of cultivation. He paid no heed to romance when he was either a man or a woman. He had led different lives, each one vastly more different than the last, but at the end, he feels the same - lonely.

After this thought, he wondered why he continuously pursued the highest when he already knew how unsatisfying it felt. There was no sense of accomplishment, there was just isolation.

He wasn't even able to look at his peers, as he had no peers. He was hailed as an unparalleled genius that appeared once every fifty years, so no one dared to make friends with him, instead only admiring him from afar.

He had a sudden enlightenment.

"Instead of being the strongest, why don't I, Li Bai, be the smartest!"

This realization gave Li Bai inspiration to help others instead of helping himself. This would benefit both sides, as the disciple would feel indebted to the master.

This would protect him from any unnecessary dangers that may arise, given that the disciple he gets would be stronger than the average person.

Add to this Li Bai's knowledge, and this ordinary person could become extraordinary! But, his thoughts were dashed.

"How would I attract talent if I don't have talent myself?"

He thought about this excessively.

While his son was thinking, Li Fu was staring at his son's changing expressions. He must be thinking about a lot right now.