Eastern Barens, near the Groovy Woods.
The barren lands stretched toward a colorless horizon, where dust drifted on the wind like wandering spirits, slipping through broken fences and the bones of crumbling walls.
A humble village clung stubbornly to the land — a patch of life wedged between wild hills and fields split by drought.
Winding dirt paths stitched together crooked homes of stone and timber, their thatched roofs bowed beneath the weight of countless harsh seasons.
By its roadside, slumped against an old boundary stone, sat an old and hunched 'beggar'.
His robes were little more than stitched-together rags, clinging to a body thinned by suffering and time.
His hair, once dark and healthy, hung in a tangled silvery mess around his shoulders.
His hands, cracked and calloused, fumbled weakly with a dry crust of barley bread — a gift from an old widow with kind heart and little else to spare.
Xian.
No one here knew his name. To them, he was just another forgotten soul washed up by misfortune, lingering quietly on the edge of their simple lives.
The wind stirred his rags, whispering through the broken fields.
The village life ebbed and flowed around him — distant laughter, the creak of carts, the sharp bark of a dog chasing chickens, the thin laughter of children.
Life continued, heedless of one more crumbling figure fading into the dust.
He closed his eyes.
Behind his lids, memories flickered.
— a world of steel and electricity, of order and certainty — he had lived as someone else.
— Another life, where power lay not in spirituality, but in cold machines.
— Yet, a flash of golden light, then a new world, a new body, a new — identity.
The world he had come from — that distant place of modern dreams — was little more than a broken echo now.
He may have died — or perhaps suffered something worse than death — and awakened here, trapped in a brutal, endless cycle of cultivation and survival.
That was a hundred years ago.
At first, he had fought. He had struggled, clawing his way up, mastering arts he once thought belonged to fantasy.
He had even dared to dream — of attaining the Dao, guiding disciples, forging lasting bonds, and shaping an ambitious future.
But dreams in this realm rotted quickly.
He remembered their faces — the ones he had taught, sheltered, and protected as his own.
He remembered the gleam of greed behind their smiles, the blade in his back, the poison in his cup.
His cultivation had withered.
His body had decayed.
Even the fire in his heart had gone cold.
Now he was here, stranded between life and death, forgotten by the heavens and men alike.
A boy trotted past with a wooden sword tucked under one arm, glancing at Xian with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.
His mother called him back sharply, casting a wary look at the beggar before hurrying the child along.
Xian barely noticed. He was still —Not the stillness of calm, but the lifeless kind that settles over things long since given up.
Time passed around him like wind through broken stone, unnoticed and unimportant.
A dry gust rattled the brittle stalks of last season's harvest, dragging a hollow sound through the cracked fields.
The earth cracked beneath his bare feet.
Xian's buried emotions stirred, the air itself seemed to tremble.
It was subtle — a shimmer, like heat rising from stone.
Then he saw it.
Lines of golden script began to thread themselves together from nothing, weaving into a curtain of symbols that shimmered in the air.
Before him, reality seemed to peel apart. A translucent screen unfurled in the air, glowing faintly, defying the dust and decay around it.
...
[In waves of karma, good deeds return fortune — and evil deeds return blood.]
[A favor earns a hundred blessings. A slight demands a thousand regrets.]
[From this moment forth, all acts of goodness shall be repaid one hundredfold.]
[All acts of grievance shall be returned one thousandfold.]
[Balance shall be restored — with fortune, or with blood.]
[The Cashback System has been activated]
...
Xian stared at the floating screens, his cracked fingers trembling slightly in his lap.
"….."
For a long moment, he simply sat there, the old numbness battling against a slow, rising heat beneath his ribs — a warmth he hadn't felt in decades.
Hope.
However…
No — not hope.
Hope had long since rotted away.
He was barely alive, his cultivation a hollow echo of what it once had been.
His body, scarred and broken from scars, was a crumbling vessel, injured both inside and out.
His mind, once sharp and focused, now lay in shambles.
A bitter, hollow laugh bubbled from his throat.
"…of all times…Now?" His voice was rough, a rasp that hadn't been used in years. The words felt like shards of glass in his mouth.
He stared at the glowing screens, its words floating before him like a cruel mockery.
His eyes twitched, and he shook his head in disbelief. The absurdity of it all nearly sent him into another fit of laughter, but the sound came out more like a strangled cough.
A Hundred years!
A Hundred of years spent wandering the realm, scraping by, surviving in a realm that had no place for him.
He had fought tooth and nail, mastering skills beyond the reach of most mortals, ascending through the realms with effort and pride.
And yet, all of it — every step, every battle, every moment of victory — had led him to this.
A single mistake.
That was all it had taken.
A mistake that cost him everything.
He had been on the verge of a great ascension, attempting to raise himself to a higher realm — a moment of defiance during a tribulation, one misstep that had left him weakened, his cultivation damaged.
Injured and weakened, he had sought refuge in seclusion, telling his disciples and trusted that he needed time to recover, to heal.
He trusted them. They were his disciples and friends — or so he thought.
But he didn't know. He never suspected.
He didn't see it behind those innocent smiles. Didn't hear the quiet whispers in the dark corners of the halls.
Didn't notice the glint of greed hidden in their eyes, the hunger that had slowly consumed them, even as they called him their master and friend.
A bitter, aching realization gripped his chest.
Behind those smiles lay a deep, venomous betrayal.
They had stabbed him when he was at his weakest. Left him to rot in the dark, betrayed by the very people he had trusted most.
Xian closed his eyes, the memories flooding in with brutal clarity.
The venom in their smiles, the coldness in their words, the betrayal that had cut deeper than any blade.
He had been a fool.
And now, after all this time, the heavens decided to throw him a bone? A familiar yet distant "gift"?
The faintest tremor ran through his hands as he reached out, hovering just above the translucent screen.
The weight of the past, of betrayal, of lost dreams, pressed against him. He had once been a man of power, ambition, and purpose.
Now? He was a shadow of that person.
"…A favor earns a hundred blessings," he repeated, his voice flat. "A slight… a thousand regrets."
The words rang in his mind, repeating like a mantra, like some cruel reminder of everything he had lost, everything he had sacrificed.
But they didn't bring comfort. They didn't bring justice.
They were only words—words that meant nothing after so many years of loss.
What does it matter? he thought bitterly. What good is a hundredfold return of kindness after everything?
Xian let out a sigh, long and heavy, his chest aching with the weight of it all.
He was tired—so tired. But as the system's words lingered in the air before him, something cold and sharp stirred within him, pushing through the exhaustion.
It wasn't hope. No, that was long gone. But perhaps… just perhaps, there was something to be gained from this. A debt owed, a reckoning to be settled.
He withdrew his hand from the screen, the system's glowing words flickering behind his eyelids.
The wind tugged at his ragged robes, and the earth beneath his feet felt colder than ever before.
Then, as he stood there, lost in the bitter tangle of memory and resolve, a new chime echoed softly through his mind.
...
[A hundred years of karma entanglements have been calculated.. — Collect rewards?]
...
"…Buh," Xian laughed bitterly, the sound sharp and empty. "Heaven took everything else. Might as well take my sanity too."
...
[COMING NEXT] - CHAPTER 2 - A Hundred Years of Karma