Ashes Of Heaven Book 1 : Solar Calamity

Little Xuhan,

sitting under a tree

K, I, S, S, I, N, G!

That's right. There is no girl's name in the rhyme.

Of course, that doesn't mean he was making out with himself, which is impossible even for an immortal, unless their clone is gay.

His mouth was kissing the back of his hand. He had put a clamp on it, fearing that he would scream out with frustration if he was careless.

Today, he, Han Xuhan, had experienced the awakening of the memories of his previous life. He had immediately wished he hadn't. But it was too late to change his course.

In that chaotic situation, he hadn't had any time to carefully sort out his thoughts.

Now though, he had been transferred to a big mountain peak that sported a few unimpressive-looking huts and a small run-down palace. Apparently, he had been accepted by the Crimson Snow sect's elder Daheng as an outer court disciple.

However, Han Xuhan had a sneaky suspicion that there was something wrong with this arrangement. He had not seen the elder, and the elder hadn't seen him either. Why did he get chosen?

Was this another elaborate test?

He had been waiting for nearly half an hour in front of the elder's pavilion. Not a single soul, not even another outer court disciple, had appeared outside this entire time.

Have these people fallen asleep while meditating?

Anyhow, this was also a good thing for him. He still needed to calm himself down and assess the situation. Just as the omnivorous lord Bear Grylls used to quote, "improvise, adapt, overcome!", he was going to follow the golden rules of survival in this cruel world.

His past life showed him a decaying planet called earth, where he had spent a lifetime doing nothing remarkable.

It had been a peaceful life, an ordinary course full of the experience of a typical mortal.

Usually, an adventurous earthling who has been reborn in a fantasy-esque world where they can become supernaturally powerful would be extremely worked up by now, excited about the boundless adventures that await them.

Han Xuhan, however, was very, very familiar with the worldbuilding elements of a typical universe where one could harness supernatural, superhuman powers and rise to godhood, or similar ranks.

This kind of world would be divided into layers, where each layer would form a society with the most powerful existence as the top predator, the ruler.

If allowed to develop for a few centuries, or even a millennium or two, these layered societies would germinate a more complex structure of power in order to maintain its balance. The mortals who are unable to cultivate shall be absorbed by those who can into the form of a hierarchical, mutually beneficial relationship. Groups would begin to form.

Sheer personal ability, in this case, called cultivation level, would cease to be the one and only factor that keeps a ruler in his position. Politics between powerful families, clans, interference from the higher layers of society would slowly modify the resource pyramids.

From what he had observed so far, allied with the memories of his current life, Han Xuhan had come to the conclusion that the continent, or even the planet he was on right now was close to the latter form of socio-political structure.

However, these conjectures and theories of his were purely reliant on an extremely dubious source...novels, written about cultivation by mortals on earth, a planet where no such concepts existed in reality.

Han Xuhan couldn't quite fully trust this source, but the bizarre thing was, his experience in this current world of cultivation would mostly fit the narratives of those stories.

And here was where the most crucial issue emerged.

It was the norm for reborn earthlings in those stories to get cheating devices so that they can just axe the whole thing and become a god after a few volumes of mass killing, screwing, and adventuring. He himself would have followed a similar path gladly as well...provided that he had a cheat, which, he did NOT.

This led to the reasoning that he, Han Xuhan, was not destined to be a protagonist of those types of sagas.

So what, you ask? What is wrong with being a side character?

If he was not the protagonist of this world, which he was aware was a pretty stupid-sounding clause, someone had to be, right?

Too many stories lined up with the elements of the world he was in right now. This could indeed be some sort of a grand saga of a weakling's ascension to the top of the universe, although Han Xuhan could not justify how, or why something so ridiculous was taking place.

Everything would make sense if he accepted the fact that he was still on earth, alive but insane, locked within a mental asylum where the medical treatment was only increasing his delusions and hallucinations.

Maybe spending his youth reading machine-translated novels night after night had finally disabled his last brain-cell...

But the world felt too real. His experience right now was as real as it could get. Pain, happiness, fear, and awe came to him as naturally as they did before, during his life on earth.

How could he accept this world, this life as a mere manifestation of his insanity? His seventeen years of memory in this world was no trifling concept to make light of.

There was an entire, complete human being, a rational persona constructed around those memories. The Han Xuhan before the awakening was a different person compared to the Han Xuhan who had spent his life on earth. Their names, morals, life experience, ambitions...every factor differed significantly.

As for the current him, he was an amalgamation of these two, with the earthling being the dominant side.

How can simple madness construct something this complex and detailed?

So he was forced to consider the alternate routes, no matter how ridiculous these theories sounded.

As far as Han Xuhan was concerned, any side character with secrets like himself was predestined to die at some point during the protagonist's ascension in a typical cultivation story.

Even if he didn't die, there was a good chance of being crippled for life or something of a similar caliber of misery. After all, most authors didn't like to maintain the mysterious circumstances around an unimportant character since it'd be too taxing. There was a high chance that he was a predecessor of the main protagonist who could serve as a warning sign to the protagonist, who would hear of his tragic tale and operate more cautiously as a part of his character growth.

Setting his own disbelief of this theory aside, Han Xuhan was forced to reconsider his seemingly ominous fate.

The more he considered, the darker his future seemed, his expression becoming sourer and sourer.

He still didn't have much knowledge about this world of cultivation. The generic rules may not always hold true in reality. This instilled a tiny spark of hope inside his heart. Maybe a real world of cultivation wouldn't be so bad...

After much consideration, Han Xuhan decided to observe this world more before coming to a conclusion. He would have to start from this mountain peak of the Crimson Snow sect, the Black Sheep pavilion...

Wait, what?

Black sheep???

Xuhan refocused on the words written on the small plaque above the door of the shabby palace. He had just noticed it a moment ago. Now that he had slightly calmed down, it dawned on him that the name of this palace was very odd...

Jerking his head around, he looked for a sign at the official entrance of the mountain peak, and noticed a small signboard behind one of the pillars of the gate that said-

WELCOME TO THE BLACK SHEEP MOUNTAIN PEAK!

ELDER DAHENG GREETS THE GUEST!