Ren Shangren was a modern-day corporate drone who stayed healthy by steeping goji berries in a thermos. His life’s ambition was to lie flat until the end of time. Then he transmigrated and became a useless disciple at Qingwu Academy who couldn’t even sense his own qi.
He had planned to keep coasting and waiting to die, but one drunken boast got him into trouble! The “Nine Heavens Lightning-Calling Immortal Tempering Method” he’d made up on the spot was taken seriously by Shi Jian, the academy’s most stubborn martial arts fanatic. Shi Jian practiced it for three whole years, until evil energy started pouring off him and the Martial Academy tried to ward it off by splashing him with dog’s blood!
Even more absurdly, the blockhead Shi Jian really did summon heavenly lightning. He then treated the wayward tribulation lightning like a power bank and insisted on making Ren Shangren his “master”! From then on, the lazy Ren Shangren was forced into service as the “Thunder-Punishing Sword Immortal.” He founded a sect whose sacred token was a chipped pickle jar! They grandly called it the “Weld-Slag Jar”!
Goji berries gave way to welding torches, and a lazy bum became the lord of a pickle jar. Ren Shangren soon discovered that his cultivation path had taken a truly bizarre turn:
Sect techniques? They get better the longer they’re pickled!
Sect-protecting treasure? A crock of pickled sweet potatoes!
Miracle cure? Years-old pickle juice from the bottom of the jar, diluted with rainwater!
Disciples? Mud-covered monkeys who worship the pickle jar with fanatical devotion!
Biggest creditor? An old, greedy academy dean whose abacus sparks as he dreams of “going public” and “market valuation”!
Personal bodyguard? Shi Jian, an ice-cold disciple of terrifying strength, with a mind welded shut and, seemingly, some evil thing from the jar possessing him!
Just as the pickle jar explodes, an even more sinister “Heaven-Burying Netherworld Bowl” appears, and Ren Shangren is completely dumbfounded. The bowl can swallow tribulation lightning and eat noodles, and it even pickles him into a... pickle sprout that survives by feeding on dark energy and the bustle of everyday life?!
