LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 001 – The Recruitment Day
In the town square of Elaria, a crowd buzzed with excitement. It was the long-awaited recruitment day of the Immortal Alliance, an event held only once every few years.
Children and teenagers between the ages of seven and eighteen had gathered from far and wide, hoping to be chosen to walk the path of cultivation.
Rinne, a small girl of seven years, stood apart from the others.
Her expression was unreadable, her eyes distant as she waited for the event to begin. She had chosen a remote corner of the square, far from the bustling throng, and placed a cracked bowl in front of her.
Her attire was dirty, her hair short and unkempt, her clothes tattered and patched. Compared to the other children and teenagers, she looked like a malnourished beggar boy.
None of the people nearby wanted to talk to her; they only glanced at her with disgust before quickly looking away.
One man frowned as he walked past her.
"Disgraceful. How could such a dirty child be allowed to show up like this?"
"Probably just another beggar trying to earn sympathy."
A woman next to him shook her head, her voice filled with disdain.
There were some who felt pity, tossing coins into her bowl, though they kept their distance. A young man dropped a coin and hurried away, barely sparing her a glance.
"Poor thing."
He muttered under his breath, though his eyes were filled more with unease than genuine concern.
Rinne watched the coins drop into the bowl without expression, her mind elsewhere. This appearance was intentional. She had no desire to interact with anyone or to draw attention to herself beyond what was necessary.
In the background, the excited chatter of the other participants filled the air.
A boy nearby whispered to his friend, his voice trembling with excitement.
"I hope I get chosen as an inner disciple, Can you imagine? Training under a real Immortal Master!"
"That would be amazing, I've heard the inner disciples get access to the best resources, and they even learn the secret techniques!"
Rinne listened to their conversation with detached interest. These children were full of dreams, their eyes bright with hope. But for her, this was merely another step in a much longer journey.
As she sat there, her thoughts drifted back to the life she had once lived—a life so far removed from this world that it felt like a fading dream.
She was a reincarnator, but not merely an ordinary reincarnator, she was also a regressor.
This was her third life, having regressed after her second life ended in disaster.
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The memories of her first life were hazy, the details lost to time and the shock of death. She didn’t remember how she had died, only that one moment she was living, and the next she was waking up as a newborn in a completely different world.
There was no godly figure to guide her, no miraculous cheats or powers granted to ease her way. Just the harsh reality of being a helpless infant in a world far more primitive than the one she had known.
The first decade of her new life had been nothing short of hell. Born into a tribal-like society, Rinne found herself in a world devoid of the conveniences she had once taken for granted.
There were no flush toilets, no gas stoves, no modern amenities to speak of. Survival was a daily struggle, and luxury was a foreign concept.
At the age of ten, poverty drove her family to sell her into slavery. She was sent to a nameless brothel in a neighboring city, where she spent the next few years learning the harsh lessons of life.
She was taught to read, to dance, to play music—skills that were both a blessing and a curse in her new circumstances.
Rinne couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret whenever she thought back to those days.
'If only father and mother had given me a few more years, I wouldn’t have minded sharing some of my knowledge from my past life. I could have made them rich…'
But such thoughts were pointless now. It had been a tribal society, where the patriarch held absolute authority. In their eyes, she was nothing more than a dull-witted child. It had taken her years to learn their language, years during which she was seen as slow, as a burden.
How could they trust such a girl to do anything of value?
In the end, she had resigned herself to her fate, allowing life to carry her wherever it would. Yet it was in that place that she first encountered the world of cultivation—a world of power, of opportunity, and of freedom.
After discovering the existence of the cultivation world, Rinne couldn’t help but yearn for it. In her previous life, she had read countless fantasy novels about reincarnation in other worlds.
She often thought of those novel protagonists—how powerful, how overpowered they were, always rising above every challenge with ease.
It was inspiring, but when she compared it to her own life, she couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of shame.
What was the point of reincarnating if she didn’t aim for the highest?
At that time, Rinne was eighteen, soon to be nineteen. The desire to escape her miserable existence drove her to flee to another city, where she could attend the recruitment ceremony for the first and last time in that life.
It was her only chance to enter the cultivation world, and she had to pass.
But reality was cruel.
She learned that she didn’t possess a spiritual root—the foundation necessary for cultivation. Without it, the dream of becoming an immortal was nothing more than a fantasy.
Of course, Rinne didn’t immediately give up. There must be a way, just like in the fantasy novels she had read. If she couldn’t cultivate through orthodox means, perhaps unorthodox methods could work.
Determined, she embarked on a journey, traveling from town to town, stealthily gathering information while avoiding dangerous places and people.
Along the way, she heard whispers of various unorthodox practices, some of them so evil they made her skin crawl—absorbing the souls of others, often innocent babies, to boost cultivation, transplanting another’s spiritual root, and many more dark and twisted methods.
But those weren’t what she was seeking. Even if she wanted to explore such paths, she lacked the means to access them. The rumors were just that—rumors, distant and unattainable.
Then, when she was twenty-four, she stumbled upon another unorthodox method.
She heard tales of a certain cultivator who granted ordinary mortals a pseudo spiritual root for free, allowing them to practice cultivation.
It sounded too good to be true—suspicious, even. Why would anyone offer such a valuable thing for free?
Despite the obvious risks, Rinne decided to take the plunge. She attended the ceremony where the cultivator distributed a strange water from a porcelain bottle. The air was thick with tension as she lifted the bottle to her lips. Her mind raced with doubt and fear, but she forced herself to drink.
The cultivator hadn’t lied.
Soon after she drank the water, a sharp pain coursed through her body. But alongside the pain came a strange, exhilarating sensation—she could sense something different in the air, something she had never felt before.
It was spiritual energy. For the first time, she was connected to it.
Rinne’s reminiscence was abruptly interrupted by a loud noise from the crowd. The restless murmurs and shuffling feet signaled that something was happening.
She looked up to see the people of the Alliance finally arriving, their presence commanding immediate attention. The atmosphere in the square shifted, excitement and anxiety rippling through the gathered crowd.
This was it, the moment everyone had been waiting for.
