Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Start with a Broken Sect
A banner ad quietly went live on a massive gaming forum late at night.
“Massive full-dive VR game ‘start with a broken sect’ is about to begin its first no-wipe test!
Round one has only 50 slots. Registration closes in two days. First come, first served!”
“‘start with a broken sect’ no-wipe test recruitment link: [www](http://www)…”
“What kind of trash game is this? It’s not even the year 4012 and they’re already advertising full-dive VR?”
“Anyone who believes this is real will grow old and become the main customer base for health supplements.”
Only a few bored night owls saw it at all. They sniffed a scam, hit the X without hesitation, and went right back to whatever they were doing.
—
“Please, Heaven… someone has to come.”
Song Jiu Lai pressed her palms together and lifted them toward the sky. Her whisper was half prayer, half threat at the universe. The recruitment had to fill. It had to.
The System sounded pleased with itself. “I didn’t expect you to be this clever, host. With how curious players on your planet are, our sect won’t be short on people.”
Song Jiu Lai’s eyes sharpened. “Can you help me pick the talented ones? The kind who hits Foundation Establishment Stage in ten days, Golden Core in a hundred, Nascent Soul Stage in a year, Ascension in ten…”
“Why don’t I just turn your Longevity Sect into the number one sect on Yun Zhou Continent right now?”
“Sure.”
“Sure my ass. Do you think I wouldn’t if I could?”
“…”
Song Jiu Lai had arrived on Yun Zhou Continent a month ago.
Before that, she was a perfectly ordinary office drone. She worked, she commuted, she got stepped on by life like everyone else. Then, on the road one day, she saw a cat in danger. She lunged without thinking.
A drunk driver hit her.
The System appeared at the moment her world went dark.
It claimed she happened to show up right when it needed to choose a host. It praised her kindness, called it fate, and poured out a river of smooth talk. Then it dragged her into this cultivation world with a counterfeit identity waiting for her like a costume laid out on a bed.
Heir to a small, backwater sect. The next Sect Master.
The sect was called the Longevity Sect. Even the name was a prayer, a plain and stubborn wish left behind by the previous Sect Master. He’d only reached Foundation Establishment Stage. For a hundred years he never broke through to Golden Core Stage, and in the end he died like anyone else.
A month ago, the System had even gone so far as to rig things inside the Longevity Sect. It left behind a “prophecy” about a fated maiden descending to save the sect, declaring that she would become the next Sect Master.
As if anyone needed a prophecy to notice the place was doomed.
The entire sect, aside from the dead Sect Master, had exactly one person left: a boy who collected herbs. They were so poor there wasn’t even a kitchen auntie. What was the point of a grand prediction?
Worse, Song Jiu Lai hadn’t been reborn into a new body. She’d arrived exactly as she was.
She had no cultivation and no talent. The System forcibly opened her spiritual root for her. Even the beginner manuals for Qi Refining Stage were books she’d begged from the neighboring Artifact Refining Sect. If not for the blunt honesty of the artifact refiners’ senior brothers and sisters, she wouldn’t even have managed that.
And after all that?
The System’s demand was simple, casual, monstrous: Song Jiu Lai had to lead the Longevity Sect to become the number one great sect in Yun Zhou.
Its “main quest.”
Step one: the sect needed fifty members before the next task would unlock.
Then there was nothing. No guidance. No resources.
It couldn’t even produce a single low-grade spirit stone.
Song Jiu Lai stared at the sheer emptiness of her future and felt her soul sag. She looked at the System with absolute sincerity and said, “How about I jump off a cliff and restart my life?”
This was a cultivation world. A real one.
There were cultivators here.
People died all the time. Weakness was a crime. At her level, she couldn’t even leave the area to wander safely, and the System had the nerve to demand fifty recruits?
The previous Sect Master had been at Foundation Establishment Stage and still couldn’t attract anyone besides a herb-collecting attendant.
This world cared about talent. People with spiritual roots were rare to begin with. In a small place like this, sects were everywhere. Anyone with the slightest aptitude would rather run errands in a bigger sect than join one so poor it couldn’t even pay wages in spirit stones. Who would come here?
Song Jiu Lai closed her eyes, gave up with her whole chest, and said, “I only have this one life. Go on. Erase me.”
The System fell silent.
Then, as if her shameless resignation had startled it into compromise, it offered another path.
“I can open a channel and briefly link to other worlds,” the System said. “But I need energy from you, the host. You don’t have enough right now. At most, I can pull over a person’s soul-consciousness. To open a real passage, you need to become stronger. And you must provide vessels. The other party must come willingly.”
Song Jiu Lai cracked one eye open. “Willingly? Who would volunteer to hand their soul-consciousness over for your world to control?”
“You also can’t reveal my existence or your quest requirements,” the System added. “That makes it even harder.”
The moment it said that, something flared in Song Jiu Lai’s gaze. Like a lamp catching fire.
“Willingly?” she murmured.
How could they not be willing?
There was a method that would work every single time.
That was how “start with a broken sect” ended up on a Blue Star forum.
The only real difficulty was the vessel. The players’ soul-consciousness needed a “body” on this side.
A human body was impossible.
But puppet dolls existed.
The moral rules in a cultivation world weren’t the same as anywhere else. Some cultivators shaped puppet dolls so lifelike they were practically indistinguishable from real people. Powerful cultivators could even split off a sliver of their consciousness to possess a puppet doll. It was a standard safety method for high-level cultivators.
Low-level puppet dolls were mostly just for show… though Song Jiu Lai had heard enough rumors to know people used them for other things, too.
And one place in particular was famous for making them.
The Artifact Refining Sect.
Song Jiu Lai went straight to the neighboring sect that specialized in forging tools: the Flying Sparrow Sect.
She asked about puppet doll prices and felt her sky collapse.
“The lowest-grade puppet dolls are made from first-rank herb powder,” a senior sister told her. “One costs ten low-grade spirit stones. If you want better materials, it’s more.”
The senior sister was Su Huan Li. She looked honestly puzzled. “Puppet dolls aren’t rare. You should be able to make them yourself. It’d cost less.”
Song Jiu Lai’s throat went dry. “I… uh… for now… I don’t have time.”
What she meant was: I can’t do it.
Senior Sister, I just got here a month ago. Reading a Qi Refining Stage primer already felt like chewing through stone. How would I know how to shape a puppet doll?
Su Huan Li didn’t press her. “How many do you need?”
Song Jiu Lai’s lips trembled. It felt like her heart was bleeding in slow, clean drops. “Fifty.”
Su Huan Li froze. “Why do you need that many puppet dolls?”
“For… experiments,” Song Jiu Lai said.
On Yun Zhou Continent, cultivators all had their own odd habits. Su Huan Li gave a small nod, accepting it as none of her business. “Fine. Pay a deposit first. Fifty puppet dolls will be ready tomorrow.”
On Yun Zhou Continent, spirit stones were hard currency. Money you could bite.
One hundred low-grade spirit stones equaled one mid-grade. One hundred mid-grade equaled one high-grade.
Fifty puppet dolls would cost five mid-grade spirit stones. The deposit alone was one mid-grade.
The previous Sect Master of the Longevity Sect had left behind a total fortune of ten mid-grade spirit stones.
Ten.
That was it. Everything they had.
Anything remotely related to cultivators’ materials started at dozens or hundreds of spirit stones. Song Jiu Lai was so poor she almost wanted to wipe her tears back into her eyes to save the water. She’d never been this broke even when she was grinding herself into dust as an office worker.
And she still had to keep one mid-grade spirit stone aside to pay wages to the sect’s only herb-collecting attendant.
The sect’s only income came from herbs. It wasn’t much, but it was all they had.
After the puppet dolls were commissioned, the System finally gave her a sliver of good news.
“Someone started filling out the form,” it said.