After Clearing the Palace Intrigue Game, I Unlocked the Cultivation Route

Simulator story / power fantasy / synopsis is a first draft and will be polished

Qing Wu transmigrated.

The bad news: She was poor, sickly, and had greedy, cruel parents.

The good news: She had a golden finger.

Relying on her Ancient Life Simulator, she overcame one obstacle after another, defeated all her rivals, and became the greatest winner of the ruthless palace power struggle.

But Qing Wu wasn't satisfied. Her goal was always to reach the very top, above everyone else.

So she poisoned the emperor, installed a distant relative of the imperial family as a child emperor, and ruled from behind the curtain as empress dowager. Then, at the age of sixty, she deposed another emperor and took the throne herself, becoming the first empress in history.

But on the day of her enthronement ceremony, a streak of light suddenly shot out from the Cold Palace. It was her defeated rival, Consort Yao, who had spent forty years in the Cold Palace and was now flying on a sword!

The consort still looked young and beautiful. She killed every minister there with a single sword strike, then took Qing Wu's head with another.

Through her blood-blurred vision, she saw only the consort laughing triumphantly, with the capital burning behind her.

[First Life Simulation Complete.]

[In this life, you were born poor, but used your beauty and cunning to become empress, favored above all others in the harem, despite having no children. You were ruthless and eliminated your rivals one by one, finally becoming empress in your own right.

However, unbeknownst to you, the fallen woman in the Cold Palace unexpectedly found a path to immortality and turned the tables at the very end.]

[You died.]

[Hidden world setting: An Otherworldly Encounter has been unlocked.]

*

Qing Wu opened her eyes again.

The second life simulation began. This time, she had no interest in becoming a virtuous empress dowager or an empress remembered for all eternity. She'd been through that already.

A sixty-year-old woman could barely even use the toilet. Let someone else be emperor.

In this second life, she'd first figure out what this cultivation business was all about.

[Second Life Simulation Complete. Calculating results now.]

[In this life, you became an overbearing and arrogant empress dowager, using the resources of the realm to seize a single person's chance at immortality. The people suffered, and unrest swept the land. Before the rebels stormed the palace, you finally glimpsed a corner of the cultivation world from the top of Coal Hill.

Once, it had been a realm of boundless sacred mountains and seas. Now it was in ruins, haunted by all manner of evil spirits. Only those with merit could cleanse the Three Realms.]

You were burdened with sins and unable to cultivate. A rebel cut off your head with a single stroke.]

[You died.]

*

The third life simulation began.

From the start, she was once again the daughter of a poor family, surrounded by wolves. Her best option was to be sold into the palace as a laundry maid.

But the empress route was bound to end with her being assassinated by those who had failed to obtain an immortal opportunity, while the cultivation route was doomed because of the tainted origins of her success and the sins she had accumulated. What was she supposed to do?

As Qing Wu lay on her sickbed, consumed by worry, she heard a System notification in her ear:

[You have cleared two reincarnations. Inherited Talents unlocked.]

[You have acquired the talent: Yin-Yang Eyes.]

Theme: Fate is woven like a web. Stand firm as bedrock.