Poison God's Heritage

The gate of heavens stood as a testament to one's arduous path of cultivation. From what I know, it would only appear to those who wish not to serve but to defy—not in blasphemy, but with a willingness to compete and challenge. The heavens see one's heart and will and present them with a fitting challenge each and every time. Right now, I'm waiting for my own trial.

But there are rules to this.

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One shouldn't try to peek into the heavenly secrets and see what lies beyond the gate. One should only await their trials. However, this isn't the case for me this time. Since I have time and time again been challenged by this very same gate and always ended up winning, this time it was actually inviting me in.

In my own words, and in my own voice, as if possessed, I spoke unwillingly and unconsciously, only for my ears to hear and my mouth to say, "Enter, and climb, see what lay ahead, and what could have been but didn't. Choose, and choose well," I said to myself.

And the moment I took the first step, my entire mind went blank. I found myself in a small dark room, surrounded by a six-by-six cubicle. The loud sound of fax machines and printers working in the background at the darkest hour of the night filled the room.

In front of me was an endless stack of files that needed reviews and an immense project that I needed to supervise. Several machines were working and causing too much noise for anyone to be able to concentrate.

Now, this, right here, is the most cliché and dumbest thing you could ever experience in a cultivation novel. I mean, seriously, a cultivator like me who had spent hundreds of years struggling, fighting, suffering, and enduring endless pain, and had wracked my head over incredible and hard problems and suffered the endless and unfortunate torture of a lifetime.

You would think I would fall to such an illusion?

I spent hundreds of years in a cultivation world and not more than fifty in my original world. If I were to fall to this fake illusion, I might as well shoot myself in the head.

Before I could even think of how to leave this illusion, it simply shattered as if it never existed.

Like, seriously, who falls for this shit anyway?

My entire body instantly shook, like a loud beating of a dragon skin drum had just been struck. I felt every ounce of my body shuddering. It was painful, but—well, this is awkward to say since it might make me sound like a masochist—it was painful in a good way.

My muscles felt as if they had been tense and now they relaxed. Even my blood flow felt stronger and faster, and my heartbeat steadied though it increased in rate slightly. My body began sweating, a slightly yellowish sweat that smelled quite strong and sickly sweet.

My mouth spoke, as if it was being borrowed by the heavens again, "You have seen what has been and refused to live it once more. Now see what could have been."

This time, I wasn't personified in my own visions, but took a third-person view over my own self in a different verse.

I was back in Lucid Spring, an old man who had just been pushed by his children down the cliff, unable to even stand back up. With broken feet, desperately grasping for twigs and tree branches, using them to aid myself to walk. Old and frail, and lonely.

Here he comes, that man wearing red, the red that I still remember to this day. The man who threw me into that Poisoned pit which carved my very existence, the Shen Bao of now. However, he never took a second glance at me like the last time. He never went down to grab me; he simply snorted and flew away.

And in that act, I was saved, but at the same time, reality struck.

They say in misfortune there exists fortune. And due to me not having been captured, I was never given the chance to enter the pond of Bone and Body Grinding Poison. I never took a step in cultivation, and I was too deep into a forest that no mortal should ever step into.

Not longer than a few hours later, a few hungry beasts caught the scent of me. And what could an old man do in that case? The beasts hounded me, breaking bone and flesh, hounds of hell they were, as they tore through my frail old body while I lived still, crunching and munching on every bit and piece until the embrace of death finally caught me in my desperate soiled and bloodied self.

Quite an unfortunate ending.

But that was just the start. My vision was turned once more to a past far beyond my conscious, to the life of Du Shen, where I first existed. Where I strived to rule the very world by a fist of steel and poison. Yet, in this world, though I struggled as Du Shen against forces beyond my abilities, I ended up failing to teach my disciples. They tore the world apart and usurped my teachings.

I never was able to discard my soul into another world to escape the wheel of time.

Another vision came, a vision where trying to douse myself in Bone and Body Grinding Poison had failed and I ended up turning into a boiling smudge.

Another vision appeared, where I as Du Shen never escaped the Fire Lord's first encounter, never managed to take the golden book.

Another vision where I as Shen Bao had succeeded in achieving the Poison Body but failed on the golden path and in meeting Zhang Tian. This allowed the entire planet of Si Xue to never receive the attention of the Fire Lord, yet at the same time, I could never be faced with any challenge to cause me to escape and explore the Vast Expanse. I died in that timeline without having achieved much.

More versions of myself appeared, where most of them ended in miserable and desperate endings. I have been lucky a great deal of times; I cannot argue the point. I should have been dead more than a thousand times over, but always ended up on top. Regardless of the outcome and means, I always managed to remain on top.

The visions stopped, and I was back right at the front of the gate. This was a question that wasn't asked and needed a reply that shouldn't be uttered. I only smiled. And that was my reply—to answer the question of heavens is an utter mockery of their vast wisdom. One needs not answer a question that hasn't been stated. Though the question is obvious, the reply shouldn't be muttered.

If it was luck that aided me in my journey, so be it. If it was my own will that aided me in my survival, so be it. But for sure, I alone wouldn't have been who I am today if not for the intricate and intertwined heavenly fate that has been woven for me.

I believe in fate's concrete and well-knitted path for everyone. Destiny exists, and it aids one in achieving their best future, but one shouldn't just sit down and wait for things to happen. As I have been shown the many futures and many pasts that could have been if I hadn't acted in a part of them, and if the heavens hadn't been merciful in most of them, I as Shen Bao would have ceased to exist.

A question has been asked wordlessly, and a reply must be given wordlessly, so I smiled and took the next step forward.

The second sounding of the drum happened, and this time the pain was far more severe as it rattled through every fiber of my being. Jolting through my body like an endless thunder and lightning strike that shook both my organs into an ecstatic state and caused every pore in my body to open up.

Sweat and rancid black grime poured out of my body. This was the impurities that weren't in my body, but were in the blood of the Primordial Serpent God. After all, my body cannot have impurities in it as I cultivate the Path of the Poison God. But since I replaced my blood with the blood of the Primordial Serpent God, things have slightly changed, and now I'm receiving a heavenly baptism.

The third step—this time, it was something I didn't expect. I was in this world once again, back in Lucid Spring, but seeing things differently. I was never interested in the path of cultivation in this lifetime. As I got here in this world, I never sought to heal myself as I had given up after buying several fake elixirs. I aided my sons with my wealth and sent them over to the Purple Cloud Sect.

They struggled in it, but made a name for themselves. One became a hero of the sect as he fought bravely to defend it from the Three-legged Crow Sect's attack, while the other became an honorary elder after he died bravely in the same war. Meanwhile, I slowly passed away after having lived a complete and fulfilling mortal life.

Yet this vision changed. Once again back in Lucid Spring, my two sons never achieved anything, nor had I done much. They blamed me for their bad 'genes' for their inability to cultivate, which was caused by myself. I, who had not lived an arduous path of cultivation, kowtowed to my sons, asking for forgiveness for having deprived them of their path of cultivation.

I scowled at the sight of this weak version of myself

Pathetic...

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