Chapter 2: Aspiring to Seek Eternal Life
In the darkness, a line of small glowing words appeared on the screen.
[After returning to the year of anchoring, you acted abnormally due to your ecstasy. This led to you almost being drowned by your aunt in holy water from the village witch.]
[When there was still half a year before the countryside examination, you studied hard at home from dawn to dusk. Since you already knew the questions, you were full of confidence. Although your aunt complained about you, she always supported you in your studies.]
[The village chief's brother coveted your family's ancestral fertile fields and secretly plotted to take them. Your aunt attempted resistance but failed. You managed to solve this matter with a little trickery. Your aunt looked at you in a different light from then on.]
[Half a year later, you took the provincial examination. Despite ranking below thirty others, you finally succeeded in becoming a scholar, honoring your ancestors.]
[After being anchored for 2 years, you traveled to Xuanjing City to take part in the Imperial Examination. You were prepared for the test questions and naturally excelled. You performed admirably in the Imperial Examination and claimed the place of the second-class scholar.]
[You traveled around Xuanjing City and finally achieved your goal by being assigned the post of the magistrate of Wen County in Jiangnan.]
[In the third year, you picked up your aunt at home and assumed the post of Wen County magistrate. You began to secretly develop a network of trusted subordinates. In the same year, you led your men to discover precious mineral deposits in the deep mountains that you remembered from your previous life.]
[In the fourth year, you successfully made a batch of explosives and muskets. Your musketry team was able to eliminate a nearby mountain bandit camp with little effort.]
[In the fifth year, there was a severe drought in Jiangnan Province, displacing many people. Because of your earlier water conservation efforts, Wen County was relatively unaffected. In the same year, a group of migrants gathered to rebel and prepared to attack the Langya Prince's residence. You provided crucial assistance and saved his family. The Prince of Langya was very grateful to you.]
[In the sixth year, you were promoted to the governor of Jiangnan Province. In the same year, you married the daughter of the Minister of Personnel.]
[In the seventh year, there was a locust plague in Jiangnan Province, and the grain harvest was in short supply. Only those under your rule were minimally affected. In the same year, your wife gave birth to a son for you.]
[In the eighth year, your men succeeded in making flintlock pistols.]
[In the tenth year, Lady Langya gave birth to a son. You personally came to offer congratulations, and presented a well-prepared gift]
[In the fifteenth year, the Emperor was struck by a sudden illness. Before he died, he summoned the Prince of Langya to the capital and passed the throne to him. The Prince of Langya succeeded the throne and changed his name to Emperor Xuanjing.]
[In the sixteenth year, Emperor Xuanjing summoned you to the capital and promoted you to Minister of War. In the same year, there were simultaneous rebellions of various sizes in various places. Emperor Xuanjing ordered you to lead the army to quell the rebellions.]
[In the eighteenth year, you traveled all over the world and swept away the rebels. After returning to the capital, Emperor Xuanjing revoked your military power and granted you the position of tutor of the Crown Prince.]
[In the twentieth year, the Empress was suddenly caught in a witchcraft case. Emperor Xuanjing was furious and exiled her to the Winter Palace. When the Crown Prince privately sought your help, you decisively agreed. After a private investigation, you found evidence that Consort Xi Fei framed the Empress, proving the Empress's innocence. Emperor Xuanjing slaughtered Consort Xi Fei and her family, but did not release the Empress from the Winter Palace].
[In the twenty-first year, someone secretly accused you of treason and submitted evidence of your private mining and secret armed forces. You were anxious and wrote a letter of apology. Emperor Xuanjing dismissed you from the post of minister, but allowed you to still tutor the crown prince.]
[In the twenty-third year, Emperor Xuanjing was on a spring hunting trip and decided to go back to the Langya royal residence in Jiangnan province to have a look.]
[In the twenty-fourth year, Emperor Xuanjing visited Jiangnan and ordered you to accompany him. You also visited a few mines which you had previously secretly exploited.]
[In the twenty-fifth year, Emperor Xuanjing went to Jiangnan for the third time. This time, he did not bring you. Three months later, you secretly received news that someone had denounced you for privately traveling to the Winter Palace to visit the Empress. In the same year, Emperor Xuanjing was assassinated on his way back to the capital. When the news came back, the capital was shaken. The officials invited the Empress out of the Winter Palace, and the Crown Prince succeeded to the throne with the name of Emperor Kangning.]
[In the twenty-sixth year, you were appointed as the Imperial Advisor and became the Chief Minister of the Parliamentary Court, achieving the highest position. The young emperor was highly dependent on you. Taking this opportunity, you established your influence in the court.
[In the twenty-seventh year, your aunt passed away. You once again thought of seeking immortality, so you sent people to explore the traces of the existence of immortals in various places.]
[In the twenty-eighth year, the Emperor came of age. But your power never stopped growing, and the court became your own.]
[In the thirtieth year, the world only acknowledged the Imperial Advisor and hardly knew the Emperor.]
[In the thirty-first year, the Empress Dowager became pregnant and urgently called you to the palace to discuss. With great joy, you secretly took the Empress Dowager back to the Imperial Advisor's residence to take care of her. In the same year, the Empress Dowager gave birth to a son for you.]
[In the thirty-third year, when you entered the court alone, you were surrounded by the guards secretly trained by Emperor Kangning. Luckily, with the help of a special treasure, you managed to save your life. You were furious and wanted to kill the emperor and establish your rule. However, under the Empress Dowager's desperate plea and the persuasion of the ministers around you, you refrained from taking action. You purged all of the Emperor's close ministers. After that, Emperor Kangning only held the name of Emperor, losing all power.]
[In the thirty-eighth year, Emperor Kangning died in a state of depression. You made your eldest son the emperor and changed his name to Emperor Longchang.]
[In the fortieth year, the Empress Dowager died of illness. Your desire for immortality grew more intense.]
[In the forty-fifth year, your wife died]
[In the forty-sixth year, your eldest son died of illness.]
[In the forty-eighth year, after decades of fruitless searching for immortality, you gave up.]
[After being anchored for 50 years, two immortals came west from the Ruins Abyss, destroying Xuanjing City. You miraculously survived.]
......
[The simulation ends.]
[You can choose one of the following options to keep:
1. An item possessed by you during this simulation.
2. Your cultivation level in this simulation.
3. The simulated memories of a person close to you in this simulation. These memories can be inherited by that person.
4. Abandon the above choices to accelerate the recharging progress.]
Li Fan regained consciousness and found himself back in his humble study.
Taking in the familiar yet unfamiliar scenery, his past decades of experience crossed his mind one by one. Li Fan couldn't help but feel emotional, "Was reality transformed into simulation? Or is everything already a simulation? Or perhaps, is there no boundary between reality and illusion at a certain level?"
However, Li Fan would not waste his time on things he couldn't know. Soon, he settled his mind and focused on the four options.
The first and second items were nothing to write home about, though if Li Fan were to embark on the path of cultivation, these two items could definitely help him greatly. Unfortunately, he was only a mortal in his last life as well. There was no cultivation realm to keep at all.
As for the most valuable item in his own possession, it would undoubtedly be the Imperial Jade Seal.
It was likewise useless and would only invite disaster.
As for the third item, to let someone also remember the memories of this simulation...
This was something that made Li Fan's heart race.
For a while, several figures flashed through Li Fan's mind.
But in the end, he still shook his head.
After all, hearts were the most difficult to gauge. No one knew what a person would become after getting decades of memories.
Right now, [Truth] hadn't recharged yet, and he was still a weak scholar with no power or capital.
Therefore, everything should be done with stability.
So, there was only the fourth option left.
Accelerate the recharge progress.
[Truth]'s transformation of reality into a simulation required recharging.
According to Li Fan's experience in his previous life, this charging progress could only grow naturally with the passage of time. It would take about twenty years to recharge.
The recharge progress would no longer increase after reaching a maximum of 200%.
Moreover, when Li Fan was hit by a fatal blow, [Truth] would consume recharge progress for automatic body protection. This was also the reason why Li Fan was able to survive several narrow escapes in his last life.
Hence, the fourth item was the most prudent choice.
With his thoughts settled, Li Fan no longer hesitated and decided silently in his mind.
Immediately, a line of small glowing characters scattered into light spots and then quickly reformed into several new lines of characters.
Name: Li Fan
Cultivation Realm: Mortal
Physical Age: 20/86
Mental Age: 166/1056↑
Charging Progress: 30%
"Three lifetimes as a human, one hundred and sixty-six years. It turns out that I've already lived for so long. However, I remember the upper limit of mental age only being around nine hundred years in my previous life, but now it has increased to one thousand years. It seems that it will increase with my accumulation of experience, which reduces the anxiety in my heart."
Just as the body's lifespan had a limit, a certain limit existed for the mental capacity to endure.
After carrying too many memories, a mental burden would form. Once this burden became too heavy, it would completely crush a person's soul.
This was called the "wear and tear of time".
However, the upper limit of the mental age would increase as mental cognition increased.
For now, Li Fan did not need to worry about this.
"As long as I step onto the path of immortal cultivation, everything else is not a problem. Now that I'm starting over, glory, wealth, and beauties are no longer my pursuits."
"I only want immortality!" The pain after the beloved relatives and friends around him in his previous life faded away one by one and the powerlessness and trepidation brought about by his own body's old age all made Li Fan's mind more determined at this moment.
"The goal of this life is to learn the secrets of cultivation from those two immortal cultivators. Fifty years later, they will descend on Xuanjing City. With enough planning and preparation, even if they are the so-called Foundation Stage powerhouses, I might have a chance of winning."
"Perhaps what I can rely on, aside from gunpowder, is the Immortal-Mortal Miasma they speak of."
"Also, during these fifty years, I can't just wait. They came from the eastern Ruins Abyss, so perhaps I can send someone deep into the bottom of the Ruins Abyss first to search."
......
The worst thing in life was having no purpose. In his previous life, Li Fan would often wake up in the middle of the night from the Empress Dowager's bed and feel an overwhelming sense of emptiness and meaninglessness.
In that life, he had stood at the very pinnacle of ordinary people.
He was the master of the Emperor and held the world's army in his hands. Nearly every minister in the court was a trusted aide of his.
He was able to abolish the Emperor's rule at any moment, and even the Empress Dowager was at his beck and call.
He couldn't reach any higher.
In this next simulation, should he do the same?
In that case, what was the point of reincarnating from one life to the next?
Power and pleasure always tasted the same after enough repetition.
Perhaps, if there were no other variables, after a certain reincarnation, Li Fan would voluntarily give up and choose to end his life.
But!
The appearance of those two immortal cultivators allowed Li Fan to see a whole new set of possibilities!
Allowing Li Fan to see a world of unfamiliar but tempting opportunities beckoning toward him.
It ignited a great ambition and goal within him.
He wanted to cultivate immortality!
He wanted to live forever!
No one could stop him!
Li Fan pushed open the door of the house and walked out with his head held high.