Cultivation: When you take things to the extreme

Darkness, like a retreating tide, ebbed away.

Xu Yang's eyelids quivered, and before he could fully open his eyes, his head throbbed with an excruciating pain.

"Where is this...?"

Opening his eyes and pressing his head, Xu Yang sat up and surveyed his surroundings, only to find himself on a rooftop scattered with several empty bottles of alcohol and traces of vomit, emitting an unbearable stench.

Xu Yang frowned, activating the Martial Arts Scripture by instinct, only to then feel an unprecedented weakness and thirst; his limbs, organs, everything felt empty, so powerless.

This was the body of a young man in a severely subhealthy state!

It was young, after all. If it were a middle-aged or older person with this physical condition, they'd long be lying in a coffin.

Honestly, Xu Yang hadn't felt like this in a long time. After all, his most recent dreams had been either in the Divine Martial World or the World of Dao and Law, with a decent starting point in each.

But now...

"Qianjin?"

"Lu Xuemei?"

"Christmas Eve?"

"During the Red Moon?"

Xu Yang's brows deepened as he began sifting through his memories, checking the residual memories of this body.

The body's name was Qianjin, a name that sounded inspiring but belied an uninspiring life.

Born into a middle-class family in the eastern district of the Blue Star Federation, his parents died in a car accident during his high school years, leaving behind a rather substantial inheritance.

While not ordinary, his background was still fairly normal.

However...

The accidental death of his parents dealt a severe blow to Qianjin. His academic performance plummeted, and he ultimately chose to drop out of school, closing himself off and fleeing from reality.

It was during this time that a ray of light entered his world. A girl from his class, Lu Xuemei, took the initiative to reach out to him, tutor him, help him return to school, even improve his academic performance, and they both entered Longhai University.

This girl saved him, bringing color back to his world.

Upon entering university, the two naturally became a couple. Qianjin even volunteered to pay for Lu Xuemei's university expenses as her parents were divorced and not well-off, and he planned to propose as soon as they graduated.

However, on the last night, Christmas Eve, as he prepared a surprise for his sweetheart with gifts and roses outside her dorm, he received a devastating, unexpected blow instead.

Lu Xuemei came back to the dorm, hand-in-hand and intimately close, with another guy—a student at the school with a lot of influence.

In that moment, Qianjin's world reverted to black and white.

Stricken by a heavy blow, he tossed the roses and gifts into the trash, then took a box of beer to the rooftop to numb his pain with alcohol, to wash away the hurt.

And then... he died!

What situation is this?

Xu Yang's brows remained tightly knit as he searched his memory, only recalling a glimpse of a shocking crimson, a bewitching red that was hard to describe.

That was...

"According to the astronomical observatory, this year's Christmas Eve will be the most special one in six hundred years."

"At midnight, at fifteen minutes past twelve, there will be a strange astronomical event that occurs once every six hundred years—the Time of the Red Moon!"

"The Time of the Red Moon appears once every six hundred years and lasts for only one hour. Find your beloved and together witness this once-in-six-hundred-years moment of beauty?"

Some romance broadcast, a piece of gossip news, tied everything together.

However, Xu Yang's tightly furrowed brows did not relax.

The Time of the Red Moon?

Once every six hundred years?

Xu Yang's brows remained tightly knit as he carefully remembered, trying hard to recall that so-called Realm of the Red Moon and the reason for his own death.

But he remembered nothing, except for that bewitching shade of crimson; he could not recollect anything else, nor did he know the cause of the original owner's death.

Xu Yang fell silent for a moment, then checked his body: aside from the headache following a hangover and the weakness from long-term malnutrition, he felt no abnormalities; no fatal wounds were found.

The body was unharmed!

Then the cause of death...

The soul!

The Primordial Spirit!

Xu Yang's eyes sharpened, and he remained silent for a long time.

The original owner died from a soul-related injury?

Was it because of that Red Moon?

The Red Moon, the Red Moon...

Xu Yang remembered some unpleasant memories.

He had seen the Red Moon in two worlds.

One was the Black Water World, the other was the Yuan Spirit World before its fusion with Taoism.

In both worlds, the Red Moon phenomenon seemed to share a common origin.

The Desire Realm Heavenly King, the Asura Blood Sea.

Boxun!

Mara!

Was it him?

Or just a coincidence, with another cause?

Xu Yang was uncertain.

While unsure of the origin of that Red Moon, he was certain of one thing.
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That this world... was not ordinary.

Xu Yang closed his eyes, channeled the Martial Arts Scripture, and extended his senses, calling to the Heavenly Earth Prime Spirit.

However, there was silence, no response at all.

There was no Spiritual Energy essential for Cultivation, and the Yuan Qi was also very scarce, a bit better than the World of Dao and Law in the Five Turbidities Evil Age, but not much better.

Xu Yang's brow was deeply furrowed!

He had experienced worlds where Spiritual Energy was scarce before, like the initial eras of Great Zhou and Great Tang, as well as the World of Dao and Law during the time of the Five Turbidities Evil Age, which were all worlds where the Yuan Spirit was sparse and even dormant. That wasn't so strange.

But...

The flow of time in this world compared to the real world had actually reached a ratio of ten to one!

A tenfold time disparity, in a world where the Yuan Spirit was scarce, the temporal difference with the present world was astonishingly ten to one.

This was beyond Xu Yang's expectations.

Although, according to his guess, aside from the world rank disparity, the factors affecting the time ratio should also include the distance between worlds.

The closer two worlds are to each other, the smaller the difference in flow of time.

But dragons do not live with snakes, and two worlds that are close in distance must also be close in world rank.

This was confirmed through the monitoring of the heavens by the Ascension Platform in the Earth Immortal Realm.

In other words, this Blue Star World was not far off in rank from the Cultivation World where his true form resided.

That was the reason Xu Yang was frowning and filled with doubts and uncertainties.

A world where the Yuan Spirit was sparse matched the rank of the world where cultivation was prevalent. It was similar to both Earth Immortal Realm and Black Water World, all showing a time flow disparity of ten to one.

This...

There were major problems, absolutely major issues!

Together with the origin of the Red Moon mystery, this world carried an unusual, eerie air inside and out.

A world with a rank comparable to the Earth Immortal Realm and Black Water World, yet the Heavenly Earth Prime Spirit was so sparse?

Why?

Where had all the Spiritual Energy gone?

Could it be that it was caught up in the so-called end of the Law Age, with the Yuan Spirit dormant and heaven and earth in decline?

No, that's not right. The Heavenly Earth Prime Spirit is the power manifestation of a world; if the Yuan Spirit is dormant, it means the world is dormant, and its rank must have lowered.

The world of Dao and Law serves as an example; during the "Five Turbidities Evil Age," the time flow between the World of Dao and Law and the real world was reduced to one hundred to one.

But after the merger with the Yuan Spirit World, which led to the revitalization of Spiritual Energy, this disparity began to shrink. As of today, it has reached seventy to one, and if this development continues, it could eventually match that of the Earth Immortal Realm.

This world, having a ten-to-one time disparity, indicates that its rank has not declined.

The rank hasn't declined, yet there's no Spiritual Energy?

Xu Yang's brow was deeply furrowed as he pondered silently.

But in the end, he could not make sense of it.

There were guesses and hypotheses, but without concrete evidence, thinking further was meaningless.

Let's put aside the secrets of the world for now.

The pressing matter at hand is to enhance strength and empower oneself.

Only with sufficient power can one unveil the mysteries of this world.

So...

Xu Yang checked his body.

As expected, no Spiritual Root, just an ordinary person.

But it doesn't matter. He had been without a Spiritual Root before. Besides, with the Spiritual Energy in this world being so scarce, whether he had a Spiritual Root or not didn't make much difference.

No Spiritual Root, then practice martial arts!

Xu Yang groped around and eventually found a somewhat worn-out cellphone in his pocket.

Despite having been a cultivator for tens of thousands of years, given to esoteric utterances and talk of the Tao, he was not one of those outdated fossils who couldn't keep up with the times.

On the contrary, the Wandao School had always been at the forefront of the age. Technology and spells coexisted to create a splendid civilization.

Never mind cellphones, he had even dabbled in virtual worlds.

So...

Wallet balance: 96.3 yuan.

"..."

Looking at the balance in the payment program and recalling the original body's financial situation, Xu Yang lapsed into silence.

The original owner was a lickspittle, a pure gold lickspittle!

As everyone knows, the financial situation of a lickspittle is generally not very good, because those who are financially stable are unlikely to become lickspittles.

Qianjin was no exception. For his unattainable love, he not only used up his parents' inheritance and the compensation from a car accident to pay for his and Lu Xuemei's schooling, but he also kept buying all kinds of gifts to please her, even purchasing luxury clothing and products.

Despite coming from a middle-class family with a considerable sum in accident compensation, Qianjin's spendthrift ways with no corresponding income led to him depleting his funds within three years of college, forcing him to take part-time jobs in his free time.

Even then, his standard of living plummeted. The proof was the body he now inhabited, which was in a state of severe malnutrition and sub-health.

Xu Yang searched through his memory and found that besides the blissful moments spent with Lu Xuemei, it was filled with the bitter experiences of working part-time jobs and subsisting on instant noodles.

"..."

Even as the master of Ten Thousand Dao and accustomed to the ways of the world, Xu Yang was at a loss for words regarding Qianjin's actions.

You're crazy!

It serves you right to die; who else should die if you keep this up?

Even if he hadn't faced the night of the Red Moon, living this way, it would be difficult to survive past thirty.

Although a lickspittle doesn't deserve sympathy, since he was the one facing the situation, Xu Yang could only open the loan application in silence.

Online loans are something normal people should never touch.

But Xu Yang wasn't a normal person. Desperately in need of starting capital, he didn't mind fleecing the visage of the Dark Evil Forces...

"Your loan of 7500 yuan, to be repaid in twenty-four installments, with a repayment of 312.5 yuan per installment, due in three days. Do you wish to repay early?"

"..."

Looking at the repayment information on the lending program, Xu Yang was once again enveloped in silence.

Through countless lifetimes and tens of thousands of years of cultivation, he was experiencing the destructive power of a lickspittle up close for the first time.

Are you out of your mind, borrowing online loans to buy gifts for someone? Why don't you sell your kidney instead?