The Arrival
'And here it is, the beginning of my popular phase' chuckling at his own words, a young man approached the gates of the city of Oie, which were surprisingly, and most oddly, vacant of the usual frequentation, dressed in simple clothes and marching forth with determination.
The guards at the gate took one look at him, saw nothing too suspicious and just let him in after he paid the fee of entry, though one of them decided to speak up to the youth.
"You must be a youngster that seeks to enter the Myriad-Arm Sect, right?" he asked, his expression neutral.
"That's right" with his somewhat long brown hair fluttering in the wind, the young adult responded with a smile.
"I know that outer disciples tend to do odd jobs… But let me tell you to avoid the nearby forest for a while… I heard that a dark sasquatch attacked some herb gatherers…"
It was then that the other guard joined in, his face reeking of indignation.
"That foul beast killed two of them and desecrated their corpses by stringing them up… And it left the third traumatised… I don't have the stomach to talk about that in any details…"
"A sasquatch?! Like bigfoot?!"
"Bigfoot?" both guards looked at the youth with raised eyebrows.
"Huh… Aherm, I mean… I was just taken aback…"
"Of course you would be, sasquatches are supposed to be shy, not sneak up on people and- And do that sort of thing like some sort of agonist!"
"Agonist?" the young man looked confused but just shook his head "I see, thanks for warning me, good sirs!"
He thanked them and went on his way, rubbing his chin in thought, but soon raising his arm to shield his eyes from the sun, he believed that it was still the morning, or perhaps noon, all in all, it seemed like everything was going as it should.
'Apart from that one snafu, the plot is exactly as I remember, down to the weather and sun shining into my face' gleeful, hs vision landed on the magnificence of the Myriad-Arm Sect in the distance, appearing like an island of steadfast purity with its white radiance shining down on the city.
"Ah, so finally you are going to lessen yourself of the seals that impede your rise to power? You should have done it sooner, but better late than never, I suppose" from the corner of his vision, a sparkling, translucent, green apparition walked before his eyes, that of a refined old man who stood straight and tall, garbed in exquisitely refined robes.
Like what he was saying was some incredibly profound wisdom, he stroked his long beard with a smug smile.
'Sorry old man, I just wanted to follow the script' Xiao shook his head.
'Indeed, Elder Chengzhe' conversing with the old man was weird, and tricky.
Doing his very best to follow the plot points, no matter how minor or useless they might be in an attempt to get everything the protagonist had gotten in the story, Xiao had stumbled upon a major help, which was a rather well-known trope as well, which was that of an ancient master trapped or that was otherwise inside of a trinket of some sort.
Having always thought that the old man was underexploited and pushed under the rug in the original story when he definitely could have been useful plenty of times, it was somewhat cathartic to just being able to talk or ask him stuff whenever, Chengzhe could be a bit guarded about certain things, and didn't really know the situation of the present due to having been locked in an emerald pendant and stuck in some box for the last few centuries, but as far as cultivation knowledge went, he was very knowledgeable.
However, due to Xiao's talent sealed, that knowledge wasn't of much use, the earlier portion of the stories had been meant to show off how cool and capable the protagonist was without special powers, as well as she up some plot points later on, such as when he helped a carriage being attacked, which would eventually lead to him gaining a new harem member, whomst he had always believed was clearly the best girl by a long shot.
Xiao shook his head.
But that was for a later date, right now, he needed to enter the Myriad-Arm Sect, the test at the entrance would reveal something weird about which were the seals, and then, he would catch the attention of an elder who would come out to see what was wrong, have the seals removed and then, that would be when the story would really begin.
"You seem excited, Xiao, seems like power is calling out to you…" spoke the elder, whose ghostly apparition was very much odd, in the sense that Xiao could see him move and walk around the world like a normal person, and he even heard him speak like normal instead of in his mind.
He could converse with the old man telepathically, but he needed to be careful not to communicate the wrong thoughts that had made him a laughingstock once already.
'Perhaps… Elder, do you know anything about the Myriad-Arm Sect?' I asked him whilst walking through the crowded streets, stands of food and other goodies set up all over the place.
He decided to take a path without too many people, passing by a building that had seemingly recently been scorched to the ground, that detail wasn't in the original story, but the original story couldn't mention every detail of this world, despite the author being a big fan of word count padding, they hadn't gone so far as to describe every single thing of note.
"Ah, the Myriad-Arm Sect, not called this because it has nothing to do about a lot of arms, but more-so about arms, as in weapons!" as usual, the old man began by rambling about something no one cared about.
"I remember, it was founded by the grandson of one of my friends! Well… We weren't friends after I got one of his daughters pregnant…"
"You did what?" Xiao spoke aloud involuntarily.
"...The little fellow was the first real person to take a keen interest into weapon cultivation, a type of cultivation where one learns to become closer with their arm of choice, it is rarely very flashy, the weapon cultivators that arose were all rather introverted folks, it is a path that requires much time and investment as at the beginning, the increase in strength isn't really noticeable unless they practice another method on the side…" casually ignoring Xiao, he continued to reminisce.
"...But even back then, some techniques were very refined! Unless they fell off the wayside, there should be plenty of interesting, new techniques to be found and cultivated there! Ah, how exciting, I feel like a young man again- Hey Xiao, to the left" suddenly, he turned serious and stared at an approaching figure.
'Is it an enemy?'
"Enemy? No, I am talking about that beastfolk woman, did you see those two weapons of mass destruction? That's not one of those beastfolk species that are just humans with some additional parts! Looks at that voluptuous body, she's very much cowlike, I bet that if you pressed them, milk would come rushing ou-"
Xiao rubbed the bridge of his nose, he tended to take the old man too seriously, and forget that cultivation was a secondary interest to women in his mind.
"Come on, go talk to her"
'No'
"Come on! Tell her that her form is so powerful, that you thought she was a minotaur!"
'Did you pick up cow women with that line?'
"Nah, they hated it"
'Let's just move on…'