3 System

"Good morning father, grandfather." Li Jing said, trying to act as natural as possible.

"Jing'er, you're here! Come, sit with us." Li Jing's grandfather said, smiling and pointing the chair next to him.

Li Jing walked to the chair and sat. A maid then brought a cup of tea and some cakes and placed them on the small table next to him.

"We were discussing the Awakening Ceremony. What is your opinion on this?" Li Jing's father, Li Bai, asked.

'Is he testing me?' Pondered Li Jing.

After the death of his wife a few years ago when Li Jing was only seven years old, Li Bai became more and more strict with his son. He would often test him and push him to train and study more. Although Li Jing knew that his father loved him, he thought that he had a really weird way to show it.

Li Jing took a deep breath and answered his father.

"In terms of strength, our clan may be the weakest but it is not that far behind the other Great Clans. Depending on the ceremony's result, we might be able to increase our rank." He said.

Thanks to his knowledge of the web novel as well as the knowledge of the original owner of his body, Li Jing knew exactly how this world worked.

The Southern Border Continent he was currently in, was the weakest of the three continents of this world. Although three continents seemed little, this world was actually huge. The web novel described that each continent was as large as four to five continents combined on Earth! Furthermore, each continent was separated from each other by a wide ocean of several million kilometers. The only way to travel from a continent to another was to use a portal located in the middle of each continent. However, these portals had been inactive for several thousands of years and no one knew how to reactivate them. Well, no one except Teng Fen and Li Jing now.

Although weak, the Southern Border Continent was occupied by many powers: one first-rank sect, two empires, six major kingdoms, dozens of minor kingdoms and second-rank sects, as well as several cities of cultivators and third-rank sects.

The two empires were as strong as the first-rank sect, and these three powers ruled over the whole Southern Border continent. While the empires ruled over the kingdoms and cities, the first-rank sect ruled over the second-rank and third-rank sects.

The consequence of this balance of power was that the continent was at peace, and the different resources in it were therefore shared equally between the different powers.

The Sky Jade Kingdom was a major kingdom and was located in the northeast part of the continent. It was under the rule of the Heavenly Jewel Empire and controlled a lot of precious and important resources such as Spirit Stones mines, spiritual ore mines, or spiritual plant fields.

Since its foundation, the kingdom has always had a strict hierarchy: the four Great Clans shared the ownership of these resources and paid taxes to the royal family.

The amount of resources owned by a Great Clan depended on its ranking. The first clan owned forty percent of them, the second clan thirty percent, the third clan twenty percent, and the fourth clan ten percent.

The Li clan was currently ranked fourth. If it was not for the fact that the clan had many genius alchemists, there would be no way for them to be the richest clan of the kingdom.

Li Bai nodded, he was satisfied with his son's answer.

"This is exactly what I think, especially the Teng clan. If their good for nothing young master, Teng Fen, has no talent for cultivation then our place as the third strongest clan is assured." He said with a smirk.

Before being possessed by the soul of the hundreds of thousands of years old Teng Fen, the young master of the Teng clan was an arrogant brat who bullied other people and abused his power. He never trained or study. His genius cousin, Teng Luo, was jealous of him and estimated that he didn't deserve to be the heir of the clan. That was why he decided to kill him in secret by poisoning him.

Hearing his father talking about the Teng clan, Li Jing couldn't help but sigh. In the web novel, the Teng clan was also the owner of some minor alchemist shops, but because of Teng Fen and his knowledge of ancient and lost pill recipes, these shops became number one in the kingdom surpassing the Li clan's shops and resulting in the Li clan bankruptcy.

Li Jing was determined to never let that happen. He needed his clan to get cultivation resources until he becomes strong enough to venture the world or join a powerful sect. Thankfully, thanks to the author of the web novel he also knew many powerful pill recipes that were supposed to be lost.

His father and grandfather then started talking about their prognostic concerning the result of this year's ceremony. Who will be the most talented, which family will rise or fall, which people they should keep an eye on...

Li jing already knew the result since he has read the web novel, so he was not interested in their discussion.

After a few minutes, he started to be hungry and took one of the cakes that were placed next to him.

The cake looked like a simple cookie, not very appetizing. But when he took a bite, he felt an explosion of flavor in his mouth, he couldn't believe how good it was.

'Wow, even the best cake on Earth can't compare to this simple cake!'

He happily ate another cake. Then another one. And another one. But before he could eat the last one, his father interrupted him.

"I thought you didn't like sweet things. You never ate cakes before." He said.

Li Jing gazed at his father for a moment, he didn't know what to say.

'Oh shit, I got carried away by the amazing taste and totally forgot about that…' He thought, angry with himself for this mistake.

"Hahaha, Jing'er you must be really anxious because of the Awakening Ceremony, right?" Li Zhang said.

Li Jing mentally thanked his grandfather for giving him a good excuse and was about to reply, but he was interrupted by someone.

"Nephew Jing, there is nothing to worry about. I'm sure you inherited the talent of your father."

He turned to the direction of the voice and saw a middle-aged man and a boy around his age coming towards him.

This middle-aged man was his uncle, his father's brother, Li Lang. He was accompanied by his son Li Zhiwang, who was one year older than Li Jing and was considered a genius in the clan thanks to his B-grade talent.

Li Jing and Li Zhiwang often trained together in the past. But after his Awakening Ceremony, Li Zhiwang became very arrogant and looked down on everyone. After all, he was one of the very few B-grade talents in the clan.

Li Lang and Li Zhiwang greeted everyone and were invited to sit next to Li Jing.

They discussed for a moment about the progress of Li Zhiwang in his cultivation. He only started to cultivate a year ago, but was already at the sixth level of the Qi Gathering realm!

Li Jing was not that impressed. For him, people in this world were ignorant, their view of the world was too narrow, just like a frog in the bottom of a well. In fact, in the novel, Teng Fen reached a higher realm than that in less than six months with his trash E-grade talent thanks to his overpowered Cultivation method.

"Little Zhiwang, you must continue to work hard and honor our clan during the Inter-Clan Tournament." Said the Li clan patriarch.

"Yes grandfather, I will show to everyone that our Li clan is the strongest!" Exclaimed Li Zhiwang.

Hearing this, Li Jing almost laughed. In the web novel, Li Zhiwang was just a cannon fodder that was killed by the main character in just one strike during the Inter-Clan Tournament. He had no pity for the fate of his cousin though, this guy was just an arrogant bastard that killed innocent people for no reason.

The discussion continued for a moment before Li Zhang announced that it was time to prepare for the ceremony.

They all left the main hall and walked to the central court of the clan, where the ceremony will take place.

But just as Li Jing left the main hall, strange blue screens appeared before his eyes and he heard a mechanical voice inside his head.

[System initialization...]

[System successfully bound to Host's soul.]

[The Almighty God ###### is curious to see Host compete against the so-called main character of this world.]

[The Almighty God ###### estimated that with Host's current talent and fate, there would be no way for him to reach the apex. For this reason, the Almighty God ###### gifted Host a system of his own creation.]

Li Jing widened his eyes in disbelief.