'Why do I feel conscious? Did that truck not finish me off?' Cyrus wondered to himself. Considering the last several hours felt like an uncomfortable nap in a state of half-consciousness, he thought he was a goner. One does not simply walk away from a full-on tackle from a massive two-ton hunk of metal speeding along at ungodly speeds, yet now he could feel his mind activating as though waking from a deep sleep.
'But why do I feel a bit warm and sticky? I'm not getting reborn as an infant or something, right? Haha. As if.'
As minutes passed, his nerves steadily kicked into gear. He could fully feel his own body again, but an awful stench gradually overtook his senses like a freight train. Even with minimal ability to move at the moment, his face instinctively wrinkled from the curdling stench. Unable to take any more of the acrid smell assaulting his nostrils without his consent, he forced his eyes open. Well, he tried to, anyway. The simple act turned into a small struggle due to the sticky substance covering his entire body.
Ignoring the fact that he should definitely be incapacitated after being run over by a truck, he raised an arm to his face to wipe away the stickiness, though it did not help much, if at all. Either way, he finally forced his eyes open.
"Ah, you've gotta be shi-!"
*Cough, Cough, Blergh*
Forgetting anything else, the awful pungent taste of skat entering his mouth made him roll over and puke his guts out. Afterward, he finally saw the sticky substance that had covered his body. It left him absolutely stupefied with a dumb look on his face.
Beneath him, he saw a human-shaped gap in the warm and oozing surface. He could almost swear the silhouette was sneering at him.
Although his first thought was to find a body of water to wash himself, a second more pressing thought crossed his mind.
'What is even happening right now? Why did I wake up in a dung pile?'
Doing his best not to gag, he looked up at his surroundings through skat-encrusted eyelashes. Immediately, his brows furrowed. All he saw was a partially swampy wetland forest, but the vegetation looked both familiar and alien. Somehow, it gave him a barely recognizable feeling of familiarity.
The strange sights almost made him forget the horrid stench caked onto his body. Almost.
Turning his head to see more of his surroundings, he halted in his tracks, and his heart skipped a beat. Less than a stone's throw away, a massive snake-like beast sat coiled up with bright amber reptilian eyes staring back at him in a similarly flabbergasted manner. It had large brownish-green spines protruding all along its scaled body, ending in multiple split tails with spikes protruding from the end of each tail. The spikes had a green tint near their points.
The man and beast stared at each other for several moments. Neither knew what to make of this situation.
'...Don't tell me this thing pooped me out or something? Wait, isn't this a bronze basilisk from Seventh Heaven? A young one, at that, too. Seventh Heaven was a game, though. Is this a catatonic dream, or did I wake up in a world similar to the game?'
Setting aside those thoughts for further pondering at a later, more suitable time, Cyrus grumbled, "You look more surprised than me."
The young basilisk blinked itself back to reality and narrowed its gaze toward Cyrus.
"...I'm assuming you won't want to eat me in this situation. Is there any somewhat clean water nearby where I can wash myself?"
'Even though it's probably too young to have learned much human language, they are higher-end magical beasts. It should at least comprehend the intent behind my words even if it's young. At least, if it's even remotely similar to what I'm familiar with, that should be the case.'
The snake-like beast flicked its forked tongue briefly while eyeing him warily. Eventually, though, it pointed in a direction on the other side of itself from Cyrus using its multi-pronged tail.
Cyrus nodded in thanks before walking around the beast. Giving it a wide berth, his damp shoes splotched through mud and feces. Although disgusted, he beelined in the direction pointed out by the beast as quickly as possible.
Before long, he discovered a large shallow pond. From what he could see, the deepest section would only reach his thighs. Although murky, he could at least see the bottom. Compared to the muddy puddles he encountered along the way, it may as well have been an oasis in the desert.
Before anything else, he instinctively checked the area for dangerous or toxic creatures due to his experiences in the Seventh Heaven game he had played for a few decades. Since he only saw a few toads and small snakes further off in the distance, he cast aside his caution and started removing his ruined clothes. Ragged remains of a martial arts robe wrapped around his torso made him raise a brow, but he still tossed it away nonetheless. It only served to convince him that he was at least in a world or simulation similar to the game he knew.
Once naked, he kicked some of the sand under the water to check for any type of leeches or similar critters. Nothing popped out, so he immediately dropped into the water to wash himself, though he still maintained wary attention on his surroundings. While enjoying the cool water amidst the humid swamp environment, he furrowed his brows.
"Now that I've got the immediate bathing issue out of the way, it's really hitting me how weird this whole situation is," Cyrus quietly grumbled to himself.
Out of curiosity, he inspected his surroundings a little more closely than before while still washing the excrement off his body. Although he didn't pay much attention to vegetation during his time in Seventh Heaven since he wasn't an alchemist, he at least made sure to keep track of valuable herbs that he could gather, whether that be for himself, for sale, to give to close confidants and allies, or even use as bribes. Ah, cooking, too. He loved the faces people would make whenever he told them the valuable herbs or pill ingredients he 'wasted' in a food dish, especially considering high-level cultivators didn't need physical sustenance in the first place.
Only a few seconds after he started observing the plants around him, he raised a brow out of surprise upon seeing vaguely familiar spirit herbs.
"Isn't that a barbed solvent thistle? That'd sell for a pretty penny, but the juices in it taste great in a copperback bull steak marinade. And those flowers are… I don't remember the name, but I remember them being used for some sort of pill for breakthroughs or something in the First and Second Heavens. Think I used them for a pasta salad recipe at one point, though. Su Yang really got a kick out of that one when his sister tried to attack me over wasting it like that."
A nostalgic smile appeared on his face while memories from his early days in the game started coming back to him. He missed some of those NPC's even more than some of his real-life acquaintances since he spent most of his time with them.
Shaking off his reminiscing for the time being, he mumbled to himself, "People must not come here often if such uncommon pill ingredients are growing in such numbers."
Since he didn't care much about pills and spirit herbs in the first place, he simply made a mental note to gather some of them later if he had the chance. Even if he couldn't gather or store them, it didn't matter to him. He never needed external aids for his cultivation, anyway. Well, aside from his dual cultivation partners, anyways.
'Now that I think about it…'
Adopting a serious expression, he focused his attention inward while only leaving a sliver of his senses to keep an eye on his surroundings. Despite his current state feeling more physically real than the advanced simulation of Seventh Heaven, his experiences in it allowed him to quickly identify the level of spiritual energy at his disposal, otherwise known as his cultivation base.
After a few seconds, he couldn't help grumbling aloud, "The hell is this trashy foundation? I can tell this body is young, but even a teenager should have a stronger cultivation base than this in the Qi Gathering stage. Is this really the seventh layer of it? Did I take over an idiot's body or something? Whoever used this body before must've been a wastrel or something. Obviously cultivated even the basic breathing methods wrong. Can even tell he engaged in a totally hazardous form of Dual Cultivation at some point. What a dumbass. No signs of body cultivation, either. Must've been one of those lazy Qi-cultivation-only bums. No chance even getting past the Third Heaven with a body like this. I'm better off abolishing my entire cultivation and starting from scratch. That'll have to wait until I'm in a safe environment, though."
Sighing, Cyrus ran a hand through his relatively short damp hair. A few strands of dark blue hair fell in front of his eyes afterward.
"Well, I'm not exactly sure what is happening, but I guess I'll make the best of it just like I always have."