***
Ordinary.
If someone were to define me, the very first word that would come to mind was this word: "ordinary."
I was born into an ordinary South Korean dual-income household.
I possessed an ordinary brain and ordinary talents.
I was the kind of person who ranked exactly 16th out of 29 students in a class at a standard academic high school.
Without a single corner of my being that could be called exceptional or outstanding, I was just an ordinary high school senior living an ordinary life in "Hell Joseon," suffering through the grind of exam preparations.
That was exactly who I was: Lee An-jeong.
Furthermore, even my name, An-jeong, which my parents had given me with the hope that I would live a "stable" life, was the very definition of ordinariness itself.
'Actually, being ordinary is the best thing you can be.'
To be honest, I did not have even a single inch of dissatisfaction with this ordinary life of mine.
After all, I didn't have any particular dreams, any specific motivation, or anything I desperately wanted to do.
'Doesn't everyone just live an ordinary life like this before they pass away?'
If there was one thing about me that was even slightly peculiar, it was perhaps the fact that I spent a great deal of time spacing out, letting my mind go blank, or wasting time on trivial thoughts like those.
But recently, one truly extraordinary thing happened to me.
Suddenly, within the span of just a few months, my grades took a vertical leap, skyrocketing all the way to 2nd place in my class.
Naturally, the school, the private academies, and everywhere else I went were turned completely upside down.
I was summoned to the teachers' office multiple times to undergo what felt less like a meeting and more like an interrogation.
My mother’s mouth was stretched from ear to ear in a constant grin every single day.
She spent her entire day clutching her cell phone, talking to her friends for hours on end just to brag about her son.
'I honestly didn't know that the "drug effect" would work quite that well...'
The secret was none other than this.
There were two specific medications—ConXX and InXX—that were rumored among the academy districts to be "drugs that make you study well."
What? You’re asking how it makes sense for such common drugs, which supposedly one-third of all exam students take, to have such an effect?
The problem was that the nonsensical event actually happened in reality.
Of course, there was one more thing.
When I drank Hot6X, an energy drink, along with those two medications, the effect was truly insane!
Out of curiosity, I asked the prescribing doctor during a check-up, and he was so shocked he practically stuck his tongue out in disbelief.
He told me that my body was a rare case even in academic circles, as I was someone who responded exceptionally well to the "drug effect."
However, he did add that because the effects were so strong, side effects like headaches, dizziness, and loss of appetite could also appear more severely.
He suggested that once my ADHD symptoms decreased a bit, we should gradually try to stop the medication.
Naturally, I had absolutely no intention of doing that.
'Why would I stop taking such great medicine?'
Since I had already climbed up to 2nd place in the class, I wanted to keep going higher, whether it was because of the drug effect or anything else.
Who knew? Maybe if I kept going like this, I would end up entering Seoul National University’s medical school or law school.
That was what I thought, but...
Bwaaaaang—Kwang!
At the very moment I thought I heard the sound of a loud horn, a massive bus struck me.
"Hey! Student! Where are you looking when you're walking?! How could you just jump into the road like that? Uh... oh no... this student's condition is... someone please call an ambulance! Hurry!"
The screams of the people echoing in my ears felt strangely foreign.
'Fuck! I really should have listened to the doctor.'
I was on my way home late at night after finishing my classes at the academy.
I thought I had only stumbled for a moment because of the dizziness that had worsened since I started taking the medicine.
But the moment I regained my senses, my body had fallen onto the roadway, and after being hit by the bus, I was lying on top of the freezing cold asphalt.
Within the pool of my own blood that was already spreading out beneath me, I felt the terrifying chill of death.
Not only were my arms and legs twisted and broken in whatever direction they pleased, but my consciousness was fading away due to the blood pouring from my head and the astronomical amount of pain.
'Fuck! I don't want to die so pointlessly like this!'
Many words flashed through my mind, but I couldn't spit a single one out of my mouth.
It was because my fading consciousness had snapped completely.
And so, Lee An-jeong, a high school senior from Hell Joseon, brought my short and fleeting nineteen-year-old life to a hollow end.
Or rather... I thought it had ended.
That was, until I opened my eyes again in a world I had never even imagined, accompanied by a flashing light.
<><><>
"Hey! Hey!"
Slap—! Slap—!
There was a young boy lying there as if he were dead, his body trembling faintly.
A middle-aged cultivator, who was slapping the boy's cheek as if intending to wake him up, turned back with a cold expression.
"Beom Gon, it looks like this child named An-jeong is almost dead."
"It seems so. Well, he’s a lowest-grade miscellaneous spirit root holder anyway, so it doesn't really matter if he dies."
"What? This kid is that one? Well, then..."
The middle-aged cultivator looked dumbfounded and immediately withdrew his gaze from the boy.
"Still, it would be unpleasant if someone died on the very first day of entry... I’ll try to wake him up one last time. Hey, An-jeong! An-jeong!"
Thwack—! Thwack—!
The young cultivator slapped the lying child’s cheeks even more violently.
He struck him so hard that the child’s body swung back and forth from the impact.
But it was at that moment.
"Gasp...! Wha-what? Ow! It hurts!"
The young boy, dressed in shabby rags, opened his eyes and writhed in pain.
"Haha—it looks like he’s come back to life. Fortunately, we won't have to clear away a corpse on the first day of entry. What a waste of effort because of a guy like this..."
The young cultivator spoke while looking at the young boy with a gaze filled with mockery and contempt.
The young boy, An-jeong, finally came to his senses and looked around at his surroundings.
Beyond a wide-stretching basin, a mountain range rose up high like a folding screen, and a middle-aged cultivator and a young cultivator were staring down at him with cold, piercing eyes.
Behind them, about a thousand young children dressed in gray training robes were crossing their arms, staring at him with the same emotionless eyes as the young cultivator.
'Fuck! What is this? Where am I? This looks exactly like a Xianxia world.'
Then, the clichés of Xianxia novels that he had read at some point flashed through the mind of An-jeong, who until just a moment ago had been a high school senior in the modern world.
A modern person’s possession into a Xianxia world.
There was no other way to explain the scene before him.
'Did I really possess someone in a Xianxia world? I definitely died in a traffic accident, so this can't be a dream, right?'
When he lifted his hand to look at it, he saw the small hand of a young child.
'It seems this body belongs to a young child. Wait... did they just call me An-jeong? Then is the name of this body's owner the same as mine?'
A child's body with the exact same name.
Could it be that this was the reason for this unrealistic Xianxia possession?
It was while he was having those thoughts that he felt an intense pain in both of his cheeks.
He remembered that the young cultivator from earlier had slapped him mercilessly, claiming he was trying to wake him up.
'You son of a bitch! How can someone slap another person so ruthlessly? Are these guys really Taoists? Is there something wrong with their personalities?'
However, strangely enough, the pain was not only felt in his cheeks.
His abdomen, his back, and even his arms and legs were aching and throbbing all over.
'Ugh... it hurts... What is this? Why does my whole body hurt like this? It’s as if I’ve been beaten up.'
At that moment, the memories of the original owner of this body rushed into his head like a film strip.
'Now that I look at it, I really was in the middle of being beaten up!'
This place was a small cultivation sect called the Buyeon Sect.
And he had possessed the body of a miscellaneous disciple who had just entered the sect today, and he was in the middle of participating in the "Regular Cultivation Meet" that had begun as soon as they entered.
It was an event where the miscellaneous disciples were made to compete against each other’s skills once every three months.
The original owner of this body was a possessor of the lowest-grade miscellaneous spirit root, which was the absolute lowest level of talent. It seemed he had completely lost consciousness after being beaten nearly to death by the boy who appeared as his opponent.
Then, for some reason, he had possessed this body.
'That cruel little bastard!'
An-jeong glared at the clever-looking boy in front of him.
That boy was massaging his own fists and licking his lips while looking at An-jeong, much like a snake looking at a mouse, before he spoke.
"Sunbae-nim, it looks like that fellow has regained his senses now. Shall we start again?"
At the boy's words, the young cultivator looked toward the middle-aged cultivator.
The middle-aged cultivator then gave a low, slow nod of his head.
"Yes, very well! If one is a disciple of our Buyeon Sect, they must know how to see things through to the end once they have started. Start again!"
As soon as those words fell, the boy lunged toward An-jeong.
Immediately following that, a pure white light enveloped the boy’s fist as it flew toward him in an instant.
An-jeong hurriedly raised his arms to block his head, but that powerful fist blew away his blocking arms entirely and struck him right in the face.
"Ugh—"
Along with an immense amount of pain, An-jeong’s body flew backward and tumbled across the ground.
Following that, fists and feet flew at him without any mercy.
They were so fast that no matter how hard An-jeong struggled, there was no way for him to do anything about it.
"Ugh! Argh—!"
The beating continued once again.
An-jeong flailed about and was beaten like that for a long time until he eventually lost consciousness once more.
Only then did the young Taoist raise his hand to restrain the opposing boy.
"Stop! Now, step back! Hwang Cheon, you have won!"
It was after a mere fleeting moment had passed that An-jeong regained his senses.
When he looked around, it seemed he was still in the Xianxia world he had seen earlier.
'Ha... I'm here again. It’s good that I didn't die, but... in the end, am I stuck living here now?'
An-jeong lifted his head while simultaneously feeling relief that he was alive and disappointment that the place happened to be a Xianxia world.
Perhaps because he had been beaten so much, the sky looked yellow.
In the midst of that, the voice of the fellow named Hwang Cheon, whom he had faced earlier, pierced into his ears, full of ridicule.
"Hahahaha—that beggar-like bastard! What a pathetic loser!"
A surge of heat flared up from deep inside An-jeong.
'That rude little brat! Damn it! To hell with this!'
Countless curses flashed through his mind, but he did not spit them out of his mouth.
A scared dog barks louder.
It was because he knew all too well that doing so would only make him look even more pathetic.
When he looked around, the gazes of the thousand or so other children gathered nearby were also incredibly cold.
There was no such thing as a gaze that sympathized with the weak.
An-jeong realized the cold-heartedness of the Xianxia world firsthand.
"What are you doing standing there like an idiot? If you've come to your senses, get back into the formation immediately!"
At that moment, the cold voice of the young cultivator reached him.
Even from his facial expression, a freezing chill was wafting out.
'Fuck! What did I do so wrong that he keeps acting like that toward me?'
While cursing inwardly with a heart full of dissatisfaction, An-jeong picked himself up and headed toward the formation.
Honestly, he couldn't understand it.
If they were going to persecute and treat him with such contempt, why on earth did they even accept him as a miscellaneous disciple?
It felt as though it would have been better if they hadn't accepted him at all.
One small mercy was that even though he had been beaten so severely, his body felt lighter than expected and the pain vanished quickly.
'How strange. Are the kids in the Xianxia world naturally born with sturdy bodies and good recovery powers?'
While he was lost in those idle thoughts, the cruel duels continued on and on, and before long, the winners were decided, bringing the Regular Cultivation Meet for the miscellaneous disciples to an end.
The winner was awarded one thing called a Spirit Qi Pill, and several other secondary prizes were given to the top five performers.
The thousand or so children who failed to receive an award looked at them with envious eyes.
'I guess that Spirit Qi Pill is something quite precious? Same for those things they gave as secondary prizes.'
An-jeong’s eyes glittered among the children.
Most of the children who had entered the sect today for the first time, including An-jeong, had been severely beaten.
Of course, the one who had been beaten the most miserably among them was An-jeong.
The young cultivator named Beom Gon looked over at the battered An-jeong and the other newly entered children, speaking with an arrogant expression.
"You lot! I assume you have now realized the terrifying nature of a cultivator?
From this day forward, you have become miscellaneous disciples of our Buyeon Sect.
You lot, who are low-grade four-attribute spirit root holders, and even you lot who have the lowest-grade miscellaneous spirit roots mixed in!"
Beom Gon, who paused his speech for a moment, stopped his gaze on An-jeong.
As expected, his eyes were filled with the usual look of contempt.
"You should be grateful for the grace of the sect that has accepted you.
Now, the fourth-generation disciples will guide these fellows to their respective cultivation caves!"
Following Beom Gon’s instructions, the fourth-generation disciples began to lead the new miscellaneous disciples, including An-jeong, away.