Life is fleeting

The Daoist picked up a tattered book from the ruin of a temple. After leafing through the pages, he found a story about an Immortal who ruled all of heaven.

The Daoist knew the story about this Immortal, a young man who was once a scholar who always climbs up a mountain just to reflect on how to pass the Imperial examination to become an official and get rich. He was just an average looking man, a bit dark skinned and skinny, all he had was his only white robe and a gourd of wine. One day, after failing again to pass in the Imperial exam, he climbed up the mountain with his wine gourd to write his story, put it inside the gourd and jump from the top of the mountain onto the river below just to try his luck. If he survives, then he will work hard again for an entire year and take the examination if he's not lucky enough, then the story in the slip of paper he wrote would be enough advise to pass on whoever picked it.

The youth jumped from the top of the mountain and into the freezing river below with resolve showing on his face, the month of January is cold, the freezing cold wind passes through the mountain range blowing over the lands of Great Zhou. The moonlight tore through the clouds, reflecting on the surface of the river, suddenly the splashing of water was heard, accompanied by a crisp sound of broken bones. Unfortunately, the courageous youth who tried his luck is in a brink of death, instead of surviving or being drowned he bumped onto the rocks from the shallow part of the river.

This is how the original owner of the Immortal's body died.

After a while, the gourd of wine with him drifted further along the river. The floating corpse of the youth drifted beside the upstream until it stopped in an underground river cave, the ceiling of the cave was fascinating, filled with rocks protruding from the top to bottom with different sizes and sharp edges, twinkling lights covered the cave illuminating the surrounding place. Suddenly, the corpse of the youth onto a big boulder inside the cave moved, both hands of the corpse twitched and the eyes of it slowly opened.

A rough coughing sound reverberated, the body of the youth coughed up a mouthful of water with blood.

"Argh! What happened?!" The youth asked himself. The youth's name is Meng Fan, an orphan from Earth, without anyone to rely on, he took various jobs to feed himself, until later, when he was just 17 years old a sudden black rainstorm rampaged the city to where he lives, causing floods and hundreds of casualty. Unprepared, because of not having a permanent home he was always finding a cheap renting apartment anywhere in the city, just to be able to support his studies. On the way that he was finding a new apartment, a rain of ice in the shape and size of an egg fell down from the sky, seemingly targeted by the god of death dozens of ice shaped eggs hit his head and body causing him to faint immediately.

"What just happened? I was on the way to find a new cheap apartment when I felt like there are hundreds of rocks hitting me..." Meng Fan thought, then a crackling sounds of broken bones sounded, Meng Fan tried to get up but a surge of pain enveloped his whole body.

"Ahh!"

A piercing scream filled with pain resounded on the cave. Meng Fan who suddenly experienced an extreme anguish from the broken bones and bruises all over his body is breathing heavily. In just a short moment, his breath stabilized, relaxing his body a bit, he focused and looked in the surrounding.

"Where am I? Where is this place?" He looked around the unfamiliar place, confused and a little surprised because of the refreshing cleanliness of where he was. But pondering over it is not something with an injured body can take.

"Ahh, whatever I'll just rest a little while and explore the place when I recovered a bit." Meng Fan decided then he closed his eyes and started to sleep.

...

"Meng Fan, what are you doing! Get away from me!... Please, I'm begging you, I'll give you my spirit stones, just let me off." Inside a restaurant, two young Daoist was laying on the ground begging for mercy, these two are outer sect disciples of Seagate Sect, in the land of Great Zhou there are four Great Sects that dominates the four sides of the land. The two young Daoist has just finished eating their meal when suddenly a bit dark-skinned youth with scholarly demeanor barged in.

It has been one year since Meng Fan transmigrated from Earth. Coming back from the day he was transmigrated, while he was busy recovering from his injuries inside the underground river cave, suddenly a slimy and long tentacle wrapped around his body dragging him down below the surface of the river. From ten meters to hundreds of meters, in just a blink of an eye, he was dragged onto the riverbed where a stone appeared with the size of an egg illuminating the depths with golden light. The stone was a bit rough to the touch, it was shining gold with a bit of a blue, the blue light was coming from the character "QI" embedded on the surface of the stone.

The tentacle that dragged him came back inside the stone, the five meters light of gold and blue from the surrounding, coagulated into three different lines connecting the two golden lights into the eyes of Meng Fan and the blue light with the character of "QI" in the middle of his forehead, seemingly transferring its power. Meng Fan that was still sleeping shouted, crackling sounds were heard the broken bones inside his body is forming back in their original shape, the bruises all over his body are recovering at a speedy rate, and his scrunched up face relaxed at last.

After a few seconds, the shouting of Meng Fan stopped, it was replaced by moans of pleasure and a shiver ran down from his spine. The surrounding lights disappeared from the depths of the river, even the stone was gone.

"Huh? Where am I again this time?" Meng Fan woke up confused, he looked around trying to decipher where he was but all he can see is darkness accompanied by the coldness of the water and lack of oxygen.

Panicked, because of his current situation, he swam around to find an exit with the surrounding rocks but to no avail. In just five minutes, the air inside his lungs was gone, bubbles of air escaped from his mouth and his consciousness is barely keeping. Slowly his body floated and drifted along the current, luckily a one-meter air pocket appeared underwater, he mustered his remaining strength, he swam and put his head in the air pocket gasping greedily the air.

A short while later, his breathing stabilized, and just as Meng Fan is thinking about on how to resolve his predicament, a metallic sound rang in his ear.

"Czing! The activation of history's fastest system is done."

"Extraction of the fastest system's cheats is done."

"Extraction of information about the world is done for 24 hours."

"Cheats can now be bought by fastest points rewarded after the missions."

Mission: Swim along the river.

Objective: Find exit and enter a sect.

Reward: 1000 fastest points.

At this moment, Meng Fan was absolutely flabbergasted. He stared at the ceiling of the air pocket for a few minutes, with no hint of what he heard.

"Fastest system?"

Meng Fan's body jolted. A rough looking stone with a "QI" character carved in the middle appeared within his mind. The two lights that covered the stone can no longer be seen. Instead, there's a lot of ball of lights with gold and blue scattered in the vast expanse of space inside his mind.

"Am I dreaming? What the heck is happening to me today? Ahh, forget it, even if this is a dream, I'll just finish the mission and get out of here, maybe after completing it and get the reward points I would be able to change it for some money? Hehe!"

Meng Fan gulped a few mouthfuls of air to fill up his lungs, he kicked down his feet onto the boulder and swam rapidly upwards borrowing the force of momentum he got, he swam in a few minutes before he resurfaced on the land.