Three days after waking up in the sterile, Qi-less realm of white tiles and noisy machines, Zeng Haofeng was discharged.
Apparently, 'trying to stop a car with your chest' wasn't enough to keep him locked in a hospital forever. The doctors called it as a miracle. The nurse called it madness. He called it 'the required sacrifice'.
A social worker gave him a stipend and pointed him toward low-income housing. He didn't understand half of what she said. But Pixie, the newly awakened voice in his head, translated with the grace of a mocking goddess.
Now, he stood still inside a one-room apartment that smelled faintly of mildew and burnt ramen.
It wasn't much. Minimum standard for normal human in normal society, but not for the immortal. Cracked linoleum floors, one rust-stained sink, and a flickering ceiling light. But it had four walls at least, with a roof, and a working power outlet.
For a fallen immortal, it would be enough. He thinks.
Zeng Haofeng sat cross-legged on the floor of his cramped apartment, surrounded by a battlefield of opened circuit boards, tangled wires, and half-dismantled machines. A steaming bowl of instant noodles sat untouched on the cluttered desk, slowly going cold.
A low hum of electricity crackled in the air. The single lightbulb above flickered in sync with his breathing—no, with something deeper. With the System.
His eyes were half-closed. He wasn't meditating in the traditional sense such as sitting cross-legged, regulating breathing and blood circulation. There was no Qi.
But what he was doing felt uncanny familiar. Feeling the flow of electricity through the walls, following the current, tracing every pulse as if they were meridians.
His newly awakened System pulsed again.
[Urban Cultivation System Online.]
[Skill: Technomancy (Lv.1) Acquired.]
[Trait Unlocked: Adaptive Engineering – Learn by Tinkering.]
A small, spherical drone hovered into view, blinking curiously. Its sleek shell was burnished chrome with two blue LED eyes that glowed like curious fireflies.
Then came the voice.
"Good evening, Master Zeng. Or would you prefer to be called 'Lord of the Ninth Sky'?" the drone chirped in a distinctly feminine, sarcastic tone.
He frowned. "Who… no—What... are you?"
The drone rotated mid-air with a soft mechanical purr. "I'm Pixie, your Urban Cultivation System's virtual assistant. I'm here to help you survive, thrive, and maybe, just maybe, not get hit by another car."
Zeng Haofeng grimaced. "You were watching the whole time?"
"Oh please. You tried to stop a Teslia Cybertruck with your bare hands. Then you screamed at it for 'daring to defy heaven.'" Pixie tilted slightly, like she was shaking her head. "If I didn't patch the emergency medical beacon into the city grid, you'd still be scraping asphalt out of your spine."
"That time… It caught me off guard," Zeng muttered. "But next time I will not—"
"No next time! And hear me…"
Zeng nodded solemnly.
"Welcome to Earth. Things move fast here, especially steel death wagons."
He slowly stood, brushing dust off his shirt. "I need to regain my power. My full power. What must I do?"
[Quest Issued: Reclaim Your Path]
[Goal: Build your first functioning artifact using modern materials.]
[Reward: Skill Upgrade – Technomancy Lv.1 → Lv.2]
[Bonus: Blueprint Extraction (Randomized)]
[Failure: Continued humiliation and poverty.]
Pixie giggled. "See? The System rewards initiative. Just like in the old days, only now it's screwdrivers instead of swords. It basically the same thing."
Haofeng's gaze swept the room. It was a wasteland of old phones, broken radios, scrap from abandoned electronics. He had been gathering trash from back alleys, dumpsters, and junkyards for the past two days.
What others saw as garbage, he saw as a valuable item like body strengthening pill or spiritual fragments.
The energy was strange. Mechanical. Precise. But with the right understanding, the same principles applied. Circuit boards were talismans. Lithium batteries were spirit cores. And soldering irons… they were his new divine tools to regain his full power.
"I'll need more parts," he murmured.
Pixie buzzed in amusement. "Already ahead of you. I've flagged a midnight electronics auction five blocks away. Illegal, of course. But full of tasty hardware. You'll need money, though."
Zeng blinked. "Money?"
Pixie projected a number on the wall: $37.13
"Your total fortune," she said flatly. "Impressive, right?"
He glared toward the number.
"No need for Qi. You've got the true currency of the modern world: hustle."
[Optional Quest: Make Money (Legally or Otherwise)]
[Reward: Partial System Upgrade Slot]
Zeng Haofeng, once hailed as the Immortal Sword Saint, now considered robbing a pawn shop.
But he wouldn't need to. Not yet.
Instead, he grabbed one of the half-broken drones from the pile and fully focused to make it work.
His thoughts wrapped around its structure, not with spiritual sense, but with logic, flowcharts, circuit design, energy regulation.
He didn't know what he was doing. But he understood what he was doing.
That was the gift from the system, effect of the skill [Adaptive Engineering].
He adjusted the wiring, fused parts from two different models, recharged a battered lithium pack with a solar adapter duct-taped to the window, and sealed it with copper tape.
The drone stuttered to life. Wobbly, twitchy and finally… alive.
"Oh it move!" Zeng Haofeng said proudly. "I'm indeed talented."
He smiled like he'd just achieved Core Formation.
[Artifact Created: Improvised Surveillance Drone Mk.I]
[Technomancy +1 XP]
[Skill Evolved! Technomancy Lv.1 → Lv.2]
Pixie whistled. "You just built your first working device. The old Zeng Haofeng would have carved a mountain into a sword. You? You built a flying trash bug."
Zeng Haofeng smiled faintly.
"Power," he whispered, "always starts from nothing."
Pixie blinked.
Maybe this immortal fossil would survive here after all.
Outside, the city buzzed with neon veins and electric breath, a beast of its own. But within this crumbling apartment, something ancient stirred. Willpower forged in heavenly trials.
He wasn't just adapting. He was evolving. One wire at a time, Zeng Haofeng was redefining what it meant to cultivate.