Chapter 1: Farewell, Cage!

If there are gods in this world, he would still win by half a move against them.
Xiù Qīngchéng used to love this saying; it was cool enough, pretentious enough!
But now, Xiù Qīngchéng only wanted to say—
If there are gods in this world, he’d definitely give them hell.

Other people reincarnated as peerless heroes or world-shaking geniuses, but him?
He was stuck as a sword.
But as a reincarnated sword, he was, naturally, extraordinary.

That’s right.
In the Jintian Nine Provinces where Xiù Qīngchéng reincarnated, this extraordinary sword of his always appeared in history—in the hands of those peerless heroes.
Its name was Ting Tian.

But now, that name had fallen into obscurity.
Ever since Ting Tian Sword’s last Sword Master dedicated it and other divine weapons and secret treasures to the Divine Armory Pavilion, Xiù Qīngchéng had been stuck there for an unknown amount of time.

“Of the one hundred and thirty-six Ever-Burning Lamps, only ninety-nine remain.”
Xiù Qīngchéng counted the Ever-Burning Lamps around him, passing his days this way.
He had thought today would pass just like any other, but then, a door suddenly appeared on the long corridor lined with Ever-Burning Lamps before Xiù Qīngchéng.
From behind the door, a small, hesitant shadow stepped out.
The last time Xiù Qīngchéng had seen a living person was… well, the last time.
He was so excited that he immediately cried out:
“Save me, save me!”
Of course, as a sword, Xiù Qīngchéng couldn’t actually speak.
His expression of such intense excitement was the Ting Tian Sword’s blade trembling incessantly.

The small figure from the door drew closer, and Xiù Qīngchéng finally got a clear look at the newcomer.
It was a boy who looked only a little over ten years old, with black hair casually draped over his shoulders.
His bangs, clearly not carefully styled, half-covered his fiery golden eyes.
‘Hair covering his eyes like that, he’ll get conjunctivitis.’
Xiù Qīngchéng unconsciously grumbled.

But what concerned Xiù Qīngchéng more was that the boy’s cultivation level was only at the Upper Stage of Stargazer.

In the Jintian Nine Provinces, blessed by Star Immortals, cultivation levels were divided from lowest to highest into seven stages: Stargazer, Star-Like, Faint Star, Celestial Star, Many Stars, Constellation, and Shattered Star.
By all accounts, among those qualified to cultivate at the boy’s age, Xiù Qīngchéng had seen even the worst possessing at least the Lower Stage of Star-Like.

So, in Xiù Qīngchéng’s estimation, the boy before him was what people commonly called a cultivation waste.
But how did a boy like this manage to enter the Divine Armory Pavilion?

While Xiù Qīngchéng was busy evaluating him, the boy, completely unaware that he had been labeled a “cultivation waste,” had already walked up to him.
“Is this… my weapon?”

The boy looked at the Ting Tian Sword, a hint of confusion flashing in his eyes, accompanied by a touch of disappointment, as if he was disappointed by the weapon he found here being utterly unremarkable.

‘What do you mean, yours!
Grandpa here isn’t yours yet!
What’s with that disappointed look?

Grandpa here was once the super-duper-awesome, mighty and legendary Divine Weapon Ting Tian, whose name echoed throughout the Jintian Nine Provinces!’

Xiù Qīngchéng trembled his blade, expressing his displeasure to the boy.
But such a subtle tremor went unnoticed by the boy.

The boy reached out and grasped the unremarkable sword before him, which was even covered in a thin layer of dust.
“It’s alright.Please, fight alongside me.”
As his words fell, he took the sword from its stand and drew it from its sheath.
‘Good, good, good!’
The moment he felt his body shed the sheath’s confinement, Xiù Qīngchéng felt that everything the boy had said before was irrelevant.
This boy was practically his benefactor, his second parent!
‘Qīngchéng has been imprisoned for a hundred years, regretting only not having met a wise master.
If you do not abandon me, Qīngchéng is willing to acknowledge you as his adoptive father!
Ah, no, Sword Master!’
“So light…”

As the Ting Tian Sword entered his hand, its feather-light weight made the boy gasp in surprise.
It seemed the boy had trained in swordsmanship before, as upon grasping the Ting Tian Sword, he instinctively executed a beautiful sword flourish and held it reversed in his hand.
‘Not bad, not bad, he looks the part.’

Xiù Qīngchéng quietly clapped his ‘hands’ in his mind.

The boy exhaled deeply, sheathed the Ting Tian Sword once more, and taking Xiù Qīngchéng with him, returned through the path he had come, re-entering the grand door.
Carried out by the boy, Xiù Qīngchéng felt himself entering a beam of white light, everything he could see being completely engulfed by it.

‘If I had hands, I’d really want to cover my eyes, wherever they are,’ Xiù Qīngchéng thought.
‘Damn, who threw a flashbang!?’

—But, farewell, cage!

When his vision returned, Xiù Qīngchéng’s eyes were no longer met with the desolate expanse where only Ever-Burning Lamps flickered.
Instead, there were verdant, rolling mountains, pure white buildings up close, and… pure white thighs.
No sooner had the boy stepped out of the door constructed from light than a white-clad woman bounced into his view.
From Xiù Qīngchéng’s position, held in the boy’s hand, he could only see a glimpse of the woman’s thigh peeking out from her frilly long socks.

“Hey, little brother Mèng Yìngxīng~”
The newcomer affectionately called the boy by name, curiously sized him up, and finally fixed her gaze on the Ting Tian Sword in the boy’s hand.
“Is this the weapon you brought out of the Divine Armory Pavilion?
Can I take a look?”
She pointed at the sword in Mèng Yìngxīng’s hand.
“Senior Sister Liǔ,” the boy said softly, not raising his eyes to his Senior Sister, but obediently brought the Ting Tian Sword before her.

Seizing this chance, Xiù Qīngchéng finally got a clear look at the woman standing before Mèng Yìngxīng.
Liǔ Chénxīn was a little older than Mèng Yìngxīng; her dark hair paired with her delicate features made her quite a beauty.

“This sword… it’s quite good, it should suit you well, little brother Yìngxīng,” Liǔ Chénxīn said, leaning down to carefully examine the Ting Tian Sword.
As soon as Liǔ Chénxīn finished speaking, she inexplicably rubbed her eyes.
“Huh?
Is it just my imagination, or does your sword feel like it’s trembling, little brother Yìngxīng?”

“No?”
Mèng Yìngxīng retrieved the sword and looked at it, finding no tremor.
‘Yes, of course it is.’
‘Ordinary?

Ordinary my ass!
Grandpa here was once the super-duper-awesome, mighty and legendary Divine Weapon Ting Tian, whose name echoed throughout the Jintian Nine Provinces!’
Because Xiù Qīngchéng was protesting Liǔ Chénxīn’s earlier words in just this manner.
Liǔ Chénxīn simply dismissed it as her eyes playing tricks on her, and continued: “Alright, little brother, now that you’ve got your weapon from the Divine Armory Pavilion, let’s head to the Central Plaza quickly.
Follow Senior Sister.”

With that, Liǔ Chénxīn turned around, ready to lead Mèng Yìngxīng towards the Central Plaza.
Before leaving, Liǔ Chénxīn gave Mèng Yìngxīng another look.
“Little brother, you really… really need to work hard this time.
Senior Sister still wants to see you in Tianfeng Sect next month.”
Hearing this, Mèng Yìngxīng fell silent for a moment before nodding heavily.
There was likely some matter that Mèng Yìngxīng and Liǔ Chénxīn assumed everyone present was aware of.

But they didn’t know that besides the two of them, there was also a sword.
This sword, it knew nothing.
It only knew that it had finally bid farewell to its cage.
Xiù Qīngchéng really wanted to leap up and smack the two people in front of him with his hilt:
“No, work hard for what?”
“Where is this?”
“What’s going on?”
“Can you two elaborate?”