"It's objectively Battle Through The Heavens," I declared, slamming my half-empty can of soda onto the cluttered desk with the finality of a judge passing sentence. The flimsy aluminum wobbled precariously, threatening to add another sticky ring to the collection already marring the cheap wood veneer of my dorm room desk. "The progression is perfect. From a crippled youth to the top of the continent. It's the classic hero's journey, refined to an art form. Xiao Yan's perseverance is unmatched."
Zhao Ming scoffed, leaning back so far in his gaming chair that it creaked in protest. He ran a hand through his perpetually messy black hair, a smirk playing on his lips. "Perseverance? Qing, my dear, naive friend, you mistake grinding for a personality. It's all about the 'cool factor.' Against the Gods has that in spades. Yun Che is ruthless, decisive, and he doesn't spend half the book whining about a broken engagement. He gets revenge, gets the girl, and looks badass doing it. Plus, the profound arts system is way more interesting than just Dou Qi levels."
The age-old argument. It was a ritual for us, a verbal sparring match that happened at least once a month. Yang Qing, the strategist, the lover of intricate plots and steady growth. Zhao Ming, the thrill-seeker, the advocate for overwhelming power and instant gratification. Our choice in novels reflected our personalities perfectly.
"You call Yun Che's plot armor 'cool'?" I retorted, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "The man trips and falls into a divine inheritance every Tuesday. Xiao Yan earned his power. He refined pills, tamed Heavenly Flames, and fought tooth and nail for every step. And don't even get me started on Soul Land. Tang San is a genius, sure, but the whole spirit ring concept feels like a monster-of-the-week cartoon."
"Hey! Don't drag Tang San into this," Zhao Ming said, sitting up straight. "The weaponized botany is unique! And the team dynamics of the Shrek Seven Devils are better than anything in BTTH or ATG."
Outside, the sky over the university campus was turning a bruised purple. A summer storm had been brewing all evening, the humidity in our non-air-conditioned room becoming almost unbearable. The first rumble of thunder vibrated through the windowpane, a low growl that seemed to punctuate our debate.
"Team dynamics? Xiao Yan has Yao Lao! The ultimate teacher-student bromance!" I shot back.
"Yun Che has Jasmine! A loli tsundere princess who can destroy stars!" Zhao Ming countered, his voice rising with excitement.
"That's a walking plot device, not a character!"
"She's a better character than that entire Jia Ma Empire arc!"
A flash of brilliant white light filled the room, momentarily washing out all color. It wasn't the distant flicker of lightning; it was immediate, all-encompassing, and blindingly bright. The clap of thunder that followed was not a rumble. It was a cataclysmic CRACK that seemed to originate from inside the room itself. It was the last thing I ever heard. There was a sensation of immense, crushing pressure, a smell like ozone and burnt sugar, and then... nothing.
Just a profound, silent, and utter blackness.
Am I dead?
The thought floated in a void, disconnected from any physical sensation. There was no body, no senses, just the barest flicker of consciousness. It wasn't painful. It wasn't scary. It was just... empty.
"Well, this is awkward."
Another consciousness? No, a voice. It was deep, resonant, but carried an unmistakable undertone of someone who has just spilled coffee on a very important document.
Suddenly, the void wasn't a void anymore. It was a vast, sterile white space that stretched into infinity in all directions. It reminded me of a loading screen for a video game that had crashed. In the center of this nothingness sat a desk. An absurdly mundane, cosmic-sized office desk piled high with what looked like galaxies swirling in manila folders. Behind it sat a being.
He—and I could only assume 'he'—looked remarkably human, if you ignored the fact that his skin seemed to be woven from nebulae and his eyes were twin supernovas. He was wearing a rumpled white button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and he was currently rubbing the bridge of his nose with a sigh that seemed to shake the very concept of existence.
"Where... am I?" a familiar voice asked. I turned, or rather, my consciousness swiveled, to see Zhao Ming's spectral form floating beside me. He looked just as confused as I felt.
"The Antechamber of Causality. The big waiting room. Whatever you want to call it," the celestial bureaucrat said, not looking up from a particularly troublesome-looking quasar he was trying to stuff into a folder labeled 'MISC - Q3 - ERRORS'. "Look, I'll be blunt. There's been a bit of a boo-boo."
He finally looked at us, his supernova eyes radiating a weary apology. "My name is... well, it's unpronounceable in any mortal tongue, so just call me 'God' for simplicity's sake. And I owe you two an apology. The lightning strike that obliterated your dormitory building? That was meant for a particularly resilient strain of demonic fungus in the dimension two doors down. My intern, lovely kid, terrible with celestial coordinates, missed by a few trillion planck lengths. Long story short, your deaths were an unscheduled and highly regrettable administrative error."
Zhao Ming and I just floated there, dumbfounded. We were killed by divine friendly fire.
"So... what now?" I finally managed to ask. "Hell? Heaven? Reincarnation cycle?"
"Normally, yes," God said, leaning back in his chair, which groaned with the weight of a thousand suns. "But unscheduled departures are a logistical nightmare. The paperwork is unbelievable. So, to compensate you for the... uh... inconvenience, and to make my life easier, I'm offering you the premium package."
He snapped his fingers. Two intricate, glowing screens of light materialized in front of us.
"The Reincarnation Template System," he announced with the tired flourish of a salesman. "You both get to be reincarnated in a world of my choosing. To give you a fighting chance, you get this system. You can choose a maximum of three 'templates' from characters in your collective unconscious—your fiction, your myths, your history. The system will allow you to progressively synchronize with these templates, gaining their appearance, skills, and abilities over time. The synchronization rate is percentage-based. It'll be slow, you'll have to work for it, but the potential is... significant."
Zhao Ming's spectral eyes widened. "You mean... we can be like the characters from our novels?"
"Or games, or anime, or whatever," God waved a dismissive, star-dusted hand. "There's a catch. Your physical body upon reincarnation will be based on your first template choice. So choose wisely. The world you're going to is a bit... rough. Think high fantasy, cultivation, people blowing up mountains because they looked at them funny. Sound familiar?" He gave us a knowing look.
I dont hear what he says. My mind raced. A cultivation world. Like the ones we were just arguing about. This was an opportunity of cosmic proportions. But it was also terrifyingly dangerous. I couldn't afford to be weak. I needed versatility, power, and a way to survive. My love for strategy kicked into overdrive. I thought of the countless characters I knew from games, anime, and lore. I needed a strong foundation.
Zhao Ming, on the other hand, was practically vibrating with excitement. I could see the gears turning in his head, and I knew exactly where he was going. He wasn't thinking about survival; he was thinking about being overpowered.
"Okay," God said, tapping his fingers on his desk. "Time to choose. Let's start with you, Yang Qing."
I took a deep, non-existent breath. My choices had to be synergistic. They had to cover multiple bases. I thought of the Fate/Grand Order servants, beings of immense power and legend.
"For my first template," I said, my voice steady despite the sheer insanity of the situation, "I choose Yang Guifei from Fate/Grand Order." A beautiful, powerful consort, a Foreigner-class servant with powers over fire and a connection to an Outer God, yet her core was one of love and art. Her abilities were potent but also had support aspects. A perfect, well-rounded first pick that wasn't overly aggressive.
"An interesting choice," God noted, a flicker of approval in his eyes. "Aesthetic, powerful, and conceptually unique. Second?"
"Taigong Wang, also from FGO." The legendary strategist Jiang Ziya. A master of tactics, divine arts, and specifically, a powerhouse against demonic and evil beings. In a cultivation world full of questionable characters, his anti-evil niche would be invaluable. He would be my brain.
"And for my third," I finished, "Tang Sanzang. The FGO version." The kind-hearted monk whose journey was legendary. But in the Fate universe, she was also a Caster-class servant with powerful sutras that acted as incredible defensive barriers and purification spells. She was my shield and my moral compass.
God nodded slowly. "Yang Guifei, Taigong Wang, and Tang Sanzang. The Seductress, the Strategist, and the Saint. A build focused on control, defense, and specialized offense. Very clever. Very... you."
He then turned his gaze to Zhao Ming. "Alright, Mr. Cool Factor. Your turn. Don't disappoint me."
Zhao Ming grinned, a predatory, excited gleam in his eyes that was frankly terrifying. "No problem. For my first, I want the strongest. Gojo Satoru from Jujutsu Kaisen."
God actually chuckled. "Of course. The Honored One. Maximum arrogance, maximum power. An obvious but solid choice. Go on."
"My second is Megumi Fushiguro, also from JJK." A tactical choice, surprisingly. Megumi's Ten Shadows Technique offered incredible versatility with his shikigami. It was a toolbox of monsters and a potential path to his own Domain Expansion. It complemented Gojo's raw power with adaptability.
"And for my third..." Zhao Ming's grin widened. "To have a trump card for when things get really bad. The King of Curses himself. Sukuna."
God raised an eyebrow. "Gojo, Megumi, and Sukuna. The Limitless, the Shadows, and the Calamity. You've basically chosen the three most volatile and powerful entities from that entire series. You, my friend, are not planning on surviving. You are planning on dominating."
"You know it," Zhao Ming declared, puffing out his spectral chest.
"Very well," God said, standing up. He clapped his hands together once, a sound like a galaxy being born. "The choices are locked in. Your systems are calibrated. As a final bonus, since you're both familiar with the tropes, I've uploaded the relevant lore and character data for your chosen templates directly into your souls. You'll know what you're capable of, even if you can't do it yet. Now, time to go. I have a demonic fungus to deal with, and this time, I'm aiming myself."
He gestured towards us, and the infinite white void began to dissolve into a vortex of color and light.
"One last piece of advice!" God's voice boomed over the cosmic whirlpool. "Try not to die immediately! The paperwork is a real killer!"
And with that final, unhelpful tip, we were pulled into the swirling abyss, our consciousness stretching and warping until it snapped.
Sensation returned like a slow, creeping dawn.
The first thing I registered was scent. It was a delicate, fragrant aroma of sandalwood and a hint of something floral, like blooming orchids. It was rich, natural, and utterly foreign.
The second was touch. I was lying on something impossibly soft. It wasn't a mattress; it was softer, a bed of what felt like pure fluff. The fabric covering me was cool and smooth against my skin, light as a feather. Silk. Real, high-quality silk.
My eyelids fluttered open. I was staring up at an ornate wooden canopy, intricately carved with images of phoenixes and peonies, draped with translucent pink veils. The room was bathed in the soft, warm light of dawn filtering through a large, circular window with a delicate lattice pattern. Antique furniture—a vanity with a bronze mirror, a low table with a tea set, a screen painted with misty mountains—adorned the spacious chamber.
This wasn't a hospital. This wasn't anywhere on Earth.
I tried to sit up, and that's when the discrepancies began to crash down on me, one after another, like a tidal wave of wrongness.
My arms, pushing against the silken sheets, were slender and pale, the wrists delicate and fine-boned. Not my own athletic but decidedly average male arms. A cascade of what felt like an immense weight of hair spilled over my shoulders and down my back. It was glossy and black, far, far longer than my usual short haircut.
Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through my chest.
I brought a hand up to my throat, intending to shout for Zhao Ming, but the sound that escaped was not my own. It was a soft, melodic gasp, a pitch higher and infinitely more graceful than my normal voice.
My hand. It was a work of art. Long, slender fingers with perfectly manicured nails. The skin was flawless, like polished jade. This wasn't my hand.
With a surge of adrenaline-fueled desperation, I threw the silk covers off and scrambled out of the massive bed. My legs were long and shapely, and my balance felt... off. It was like piloting a new body, one with a different center of gravity. I stumbled towards the vanity, my heart hammering against my ribs. A long, flowing pink and white nightgown swirled around my ankles.
I reached the vanity and gripped its edges, my knuckles turning white. I forced myself to look up, to face the polished bronze mirror.
The reflection that stared back was not Yang Qing, the twenty-something college student.
Staring back at me was a woman of breathtaking, almost supernatural beauty. Heart-shaped face, flawless porcelain skin with a rosy blush, and large, intelligent eyes the color of warm, dark blue, framed by long, curving lashes. Her lips were full and shaped like a perfect cupid's bow. Her jet-black hair, a silken river, cascaded down to her waist. She was the living, breathing incarnation of Yang Guifei from the game, from the historical art, from the legends. A beauty that could topple nations.
And she was me.
"No... no, no, no," I whispered, the voice in the mirror mouthing the words along with me. It was my voice now. This beautiful, feminine voice.
The first template selected determines your initial vessel.
God's words echoed in my mind. I had chosen Yang Guifei first. I had done this to myself. I, Yang Qing, a man who argued about novels and played video games, was now trapped in the body of one of China's Four Great Beauties.
A wave of vertigo washed over me. I gripped the vanity tighter, my breathing ragged. How could this happen? Why didn't he warn us more clearly?
As if in response to my panic, a sound chimed in my mind, clear as a bell. A blue, translucent screen flickered into existence in my field of vision, visible only to me.
System Activation Successful
Welcome, User: Yang Qing Initializing Template Synchronization...
Current Vessel: Yang Guifei (Foreigner)
Templates Equipped
1. Yang Guifei (Foreigner)
Sync Rate: 2.5%
Initial Abilities Unlocked:
Innate Charm (Passive, Minor)
Fire Affinity (Latent)
Proficient in Music (Pipa) and Dance (Latent)
2. Taigong Wang (Rider)
Sync Rate: 1.0%
Initial Abilities Unlocked:
Tactical Acumen (Minor Boost)
Anti-Demonic/Evil Presence Detection (Latent)
3. Tang Sanzang (Caster)
Sync Rate: 1.2%
Initial Abilities Unlocked:
Mental Fortitude (Minor Boost)
Purification Affinity (Latent)
Note: Latent abilities require specific conditions or training to be fully awakened.
The information was laid out with stark, digital clarity. It was real. It confirmed my worst fear and my greatest hope all at once. I had access to their powers... but I was stuck like this. Two point five percent. That's all I had. A minor passive charm, which probably explained why my reflection was so unnervingly captivating, and a bunch of 'latent' abilities. It was a start, but a terrifyingly small one.
I stared at the "Innate Charm" line and then back at my face in the mirror. Was this face already subtly influencing people? Was it influencing me? I felt a strange sense of calm trying to settle over my panic, a detached appreciation for the artistry of my new form. I crushed it mercilessly. I needed to be Yang Qing, not Yang Guifei.
"QING! HEY, QING! ARE YOU IN HERE?"
A voice boomed from outside my door, followed by a loud, insistent knocking. It was Zhao Ming's voice, but different. It had the same boisterous energy, but it was smoother, deeper, and carried an almost infuriating level of self-assurance.
Before I could answer, the door was thrown open with a bang.
Standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the morning light, was a figure so striking it momentarily stunned me into silence. He was tall, well over six feet, with a lean, powerful build hidden beneath a simple black tunic and trousers. But it was his head that was most shocking. A wild mane of snow-white hair framed his face, and his eyes... his eyes were covered by a simple black blindfold.
He had become Gojo Satoru.
He stood there for a second, his head tilted as if he were 'looking' around the room. Then, his blindfolded gaze landed on me. He froze.
"Whoa," he breathed out, his usual bravado momentarily gone, replaced by genuine shock.
"Zhao Ming?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly.
His head snapped towards me at the sound of my voice. A slow, wide grin spread across his face, the signature, maddeningly confident smirk of Gojo Satoru.
"Qing? No way," he said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. He walked towards me, his movements fluid and relaxed. "So your first pick was Yang Guifei, huh? Man, God wasn't kidding about the 'vessel' thing. You..." He paused, looking me up and down, the grin never leaving his face. "...hit the jackpot. Seriously. I knew you were a closet waifu connoisseur."
"Shut up!" I hissed, my cheeks flushing with a heat that had nothing to do with any fire affinity. This was a thousand times more embarrassing than I could have ever imagined. My best friend, my brother in all but blood, was staring at me like... like this. "Look at you! You're actually enjoying this, aren't you?"
"Enjoying it? Qing, I've become it," he said, spreading his arms wide. "I woke up, saw the system pop-up, and it was like everything just clicked into place. I feel incredible! Like the world is moving in slow motion and I can see every single speck of dust in this room."
He pointed a finger at the tea set on the low table. "The energy in that teapot is stagnant. The energy in you, however," his blindfolded face turned back to me, "is swirling. It's warm, chaotic, and has this weird, pretty bluish hue to it. It's fascinating."
"Energy? What are you talking about?" I asked, trying to steer the conversation away from my 'pretty blueish hue'.
"The Six Eyes, man! The Six Eyes!" he said, tapping his temple. "My sync rate is only 3%, but I can already perceive things... differently. The energy in the air here isn't like anything from Earth. It's thick, potent. It flows and gathers. I'm telling you, Qing. We're not in Nanjing anymore."
My mind raced back to our old debates. An environment with thick, potent energy that flows and gathers.
"Zhao Ming," I said, my voice low and serious. "What does the energy feel like? Does it have a name?"
He tilted his head again, concentrating. "I don't know its name, but... it feels... combative. Aggressive. Like it's meant to be controlled, weaponized. It's... it's Dou Qi."
The two words hung in the air between us, heavy with implication. The sandalwood scent, the ancient architecture, the pervasive energy in the atmosphere. It all clicked into place.
My eyes met his blindfolded gaze, and I saw his smirk falter for the first time, replaced by a shared look of dawning horror and manic excitement.
God hadn't just sent us to a cultivation world.
He'd sent us to the most famous one we knew. The very world that had started our final argument.
We were in Battle Through The Heavens.