As we settled down in the woods, I located an abandoned cottage deep inside the forest. There was little in the way of furniture, but then again, it was pointless to conduct a jungle survival training if I could sleep on a bed.
At least there was working taps with drinkable water. I had to explain to Kai Li Si that you could get diseases such as cholera if you recklessly drank water straight from the rivers. Additionally, the cottage could serve as a good substitute for a cave, which meant we could use it as shelter from rain and the elements.
Before we could officially start the training, however…
"All right. You owe me an explanation. What the hell is going on? I have the gist of it, but there's still a lot I don't understand. Can you start from the beginning?"
"Yeah." Kai Li Si took a deep breath and gestured for me to take a seat. He also dropped down on the floor, leaning against the grimy wall of the cottage, the once white material now covered by moss and dirt. "It���ll take a while."
"Well, you said we have a week or two."
"I would rather spend most of that training, if possible. But I don't think you'll be able to start training unless you understand what's going on."
"Exactly." I didn't deny it. "So, uh, you come from another world? The Celestial Realm, you said? What does that have to do with me?"
"Everything." Kai Li Si rubbed the bridge of his nose before he began his explanation. "In the future you will be the leader of the Heaven and Earth Sect. It used to be a demonic sect, but you changed it when you took over, purged the sect of its previous members and recruited new ones." He smiled wryly. "New members such as me."
"Future?" I raised a hand. "That's the thing I don't understand. You keep talking about the future. Stuff like 'not yet' and 'now.' What's with that? Is there some sort of time travel mechanic at play here?"
"That's right." Kai Li Si nodded. "I'm from the future. You…this time period right now, it's the past. At least it's the past for me."
I stared at him, skeptical, but he didn't flinch. Instead, he continued.
"Many years from now, you will become the sect leader of the Heaven and Earth Sect. You took over during a period of chaos and turmoil…of unending war. Long story short, the demonic sects amassed under a single alliance and they struck to conquer all of the Celestial Realm. For years, the orthodox sects were pushed back, innocents and civilians suffering under their oppressive rule and sacrificed for their demonic cultivation. Disasters struck, famines, droughts and poverty. Tens of thousands of people died. You could even see seas of blood."
"Bloody hell," I muttered. Kai Li Si nodded again.
"Exactly. It was a bloody hell."
Damn it…I didn't mean it literally. Never mind.
"However, you changed all that. You toppled the most powerful demonic cultivator, Tian Mo of the Heaven and Earth Sect, and took over as the new leader. You purged their ranks of evil and recruited from the struggling surviving orthodox cultivators. You led a resistance against the demonic sects and pushed them back, reclaiming lost territory and defeating them in many major battles. You single-handedly turned the tide of war and gave the orthodox sects a glimpse of victory. A reason to hope."
For a moment, I stared at him in silence, not sure if I wasn't hearing him correctly. Then I sighed and pointed toward myself.
"Me? Are you sure you didn't get the wrong person? I know I'm saying this about myself, but there's no way I can pull something like that off. Leading a resistance? Killing the strongest demonic cultivator? Becoming a sect leader? That's…impossible. I know myself best, and I assure you that I have no such ability."
"No…right now, you don't," Kai Li Si agreed. "But I assure you, in the far future, you will become the leader of the resistance."
Dude…don't go all Terminator on me now.
��I was there, Sect Leader. I saw you fight firsthand. You personally taught me." Kai Li Si paused and laughed. "You even told me stories about yourself…back here, when you were in this world. That's how I knew where to find you. You told me about…your school."
I glanced down at my filthy uniform. That was also how Ba Bai found me, apparently.
"Don't worry, Sect Leader. You'll become a great man eventually. Everyone starts somewhere." For a moment, Kai Li Si looked wistful, almost as if he was quoting someone else. As if those weren't his words. He focused on me again. "However, that's exactly what the enemy is afraid of. They recognize you as the greatest threat to their conquest, and when they realized they couldn't beat you in direct combat, they switched their strategy."
The coin began to drop as I pieced everything together.
"Time travel."
"Exactly. Since they couldn't defeat you when you were the ultimate cultivator, they decided to return to a time when you weren't strong yet. So they sent demonic cultivators back in time and through worlds…to when you still weren't a cultivator. They plan to kill you before you were sent to our world."
"Actually…" I raised a hand. "I wanted to ask you about that. How the hell did I end up in your world – this Celestial Realm – in the first place?"
For a moment, Kai Li Si hesitated. Then he took a deep breath.
"What I'll be telling you is going to sound…depressing, but whatever you hear, remember this. The future is not set. There's always hope."
"Uh, okay?"
That sounded pretty ominous. I couldn't help but have a premonition.
"A few years from now…after you graduate from university, you will encounter an old man from a rich family. I'm not sure about the details, but I think you saved his life or something. He took a liking to you and married you off to his granddaughter, against the protests from the rest of his family."
I was pretty sure I would never agree to that sort of arranged marriage. But I didn't say anything and continued to listen.
"Unfortunately, it seems that you didn't have a good relationship with your wife. Your in-laws too, they refused to accept you because of your family background and supposedly lower status, so they looked down on you and were condescending, always insulting you or trying to humiliate you in public."
Probably to force me to divorce their daughter. I wondered why I didn't. Or maybe Kai Li Si was making this stupid thing up.
"Eventually, they…uh, schemed to murder you. After hiring thugs to kill you, they dumped your body in the river…but somehow, you ended up in the Celestial Realm." Kai Li Si chuckled. "You told me how you were fished out from a river by a villager. From there, you explored the Celestial Realm and learned to cultivate. Eventually, you stumbled upon the secrets of the Heaven and Earth Sect, learning their signature techniques, Heaven and Earth Formula, and rose up their ranks before defeating the previous leader, Tian Mo, and taking over."
…what the fuck!?
No, seriously…what the fuck!? Why did this sound like some cheaply written web novel about a son-in-law? Bloody hell, how many of these generic son-in-law clone stories were drifting about in the Internet? And I ended up living it in reality?
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. That's what you told us." Kai Li Si nodded sincerely.
However, what he said made sense now. No wonder he told me the future wasn't set…that I could change it. In fact, it had already been changed. From what Kai Li Si said, I only learned to cultivate after I died and was somehow transmigrated to another world. However, his sudden appearance and promise to train me right now, before all that stupid son-in-law nonsense happened, was already an indication of how those events had been altered.
Obviously there were already changes in this current timeline. Of course, this was assuming Kai Li Si was telling the truth, of course. Honestly, though, it sounded like it was true precisely because of how absurd it was. Kai Li Si clearly wasn't from this world, which meant he had never read any of these trashy son-in-law web novels or manhua. For him to come up with such a ridiculous tale – which he claimed he heard from me – reinforced the possibility that he was telling the truth. Maybe the future me made it up and told this story to him as a joke.
I didn't know. I guess I would find out…or I wouldn't. Whatever the case, this wasn't important now.
"All right, back to the topic of time travel…so you mentioned that they sent demonic cultivators back through time and space, right? How many did they send? Just Ba Bai? Or are there more that I would have to worry about? What are the limitations of this time travel method to begin with? Will they send more if this Ba Bai fails? And you mentioned something about his cultivation being nerfed?"
"Yeah, that's right. In order to travel between realms and back through time, the cultivators in Celestial Realm had to go through the Nine Heavenly Temporal Tribulation." Kai Li Si looked nervous. "It's an extremely dangerous process with a high chance of failure. Not only is there a high risk of death, if the cultivator survives and succeeds in traveling through time and space, he will have his cultivation reduced drastically. It will drop several realms."
He then paused for a moment and glanced away.
"Also, there's no way for the demonic cultivators in the current timeline to know if the assassination succeeds in the past. If it does, the whole…timeline will change. If it doesn't, well, it's unlikely they will take the risk. After all, the chances of success for a Nine Heavenly Temporal Tribulation is less than 10%."
Yikes…that was indeed a low chance. And obviously the more powerful you were, the more reluctant you would be to take on such odds and receive such a drastic hit to your cultivation level. I couldn't help but respect both Kai Li Si and Ba Bai.
"Intelligence reports suggest that the demonic cultivators sent about a hundred of their powerhouses back." Kai Li Si grinned. "They were really desperate because you were slaughtering them right and left."
"Uh, right…" Then I blanched. "Wait, a hundred?!"
"Yeah. I estimate that no more than ten of them survived. Probably less. Considering that Ba Bai is the only one actively moving around right now, it is possible that he was the only one who succeeded, but I wouldn't bet on it."
I pushed my glasses up my nose and studied him. Then I nodded briefly. "What about the orthodox sects? Were you the only one sent back here?"
"Actually…" I could sense the reluctance in Kai Li Si's tone. He looked away, unable to meet my eyes. "We sent ten of us back. I'm afraid…I'm the only one who succeeded in getting here."
He lowered his head, and I mimicked his movement. Even though I didn't know these people, still didn't really understand what was going on, I could feel a stab of pain in my chest. At least nine people died because of me…for me. I didn't ask them to, but the guilt was still crushing me nonetheless.
No…what if my future self was the one who ordered them to risk their lives?
"We all volunteered," Kai Li Si told me firmly, probably having noticed my mood. "Sir, you're a hero to us all. You're our only hope, the hero who rallied scattered orthodox cultivators, crippled by a series of demoralizing defeats, and turned the tides of war. You are literally our future. We cannot afford to let anything happen to you…or the Celestial Realm is doomed."
I exhaled wearily and clutched my head. "I'm sorry…even if you tell me all this, it just doesn't feel real to me. I…I don't know…"
Kai Li Si waited for a moment before he steeled himself.
"Sorry, sir. But we don't have time for you to mope around and try to understand everything. Now that the enemy is here, we have no choice. We need to fight back. And the only way for you to resist the demonic cultivators who are pursuing you is for you to train to become a cultivator yourself."
He offered an encouraging smile.
"In the future, you become the strongest ever cultivator. You definitely have the talent. I can vouch for it."
Those were just words. I still couldn't believe him. There had to be a mistake somewhere. How the hell could someone like me become the strongest cultivator in the future? This had to be one big joke.
"Also…it was a request from your future self. You…the future you requested that I teach the past you."
I lowered my hands and looked up at that. Certainly, that sounded like something I would do if I was many years older.
That was right. I didn't know about the "strongest" cultivator thing, about becoming a hero or the leader of a resistance or the sect leader of the most powerful sect, but there was one thing I knew I wanted.
I did want to become a cultivator…to attain those awesome abilities. Then I would be able to decide my fate with my own hands and take the fight to the enemy. No more running. I was going to kick Ba Bai's ass.
Taking a deep breath, I nodded and rose to my feet, clenching my fists in determination.
"All right. Let's begin immediately."