Chapter 1: The Gamer's Load Screen
System Alert: FINAL BOSS — "Heavenly Dao Incarnation" — TERMINATED.
100% Completion Verified.
All Steam Achievements Unlocked.
Initiating New Game+...
Leo's fingers uncurled from his mechanical keyboard. The afterglow of the victory screen—minimalist white text on black—was the only light in his shrine of empty energy drinks and pixelated glory.
Path of the Heavenly Dao. The hardest cultivation sim ever coded. A masterpiece of brutal, beautiful suffering where one misclick in your cultivation path could corrupt your save. He'd conquered it. No guides. No cheats. Just seventy-two hours of pure, crystalline strategy.
A new line of text scrawled across the monitor.
Loading New World Instance... 1%
A dry smirk touched his lips. "Secret ending? DLC teaser? Don't disappoint me."
10%... 50%... 99%...
The light didn't glow. It violated. It wasn't light anymore but a torrent of raw, screaming data—cultivation mantras, star charts, the scent of a thousand spirit herbs, the shriek of sword intent, the whispers of fallen gods. It flooded his optic nerves, his brainstem, rewriting his consciousness on a fundamental level.
His last human thought was pure, undiluted gamer instinct: Oh. This is a full-dive. Hardcore mode. No respawn.
—CRITICAL ERROR—
SOUL SIGNATURE: [LEO_OF_TERMINAL_REALITY] NOT FOUND IN LOCAL REGISTRY.
SCANNING... DETECTING [LEGACY SYSTEM FRAGMENT]. ORIGIN: PRIMORDIAL SOURCE. INTEGRITY: 8.7%.
FORCING COMPATIBILITY... REINCARNATION PROTOCOL ENGAGED.
WELCOME TO THE SANDBOX, PLAYER.
---
Awareness returned like a corrupted .exe finally booting.
First was PAIN. A deep, systemic ache. His body felt like a Level 1 character who'd tried to tank a raid boss—every bone a warning sign, every meridian a screaming red line on a diagnostic chart.
Second was SOUND. Muffled, scripted NPC dialogue.
"…fever's still spiking. The Shadow Python's venom has reached his heart meridian. Even the Sect Master's Qi is just a delay."
"A waste of good Spirit Stones. The Sect Master picked up a dying beggar off the mountain path. Sentimentality won't change the fact the boy has the spiritual roots of a gutter pebble."
"Shut up! He might hear you!"
Party chat. Ambient lore. The analysis was instinctive, cutting through the pain-haze. He forced his eyelids open.
The world rendered in low-poly at first: worn wooden beams, rough plaster walls, the simple blue fabric of a blanket. Two robed figures stood by the door, backs turned. The air itself had a texture, a faint, staticky hum he could feel in his teeth.
Ambient Qi density… estimated Tier-0 (Barren).
Another automatic diagnostic. A flicker in the lower-left of his vision solidified.
< SYSTEM REBOOT COMPLETE. INTEGRITY: 8.7%. >
< HOST VITALS: CRITICAL. >
< STATUS AFFLICTIONS: [Shadow Python Venom - Stage 3], [Meridian Blockage - Severe], [Constitution: Crippled]. >
< INITIATING TUTORIAL PROTOCOL... >
A fierce, electric joy surged, overpowering the poison's chill. A UI. He was in the goddamn game. And he had his cheat sheet.
"He's awake!" The robed figure—a young woman with her hair in simple buns—turned. Her eyes widened. A transparent box materialized above her head:
[Maid, Li Hua]
Level: 2 (Qi Condensation - Early)
Disposition: Concerned / Anxious
Status: Fatigued
She rushed over. "Young Master Lin! Please, don't move! Your qi is in chaos!"
Young Master Lin? A sludge of foreign memories—fragmented, low-resolution—dumped into his mind. Lin Feng. Sixteen. Orphan. Beggar. Collapsed at the grand gates of the Azure Cloud Sect. The Sect Master, Yun Zhongtian, had sensed… not talent, but a terrifying, stubborn will to live in the boy's dying eyes. A charitable adoption. A political embarrassment.
Then, the memory of fang and venom. A "test" to gather Spirit Moss. A juvenile Shadow Python. A futile scramble. Agony. Darkness.
Until he loaded in.
Starting zone: Azure Cloud Sect. Character status: Garbage-tier. Social standing: Hostile. Difficulty: Nightmare. A cold, analytical calm settled over him. This was just a new game with a terrible starting roll.
Perfect.
"Water," he rasped, the voice unfamiliar. The maid helped him sip. The act sent a fresh torrent of corrosive agony through his channels.
< ! NEW URGENT QUEST GENERATED ! >
< TUTORIAL: SURVIVE THE NIGHT. >
< OBJECTIVE: Purge [Shadow Python Venom] before systemic failure. >
< TIMER: 01:47:33 >
< REWARDS: 100 EXP, 50 System Points (SP), UNLOCK: [System Shop - Basic Browse]. >
< FAILURE: PERMANENT CHARACTER DELETION. >
A neon-red countdown burned in his periphery. Hardcore. One life. The thrill was a drug.
He focused. Shadow Python Venom. Yin-aligned, corrosive. Standard counters: Pure Yang Qi (unavailable), Sun-Infused Herbs (unavailable), Three-Circle Purification Technique (unlearned).
But the game had hidden mechanics. Alchemy wasn't just recipes; it was chemistry based on elemental affinities. The moss… he sifted through Lin Feng's memory. It grew near a hot spring seep. Trace Fire Affinity.
"The moss," Lin Feng croaked, grabbing the maid's wrist. "From my pouch. Bring it. A mortar. And the dregs from the Sect Master's last spirit tea session."
"Young Master, that's just common-grade moss, it can't—"
"Now." The command held a gamer's absolute certainty.
The other figure by the door, a sneering youth, snorted. His tag flashed:
[Outer Disciple, Zhang Hu]
Level: 4 (Qi Condensation - Mid)
Disposition: Contemptuous / Hostile
Status: Minor Qi Fluctuation (Recent Breakthrough)
"Playing alchemist while your corpse is still warm? Pathetic. Just die quietly and spare the sect the shame, Young Master." The title was venom.
Lin Feng's eyes didn't even flicker towards him. This was a puzzle. His mind—the mind that had broken the unbreakable game—raced. Fire-Affinity Moss to agitate and gather the Yin poison. Minuscule traces of high-grade Wood Qi from the tea dregs to stimulate the body's own purge reflex. Not to cure. To redirect. To create a debuff stack, then force a cleanse.
The maid returned with the items. With trembling, bleeding-meridian hands, Lin Feng crushed the moss and tea leaves into a coarse, ugly paste.
< CRAFTING ALERT >
< ITEM CREATED: [Crude Agitation Paste - Fire/Wood]. >
< QUALITY: Abysmal. >
< PREDICTED EFFECT: High volatility. 40% chance of accelerating venom spread. >
40% failure chance. Those were rookie numbers. He could work with that.
He dipped a finger and drew on his own chest, over the meridian pathways from the fang wounds to his heart. Not a healing array. It was a bastardized version of a low-level Taunt Rune from the game—designed to draw monster aggro. Here, he was taunting the poison.
He smeared the rest over the wounds.
Immediate, catastrophic reaction. A burning, icy wildfire erupted in his veins. The dormant venom shrieked to life, converging on the crude Fire-Wood energy.
< WARNING! VENOM PROGRESSION ACCELERATING! 88%... 92%... >
Zhang Hu barked a laugh. "Idiot! You've killed yourself!"
Agony was a white noise. Lin Feng's vision was pure interface. The venom was no longer a diffuse cloud. On his internal map—a new, faint function flickering to life—it was a concentrated red blob, pooled at the wound site and over his heart. Exactly as programmed.
Phase one: complete. The poison was aggroed.
Phase two: the cleanse. He had no Qi to purge. So he'd use game physics.
He remembered the "Qi Surge Point" from the game's anatomy models—a hidden strike point that could force a temporary, violent circulation spike, with massive recoil damage. A desperation move for warriors.
He took the empty clay cup, inhaled a shredded breath, and with every ounce of strength in his broken body, slammed the base into the precise point just below his sternum.
A sound like a wet branch snapping echoed in the room.
His body convulsed. A volcanic torrent of black, foul blood erupted from his mouth and the reopened wounds, spraying across the bed, the maid's robes, the floor.
< CRITICAL ACTION DETECTED: FORCED PURGE. >
< HOST HP: -15. >
< VENOM CONCENTRATION DETECTED IN EJECTA... PURGING. >
The crushing, icy void in his chest shattered.
The pain dropped from a 10 to a manageable, throbbing 3. He collapsed backwards, drenched in sweat and venomous blood, gasping lungfuls of clean, Qi-thin air.
< CONDITION UPDATE. >
< [Shadow Python Venom] PURGED. >
< [Meridian Blockage] REDUCED TO 'MODERATE'. >
< HOST STABILIZED. >
< DING! >
< URGENT QUEST: SURVIVE THE NIGHT — COMPLETED! >
< REWARDS CLAIMED: 100 EXP, 50 SP. >
< SYSTEM SHOP: [BASIC BROWSER] FUNCTION UNLOCKED. >
< LEVEL UP! >
< Host: Lin Feng. Level 1 -> Level 2. >
< ATTRIBUTE INCREASE: Constitution +1, Strength +1. >
< HP RESTORED: +20. >
A warm, feeble current of energy patched the worst of the internal damage. He was still a broken character, but the "Game Over" screen had faded.
Silence, thick and stunned, choked the room.
The maid, Li Hua, stared, her hand plastered over her mouth, her [Disposition] flickering to [Shocked/Awed].
Zhang Hu's sneer was frozen, crumbling into confusion, then dawning, ugly disbelief.
Lin Feng ignored them. With a thought, he navigated his blinking interface. He found it: a new icon, a simple wooden stall emblem. SHOP.
He selected it. A minimalist grid appeared. Most slots were blurred, tagged [LOCKED: INSUFFICIENT SYSTEM AUTHORITY]. But a few were visible, glowing with a soft, enticing light.
[Low-Grade Qi Gathering Pill] - 10 SP
[Manual: 'Fading Willow' Movement Art (Mortal Tier)] - 30 SP
[Bloodline Awakening Catalyst (Random, Low-Tier)] - 100 SP
His eyes locked on the last item. Bloodline Awakening Catalyst.
Random. Low-Tier. But it was a bloodline. The foundational cheat this world ran on. He had 50 SP. Halfway there.
A slow, bloody smile stretched across Lin Feng's face. It wasn't a smile of relief. It was the smile of a player who had just beaten the first mini-boss, glimpsed the end-game loot table, and knew, with absolute certainty, that he would break the entire game wide open.
He met Zhang Hu's stunned gaze. His voice, though weak, was clear and cold as server ice.
"You're in my light," he said, the gamer's patience for trash mobs already worn thin. "Move."
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End of Chapter 1.
Thank You For Reading