Monster Paradise

“Reincarnated being…”

These individuals known as reincarnated beings were part of a special profession selected by something called the Lord System. They traveled back and forth between various planes and universes to complete missions assigned by Lords, as well as to exchange various resources.

As a traveler, Lin Huang was naturally aware of the concept of reincarnated beings.

When he was in college, there was a time when he had read online literature. That period had really been the golden age of online literature, and he had read all kinds of novels. He had read more than a hundred works from the infinity genre at the very least, so he was no stranger to the mechanics of reincarnated beings from these novels. (TN: The infinity genre is mainly found in Chinese novels. It typically involves stories where characters are repeatedly summoned into alternate or virtual spaces separated from the real world and are made to complete certain tasks, such as missions, puzzles, or survival games.)

“Is it really like in the novels?” Lin Huang could not help asking as he looked at the Club identity page that Virtuoso projected.

“More or less,” Virtuoso replied vaguely as if they did not want to dwell on this topic any longer.

“Okay…” Lin Huang was not very satisfied with this answer. “Why didn’t you just tell me you were a member of the Club, instead of deliberately stirring up trouble like this?”

“I just wanted to test your abilities a little. If your abilities were no good, then there wouldn’t be any need for me to tell you my identity,” Virtuoso said boldly. They paused for a moment before directing their words toward Lin Huang again, “I’ve already introduced myself, so won’t you introduce yourself too?”

“My apologies, it’s just that this is my first time meeting a reincarnated being.” Lin Huang smiled as he introduced himself, “The Club, traveler, Lin Huang.”

He emulated the other and projected his own Club identity page.

“As I thought, it really is you.” Virtuoso did not seem surprised.

“You know who I am?” Lin Huang was slightly confused.

“I’ve heard about you before.” Virtuoso nodded slightly. “The total number of people in the Club is relatively small, and the frequency of newcomers being recruited is also very low. You’re the one and only newcomer in nearly thirty thousand years, so naturally, you would have attracted everyone’s attention.”

“The only one in nearly thirty thousand years?” Lin Huang stared at Virtuoso with wide eyes. This was the first time he had heard about this, but he was also a little curious. “What about you?”

The reason he asked this question was that according to the information he had obtained from Death Sickle, Virtuoso was not that old—only a little over a hundred years old.

“Haha… this identity I have as Virtuoso is just a reincarnated clone of mine in this great world,” Virtuoso replied with a smile. “My Primordium joined the Club more than two hundred thousand years ago.

“I was thinking that since I was in the same great world as you, we could take this opportunity to get to know each other. When you joined Death Sickle as Xie Lin previously, I actually already suspected that it might be you, but before I could confirm this, you disappeared.

“Fortunately, you reappeared and joined Death Sickle again as Xiu Mu. This proves that the link between our fates is still not over yet…”

This last comment made Lin Huang shiver when he heard it.

“Since you joined the Club more than two hundred thousand years ago, you’re my senior.” Lin Huang cupped his hands in front of himself in obeisance and said courteously, “This humble junior acted too irreverently a while ago.”

It was hard for him to imagine just how strong someone was who possessed a Lord System and had lived for more than two hundred thousand years. Although the other had not said anything, Lin Huang guessed that their Primordium was most likely a lord-level powerhouse, or even stronger.

“Don’t call me ‘senior’. I’m me, and my Primordium is my Primordium. Both our consciousness are independent of each other. Moreover, my own combat level is not that much higher than yours.” Virtuoso smiled and shook their head. “If you want to address someone as ‘senior’, you can do that when you meet my Primordium in the future. You don’t have to do that with me.

“Everything I just told you is actually a secret. Buried Heave,n as well as the upper tiers of Death Sickle, don’t know about my identity as a reincarnated being. All they know is that I’m a powerful reincarnation.”

At this point, Virtuoso suddenly said, “We’ve veered way off topic with our chatting, so let’s get back to the matter at hand.

“I actually had another reason for testing your strength besides wanting to get to know you.”

Lin Huang raised his eyebrow slightly. To be honest, he had been a little puzzled over this. If the other had just wanted to get to know him, there really was no need to attack him to that extent.

“I want to invite you to join my team to go on a trip to the Abyss.” After saying that, Virtuoso added, “The real Abyss.”

Lin Huang could not help being stunned when he heard this.

It was not as if he had never encountered an Abyssal creature before, and he had even entered several secret zones and ruins related to the Abyss. However, he had never been to the real Abyss.

He was also aware of how terrifying the real Abyss was. Not only were there countless lord-level monsters in its depths, but there were also slumbering beings who were stronger than Lords.

He did not think that he was powerful enough at all in his current state to go wandering around the Abyss.

“Can I decline this offer?” Lin Huang immediately rejected the other party’s invitation without hesitation.

“Can’t you even let a person finish speaking first?” Under their mask, Virtuoso’s expression was most certainly one of extreme exasperation.

“Alright, please go on.” The expression on Lin Huang’s face clearly said, ‘Go ahead and say your piece, since I’ll end up declining anyway.’

“I need a certain item from the Abyss to elevate to Heavenly God. That item is inside the body of a high-rank Abyssal Heavenly God, and I must personally retrieve it. I’ve been making preparations for the past few years so I can form a team to help me complete this matter.”

“Can’t you just request for help from some Heavenly Gods?” Lin Huang asked, raising his brows.

In his opinion, to solve a matter like this, they just had to bring a group of high-rank Heavenly Gods to help out, or they could simply ask Buried Heaven to go with them. There would be practically no Abyssal Heavenly Gods that they could not handle.

“Due to certain restrictions, I can only ask help from True Gods at most,” Virtuoso shook their head rather helplessly as they explained.

“Does this count as a job change mission given to you by a Lord?” Lin Huang could not help smiling as he asked.

Virtuoso just stared blankly at him for a moment, then nodded their head. “I guess you could say that.”

“You said you wanted to form a team. Besides me, who else have you invited?” Lin Huang inquired again.

“One of them is my friend’s clone, a ninth-rank saber cultivator who’s also a member of the Club. Another two are disciples who trained under my Primordium; one is a combat cultivator while the other is a spell caster, and they’re both also ninth-rank. Including you and me, there will be five of us,” Virtuoso explained.

“Let me just outright voice my concerns then. If we ever get targeted by a Lord or a being greater than a Lord, do you have a way to get us out of there?” If this were someone else, Lin Huang would not have even asked such a question because it was impossible that a True God would have the ability to escape alive from a Lord’s grasp. However, Virtuoso’s Primordium had exceptional strength, and they were also a highly-experienced reincarnated being, so they might really possess a means to escape from a Lord.

Upon hearing this question, Virtuoso was silent for a moment but finally nodded. “Initially, I wasn’t actually planning on exposing a trump card such as this, but since you asked, I think it’s better that I be honest. I do have a space-time flying shuttle in my possession. It was personally refined by my Primordium, and it can allow us to escape from the Kingdom of a Lord.

“You probably don’t fully understand how things work in the Abyss. Although the borders are not very clear, the distribution of monsters is different at different depths of the Abyss. Lords and Heavenly Gods aren’t within the same depth.

“Furthermore, in the Abyss, once various types of powers are released from the body, they will be extremely weakened. Unless a lord-level powerhouse or someone even stronger than that attacks, the energy fluctuations will not be transmitted very far. Even when top-tier Heavenly Gods collide, the fluctuations from the battle usually can only be sensed within the range of a hundred kilometers. Beyond this distance, no one will know that a battle was taking place.”

“What will I gain if I join?” Lin Huang pondered for a moment, then asked.

Although he had been prepared to decline the offer at first, Virtuoso’s explanation had dispelled much of his worries. Furthermore, he had been thinking about the fact that after leaving this secret territory, he would still need to hunt down more heavenly god-level monsters to increase his combat level, and most secret zone ruins did not have that many Heavenly Gods for him to hunt.

Based on Virtuoso’s description, the Abyss indeed sounded like a good place to gain experience.

“Your cultivation is in Sword Dao and Telekinesis, so I can give you a Soul seal fragment first as a down payment. You can also consider it an apology for attacking you just now. After we’re done and are out of the Abyss, I’ll give you a Sword seal fragment as well,” Virtuoso stated their conditions for this deal.

“Soul seal? Sword seal?” Lin Huang was utterly confused; he had absolutely no idea what these two things were that Virtuoso had mentioned.

Seeing Lin Huang’s expression, Virtuoso immediately understood that he did not know what Soul seals and Sword seals were, and promptly explained, “You’ve probably heard that for Heavenly Gods to evolve to Lords, they need to consolidate Dao seals, right? These so-called Soul seals are the Soul Dao Dao seals consolidated and formed by Lords who are soul cultivators, while Sword seals are the Sword Dao Sword seals consolidated and formed by Lords who are sword cultivators. (TN: We believe that this was a typo on the author’s part and it should be Sword Dao Dao seals instead of Sword Dao Sword seals, as the pinyin for the Chinese characters of ‘Sword’ and ‘Dao’ are both spelled as ‘dao’. However, we have opted to translate it as is.)

“Dao seal fragments are the remnants left over after a Lord dies and their Dao seals fall to pieces. Although the Dao contained in these fragments is incomplete, they can still be interpreted, and a large amount of Dao power still remains within them.

“Every piece of Dao seal fragment is a priceless treasure to Heavenly Gods and half-step lord-level powerhouses alike. Heavenly Gods can increase their mastery over god sequence chains through interpretation of the Dao seal fragments and may even obtain a complete inheritance, while half-step lord-level powerhouses can absorb the Dao power from within and advance to become Lords.”

Hearing this, Lin Huang was inevitably a little intrigued.

His Sword Dao was only at the beginning stages of Sword Dao heavenly rule, so he guessed that it would be highly unlikely for him to advance further in the foreseeable future. If he obtained a Sword seal fragment, he might be able to greatly speed up the progress of his sword cultivation.

“Can we change it to two Sword seal fragments instead?” Lin Huang could not help asking.

“What do you think these are—cabbages sold at the side of the road that you can pick and choose? I only have one Sword seal fragment. If I had two of them, I definitely would have given them to you. I’m not even a sword cultivator, so there’s no use in me keeping them. Although you won’t benefit from a Soul seal fragment as much as you would with a Sword seal fragment, it can still indirectly increase the strength of your Divine Telekinesis, and if you’re lucky, it’s not impossible for you to obtain a telekinesis-type inheritance.” Virtuoso was feeling slightly exasperated.

“Alright, I guess. Soul seal it is, then.” Lin Huang’s tone was laced with obvious disappointment. “Can you make the Sword seal fragment your down payment, though? I’m fine with getting the Soul seal fragment after we’re out of the Abyss.”

“Alright,” Virtuoso readily agreed and retrieved the Sword seal fragment.

Lin Huang looked curiously at the item that Virtuoso produced, but the moment he saw it, his eyes widened and his face filled with shock. “Are you telling me that this thing is a Sword seal fragment?!”