Sheng Kingdom, Wanan County.
South of the county seat, several dozen miles away, a number of villages were nestled among the deep, layered mountains.
Song Family Village.
The village was not large, with only twenty to thirty households, fine fields, and beautiful houses, all surrounded by mountains.
Today was the first day of the lunar month, and it was high noon.
Villagers, in groups of three or five, carried incense and offerings, chatting as they walked toward the village entrance.
At the entrance of Song Family Village stood a solemn, two-meter-tall wooden structure.
A couplet praying for favorable winds, timely rain, and a peaceful year was pasted on the door.
Inside, a stone statue of a deity, about one foot high, was enshrined.
Shrouded in the curling incense smoke, the statue's face was indistinct.
The villagers placed their offerings, lit three sticks of incense, and knelt before the statue.
"May Xuanqing Gong grant his blessing, I hope my wife can have a safe delivery this month..."
*
[Incense Value +4.]
Within the slightly cramped shrine, Song Xuanqing watched the kneeling, incense-offering villagers below with a complicated expression.
The villagers had no idea that someone was watching their every word and move from above.
They could not see Song Xuanqing.
Because Song Xuanqing was no longer human.
He was now, one might say, a "god."
Albeit, a Wild God.
A weakling Wild God, at that.
It had taken Song Xuanqing two hours to process the fact that he hadn't died in the plane crash but had instead transmigrated.
His new identity, however, was a bit peculiar.
He had become the Wild God worshipped by this very Song Family Village.
Yes, a Wild God.
As for why the system had labeled him a 'Wild God' when, by his own understanding, his role was more like an Earth God, he had no idea.
Although an Earth God was also a low-level deity, at least it was an official god, the kind that was part of the celestial bureaucracy.
But the system's label for him was—Wild God!
It didn't sound very reliable. He was even afraid that some passing official god might smite him one day.
As a member of the great transmigration army from Blue Star, Song Xuanqing had the essential item for any transmigrator—a system.
His system was called: The Incense to Godhood System.
The name sounded badass as hell, but he had yet to experience just how badass it was.
Song Xuanqing sighed and opened the system panel.
[Incense to Godhood System
Host: Song Xuanqing
Age: 20
Lifespan: **
Identity: Wild God
Cultivation: Unranked
Techniques: None
Domain: Song Family Village
Incense Value: 38.5
Evaluation: Unrecognized by the Heavenly Dao, with weak faith and incense, a Wild God without a divine persona or position. Your fate is as adrift as a duckweed, your power minuscule.]
[Newbie Mission: Though you are but a village Wild God, as a deity of the people's faith, you should do something for your followers to increase their belief in you.
Progress: 0/1
Completion Reward: Newbie Gift Pack, System Officially Unlocked]
Every time Song Xuanqing saw that final evaluation, he felt a knife twist in his heart.
Moreover, aside from the system panel and the newbie mission prompt, Song Xuanqing couldn't find any other functions.
No lottery, no shop, no stat points—nothing.
The system currently felt like a half-finished product.
It seemed he had to complete the newbie mission before other functions would be unlocked.
And the newbie mission required him to do something for the villagers of Song Family Village to increase their faith in him.
Song Xuanqing couldn't see the villagers' faith level, but faith determined Incense Value.
The higher the faith, the higher the Incense Value.
So far, the highest Incense Value Song Xuanqing had seen was 7.
It came from a wizened old man on the verge of death.
The lowest was 2.
That was from a five or six-year-old child, brought by his father to offer incense.
Although Song Xuanqing grumbled about the system labeling him a Wild God, not even as good as an Earth God, he was actually quite satisfied with his post-transmigration identity.
What was wrong with being a Wild God? A Wild God was still a god!
Transmigrating into a Wild God was far better than becoming an ordinary person!
From what Song Xuanqing had gathered, this world was very similar to the ancient China of his memories.
However, this world did not seem to play by the rules of science.
Of course, with a Wild God like him being worshipped by villagers, it was unlikely this world would be scientific anyway.
But that wasn't his point.
His point was, this world truly had demons, ghosts, and evil spirits!
The age of Song Xuanqing's statue was impossible to determine.
Before his arrival, the statue had not given birth to a deity.
But perhaps because the statue had been steeped in incense, it possessed some divine strangeness of its own.
For instance, the statue could perceive what was happening around it.
When Song Xuanqing transmigrated, he naturally inherited the statue's previous memories.
Although these memories were fragmented and incomplete, Song Xuanqing still discovered something crucial within them.
It was a moonless night, the wind howling like a wailing ghost, when a splash broke the water's surface.
On the riverbank behind the temple, a horrifying figure crawled out.
The figure's shape was clearly that of a massive fish, ten feet long, its fish tail standing upright like a pair of human legs.
But on its shoulders grew the head of a beautiful woman, letting out a shrill laugh.
A few moments later, the woman's face on its head transformed into the wrinkled face of an old man, and its voice became a man's wail.
A few moments more, and it changed into yet another face.
The faces on the bizarre fish demon's head changed ceaselessly, never repeating.
The vision stopped there, as the statue's memories were fragmented.
But based on later fragments, it seemed the fish demon had eaten several villagers. He didn't know how the matter was resolved.
In short, this world was quite dangerous.
Although Song Xuanqing was just a weakling Wild God, his ability to protect himself was still better than that of an ordinary person.
And he had a system.
The future looked bright.
*
After noon, more villagers came one after another to offer incense.
"May Xuanqing Gong grant his blessing, I hope the harvest from the fields will be better this year..."
A man in coarse linen clothes with his trouser legs rolled up, looking as if he had just returned from the fields, knelt and muttered his prayers, hoping the deity could hear his heart's plea.
Song Xuanqing heard him, and he truly wanted to grant their wishes.
He also wanted to complete the system's newbie mission.
But he... couldn't do it.
The requests of the poor common folk were not excessive, but he knew no spells for granting protection, nor could he, for the time being, make the villagers' harvests more bountiful.
Unfortunately, he was not one of those ridiculously powerful, omnipotent gods.
After offering his incense, the man walked out of the Xuanqing Temple and ran into another villager coming to do the same.
"Yo, Brother Shan, didn't you take your wife back to her family's home? You're back from Liu Family Village so soon?"
The approaching villager was named Song Dashan. He replied, "Yeah, we just had a meal. If my wife hadn't insisted, I wouldn't have bothered with the trip. But hey, did you know? Something big happened in Liu Family Village recently!"
Hearing this, the man's curiosity was piqued. "What big thing?"
Song Dashan put on a grave and mysterious expression. He first bowed three times toward Song Xuanqing's statue before pulling the other man aside to speak in a hushed voice.
"Remember the Three-Eyed Lady that Liu Family Village worships?"
"I remember. What about the Three-Eyed Lady?"
"The statue of the Three-Eyed Lady was smashed!"
"What! Who did it? Who would dare to smash a god's statue?!"
"I heard it was someone in a white robe with a veiled hat. The people of Liu Family Village have no idea who it was or what they looked like, they could only tell the person was extraordinarily skilled. And not only did that person smash the Three-Eyed Lady's statue, but they also supposedly dug out her first eye! I heard that when the eye was gouged out, it was so red it looked like it was about to drip blood!"
"How could that scoundrel be so bold? Aren't they afraid of the Three-Eyed Lady's divine retribution?!"
"Who knows if that scoundrel is afraid, but the people of Liu Family Village sure are. They failed to protect the statue and let that person commit such a crime. If the Three-Eyed Lady blames them, they're finished!"
"Sigh... what an undeserved disaster."
"Isn't it? I even told the village chief about this. He told us to keep a closer watch on Xuanqing Gong's statue these days, to prevent that scoundrel from coming here to cause trouble."
Inside the temple, Song Xuanqing's heart pounded with unease as he heard these words.
As someone who had read countless web novels in his past life, he had a feeling that the person who smashed the Three-Eyed Lady's statue and gouged out an eye was no good-doer.
If that person could target the statue of the Three-Eyed Lady in the next village, couldn't they target his statue as well?
Song Xuanqing was starting to panic. He didn't know his own strength, but seeing the system's evaluation of him as an unranked, weakling Wild God, he felt no sense of security at all.
On instinct, Song Xuanqing knew that if his own statue were to be smashed, even if he didn't die, his essence would be gravely wounded.
This damn world! It wouldn't even let a god feel safe!
No, he had to complete the newbie mission and unlock the system as soon as possible!
As everyone knows, the system is a transmigrator's ultimate cheat!
Song Xuanqing: I can't stand another day of being this weakling Wild God! I must become stronger
Proofreader: Peter Pan