I Became the Game Master in Ancient Times

Su Cheng, a scholar from an academy, was killed by a gatekeeper after failing the Nine Realms Trial game in his previous life. Reborn three days before taking the trial, he unexpectedly activates the Nine Realms Ring and awakens the authority of the game's central system. Armed with his memories from his previous life and a golden finger, he starts with the lowest-level Body Tempering Trial, crushing gatekeepers, clearing hidden stages, and recruiting player factions along the way. He also discovers that the Nine Realms Trial is actually a real game world created by an ancient powerful being to select an inheritor. When he conquers the eighth realm, the ultimate gatekeeper who erased him in his previous life, the Nine Luminaries, appears. But it has no idea that Su Cheng has already exploited a game bug to turn it into data. In the ninth realm, he ultimately reverses the roles of central system and player, taking control of the fate of the entire Nine Realms world.