RHRFS 02

Chapter – 02

Junior Apprentice-Brother, You Are Handsome, But Still Not Worthy.

Dragon’s Song Mountain Range.
The mountain peaks were steep and rugged, with strangely shaped rocks and swirling mists, giving off an atmosphere of a celestial realm.
At the foot of the mountain, a white-robed youth was walking alone. Though young, he had delicate features and a gentle, scholarly temperament that gave one the impression of a student on a spring outing.
In short, the youth was quite handsome.

However, the other disciples couldn’t care less about looks—

“Hey hey, did you hear?”
“That scholar named He Qiu, who only placed sixth in the entry examination, was accepted as a personal disciple by Elder Xueyin!”
“Exactly! I heard he even has a crippled spirit vein!”
“If you ask me, he’s just some privileged nobody!”

Walking along the forest path within the inner sect of Dragon’s Song Mountain Range, He Qiu was subjected to gossip every step of the way.
The fellow disciples whispering on both sides were all elite inner sect disciples with substantial cultivation, while He Qiu was merely an ordinary rookie cultivator, naturally standing out as exceptionally odd among these big shots.
He Qiu’s strength could rank in the middle tier of the outer sect, but in the inner sect? Hah, he wasn’t even fit to be at the bottom.
Yet, paradoxically and uniquely, this simple He Qiu had been taken in as a personal disciple by Elder Xueyin.
This naturally led to dissatisfaction among disciples from both inner and outer sects.

“Tch, how noisy…”
Clicking his tongue, He Qiu quickly walked through the crowd, ignoring the slander and mockery in his ears.
Mental victory tactic: It wasn’t the crowd watching a clown—it was him watching a crowd of clowns!

After all, he was a reborn soul. Though he hadn’t awakened any protagonist’s cheat ability yet, he had to maintain a mature and composed mindset.

Closing his eyes, countless images flashed through the white-robed youth’s mind.
In his previous life, He Qiu was a miserable office drone. He didn’t study hard in his youth, ended up in a technical school, and was worked to death by capitalist 007 labor practices. Fortunately, he was reborn into this ancient fantasy continent.
Luckily, He Qiu was a persistent person. After rebirth, he swore to turn over a new leaf, studied diligently through the cold winters, and passed the imperial examinations as the top scholar, becoming the hope of his entire village.
Leaving the mountain village and arriving in the big city, the sights were entirely different: Look, in broad daylight you could see sword cultivators flying through the sky on their swords, and street cultivators using spiritual arts for fortune-telling…
Wait, flying on swords?
He Qiu was baffled.

That day, the youth He Qiu, who had just come out of the mountain village, heard for the first time in his life that this world also allowed for immortal cultivation.
“What the hell!”
“If I’d known I could cultivate, why the hell did I even study!”

In that moment, He Qiu felt like the version of himself who had studied so hard in this fantasy world was nothing but a ridiculous clown.
After his rebirth, He Qiu had never awakened any special cheat ability. The only talent worth mentioning was that he could memorize ancient poetry very quickly and absorb mathematical and scientific concepts from the old man in his village at an impressive speed.
So he naturally assumed that his protagonist’s cheat ability was “studying” and “learning”!
But now—
In a fantasy world of immortals and twilight gods, what use was being good at studying?
No matter how great a scholar you were, a cultivator could just slap you to death with one palm.
Without true strength, you couldn’t achieve freedom; even your life would be at the mercy of the powerful… This kind of life without guaranteed freedom was unacceptable to He Qiu’s modern sensibilities as a reborn soul.
Even if he couldn’t be some overbearing protagonist, he at least wanted to learn some techniques for self-defense, right?
After accepting his fate as a mere mortal, this was He Qiu’s only wish.

Fortunately, Heaven had mercy—just three days ago.
A master who had descended from the mountains for travel truly discovered He Qiu, who yearned for immortality, recommended him to Dragon’s Song Sect as an inner sect elder, and even took him as a personal disciple of the inner sect’s direct lineage.
This was a bit suspicious…
Could it be that my protagonist destiny has finally arrived?

Carrying this exhilarating emotion, He Qiu participated in his first sect competition and spirit vein examination—in the competition, he relied purely on physical fitness and placed sixth; for his spirit vein, he was given the bizarre “Void” attribute.
The so-called Void Spirit Vein—
Simply put, his spiritual sea was completely empty, utterly void of anything.
…

Wasn’t that essentially a crippled spirit vein!
Even if he couldn’t have a rare divine vein, shouldn’t he at least have some combat capability?
Honestly, He Qiu even suspected that the so-called “Void” attribute was something Elder Xueyin made up to comfort him—he might just be a cultivation waste with no spirit vein at all.
Ah, the road ahead is so uncertain~

Sighing and stopping his reminiscence, He Qiu finally managed to escape the noisy crowd and returned to his quiet little pavilion for rest.
As he entered and was about to pour himself some tea to relax, a natural fragrance suddenly reached his senses.
Cool, faint, and elegant…
Since childhood, He Qiu had possessed exceptionally keen intuition, and he was certain someone was approaching him.
So he closed his eyes and imagined:
In three seconds, a graceful woman with a delicate fragrance would knock on his door.

However—
*Creek!*
No knock—the door was rudely pushed open.

What met his eyes was a breathtakingly beautiful woman with silver-white hair, dressed in blue robes, exuding an ethereal, celestial aura.
This beauty had long, slender legs and a graceful figure, matched with an elegant white gown and black stockings. Any ordinary man would likely find their gaze glued to those black stockings, but He Qiu’s eyes showed no physiological reaction whatsoever.
Since childhood, He Qiu had never been particularly interested in women.
Black stockings? He liked them.
A nice figure? He’d appreciate it.
A beautiful woman? He’d admire her.
Yet no matter how excited his inner lecherous self might be, He Qiu’s mind remained exceptionally calm. He rarely blushed or lost composure in front of beautiful women, nor did he ever experience lust-clouded judgment—he was remarkably composed.

He Qiu simply attributed this condition to “study sequelae.” In short, he was naturally frigid, indifferent to feminine charms, and more fond of reading. He could even proudly declare:
—Women, don’t you dare disturb my studies.

While He Qiu was lost in thought, the icy beauty had already approached him, staring at the gentle-faced youth for a long while before finally speaking in a soft, fragrant whisper:
“You are called, He Qiu?”
“Yes.”
He Qiu politely sat up and nodded slightly.
“You sensed my presence in advance just now? That’s why you kept looking toward the door, waiting for me to enter?”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
He Qiu smiled politely and answered ingratiatingly, “I just caught a captivating fragrance, and intuition told me a beautiful older sister would come knocking.”
“How smooth-tongued…”

The conversation stalled. The silver-haired woman furrowed her delicate brows slightly, focusing her gaze in silent scrutiny.
The youth before her had a calm gaze and handsome features. His lack of panic at her sudden visit left a good first impression—scholarly, refined, polite…
However, his spirit vein emitted not a trace of spiritual energy, completely unlike a cultivator’s.
“If I’m not mistaken, you should be the original Holy Maiden of Dragon’s Song Sect, Elder Xueyin’s chief disciple, and my senior apprentice-sister An Lingran, right?” He Qiu ventured.
“Correct. You’ve just joined the sect, little junior apprentice-brother, but your information network is quite extensive…”
Finding a chair and sitting down gracefully, An Lingran’s tone carried a hint of playfulness.

Through her preliminary observation of his spiritual aura, this so-called junior apprentice-brother He Qiu was essentially a crippled spirit vein with no potential whatsoever!
Aside from being gentle and refined, and having decent looks like a scholarly literatus…
He was practically just a mortal.
An Lingran respected mortal scholars, but here in Dragon’s Song Sect—a world of spiritual cultivation—she couldn’t use these qualities as benchmarks for judging a “cultivation partner.”
Could it be that her father had simply taken a liking to his looks and temperament?

With this thought, An Lingran continued her probing:
“Junior apprentice-brother He Qiu, I heard that you placed sixth in the sect examination a few days ago.”
“Mm, your junior is unremarkable—my results were merely average…”
The youth lowered his head slightly, feeling somewhat uneasy.
Dragon’s Song Sect’s entry examinations were held every six months, with only about twenty slots each time. A sixth-place finish wasn’t mediocre, but it was far from genius level.
And according to past precedent, only the top three were qualified to enter the inner sect; the rest were sent to the outer sect for self-study or told to leave.
But this year, only He Qiu had entered the inner sect.
Anyone could see how suspicious this was.
Moreover, He Qiu hadn’t used his spirit vein during the competition—his sixth-place result was purely achieved through physical combat.

Therefore, An Lingran was naturally curious about her junior’s secrets:
“Speaking of which, what attribute was your spirit vein determined to be?”
“Void.”
“Void?”
“Yes, my spiritual sea is completely empty—an utter void.”
“…”

The atmosphere froze again. An Lingran stared seriously into He Qiu’s eyes, but through the flow of spiritual energy in his body, she found he truly wasn’t lying—if he were, his aura would have been chaotic.
But… a Void Spirit Vein?
It was practically a joke of a spirit vein.
It wasn’t that An Lingran looked down on others, but this “Void” attribute spirit vein was simply too… even among mortal cultivation wastes, their spirit veins at least had some fire elements symbolizing life force, right?
Having nothing in one’s spiritual sea meant that, in a sense, her new junior truly was an unprecedented genius in the art of being useless.
Well, it seemed her first impression was correct—this junior was truly just an ordinary, unremarkable mortal cultivator.

Ceasing her roundabout probing, An Lingran chose to get straight to the point:
“Junior apprentice-brother He Qiu, do you realize that with your current cultivation talent, you are simply unworthy of our Xueyin master’s sect?”