After climbing the mountain, Hokuto quickly learned the content of his trial from the robed master.
"Hokuto, cultivation is a path that requires hardship and persistence. Mining is the best way to temper both. As long as you endure and pass the Gatekeeper's test, I will personally return to bring you into the sect."
Leaving these words—and a very motivated Hokuto behind—the black-robed master turned and descended the mountain.
'Master, I swear, I will work myself to the bone to repay this favor of recognition!'
With this silent vow burning in his chest, Hokuto followed one of the Gatekeepers into the mine.
But his fiery determination fizzled out completely by the very next day—for a very simple reason: mining was exhausting beyond belief!
Before crossing into this world, Hokuto had only been a regular middle-school student. He had barely attended any gym classes, and his physical fitness was laughable at best. After transmigrating, his body wasn't much stronger—thin, malnourished, and frail to the point of looking like little more than skin and bones.
Without any training, early the next morning he was brought by two Gatekeepers to a shaft. After being briefly introduced to a few silent fellow miners, they handed him a basket and a pickaxe and told him to "work hard."
In Hokuto's imagination, mining should've been like in a computer game: swing the pickaxe against a chunk of ore a few times—clang, clang, clang—and you're done.
Reality hit much harder. The stench, the suffocating heat, the darkness, the narrow tunnels—he was stunned the moment he stepped in. A boy who had just been in middle school days ago had never seen anything like this!
The Gatekeepers had no intention of giving him time to prepare mentally. They shoved him straight into a low, wooden-braced crawlspace.
Because the tunnel heights varied, sometimes he walked bent over, sometimes he had to squat, and sometimes he was forced to crawl like a beetle on his back. By the time they reached the digging site, his stamina was nearly gone.
And there was no rest. The Gatekeepers immediately ordered him to start digging.
From the outside, watching workers swing pickaxes never looked that hard. Hokuto used to think, How tiring can it really be?
He learned fast. After only a dozen swings, his chest burned like fire and his arms felt weighted with lead, too heavy to lift.
"Hah… hah…"
Breathing hard, Hokuto leaned on his pickaxe, desperate for a bit of fresh air. But in the shaft, all he inhaled was a choking stench like coal gas that made his head spin.
"Who said you could rest? Do you still want to pass your trial?"
Just as Hokuto was about to collapse, one of the Gatekeepers shoved him roughly.
At the word trial, Hokuto gritted his teeth and tried to force himself to keep going. But his arms refused to lift.
'Damn it! I'm so useless. Forgive me, Master—I've already let you down.'
Cursing himself in his heart, Hokuto shook his head and said weakly, "I… I really can't dig anymore."
"You've barely swung a few times and you're already done? And you think you're fit to enter the sect?"
"It's… it's my failure. I'll beg the master's forgiveness. I've disappointed him. I'm sorry."
With a long sigh, Hokuto lamented. In all the novels he'd read back in his old world, protagonists always had unbreakable determination when it came to cultivation. Why was he so weak? And why wasn't this damn system helping at all?
Just as Hokuto accepted the idea of failure, pain exploded in his abdomen.
"Pathetic trash!" one Gatekeeper snarled, kicking him again. "The last few who came here worked themselves half to death for months just for the chance to join the sect. And you? You crumble on the first day?"
Hokuto reeled, dizzy, the world spinning around him, dread clawing at his heart. Before he could even process it, the man grabbed him by the hair and bellowed:
"Listen well, you worthless worm! Did you really think you'd join a sect and stand above others just because of 'talent'? Let me tell you— you're nothing but trash. Now dig, or I'll kill you where you stand. Do you understand!?"
Shaken, Hokuto shook his head frantically. "I want to see my master! I want to see him now!"
"Your master?" The Gatekeeper burst into wild laughter. "And who might that be?"
"My master is… he's…"
Hokuto froze. After two days, the black-robed Daoist had never even told him his name, and he had never thought to ask.
"M-my master is a priest of the Blazing Fire Sect! He brought me here yesterday. I want to see him!"
The Gatekeeper laughed even harder. With another brutal kick to Hokuto's stomach, he jeered, "Blazing Fire Sect? Keep dreaming! You've got two choices: get up and keep digging, or stay down and be kicked to death. You have three seconds."
No sooner had his words fallen than three glowing options appeared before Hokuto's eyes.
Option One: Stay down. Reward: Azure Lotus Codex (Earth-grade, Low)
Option Two: Beg to be allowed down the mountain. Reward: Groundfire Art (Mystic-grade, High)
Option Three: Get up and continue digging. Reward: +1 to a random basic attribute
"Two!"
As Hokuto scanned the options, another kick landed on his gut.
In that moment, realization struck him—the content of the option doesn't matter. The reward does. The better the reward, the greater the risk.
From that last kick alone, Hokuto believed without a doubt the man would kill him if he stayed down.
So, just before "Three" left the man's lips, Hokuto chose the third option—and, fueled by sheer will to survive, staggered to his feet.
"Good. So you do have some strength after all. If you don't want to die, then dig! You hear me!?"
Though trembling all over, Hokuto raised the pickaxe with everything he had and brought it down hard.
[Option task completed. Reward: Constitution +1]
Staring at the system prompt floating before him, and feeling a faint stream of strength flow into his body, Hokuto was stunned.
'It completed immediately?'
When he had chosen Beg the master to take me as a disciple before, the system hadn't rewarded him instantly—it had given him a task. But now, simply following the choice exactly as written granted an immediate reward.
The difference in difficulty was staggering.
"What are you staring at, fool!?"
The Gatekeeper—no, the Overseer—roared. Snapping out of his daze, Hokuto hurriedly raised the pickaxe and resumed swinging.
(End of Chapter)