From the Start, I Was Thrown into the Pond

At the Lu Clan ancestral hall on the border of the Great Liang Dynasty, Lu Rui, an illegitimate son from a collateral branch, was bound to a massive stone. A clan elder sneered, “You’re a calamity reborn! Drown him in the pond as an offering to Heaven!” The instant the black water closed over his head, a mechanical voice exploded in his mind: “Emperor Base System activated. First privilege: counter-kill.” Steel cables burst out of the water and dragged the guards on shore into the abyss. Lu Rui leaped from the water on a mechanical platform, a transparent screen now resting in his palm. It displayed a formula for cement, the proportions for gunpowder, emergency medical texts, and more...

He fled to a ruined temple, where a hundred refugees lay on the brink of death. He burned limestone to make cement and built heated brick beds to keep out the cold; he gathered herbs and made penicillin, saving half of them. As merit flowed into him, spiritual energy poured into his body, and his cultivation broke through three realms in a single day.

The Lu Clan patriarch pursued him with three hundred armored soldiers, only to find a furnace ten yards tall rising behind him and winding city walls springing from the ground.

“Douse the ground in fire oil and lay iron caltrops. If you want to die, take one step forward.”

When the first crude cannon shattered the clan banner, a totem pole in a distant beastfolk tribe suddenly lit up. They sensed it: within this human was a destiny older than even the shamans’... Heaven’s Mandate.