Typical xianxia world. Except that one of the most precious resources for advancement is heavenly merit, yet another intangible energy that is functionally used as a currency to seek a favor from the heavens. (QI is just used to cultivate). HM can be found imbued into organic or inorganic matter, which can be harvest and then used by cultivators. More rarely, it can be crystallized into pure HM. HM is rare, but common enough that even outer sect disciples will get some on occasion.
While in theory HM can be used for any favor, by and large the most common (as it’s found to be efficient) is for the cultivator to seek to recover past life memories in a fairly targeted way. Most cultivators were cultivators in past lives, and HM can be used to advanced in cultivation techniques, qi techniques, martial arts, etc. by leaps and bounds. (Asking for info directly from heavenly is expensive.) Because of this, technique libraries are both much rarer and much smaller as you’re very likely to have had at least one past life with a great cultivator. The HM that each level of cultivator has access to is typically enough for a few engrams, and so is rather safe for the cultivator, but can end up being useless occasionally, especially for those with no great past lives.
Our story begins suddenly with our protagonist waking up, struggling with who she is and where she is. In short, even though she is just a beginning qi gathering cultivator, she stumbled across a nugget of pure crystallized HM, which is a standard sized resources for a core cultivator (3-4 major realms above her), but is way too much. In her ignorance and greed, she spends a big chunk of it on a past life memory request, but essentially ends up pulling in so much of one particular life (on regular Earth) that an ego forms and takes over. (There’s a side bit here about Earthlings have very strong personalities compared to cultivators). And killing herself? Not really, because same soul, but personality wipe, while leaving memories mostly intact. New protagonist finds she can don the old personality like a hat, which helps with interacting with others.
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Protagonist in a leap of modern logic, essentially deposits the remaining HM with the heavens, rather than just holding onto it, and risk it being forcefully taken or bought from her. Unfortunately, that tends to leave an open line with the akashic records and given the debt, it’s a big noisy. She spends a bit on a mind splitting technique, and she splits off 3% of her mind to interact with the akashic record (thus leaving her main consciousness unbothered). This split basically acts as a intermediary. In such a matter, and after some consideration of how to interact, the split decides to hallucinate as an RPG screen to the main consciousness. “Really?” She asks unamused.
Still that justifies that, and the splits first task is to try and index it or at least a TOC of what is available from the akashic records besides past life memories, b/c fuck it if she’s going to connect personality suicide again.
That should cover the first 3-5 chapters. And then from there, it can go as it pleases.
