I changed the world.

He put on his clothes, shoes, and socks, filled his water bottle, and packed all other outdoor gear into his newly bought backpack. He put the multi-functional tactical knife into its tactical sheath and fastened it to his belt at his lower back.

After getting dressed, he went out.

..............................

Yuxian Mountain is located about 30 kilometers west of Linzhou City, covering an area of ​​1.5 mu. It is home to a national forest park and a wildlife nature reserve, and is also a popular summer retreat for Linzhou residents.

Since ancient times, Yuxian Mountain has been the site of many legends about immortals. It is said to be the place where Lu Tianshi, one of the four great celestial masters of the Xuanmen (Taoist school), refined elixirs, and the remains of his elixir pool still exist today. Later, many high-ranking Taoist masters also lived in seclusion here. The mountain's name, Yuxian Mountain, comes from this legend.

The Xuanmen sect in this world is the indigenous religion of the Great Zhao Dynasty. Its doctrines are similar to Taoism in Zhang Jing's previous life, but its influence in this world is far wider than that of Taoism in his previous life. It is especially favored by the royal family, and therefore its influence among the nobility and upper class is even greater than that of Buddhism. The Xuanmen sect emphasizes achieving immortality and attaining the Tao, saving oneself and others, and thus has left behind many legends since ancient times. It also has many believers overseas.

Zhang Jing hailed an electric taxi online and arrived at the foot of the mountain at 10:35. After getting out of the car, he carried his backpack and began climbing the mountain path.

Today is Friday, and since it's already late October, the weather isn't so hot anymore. Therefore, there are very few tourists coming to the mountain to escape the summer heat. The ancient trees provide shade along the way, and the sound of birdsong is quite pleasant.

Zhang Jing abandoned the main road that tourists usually choose to go up the mountain, and instead chose a little path with few people. He didn't see any other tourists along the way, and occasionally he could see small animals such as squirrels darting past him.

About half an hour later, Zhang Jing stopped and looked around. There was no one around, and the road was surrounded by a forest. On his right was a huge tree that would take several people to encircle, and its gnarled roots had even damaged part of the roadbed.

Zhang Jing left the mountain path and turned to the other side of the big tree. The huge trunk was enough to hide his body, so even if someone passed by, they wouldn't see him.

Then, he summoned the Wish Book from the tattoo on his arm, steadied himself, and made a wish: "I wish that the world I am in now is a high-martial arts world with extremely high power limits, a world where extraordinary beings such as immortals exist... (several words omitted)... On this Encountering Immortal Mountain, due to some fortuitous encounter, I became an immortal... (several words omitted)..."

Zhang Jing made a wish. Yes, his next goal was to see if he could gain power using the wishing book.

There's a saying that goes, "Martial arts are a romantic fairy tale for adults." And for Zhang Jing, a lover of traditional culture from his past life, cultivating immortality is the ultimate romance…

To ensure his wish was fulfilled accurately, Zhang Jing added as many preconceived settings as possible to avoid absurd situations such as a large tree falling and crushing him into a pile of minced meat displaying the word "Immortal"...

Unfortunately, the text that immediately appeared in the wishing book was in red:

My wish: I wish that the world I live in now is a high-level martial arts world with extremely high power limits, a world where extraordinary beings such as immortals exist... (several words omitted)... On this Immortal Encounter Mountain, due to some fortuitous encounters, I became an immortal... (several words omitted)...

This wish involves a change in the world's destiny and requires a large number of wishing points. If you do not have enough wishing points, your wish cannot be fulfilled.

Upon seeing these words, Zhang Jing wasn't discouraged; instead, he was somewhat delighted. This wish was originally one he had thrown out to test the wishing book, and his biggest worry was that the wishing book wouldn't grant what he considered somewhat "unscientific" or even "wild" desires. It merely informed him that he didn't have enough wishing points; in other words, it meant that if he had enough wishing points, the wish could be fulfilled…

So, the next step is to gradually lower the standards for your wishes to reduce the number of points required to make a wish, until the wish can eventually be fulfilled.

"I wish that the world I am in now is a high-level martial arts world with extremely high power limits, a world where extraordinary beings such as immortals exist... (several words omitted)... On this Encountering Immortal Mountain, due to some fortuitous encounters, I was chosen by an immortal to become their direct disciple... (several words omitted)..."

From directly becoming an immortal to becoming an immortal's disciple, Zhang Jing thought the difficulty of achieving this should be much lower. Unfortunately, the words appearing on the wishing book were still in red.

My wish: I wish that the world I live in now is a high-level martial arts world with extremely high power limits, a world where extraordinary beings such as immortals exist... (several words omitted)... On this Immortal Encounter Mountain, due to some fortuitous encounters, I was chosen by an immortal to become their direct disciple... (several words omitted)...

This wish involves a change in the world's destiny and requires a large number of wishing points. If you do not have enough wishing points, your wish cannot be fulfilled.

..........................................

Chapter Eleven: A Fortuitous Encounter! A Fortuitous Opportunity?!

"I wish that the world I am in now once possessed the inheritance of certain advanced extraordinary powers, but they have now disappeared for unknown reasons. While my points remain, I wish that the power system be designed in a way that I can understand, such as immortals… (several words omitted)… On this Immortal Encounter Mountain, I obtained the inheritance of certain extraordinary powers through some fortuitous encounters… (several words omitted)…"

This was the seventh time Zhang Jing had revised his wish description. After six failed attempts, he could only continuously reduce his settings, trying to align the wish description with the current state of the world as much as possible without affecting the main settings, thereby increasing the ambiguity of the wish description and reducing the difficulty of fulfilling the wish, in order to reduce the wish points required.

Just as Zhang Jing was about to consider his eighth wish, he was slightly taken aback. This time, the text that appeared was in black!

My wish: I wish that the world I live in once possessed a legacy of advanced, extraordinary powers, which have now mysteriously disappeared. With my remaining points, I wish that the power system be designed in a way I can understand… (several words omitted)… On this Immortal Encounter Mountain, through some fortuitous encounters, I gained the opportunity to inherit some extraordinary powers… (several words omitted)…

This time, it was a success?!

Zhang Jing was overjoyed and subconsciously looked around. He came to Yuxian Mountain to make a wish mainly to avoid the crowds in the city. Besides, he felt the ancient legends of the mountain would help his wish come true; after all, he originally wanted to "encounter immortals" and get some good luck. The equipment he carried was his preparation for any possible unexpected events.

Just then, his foot suddenly trembled, causing him to stumble.

Immediately afterwards, the entire mountain shook itself like a drowning dog that had climbed ashore, and the surrounding trees rustled loudly.

Is this... an earthquake?!

From the summit of Yuxian Mountain, which Zhang Jing could not see at that moment, a muffled rumble resounded. The next moment, the ground cracked open and spewed forth a burst of flames…

Soon, it was as if some ancient beast had awakened, and with a roaring sound, even larger bursts of flames and massive amounts of matter shot out from the crack in the mountaintop.

Meanwhile, on Zhang Jing's side, a whistling sound came from the sky, followed by a hail of unknown objects falling like hail.

One of the stones happened to hit right in front of Zhang Jing. He quickly bent down to pick it up, then took a few steps back and stood with his back against the large tree that would take several people to encircle.

"This is... volcanic rock?" Having grown succulents in his previous life, Zhang Jing was familiar with this porous volcanic rock, which was often used as building material or succulent potting soil, and recognized it at a glance.

The volcanic rock was so hot that Zhang Jing couldn't hold it and threw it aside; the skin on his hands had already turned red.

Large amounts of volcanic rocks kept falling from the sky. Zhang Jing's position was relatively good, as some of the volcanic rocks were blocked by the big tree behind him and the crisscrossing branches above.

A huge column of smoke rose from the mountain peak, like a beacon of smoke many times larger, and was clearly visible from Zhang Jing's position.

"It's a volcanic eruption!" Zhang Jing felt his lips were dry and his palms were sweating. Information about Yuxian Mountain flashed through his mind. As a semi-local who had lived in Linzhou for many years, he vaguely remembered that Yuxian Mountain was theoretically a dormant volcano, with no recorded eruptions in the past thousand years. How could it suddenly…

It seems that this is the effect of the wishing book.

Has the opportunity arrived? What should I do?

A jumble of thoughts flashed through his mind, but before he could make a decision, Zhang Jing saw a rock the size of a millstone crash down and land not far away.

At this moment, faint screams and shouts could be heard from both the mountain and the foot of the mountain, and it could be felt that many people were starting to run down the mountain.

Let's go down the mountain first. It's too dangerous to stay on the mountain during a volcanic eruption. As for opportunities, we might encounter them on the way down.

As volcanic smoke drifted over, the surroundings began to fill with a hazy mist. Zhang Jing carefully made his way down the mountain, dodging the falling volcanic debris.

Behind him, the sounds emanating from the distant crater resembled the roars of thousands of angry tigers. Accompanying the roars was a rumble like a truck crossing a bridge; then came the even more piercing sound of the spewing steam, like the hiss of a giant venomous snake. The entire volcano was like a giant, lit explosive charge, poised to explode at any moment.

This made Zhang Jing subconsciously quicken his pace, glancing left and right as he started jogging. After being hit on the shoulder and back by two volcanic slag cones the size of quail eggs, Zhang Jing increased his pace even further.

Suddenly, the ground shook violently once again. Then, without any warning, the ground beneath Zhang Jing's feet tore open violently, like a ripped rag, and a huge crack appeared beneath his feet.

Zhang Jing's main attention was focused on observing his surroundings and dodging the falling rocks overhead. Caught off guard, he lost his footing and fell into a crevice in the ground.

He slid down the crack in the ground, losing his balance. Fortunately, he managed to grab onto a protruding rock in his frantic grabbing. Looking up, he saw that he was about ten meters away from the top. Looking down, he could vaguely see red waves rolling in the deep depths below, which seemed to be magma.

The ground was shaking violently, and my arm was aching slightly. I must have been injured while digging through the rocks. I knew I couldn't hold my body for long, and if I fell now, I would most likely die.

This is terrible... Zhang Jing looked around, trying to find a way to escape.

He suddenly noticed a dark cave not far to his left. Overjoyed, he disregarded everything else and, using the swaying of his body, stretched out his toes and then, grabbing onto the protruding rocks of the rock wall, scrambled two steps into the cave.

It felt so good to be grounded. He knelt on the ground and gasped for breath. There was a pungent smell in the air, and he didn't know what it contained. Zhang Jing controlled his breathing and stood up.

The cave was about two meters high. Looking at the dark entrance, Zhang Jing thought of his wish again, and thought that perhaps his opportunity lay here. He gritted his teeth, took off his backpack, took out a flashlight, held the flashlight in his left hand, and pulled out a tactical knife from his waist with his right hand. He carefully explored into the cave.

Chapter Twelve: A Fortuitous Opportunity! Obtained!

This was a cave with walls made of brown rock. Zhang Jing proceeded cautiously, but nothing unexpected happened as he had anticipated. After walking for about five minutes, he reached the end of the cave.

Because of the high-brightness LEDs, the beam of light from the flashlight was very bright, and under the beam of light, a human-shaped figure sat motionless against the cave wall.

Zhang Jing narrowed his eyes, slightly moved his wrist holding the dagger, and became even more vigilant.

Until he reached the figure, nothing unusual happened. Zhang Jing could see clearly that this was a person who had been dead for many years, or rather, who had turned into a skeleton. The entire skeleton was covered with deposits of dead plants and fungi, which were intertwined with the skeleton's original clothes, as if they were a shell covering the skeleton. Zhang Jing could only see it clearly when he got closer.

In addition, Zhang Jing also discovered some writing on the ground in front of the skeleton. He shone his flashlight on it and found that the writing was carved into the stone surface. The writing was very intricate, and he didn't know what it was made of.

Zhang Jing squatted down, reached out and brushed away the dust from the words, and finally blew on them forcefully. The dust he blew up made him cough a few times. Then, he took out his phone, turned on the camera, and took several photos in succession.

After taking the photo, Zhang Jing stood up and put his phone back in his pocket. Then he pointed the flashlight at the skeleton.

In this pitch-black place, alone facing a skeleton, it would be a lie to say he wasn't a little scared. Zhang Jing steadied himself, cupped his hands in a respectful gesture towards the skeleton, and whispered:

"Senior, please forgive me if I have offended you..."

After saying this, he bowed to the skeleton, then used the dagger in his hand to pry open the skeleton's outer shell...

The outer shell was very crispy and peeled off easily with a gentle pry, revealing a completely silver skull to Zhang Jing, as if it were cast from silver.

At this moment, nothing remained on the skeleton, or rather, whatever it once had was now decayed. The only thing Zhang Jing noticed was what appeared to be a jade pendant held in the skeleton's left hand.

Zhang Jing reached out and took the jade pendant from the skull's hand. The pendant was cold to the touch. After shining a flashlight on it and examining it briefly, he saw that the pendant was blue with some patina. The front of the pendant had a fine relief carving, depicting what appeared to be a palace-style building. The back of the pendant had four characters of unknown meaning carved on it, along with some patterns surrounding the four characters.

Unable to examine it closely, Zhang Jing carefully put the jade pendant away. He then quickly searched the surrounding area but found nothing else of note.

After thinking for a moment, Zhang Jing summoned the Wish Book again. To his delight, new words appeared when he opened it:

"I make a wish: that the world I am in now once possessed the inheritance of certain advanced extraordinary powers, but has now disappeared for unknown reasons. While my points remain, I wish that the power system be designed in a way I can understand, such as immortals… (several words omitted)… On this Immortal Encounter Mountain, through some fortuitous encounters, I obtained the opportunity to inherit some extraordinary powers… (several words omitted)…"

The wish has been fulfilled.

20000 Wishing Points deducted.