Earth. March 3rd, 2025. I still remember the exact date, partly because it was boring, and partly because it was the day my life took a sharp turn into the ridiculous.
I had just finished eating some suspiciously stale instant noodles and was walking home, when I spotted something weird on the side of the road. It was small, round, and glowed faintly in the dusk like someone had bottled moonlight and lost it on the pavement.
A marble.
Yes, I transmigrated because of a glowing marble. Not a divine tribulation. Not some high-level artifact with a name like "Heaven-Dooming Soul Orb." Just... a glorified child's toy with a built-in night light. Naturally, I pocketed it. I mean, who wouldn't pick up glowing junk off the ground?
Two months later, the marble blinked green in my pocket, and next thing I knew, boom, lights out. Woke up in a body that wasn't mine.
New world. New body. Same confused soul.
Now, here's where things get interesting.
Apparently, I landed in the body of a five-year-old boy named Xu Xuan. And not just any random peasant's son, no no. That would've been too realistic. Too grounded. Too "Slice of Life."Nope, I hit the transmigration jackpot.
Seventh son of the Emperor of the Great Sun Vermillion Dynasty.
Yeah, that Xu Xuan. The imperial brat whose face no one even bothered to remember until, surprise surprise, his spiritual roots awakened. Now the palace acts like I fart rainbows and bleed golden lotus petals.
It started when my "roots" got detected. Apparently, they don't know what kind of spiritual roots I have. Something about them being "obscured by fate" or "beyond the mortal realm's understanding." Which is a fancy way of saying, "our jade sticks and turtle shells don't work on you."
Mere mortals, they say, can't decipher the way of immortals.
A convenient excuse for ignorance, but hey, I'll take the mystique.
The only one who didn't pretend to know everything was the National Advisor, a real cultivator and our version of a wizard-in-residence. He just stared at me like I was a particularly stubborn riddle, then solemnly declared, "This child shall be sent to an immortal sect… in five years."
That was it. No dramatic lightning bolts, no ancient prophecy. Just a middle-aged man squinting at me and scheduling a magical boarding school five years down the line like I was applying for university.
So here I am. Five years old, barely able to write my new name in brush strokes, and already slated for a life of qi, swords, and highly questionable alchemy.
Since then, things escalated fast. Like, absurdly fast.
You'd think being the seventh son meant I'd get lost in the family tree, but no. Once I got labeled "spirit root possessor," the imperial household collectively lost its mind.
They started nurturing me like I was a walking national treasure. Every day, rare herbs the size of cabbages were stuffed into me. Golden-fruit porridge, dragonbone soup, dew from the first snow on Phoenix Mountain—name it, I probably drank it or bathed in it.
I've eaten so many heavenly objects, I'm pretty sure my poop is a Class-2 alchemical ingredient at this point.
They even assigned me a Dao Protector—a battle-scarred innate grandmaster who doesn't blink and has a sword sharp enough to shave reality. If you so much as look at me funny, he might blink, and that's your head gone. So yes, I'm safe. Comically so.
Every meal I eat is checked by three eunuchs, two maidens, and a chicken. I don't know what the chicken does, but they insist it's part of the anti-poison protocol. I don't ask questions anymore.
So, while the older princes fight court politics and drink poisoned tea for breakfast, I'm over here getting daily massages, spiritual energy baths, and bedtime stories about flying immortal rabbits. I haven't stepped outside the palace walls in months, and honestly, I don't plan to.
Why? Because everyone who's ever said, "The palace is a cage" clearly never had three meals a day cooked with phoenix oil.
But don't get me wrong. It's not all sunshine and rainbow swords.
There are people who envy me. Of course there are. Royal politics is 80% envy, 10% scheming, and 10% awkward poetry recitals. A few older brothers think I'm some sort of threat to the throne now. Joke's on them—I don't even want the throne. I want a nice cave on a spiritual mountain and a pet dragon that eats annoying people.
But I play the game. I smile. I act harmless. I don't show off my talents. I do breathing exercises in the garden and recite scripture like I have the spiritual depth of a teacup. Works like a charm.
After all, why waste time fighting over a throne I'll abandon in five years?
Oh, and fun fact—the Emperor, my father, only started remembering my name after the whole spiritual root thing. Before that, I was just "that other one." Now? Suddenly, he's father of the year. Drops by my quarters every few weeks to give me a nod and a jade pendant like it's a badge of parenting. Gotta love the consistency.
Honestly, if I didn't have a modern soul, I'd probably be frothing at the mouth with gratitude. But I know the script. I've read enough novels to see where this goes.
Act trash. Hide cards. Survive long enough to get shipped off to cultivation Hogwarts. There, I'll probably unlock some forbidden inheritance, accidentally offend a young master, kill a giant beast, and be chased by a sect elder who turns out to be my great-grand-uncle's pet turtle in disguise.
Can't wait.
So yeah. That's where I'm at.
Stuck in a royal nursery. Training my body. Eating better than most kings. Surrounded by people who think I'm either a genius or a time bomb. All because I picked up a marble.
A marble.
You know, most people get trucked to another world. Me? I got marbled.
Go figure.