After another cycle of hacking at unyielding the stone, Huang Ke forced his body to crawl toward the crude lift, shoulders slumped, feet dragging. The elevator was a massive slab of black iron, lifted and lowered by spiritual arrays etched into the mine walls. It groaned like a dying beast every time it moved, its chains quivering.
A dozen other miners joined him, their bodies pressed so close he could feel the tremor of each breath, the heat of fevered skin, the rattle of hollow bones. There was no speaking. They were past that. The air stank of dust, sweat, old blood, and a kind of despair so thick it clung to the flesh like mold.
The lift shuddered and began its ascent: a slow, agonizing crawl up through the veins of the mountain. Huang Ke's back scraped the wall, someone's elbow jammed into his ribs, another's breath hissed wetly against his neck.
Time passed slowly.
Ten minutes felt like ten years.
But did it even matter anymore?
Why would they hurry?
It was not like they had something to look forward to.
Finally, the lift clanged into place and the 'miners' stumbled off like cattle. Huang Ke followed the stream of worn bodies toward the Distribution Hall, a wide platform carved into the side of a cliff. There, beneath the ever-watchful gaze of jade-eyed statues, stood the reward stalls, long stone tables, there stood black-uniformed clerks, each flanked by a cultivator with a white robe and sword.
Huang Ke looked at the cultivators with his lifeless eyes.
They were once who he wished to become. But now, they were just as lifeless as the statues in his eyes.
A line had already formed. Huang Ke joined it without thinking. Just one more part of the routine.
Time crawled. The line advanced. One by one, workers approached the stone altar, pressed their palm to the contract seal, and received their due. Behind the counter, spirit screens flickered with numbers, arrays tallying lifetimes of labor and pain into neat little rows.
When it was Huang Ke's turn, he stepped forward, wordless. The clerk didn't look at him. Just held out the seal.
He pressed his hand to it. A faint blue glow shimmered across his skin, tracing the invisible curse-ink beneath it. A chime rang.
"Worker 1031-H. Task cycle complete.
Performance: average.
Infraction count: zero.
Points awarded: 50."
A cold voice, mechanical and soulless, issued from the screen.
A small slip of paper appeared in a slot. Huang Ke took it, glancing at the number even though he already knew.
Fifty.
Always fifty.
No matter how hard he worked, no matter how clean his record was.
It was always fifty.
It was the same yesterday.
It was the same the day before.
It was the same for every single damned cycle for the past ten years!
He sighed, not in surprise, not in frustration. Just in resignation.
He stepped away from the line.
A sign hung beside the clerk booth, carved in shimmering spirit light:
"Just 100,000 POINTS – PROMOTION TO OUTER FAMILY RETAINER."
It was the light at the end of the tunnel, the only hope and salvation in this wretched place.
Or it was supposed to.
In reality, if one wanted to live, they would need at least 20 points per cycle for minimal housing, not dying of the naturally dense spirit energy in this realm. Food, another 15 to sustain oneself. Medicine? Forget it. Clothes? How laughable. The math didn't work. It was never meant to.
None of that concerned Huang Ke of course. He wasn't scared of spirit energy poisoning, so he didn't need a house. His physique prevented him from over exhaustion so he just needed to eat minimally so he didn't get turned into puppets by the overseer because of his fatigue.
He crumpled the slip and shoved it in his pocket. Then, with weary legs and sunken eyes, he walked toward the only direction that mattered.
Outside.
And there…at last… he saw it again.
Light.
Not the cold, pulsing glow of spirit stones, nor the sickly gleam of formation runes. But light. Real light.
Though "real" was not really the right word here.
The sky of the secret realm unfolded above him, vast and uncanny. There was no sun. No stars. No moon to mark the passage of time. Just an endless canvas of roiling colors: turquoise and violet, crimson and green, shimmering like oil on water. It was beautiful, yes, breathtaking in a way, like a celestial painting constantly in motion.
It had no source. No warmth. And looking at it for too long made his stomach twist.
Huang Ke swallowed hard and looked down. He always did. That sky, that kaleidoscope of endlessly shifting colors, did something to his soul, like it was watching him back.
Other workers were already moving toward the town where all of them live.
But Huang Ke stood there, just for a moment longer.
Remembering that somewhere, long ago, there had been a sky with clouds. With wind. With stars you could count on.
He closed his eyes and tried to summon it. Rain. Concrete. The rustle of city trees. The hum of cars below the bridge.
But all he felt was stone underfoot and dust in his lungs.
He opened his eyes again.
The sky of the realm above him shimmered.
Huang Ke walked slowly toward the town where all the workers lived, though calling it such was generous.
The outer rings were made of solid stone and clean wood. Those were the homes for retainers and outer clan members of the Qin family. But past the fourth street, roofs sagged, walls wept mold, and the air grew thick.
That was the slum, where workers were permitted to live if they could afford shelter. Most hovels came with basic protection arrays, just enough to repel the worst of the spirit poisoning that seeped from the soil and air. But Huang Ke, of course, was homeless.
Why waste points on a roof when your body was already ruined?
He didn't fear the spiritual energy poisoning the way others did. His cursed physique absorbed it slow enough to suffer without dying. So, instead of walls and a bed, he had dug a small ditch for himself in the forest outside town. Shallow. Hidden. A hollow in the dirt just big enough for one man to curl into. It looked like a grave and it might as well have been one.
But he didn't go there yet.
Instead, he walked into the market. It sat at the town's heart, polished stone underfoot, stalls arranged in perfect rows. The order was rigid. The goods overpriced. And everything was controlled by the Qin family. Even here, a dozen guards stood at every corner, making sure no worker even thought about stepping out of line. Theft meant lashes. Rebellion meant soul refinement.
Still, the food was real. Cooked. Salted. Preserved in jars lined with talismans. Huang Ke gripped his measly 50 points and wandered between the stalls.
As he passed a weapons vendor and a booth selling crude talismans, his eyes caught on something he hadn't looked at in years.
A manual shop. Not a real one, but a poor imitation of a sect's scripture pavilion. Thin booklets hung from a wooden rack: basic sword arts, flawed qi circulation diagrams, and guides on foundation-building.
His steps slowed.
Ten years ago, he had stood before a stand just like this one, eyes burning with foolish hope. He had begged for a manual, traded nearly two weeks of food just for a copy of "Five elements cultivation."
What a joke.
He didn't just have a trash physique, the Spirit Absorption Body he didn't even have a spirit root.
No root, no cultivation. He could absorb Qi with his physique. But controlling it was a different story.
It was impossible.
Not even a slight bit.
He moved on.
Then came the commotion.
Another crowd gathered near the gates of the market. A new worker, dragged in chains, head down. The guards kept shouting at the onlookers to disperse. But Huang Ke's eyes locked on the boy.
Short hair. Thin limbs. Clean face.
Too clean.
The clothes, they weren't local robes or servant garb. They were the kind of T-shirt and jeans you'd buy at a mall back on Earth. Modern. Fresh. As if time had slipped and brought the wrong person to the wrong story.
Huang Ke stared.
That boy… looked exactly like he had, ten years ago. Hopeful. Confused. Still believing that the vast cultivation world was a place of wonder and dreams.
Poor bastard.
He'd learn soon enough. There were no beasts in this secret realm. No sects to join. No immortals to impress. Just mines. Contracts. A slow death in a world built on lies.
And the Qin family watching over it all, feeding on the corpses of dreams.
But that wasn't Huang Ke's problem. Because he was about to be free of this place.
Because of him not spending points on anything other than food, he had accumulated a staggering 99,500 points. Just a few more months before he would be free.
Or so he hoped.