Floating Cloud City was loud.
Not with machines or engines of vehicle—there were none—but with clamor of human noise and like bustling city. Footsteps on stone roads. Vendors shouting. Wooden carts rattling. The constant murmur of gossip, fear, and curiosity spreading like smoke after the impact outside the walls.
Ruowei moved through it all with the slow shuffle of an old woman.
His liquid metal skin held the disguise perfectly. Wrinkles, liver spots, thin arms, stooped shoulders—every detail simulated down to the micro-tremor of age. Even his breathing was faked: faint, shallow, occasionally interrupted by a cough.
But behind the cloudy old eyes, his vision was sharp.
His HUD kept trying to label everything that enter his vision whether it's heat signatures, distances, probable weapon types. It annoyed him. Worse, it also seems to bring him some comforted and safety.
'Don't get used to it.'
He then remember about the thought that he just had.
'Why Skynet?'
It did not exist in this world, why did that thought occur to him. Did the T-X programming tried to change his thought? And why defeated Skynet, not making the world of Skynet.
If baffles him.
He forced the thought through the machine layer of his mind.
Floating Cloud City… he knew it. He'd read it. He could roughly place it in the timeline. The Xiao Clan, the Xia Clan, the wedding, the poisoning… all the early plot that happen.
But that knowledge came in fragments. The novel didn't describe every street, every custom, every coin, every taboo. And this wasn't a book anymore—this was a real world with real consequences.
If he wanted to survive, he needed information.
He needed to assimilate.
He needed to become someone that exist here.
[SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: INFORMATION ACQUISITION]
[METHOD: LOW PROFILE / SOCIAL OBSERVATION]
[RISK LEVEL: ACCEPTABLE]
Ruowei winced. The machine side was already rewriting his priorities into neat, bullet-pointed directives.
'Fine. Use it. But don't let it affect you.'
He drifted into the flow of pedestrians, letting the crowd carry him away from the gate.
The first thing Ruowei did was listen.
Not with ears alone—his sensors filtered words, compared pronunciation patterns, and mapped grammar. Within minutes, he confirmed what he already suspected.
It was Chinese. Not modern Mandarin exactly, but close enough. Like a historical dialect layered with cultivation-era terms.
He adjusted his own speech model accordingly.
Next will be money.
A vendor barked at a customer.
"Two copper coins! No bargaining!"
Copper coins. Not paper. Not silver at this stall, at least.
Ruowei watched carefully as the buyer slapped down two small round coins with square holes. The vendor bit one out of habit, then tucked them into a cloth pouch.
[CURRENCY CONFIRMED: COPPER COIN (LOW DENOMINATION)]
[OBSERVED: ROUND COIN / SQUARE HOLE]
[ASSOCIATED: COMMONERS / STREET TRADE]
He didn't have any.
That was a problem.
But not an immediate one—yet.
'Information first. Resources second.'
He made a mental list.
Learn local slang and honorifics.
Learn clan structure and power hierarchy.
Find out where outsiders sleep and eat.
Identify law enforcement, guards, and patrol patterns
Confirm whether there beasts and profound practitioners that are active threats nearby.
Identify safe identity to be taken.
And most importantly.
Find out todays dateand timeline.
The novel early timeline was vague. He needed an anchor point.
_________
In the old world, he would've called it intel gathering and by searching online most of the information about a person can be found.
Now this gathering Intel can be done by simply going to the teahouse.
People talked when they drank and drunk. People talked even more when they were afraid.
Ruowei followed the smell of steamed buns and bitter tea until he found a modest two-floor building with hanging wooden signs. Inside, cheap benches were packed with townsfolk.
Perfect.
He slipped in, moving slowly, and chose a corner seat where his back faced the wall.
A waiter approached, then stopped when he saw the old woman frail appearance. His expression softened into practiced pity.
"Granny, are you alright? You look like you've been through a storm today." The waiter said while given a smile.
Ruowei forced a weak smile. "This old body isn't useful anymore. I just… needed to sit a while."
The waiter nodded. "Then sit. No charge for hot water."
Good. That solved the money problem for now.
Ruowei lowered his head as if tired, but his attention expanded outward like a net.
Two tables over, a group of men spoke loudly.
"You heard that explosion outside the wall? That crater—by the heavens!"
"I heard it was a beast."
"No, no, Old Li said he saw a person climb out! Covered in dust, tall as a demon!"
"Bah! If it was a demon, the guards would've sounded the alarm."
A woman cut in, voice trembling. "Maybe it's the nearby Empire again…"
Nearby empire, something that not even mention in the novel but exist in real world.
Flouting Cloud City location can be said to be one of corner and at the place close to no resources. From the information and how the novel depict it like a beginners village.
Another table near the stairs had younger men in simple robes. They spoke with the impatient arrogance of people who had at least some cultivation.
"You lot panic too much. Our Floating Cloud City is a backwater, away from major conflict. Even if a beast comes, they are not that strong and what's it going to do? The city lord has guards."
"Guards? Those guards are barely at the Elementary Profound Realm."
Elementary Profound Realm.
Ruowei's eyes narrowed.
He didn't fully remember the cultivation levels, only the general idea. But hearing the term spoken naturally gave him a frame of reference. Cultivators exist here openly, and even city guards have measurable ranks.
That meant blending in wasn't enough.
He also needed to avoid provoking anyone with power but that depend on their own strength.
Now that they said it, he remember most of the strength and realm of this cultivators. The T-X strength can be said as strong as Earth profound realm and can contain with lower and middle tier Sky Profound realm.
The T-X just cannot fly, if not even Sky Profound realm not it's match. But above that will be impossible as they already gain domain.
A boy passed by carrying tea, and Ruowei sensors briefly locked onto him.
Breathing pattern, normal. Heart rate, elevated from work. No profound energy fluctuation.
Civilian.
Then Ruowei sensors glanced across one of the young men.
A faint but distinct energy field clung to his limbs, like heat distortion.
[PROFOUND ENERGY: DETECTED (LOW)]
[SUBJECT: MALE / AGE ~18-22]
[THREAT LEVEL: MODERATE]
So he could detect it.
He just needed more samples to calibrate.
Ruowei waited until someone mentioned something concrete.
Eventually, an older man slammed his cup down and grumbled, "All this trouble, and before Xiao Clan wedding day too! Bad omen!"
Wedding day.
That narrowed it sharply.
Xiao Clan wedding day—Xiao Che marrying into the Xia Clan. The exact starting point of the story.
But he still needed the date in-universe.
So he baited the conversation carefully.
Ruowei leaned forward, voice trembling like an elderly woman's. "Wedding day…? Forgive this old one. My memory is poor. Which day is it again?"
The nearby man looked at him like she'd asked whether the sky was blue.
"Granny, are you joking? Today is the fourteenth day of the sixth month."
Sixth month, fourteenth day.
He stored it instantly.
[DATE ACQUIRED: 6TH MONTH / 14TH DAY]
[EVENT ANCHOR: ONE DAY BEFORE XIAO CLAN WEDDING DAY]
[TIMELINE MATCH: AGAINST THE GODS – EARLY ARC CONFIRMED]
Good.
Now he had a fixed position in the story.
Meaning Xiao Che would wake soon. Poison. Confusion. Then Sky Poison Pearl mark.
Ruowei human side felt a chill.
So it's really happening.
It will not just happen in a plot that he read.
It will not just happened in a chapter that he read.
It will be happening in a real city in a reality that he is in now.
________
Information without a usable identity was worthless.
He couldn't stay as an old woman forever. It was safe for entry, but it will created limits to what he need to do.
The reason is that this body will give the impression that it too weak to travel. Too suspicious if asking too many questions. Too memorable if someone later searched for the weird granny. Too vulnerable if a cultivator decided to test her.
People here unlike the previous world, most of them are unhinged especially the cultivators.
So he needed a cover that fit:
Explains being an outsider.
Explains lacking money.
Explains not knowing local details.
Doesn't invite scrutiny from clansmen.
The best choice was simple. A wandering refugee from a remote village.
In cultivation worlds, villagers died all the time whether it's from bandits, beasts or disasters. Nobody investigated a nameless peasant's tragedy.
The machine side of him immediately built the profile.
[COVER IDENTITY DRAFT]
[AGE: ELDERLY FEMALE (TEMPORARY)]
[ORIGIN: EASTERN HILLS VILLAGE (NON-REGISTERED)]
[CAUSE OF DISPLACEMENT: BEAST ATTACK / FIRE]
[GOAL: SEEK RELATIVES / SEEK WORK]
Ruowei suppressed a grim smile.
It's look a little cold when one look at him at this time.
And terrifying, because it came so naturally.
He glanced at his reflection in a teapot lid—cloudy and distorted, but enough.
Wrinkled face. White hair. Bent back.
He could keep this for now.
Later, when he had resources, he could switch to another form: a middle-aged servant, a mute beggar, a traveling herbalist—whatever was needed.
He just had to avoid one thing.
[Direct involvement with the Xiao Clan too early.]
If he interfered recklessly, he could trigger unknown ripples. Yun Che was a walking disaster even without him.
Ruowei didn't want to become the spark that burned the entire city down.
He didn't need food like a human.
But the disguise did.
An old woman who never ate was suspicious.
And more importantly—he needed a place to shut down and think without eyes watching.
He listened for the most common lodging mentioned.
"Inn prices will rise because of the wedding!"
"There's cheap straw rooms behind the east market."
"Beggar alley by the south wall is full again."
Ruowei picked the second.
Not too poor. Not too rich. Not too visible.
As the teahouse crowd grew noisier, he stood slowly and shuffled toward the door.
Outside, the city was still buzzing. But the fear was shifting into curiosity now—exactly what he didn't want.
Because curiosity led to investigation.
And investigation might led to someone eventually connecting crater outside the city with an old woman who appeared out of nowhere.
He moved with the crowd, slow, invisible.
Yet inside his mind, a new awareness tightened.
He had entered a world of cultivation, fate, clans, and gods.
And he was not a protagonist blessed by destiny.
He was a terminator with a human soul.
A foreign variable.
A mistake that shouldn't exist.
[STATUS: INFILTRATION SUCCESSFUL]
[NEXT STEP: SECURE SHELTER / ACQUIRE FUNDS / CONTINUE DATA COLLECTION]
Ruowei exhaled softly through fake old lungs.
Then whispered, so quietly even the air barely carried it.
"…Alright. Let's survive."
After he walk a certain distance he realizes something.
Why did he do not want to involve with Xiao Clan? Why did he not want to prevent future tragedy that might happen?
There already an easy way to access more resource and information. Not only that, that thing will come to serve him with a single platter. No need to waste too much times.
Then he look toward the direction of the Xiao Clan.