The Omniscient Pauper

Kai Liang, a twenty-six-year-old data analyst from modern-day Earth, dies in a workplace accident and wakes up in a brutal cultivation world with nothing — no qi, no sect, no money, and no idea where he is. What he does have is a System unlike any other: the Omniscient Scanner. It scans everything around him — people, objects, locations — and shows him a preview of hidden truths. The catch? Full information costs spirit stones, a currency he starts with zero of. Every secret has a price he can rarely afford. Stranded in the frontier city of Irongate, Kai must survive by trading in the one resource nobody else is mining: knowledge. He finds undervalued stones in waste piles, identifies priceless items in market stalls, and reads people more accurately than any cultivator can. But his system is more than a tool — it is a key, built two centuries ago by a destroyed sect called Whitecrest, and Kai was specifically chosen to carry it. Now a hidden Elder, a sharp-eyed sect operative, and a loyal sword disciple are drawn into Kai's orbit as he edges toward a sealed vault containing truths powerful enough to rewrite the cultivation world's history — truths that certain ancient powers will kill to keep buried.