Unfortunate Transmigrator

33

Never Bet Against Luck

I

“That sword…”

Hao Zhen turned toward Tian Jin, who was staring at the sword as if in a trance. Hao Zhen returned his attention to the weapon. It appeared to be a little under three feet in length, with a double-edged, pristine white blade with faint, light gray symbols running across its middle. The hilt was golden, with elaborate circular patterns on the guard.

Hao Zhen wasn’t a sword enthusiast, but he had to admit it was a beautiful—if not elegant—weapon.

Judging by the way transfixed Tian Jin was looking at it, it was doubtlessly what had led them to this case—what Tian Jin had somehow sensed.

“If I’m not wrong,” Lan Yue said, taking a step forward, her eyes also on the sword, “that should be the Radiant Light Sword.” She wasn’t transfixed like Tian Jin, but there was a certain reverence to her voice. “And that man should be Protector Na Ren—a member of the previous generation of protectors of the sect who went missing about a hundred years ago, taking the Radiant Light Sword with him. Grandfather always wondered where he disappeared to…”

Her words broke Tian Jin out of his trance. “The sword… it’s a named magical artifact?”

Some magical artifacts had names, whereas others, considered common artifacts, didn’t. Named magical artifacts were special—they were given a name for a reason, after all—and were generally superior to common magical artifacts of the same rank. Unlike common magical artifacts, named ones also had special magical abilities.

Hao Zhen wasn’t particularly surprised by that revelation. He doubted that a weapon that had somehow attracted a protagonist would be a common magical artifact.

“Yes. And an eleventh-order one,” Lan Yue said. “It’s one of the sect’s two treasure swords, the other being the Blazing Sun Blade.” She narrowed her eyes at Tian Jin. “Is this sword what was calling out to you?”

“I believe so.”

“I’ve never heard of something like that happening.” Lan Yue kept staring at Tian Jin. It was as if he were some kind of puzzle she couldn’t make heads or tails of. She did seem to believe him—that he had somehow been drawn to the sword—but it didn’t look like she could make sense of how that had happened.

Hao Zhen wasn’t so certain himself. He knew why it had happened. The world considered Tian Jin a protagonist, and right now he needed something to deal with the elder after them, so fate arranged for him to get this sword. Or something along those lines.

What Tian Jin had felt wasn’t some vague positive feeling about an item in an auction, however. He had somehow felt the sword from dozens of miles away. Even in the most contrived of cultivation novels, there was usually a reason for something like this.

“I also don’t know what is happening,” Tian Jin admitted. “I’ve never felt this way before. There’s just something drawing me to it.”

Lan Yue didn’t reply. Instead, she kept staring at Tian Jin intensely, still trying to solve the puzzle. Hao Zhen wondered whether he’d have to step in and remind them that they were rather short on time. Lan Yue then looked away and shrugged.

“Well, it’s not like the sword will be of much use, anyway,” she said.

That was not exactly what Hao Zhen wanted to hear right now. “What do you mean?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. Lan Yue’s words elicited a similar reaction from Tian Jin, who was now also fully focused on her.

“It’s an eleventh-order magical artifact,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’d need to be an eleventh-level redsoul to properly make use of it. Or at least a tenth-level. Any lower than that, and its abilities cost too much spiritual power to activate.” She looked at the sword thoughtfully. “Right now, it can only be used as a common magical artifact—although, admittedly, an eleventh-order one. This means that all it’s good for would be cutting through the elder’s spiritual aura. But what use is that when he can move so fast we won’t even able to land an attack?”

Just like cultivators were divided into six realms, each with eleven levels, magical artifacts were divided into six grades, each with eleven orders. The swords in Hao Zhen’s spatial ring were all first-order ones. They could easily cut through the magical aura of a first-level redsoul and could, to a certain extent, deal some damage to a second-level. Against a third-level, however, the most they’d be able to do would be to scratch them. An eleventh-order red-grade sword, on the other hand, would be able to pretty much cut any cultivator at the Red Spiritual Realm the same way a mundane sword could cut a graysoul.

As Lan Yue said, the Radiant Light Sword gave them a way to wound the elder after them. Unfortunately, she was also right that that meant nothing if they couldn’t even get a hit in.

Hao Zhen thought about using the other Radiant Light Imprisonment Talisman on the elder but dismissed the idea. There was still more than enough space inside the dome-shaped barrier of light formed by the talisman for the man to dodge any attacks. Still, maybe they could—

“And it’s not like we’d even be able to use it that way,” Lan Yue continued, drawing his attention back to her. “There’s a restriction on the sword. It can only be used by a descendant of the founder of the sect. In the hands of anyone else, it has no magical properties save for its enhanced durability. A first-order red-grade common sword would be more useful than it.”

A restriction. Hao Zhen had no idea that was a thing. It wasn’t as if Lan Yue had any reason to lie, however. The situation was getting more complicated by the second. He waited a bit more, but Lan Yue didn’t appear to have anything else to say. The more she spoke, the less attractive the Radiant Light Sword became. For a moment there, he had been afraid that she’d go on to reveal that the sword could destroy the soul of its wielder if it didn’t like them, or something along those lines.

Hao Zhen shifted his attention to Tian Jin, wondering what the other boy thought of all of this. Tian Jin had his head lowered, having fallen silent after Lan Yue began speaking, merely listening to what she had to say.

Then, before he could say anything, Tian Jin started making his way over to the corpse in the middle of the cave. Lan Yue frowned but did nothing to stop him. Hao Zhen likewise stood to the side, only observing.

Despite everything that Lan Yue had said, as he watched Tian Jin, Hao Zhen felt anticipation welling up inside him. He didn’t think that Tian Jin would have been drawn to the sword through some mysterious means if it was truly useless to them. It wasn’t that he doubted Lan Yue’s words.

It was just that what applied to everyone else didn’t necessarily apply to protagonists.

Tian Jin came to a stop before the middle-aged man’s corpse. He then gave the dead man a bow—paying his respects to a member of the old generation—before kneeling down and gently taking the Radiant Light Sword into his hands.

Standing back up, Tian Jin took a step back. He held the sword in front of his eyes. He held onto its hilt with his right hand, resting the blade on his left one as he studied.

Out of the corner of his eye, Hao Zhen caught Lan Yue rolling her eyes. “Did you not hear what I said? I already told you. The sword is use—”

The rest of the sentence got stuck in Lan Yue’s words, her jaw dropping as the runes on the blade of the Radiant Light Sword suddenly started to glow.

And for the second time that day, Hao Zhen couldn’t help but smirk.

Called it. Again.

“You…” Lan Yue stared at Tian Jin wide-eyed. “But how…”

Tian Jin looked up at her, the sword still glowing. “I’m not sure?” he said. He looked pretty confused himself. “I just channeled some spiritual power into it.”

Snapping out of her daze, Lan Yue marched over to him and grabbed the sword out of his hand. Tian Jin did nothing to stop her, letting her have it. The next moment, the sword stopped glowing. Lan Yue frowned her eyes, staring at the blade intently. Through Spiritual Sight, Hao Zhen could see her spiritual power flowing into the weapon.

The markings on the sword remained dim, however. It did not react at all.

Lan Yue then shoved the sword back to Tian Jin. “Do it again,” she said.

Shrugging, Tian Jin grasped the hilt of the sword. Just like Lan Yue had done, he channeled spiritual power into it, the red radiance flowing from his hand into the weapon. Once again, the inscriptions on the blade lit up.

Lan Yue stared at the sword in a daze.

Then, she whirled on her feet, now staring straight at Tian Jin’s face. “You,” she said. “Is anyone in your family surnamed Na?”

Tian Jin took a step backward, giving Lan Yue a wary look. Hao Zhen sympathized with him. He’d have fared much worse under the glare she was currently giving Tian Jin.

“I don’t think so?”

“Are you sure?” Lan Yue pressed on. “Think. Maybe one of your grandparents or great-grandparents?”

Tian Jin shook his head. “I know my family tree well. There isn’t anyone with that surname on it.”

Lan Yue didn’t look like she believed him. Still, she eventually took a step backward herself, her expression turning contemplative. “Well, you must be related to the founder somehow. Maybe he or one of his descendants had an illegitimate child, and they married into your family under another surname…” She paused. “Where is your family from, anyway? You’re definitely from a magical clan, but I don’t believe there is a Tian Clan in the region.”

Hao Zhen frowned, realizing that Tian Jin had yet to share his story with Lan Yue. Before the other boy could say anything, he hurriedly stepped in between his two teammates. They didn’t have the time for Tian Jin to go over his backstory for Lan Yue’s benefit.

“That’s not important right now,” Hao Zhen said, drawing his teammates’ attention to him. “What matters is that Tian Jin can use the Radiant Light Sword, which means we at least have a way of wounding the inner elder.”

He also had some theories about why Tian Jin could use the Radiant Light Sword, but they could wait.

Lan Yue glared at him, once again giving him a look of suspicion, but she ultimately nodded her head. “All right. Later, then. That still doesn’t change the fact that the sword isn’t of much use to us unless we can somehow find a way to land an attack, however.”

“I know.”

The sword wasn’t the solution—just part of it. They still needed to figure out a way to land an attack on the elder. Maybe they could find a way to distract the elder so that one of them could use the sword in a surprise attack, but Hao Zhen didn’t put much stock into such a plan. It was too risky. He’d rather simply use a Radiant Light Imprisonment Talisman on the elder again and then escape to the inner disciples’ section of the forest and go with their original plan.

He didn’t believe that was the right course of action, however. Something about this situation didn’t add up. It didn’t make sense for Tian Jin to be drawn over here and get this sword when it couldn’t be used to deal with the enemy after them.

Hao Zhen started pacing around the cave, immersed in his thoughts.

If this world did, indeed, treat Tian Jin as a protagonist, then there had to be some way Tian Jin could defeat the elder. Unless his theory was wrong, there had to be something they were missing.

Maybe… Maybe he was thinking about this the wrong way. Hao Zhen came to an abrupt stop. He turned to look at Lan Yue and Tian Jin, who were looking back at him in a mix of confusion and expectation.

What if, originally, Tian Jin had been supposed to have found the cave by himself? Not just that, but what if Tian Jin had been supposed to fight Du Jian and his cronies on his own? What if he and Lan Yue hadn’t been there?

This alternate reality suddenly unraveled itself before Hao Zhen’s eyes.

Tian Jin would have managed to beat Du Qing and his helpers, but there was a chance he could have been injured or driven to exhaustion. Then, the inner elder would have arrived, and he’d have somehow found a way to escape on his magical cloud, the inner elder in hot pursuit.

Tian Jin would then have been drawn to the cave, probably launching himself straight through the waterfall in his hurry, broken the barrier with his spiritual skill, and rushed into the cave. Next, he’d have picked up the Radiant Light Sword, realized it wasn’t enough, and looked around the cave desperately, looking for a way out of this situation—some sort of…

Hao Zhen’s gaze fell on the inscriptions on the walls of the cave.

Maybe…

“Tian Jin,” Hao Zhen said. “Can you decipher whether there are any other matrixes or schemas set up here?”

Tian Jin’s eyes widened. He hurriedly walked over to one of the walls, Lan Yue a step behind him. A moment later, he said, “There are some warding schemas here. Powerful ones.”

“What exactly can they do?”

“Give me a moment,” Tian Jin said as he walked over to the back of the cave, studying the inscriptions there. Finally, he came to a stop beside the pile of spiritual stones. “There is a restraining schema. It should be able to seal the movements of any cultivators in the cave at the seventh level of the Red Spiritual Realm and below that aren’t keyed into it.” He glanced back at Hao Zhen. “I don’t believe I can key us into the array, but it seems that it won’t affect anyone holding the Radiant Light Sword.”

There we go.

“Can you activate it?”

“Yes,” Tian Jin said, crouching down in front of the spiritual stones. “But it’ll take about all the spiritual stones I have in my spatial ring to keep it activated for even a minute.”

One minute—they could work with that. Hao Zhen didn’t have any spiritual stones to contribute, but Lan Yue should have some, so they could probably get a bit more than that. Still, it wasn’t an ideal solution. There were questions he wanted to ask the elder, and one minute wouldn’t be nearly enough for that.

And then he recalled: they had some new loot. “What about in Du Jian’s?”

There were also the magical pouches of the lackeys, which probably had some spiritual stones inside.

Tian Jin blinked. His spatial ring flashed, and another spatial ring appeared in his hand. A moment later, Tian Jin’s eyes widened. “It has more than enough to keep the array activated for about ten minutes.”

With that, Hao Zhen turned to Lan Yue, who was staring at the two of them blankly, and said, “It seems like we’ll be able to put the sword to use after all.”

And just like that, they had a plan.