First Breakthrough and the Art of Forum Trolling
“That's our family's basic technique, Yeonha-gyeol.”
Baek Cheong hadn't set foot outside her cheo-so for the past few days.
Even as the busy family head who had to make critical decisions for the clan and manage countless retainers, her father Baek Mujin visited his youngest daughter's room every single day.
“Take the Chwi-ryeong-dan and circulate it along the meridians I'm pointing out.”
He pressed on the acupoints on Baek Cheong's back, meticulously teaching her the foundational technique passed down through generations of the Yeonha Baek family.
Drawing in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth through breathing and gathering it in her dantian was a grueling procession of agony.
But the limitations of her O-yeong-geun—considered the lowest grade even among trash mixed spiritual roots—were starkly clear.
The speed at which it absorbed the spiritual energy floating in the air was frustratingly slow, and once inside her body, the energy churned chaotically, its five elements muddled and impossible to control.
“Endure it, even if it's hard.”
Baek Mujin generously infused his own pure essence, gently suppressing the rampaging turbid energy in his daughter's body and clearing a path for it.
Only after her father's precious sweat dripped and his devoted guidance did a single drop of clear, transparent qi finally form quietly in Baek Cheong's empty dantian.
“Ah!”
As her blocked meridians burst open, a refreshing sensation washed away the stagnant buildup, sweeping through her entire body.
It was the moment she finally reached Yeon-gi-gi 1st star, taking her first official step on the path of a cultivator.
“You did well.”
Baek Mujin firmly stroked his daughter's small head, his face filled with deep admiration for her perseverance. Despite her despairingly hopeless O-yeong-geun talent, she had grasped qi sense and reached Yeon-gi-gi 1st star in just a few days.
He pulled a small jade vial from his waist and placed it in Baek Cheong's hand.
“Take a few days off from training and rest well. What's inside is the remaining Chwi-ryeong-dan—swallow one whenever your spiritual energy depletes from handling it or your stamina runs low.”
The moment her father left the cheo-so, Baek Cheong slammed the thick door shut and securely bolted it.
It was the sweet, long-awaited taste of freedom.
Freedom!
She flopped onto the bed in exhilaration, then swiftly circulated her divine sense.
A translucent window of the Moomyeongbang unfolded before her eyes in midair.
The instant she logged in, a red notification blinked in the corner of her vision.
“Huh?”
It was the familiar alert style from her previous life's communities, popping up when someone reacted to her post.
Baek Cheong tilted her head in confusion.
Do newbies get love here?
There was no reason anyone should care about the sloppy post she'd barely hammered out before passing out from spiritual energy depletion.
Unable to resist her curiosity, she extended her divine sense to check the notification.
Her original post had over a dozen replies lined up.
Most reactions were driven by curiosity about the unfamiliar interface number.
The numbers prefixed to Moomyeongbang users' handles seemed to serve as unique identifiers for their origin lower realms.
There were occasional warm welcomes for the newbie mixed in, but overall, it felt like fleeting, perfunctory greetings drawn to the rare number.
“What the...?”
As Baek Cheong slowly scrolled through the replies, a strange sense of dissonance crept in.
It felt like she'd missed something important.
I overlooked something...
But the urge to write a new post overpowered any deep pondering.
Now a proper Yeon-gi-gi 1st star cultivator, she wouldn't pass out after just a couple characters like last time.
Probably nothing major.
With renewed resolve, Baek Cheong opened the posting window.
Focusing intently, she carved characters one by one with her divine sense into the empty title field.
Each letter floating up in the window drained the shallow qi from her dantian, sending a vivid, ominous pull.
Thanks to reaching Yeon-gi-gi 1st star, though, it didn't bring the skull-splitting agony or nausea from before.
After barely squeezing in five characters, her dantian's qi hit bottom, her head throbbing dully.
Recovering that naturally would require sitting cross-legged in meditation for quite a while.
Heh, no need for that here.
Baek Cheong uncorked the jade vial her father gave her and popped a small, round pill into her mouth.
The moment the Chwi-ryeong-dan slid down her throat, a scorching heat erupted in her stomach like an explosion.
The pleasure of her depleted dantian refilling in one gulp swept through her body.
Restored, Baek Cheong quickly filled in the rest of the body text.
She even avoided passing out from qi depletion this time.
Refreshing repeatedly, she watched reactions roll in real-time.
Surprisingly, replies started popping up almost immediately after posting.
More attention than expected, just like last time.
As she read through them carefully, the nagging frustration in her head cleared.
She finally pinpointed the source of that lingering unease.
“Ah!”
They had no clue what the 913.14 interface number meant.
The true implication was crystal clear.
In the cultivator world she inhabited, she was the only one with a Moomyeongjiche body that could access the Moomyeongbang.
How did I miss that?!
This monumental fact granted the internet ghost from her previous life a massive sense of liberation.
No matter how outrageously she trolled or acted up on the Moomyeongbang, there was zero risk of her identity as the Yeonha Baek family's youngest daughter being exposed.
No master in the cultivator world could track the anonymous Baek Cheong hiding behind the forum's veil back to reality.
A volcano of trolling and aggro ideas erupted in her mind.
Heh heh heh.
Her destructive instincts writhed, craving to wreck the board with provocative titles and bait posts.
It was the perfect chance for truly consequence-free pleasure.
But... gotta hold back.
She coldly suppressed the boiling urge.
She knew community dynamics better than anyone.
Dumping all the intense dopamine hits upfront would lead to numbness, where nothing fazed you later.
She decided to play the meek newbie for now, testing the Moomyeongbang's info potential.
The label of fresh cultivator newbie anywhere drew nosy attention from the veterans.
Info first.
Baek Cheong swallowed another Chwi-ryeong-dan and opened the posting window.
She set a self-rule: max five characters per pill, no overdoing it.
Her intent: tips to speed up O-yeong-geun training or hacks to cut qi cost for Moomyeongbang posting.
After posting and waiting, a razor-sharp reply hit.
A brutally cold, businesslike response.
Baek Cheong scratched the back of her head, admitting her mistake.
Even newbies got shunned for ignoring board etiquette—that was community law.
She hastily edited the post settings, moving it from casual chat to the Q&A board.
Staring blankly at the Q&A board, hoping for answers.
But even after a while, no new replies came.
Frustrated, she scanned other users' questions.
Most had zero replies, or at best a couple mocking, worthless ones.
This was the brutal world of cultivators locked in survival competition.
No idiot gave away hard-earned training knowledge or rare secrets for free to strangers.
Hmm...
Baek Cheong propped her chin, deep in thought.
Straight questions wouldn't cut it.
To pry useful info from the Moomyeongbang vets, she had to stroke their arrogance and intellectual vanity.
Time for that?
Spew idiotic nonsense so outrageously they couldn't resist correcting you with the real answer.
The ultimate community aggro technique.
What'll work?
She racked her brain for nonsense that'd bait O-yeong-geun secrets.
A brilliant idea flashed.
Baek Cheong checked the remaining Chwi-ryeong-dan in the vial.
Long sentences meant tons of pills and excruciating pain.
She gulped, popped one in, and as the heat spread, forced her divine sense to carve letters.
Five characters in, a splitting headache hit.
She chewed and swallowed a second pill without pause.
More letters, vision shaking, breath ragged.
Her dantian thrashed wildly, but she couldn't stop.
Third pill down, into the body text.
Forcing more letters, her dantian screamed in agony, shrinking.
Cold sweat soaked her clothes.
Squeezing the last qi, she crammed in the rest.
Notifications flooded: replies incoming.
As predicted, cultivators across the lower realms swarmed to scold the idiot newbie.
Heh heh... it worked...
A faint smile curved Baek Cheong's lips as she watched the avalanche of replies through her blurring vision.
The price of overdosing pills and forcibly extracting beyond her qi limit was heavy.
Overwhelming fatigue crushed her skull, and qi overload shock overwhelmed her body.
Her vision went black in an instant, and she collapsed unconscious onto the bed.