"Ugh…"
A piercing ache, a symphony of throbbing pain in his skull, was the first thing Lin Yun became aware of. It was a deep, pulsing agony that felt like a drumbeat of pure misery against the inside of his skull. He groaned, a low, ragged sound that scraped its way out of a dry and raw throat.
The second thing was the smell. A complex, acrid cocktail of scorched metal, burnt herbs, and something coppery and familiar—blood. It assaulted his nostrils, pulling him further from the comforting darkness of unconsciousness.
He forced his eyes open. The world was a blurry, disorienting mess. Dust motes danced in slivers of light cutting through a hazy atmosphere. His vision swam, refusing to focus. He tried to move, but his body felt heavy, uncooperative, a puppet with its strings tangled.
Slowly, painfully, his sight began to clear. He was lying on a cold, stone floor. Scattered around him were shards of dark, metallic rock. They looked like pieces of a broken pot. His gaze traveled upwards, following the trail of destruction.
A massive cauldron, easily as tall as he was, stood in the center of the room. Or rather, what was left of it. A great, jagged crack ran up its side, from which a thin, sickly-smelling smoke still curled. The once-polished bronze surface was blackened and scarred, a testament to a violent explosion.
The room itself was a disaster zone. Shelves that once stood neat and orderly were now tilted and empty. Strange, desiccated plants, colorful roots, and shimmering powders were strewn across every surface. A fine layer of herbal dust coated everything, mixing with the soot from the explosion.
Lin Yun tried to sit up, a fresh wave of dizziness washing over him. He looked down at himself. His clothes were fine-spun robes of white, now torn and stained with soot and… he touched a dark, damp patch on his chest. His fingers came away sticky and red… Blood.
What… what happened? he thought, his mind sluggish. Where is this place?
Suddenly, the memories came.
It was not a gentle trickle. It was a flash flood, a torrent of images, sounds, and emotions that were not his own, crashing into his mind all at once.
A young man, also named Lin Yun, 16 years old, his face pale with concentration. He was in this very room, feverishly adding herbs to the cauldron, his hands trembling with nervous energy.
He was trying to concoct something, a basic Qi Gathering Pill, for a crucial academy assessment.
Desperation. Fear of failure. A miscalculation. The energy within the cauldron swirling out of control, growing unstable, violent. A blinding flash of light. An earsplitting roar. Then, nothing.
Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through Lin Yun's confusion. These were not his memories.
He was Lin Yun, 35 years old, a software programmer from Earth. His last memory was of his own cramped apartment, the blue glow of his monitors, the endless lines of code.
He had finished a brutal crunch period, pushed his body to its limit for days on end. He remembered a crushing fatigue, the feel of his pillow as he finally, gratefully, collapsed into sleep.
He had gone to sleep. And he had woken up here. In this shattered body. In this destroyed room.
It seemed that he had crossed over…
"What the hell?" Lin Yun exclaimed in shock.
Transmigration. Isekai. It was a trope he'd read about in countless webnovels to pass the time during his commutes. It was a fantasy, a story. It wasn't supposed to be real. Yet, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth, the throbbing pain in his head, the foreign memories itching at the back of his skull—they were all terrifyingly, undeniably real.
He was now Lin Yun, a 16-year-old student of the Profound Sky Academy, the most prestigious institution for Dao cultivation on the entire Profound Sky Continent. And from the looks of it, the previous owner of this body had just died in a catastrophic alchemy failure.
"How miserable I am," he croaked out, his voice unfamiliar in its youthfulness. "I finally get a vacation from my shitty job and now I wake up in a shittier situation."
As if in response to his despair, a sound echoed within the confines of his mind. It was not a sound heard with ears, but one perceived directly by his consciousness. A soft, melodic chime, clean and digital, utterly alien to this world.
[Ding!]
[System energy detected. Host soul signature confirmed.]
[Binding complete. Welcome to the Alchemy God System.]
Lin Yun froze, his breath catching in his throat. A system? The common starter pack for a transmigrator?
Swish!
A golden, semi-transparent screen materialized before his eyes, hovering in the air. The interface was sleek, modern, completely at odds with the ancient, devastated room around him.
His heart began to pound, a frantic rhythm of hope and disbelief. This changed everything! With this, maybe he could survive in this brutal, cultivation world!
He focused on the screen. There was a simple avatar icon, a progress bar for 'Cultivation Base', another for 'Alchemy Proficiency', and buttons for 'Inventory', 'Skills', 'Market', 'Shop', and 'Missions'. The design, the fonts, the layout… it was all eerily familiar.
A cold shock of recognition, deeper and more profound than the one before, ran through him.
"No way," he whispered, his eyes wide. "It can't be."
This wasn't just any system. This was the exact interface, pixel for pixel, of the mobile game he had been obsessed with for a decade called Alchemy to Immortality.
It was his favorite pastime, his escape from the drudgery of his programming life. The gameplay was simple yet addictive.
You played as a cultivator whose primary path to power was through alchemy. You gathered ingredients, followed recipes to concoct pills, gained experience, and leveled up.
You could sell your successful pills or rare recipes on a central market to other players for in-game gold, which you could then use to buy better ingredients or recipes you lacked. There were achievements, milestone rewards, and global leaderboards.
Lin Yun had started playing on day one, ten years ago. Through diligent daily grinding, careful market speculation, and a deep understanding of the game's mechanics, he had climbed the ranks.
His character had reached the absolute pinnacle of power, the fabled God King realm. He was one of the top ten players in the entire world, holding the coveted rank 3 spot on the server-wide leaderboard.
And now, that game was in his head.
He quickly navigated the menus. His heart sank a little.
[User: Lin Yun]
[Level: 1]
[Exp: 0/1000]
His inventory was empty with a 'Starter Pack' waiting to be opened.
The market section was greyed out, with a tooltip stating 'Unlocked At Level 3'. It was clearly a fresh account. All his godly gear, his mountains of spiritual stones, his vast library of divine recipes—all gone. He was back to square one.
A bitter laugh escaped him. "I grinded for ten years… and I have to start over? This is the ultimate delete your save file nightmare."