01: Wang Qiang

Throughout history, many people have made the illusion of life after death. Thousands of studies, varying in many perspectives, have been carried out to understand the mystery of "the other side". From religious, political, and even atheists have agreed on the possibilities of this enigma.

Understanding human beings, concerns like this don't surprise anyone. This was human nature, always looking at what is not seen. Evolving little by little.

However, no mortal has yet visited the other side and has returned to share their experience. In the end, all that remains are hypotheses and imagination.

Mr. Smith believed in life after death but not like those scientists. As a good Catholic, Smith was raised with the belief that there was only life after death but in Christ.

For him, there were only two places you could go after death.

In heaven, enjoying eternal peace with God.

Or In hell, burning eternally with the demons.

Of course, thanks to the evolution of humanity, many people have lost the rigidity that religions once imparted to you. In certain countries, it was a doctrine that only doing well was enough to open the gates of heaven.

For this reason, many people took the liberty of doing acts that in times past would be severely punished.

Mr. Smith was one of those people. Of course, compared to others, he only enjoyed some of the pleasures that life gave, just like a normal person. Smith believed that going to church on Sundays and giving, once in a while, two donations to people in need, was what would ensure his passage to heaven when God wanted.

Of course, hoping it wouldn't be at all in the near future. After all, he was only 31 years old with big plans in the decades to come.

Imagine his surprise when his life changed immeasurably from one day to the next.

Someone or something had transported him from his world to a fictional universe. A world that at some point in his life served to kill time and distract himself from monotony.

Something that he enjoyed, one of the little pleasures that he did without feeling any guilt.

He enjoyed reading those stories but in no way did he want to be in the shoes of those protagonists. In fact, such an absurd thing had never crossed his mind.

However, it had happened to him.

Several days had passed since his reincarnation, or is it transmigration? He did not know. What he did know was that everything was a mess.

Have you ever felt the feeling of wanting to be and not be in a place with uncontrollable need but with equivalent strength from both sides?

No?

Well, that's what happens when the fusion of two souls happens. The souls of Mr. Smith, who just wanted to go home, and Wang Qiang, a poor young man who unfortunately had no idea what was going on, were run by, what Mr. Smith was certain a being of great power or even a god.

The new soul could not be called that simply because Mr. Smith had won the battle. It couldn't even be called combat, since Wang Qiang couldn't even move, like a campfire that goes out and leaves only the ashes.

Yes, that is exactly what happened.

Mr. Smith did not know whether to be happy or not. He understood that he had removed a harmless boy from his own body, in other words, he murdered the poor. Yet he refused to blame himself.

Everything that happened was out of his control, whoever put him in that body was the culprit. He saw the size of Wang Qiang's soul; it was immense compared to his. This didn't surprise him, after all this was a world where cultivators existed.

A very different world where spiritual energy existed, something that on earth was impossible to exist. Just living in that place, even if you didn't cultivate, would assure you a healthy life and living more than 150 years was not a big deal, of course, if you didn't catch a virus. Even their viruses are more deadly.

So if it wasn't for the work of the "God" that put him there, he would never be able to beat poor Wang Qiang. The problem is that the young man's soul was too big and left too much ash.

You can see that Mr. Smith is the carrier of the body but Wang Qiang left many problems for this man. All the memories and feelings that the young man felt in his few 12 years were fused with the soul of Smith.

Logically this would not be a problem for Mr. Smith who has lived more than twice as long as Wang Qiang. However, the young man was not just any child, before all he was a cultivator that no matter how insignificant his level was, his being was baptized by the spiritual energy that surrounded the universe where he lived, something that Smith did not count.

Leaving Mr. Smith, now Wang Qiang, with feelings and memories that he has never lived but feels as if they were his memories.

It was a very strange feeling.

And to think that you could no longer be safe from being theft in your home bed. In this case, the robbery was his soul.

Wang Qiang just wanted to hide and cry. All those different feelings had him out of control. Thank God that in the past few days his parents were out of town on a clan mission and no one has bothered to visit him, which was common since everyone was most of the time focused on cultivating spiritual energy.

As in all the stories he had read.

It was still hard for him to accept his new reality. He didn't want to accept it but he had no other choice.

He didn't understand why him. He was a normal ordinary person. With nothing outstanding, nothing like those protagonists of the novels he read. He was not a perverted otaku, nor an assassin; he got along well with his girlfriend and had never had to dodge any truck driver.

He did not understand what this being wanted from him.

"Sighhh!" Wang Qiang sighed wistfully. "The good thing is that I am not a member of the Liu clan, which is the clan of the protagonist, and the bad thing is that we are in the same town."

"…Shit!"

The Liu Clan is one of the 4 main clans of the 'green dragon' town, a town that according to legend, there was a green dragon that, bless with its great wood attribute, the mountain and all around it, including the town. According to rumors, there is a great treasure hidden in the mountain but no one has been able to find it after all this time.

Wang Qiang knew exactly that it was true; after all, he had read the story and knew of the locations of many of the treasures that are hidden in the continent.

He already had plans for that treasure and several more.

The other 3 main clans of the 'green dragon' people, which in fact were not at all the size of a town but rather the size of a city, are the Yang, Wu, and Li clan.

Together they formed the 4 pillars of the town and its members lived extremely well compared to the others. As in all novels, they were arrogant and easy to offend.

On the other hand, the Wang Clan was a second class clan, like many others, where the patriarch has not even reached the realm of the Foundation Establishment, something sad because he already knew about the different cultivation ranks.

However, this made it easier for him. In a clan where most people have not reached the second realm, many would spend their day's training and cultivating giving him the time and freedom to do what he has to do.

Thanks to memories of the past Qiang, he knew at what point of the story he was.

"Let's see. The story 'begins' when Liu Chen takes his entrance exam to the Flying Cloud Sect at age 14. Three years from now," Wang Qiang thought as he rose from his bed for the first time since his transmigration to his new body." That means I have two years to prepare enough for my exam. "

Wang Qiang sighed again and clenched his fists tightly. He knew how awful and dangerous this world was. Not only because he had read the story but also because of memories of the past Wang Qiang who despite being so young, knew of the risks that the spiritual world brought.

He walked to the door and his determination showed in his eyes. "I have no choice but to do my best." He murmured as he quietly opened the door and left, letting it close again with a push.

A second later the door was pushed open and Wang Qiang entered with a frown, clearly annoyed.

"It is night."