The rain washed Tiancheng City clean.
At least, that was what people liked to believe.
In reality, it merely pushed the dirt into corners, hid the stench beneath reflective streets and neon reflections, and gave those without shelter another reason to bow their heads and hurry forward. Lin Yuan walked through it slowly, unhurried, his footsteps steady despite the soaked pavement.
Each step felt… different.
Not heavier. Not lighter.
Denser.
His shoes were still cheap, his clothes still clung uncomfortably to his skin, and his bank account was still sitting at a balance so low it felt almost insulting. On the surface, nothing had changed.
But inside him—
Inside him, the world had shifted.
Lin Yuan exhaled softly.
The breath did not fog in the cold air the way it should have. Instead, it sank inward, spreading warmth through his chest, flowing along invisible pathways he had never known existed until moments ago.
Qi, he thought.
The word came naturally, without effort, as if he had always known it.
Not the exaggerated, mystical qi of television dramas, but something subtler—an omnipresent energy woven into the air, the rain, the city itself. It was thin here, diluted by concrete and steel, but it existed.
And more importantly—
He could absorb it.
Lin Yuan stopped beneath the awning of a closed convenience store. The street was mostly empty at this hour, cars hissing past in the distance, their headlights slicing through rain and darkness.
He closed his eyes.
Immediately, the system interface unfolded before him.
[Hundredfold Return System]Status: Active
Host: Lin YuanAge: 22
Body State:• Physical Constitution: Refined (Initial)• Mental Fortitude: Exceptional (Initial)• Cultivation Aptitude: Transcendent Seed
Cultivation Realm:• Mortal Body — Unawakened (Foundation Established)
Lin Yuan's eyelids fluttered.
Mortal Body. Unawakened.
So there were realms. Stages. Structure.
That made sense.
Cultivation was never chaotic—it was hierarchical, layered, governed by rules just like everything else.
His gaze dropped to the last line.
Foundation Established.
That single phrase carried weight.
In countless novels he had read, the foundation was everything. A weak foundation limited future growth, no matter how much effort one poured in later. A perfect foundation, however—
—allows infinite ascent.
Lin Yuan's fingers curled slightly.
This was only the beginning, but already, the system had refined his base by a factor of one hundred.
Not strength.
Not techniques.
But potential.
A slow smile tugged at the corner of his lips before he suppressed it.
"This isn't the time to get complacent," he murmured.
The humiliation at Tiancheng Plaza was still fresh. Zhao Feng's face, Su Mei's cold eyes, the laughter of the crowd—they lingered like afterimages burned into his memory.
But unlike before, those memories did not weigh him down.
They sharpened him.
The system interface flickered again.
[Action Available: Cultivation Attempt Detected.][Choose Return Type.]
Lin Yuan's heart rate increased slightly.
So even attempting cultivation counted as an action.
That meant—
He took a moment to think.
Quantity would multiply time. If he cultivated for one minute, it would return as one hundred minutes of progress. Useful. Extremely useful, especially in a low-qi environment like the city.
Quality, however…
Quality would refine the act itself. One breath could be worth a hundred times its inherent value.
In the long term, quality shaped the path. Quantity accelerated it.
For now, Lin Yuan decided, I need refinement.
He had no teacher. No manual. No guidance.
If he rushed with quantity, he risked solidifying flaws—even if the system protected him from failure, understanding still mattered.
"Quality," he chose again.
[Choice Confirmed: Quality ×100.][Initiating Cultivation Return.]
Lin Yuan adjusted his posture instinctively.
His spine straightened. His shoulders relaxed. His breathing slowed into a steady rhythm—deep inhalation through the nose, slow exhalation through the mouth.
He had never practiced meditation before.
Yet now, his body knew what to do.
Each breath drew in a thread of qi so fine it was nearly imperceptible, but under the system's refinement, that thread was compressed, purified, and woven directly into his flesh.
His skin tingled.
Muscles warmed.
Something unseen but fundamental shifted within him.
[Cultivation Breathing ×1 → Efficiency ×100.][Qi Absorption: Refined.][Body Integration: Perfect.]
Time passed.
Five minutes.
Ten.
The rain continued to fall, but Lin Yuan stood unmoving beneath the awning, eyes closed, breath even.
Inside his body, qi gathered—not as a raging torrent, but as a calm, luminous presence, circulating through newly opened meridians with effortless precision.
Then—
A faint crack echoed within him.
Not audible, but unmistakable.
[Breakthrough Detected.][Mortal Body → Initial Awakening.]
Lin Yuan's eyes snapped open.
The world surged back into focus with startling clarity.
Colors deepened. Sounds sharpened. The distant hum of traffic separated into individual engines. He could hear water dripping from the edge of the awning, count each drop by sound alone.
He clenched his fist.
Power responded.
Not overwhelming.
Not explosive.
But real.
His grip tightened far more easily than before, muscles responding with crisp obedience. When he relaxed, there was no strain, no soreness.
He checked the interface again.
[Cultivation Realm:]• Mortal Body — Initial Awakening
Qi Reserves: StableFoundation: Perfect (Refined ×100)
Perfect.
Lin Yuan exhaled slowly.
In less than half an hour, he had stepped onto the path of cultivation—something that countless people sought for lifetimes without success.
And this was only the effect of quality ×100 on the most basic action.
A memory surfaced unbidden.
Zhao Feng's words.
"Know your place."
Lin Yuan's eyes darkened.
"My place," he said softly, "is wherever I decide it is."
Lin Yuan's apartment was on the fifth floor of an old residential building tucked between two newer complexes. No elevator. Flickering stairwell lights. Walls stained with years of neglect.
It was the kind of place people like Zhao Feng wouldn't even notice existed.
Lin Yuan unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The room was small but clean. A single bed, a narrow desk cluttered with textbooks and handwritten notes, a battered laptop, and a kettle resting on a hot plate.
He closed the door behind him and leaned against it for a moment.
Silence.
For the first time that night, he allowed himself to fully process what had happened.
A system.
Hundredfold returns.
Cultivation.
If this were a dream, it was a detailed one.
To confirm reality, Lin Yuan walked to the desk and picked up a thick textbook—thermodynamics, one of the heavier volumes.
Before, lifting it one-handed would have been awkward.
Now—
He raised it effortlessly.
No strain.
No wobble.
He set it down carefully.
"Confirmed," he said quietly.
The system interface responded immediately.
[Action Detected: Physical Exertion.][Choose Return Type.]
Lin Yuan paused.
Even something as mundane as lifting a book counted.
That meant everything counted.
Effort.
Time.
Thought.
I need to be careful, he realized.
Careless actions could snowball into unexpected outcomes. The system never contradicted itself—but that also meant it never corrected poor decisions.
He dismissed the prompt without selecting a return.
The interface faded, waiting.
Lin Yuan sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his face.
His mind was clear—unusually so.
Thoughts arranged themselves neatly, without the usual background noise of anxiety and self-doubt. Problems appeared solvable, not overwhelming.
That, too, was part of the earlier conversion.
Mental Fortitude ×100.
He opened his laptop.
It booted slowly, as always.
On the screen, his inbox still showed unread messages from Su Mei—sent earlier in the day, before everything collapsed.
"Can we talk tonight?""I'm at Tiancheng Plaza."
Lin Yuan stared at the messages for a long moment.
Then he deleted the entire conversation.
No anger.
No lingering attachment.
Just… finality.
He stood, walked to the sink, and washed his hands. The water ran clear, tinged faintly pink at first from the dried blood on his palms.
When he looked up into the cracked mirror above the sink, he paused.
The face staring back at him was still his.
Same features. Same dark eyes. Same slightly sharp jawline.
But the eyes—
They were different.
Calmer.
Deeper.
As if something vast sat quietly behind them, observing.
Lin Yuan turned away.
Rest is unnecessary, he thought suddenly.
The realization surprised him.
He didn't feel tired.
Not physically. Not mentally.
The system interface flickered again.
[Condition Detected: Reduced Sleep Dependency.][Result: Side Effect of Refined Foundation.]
So even that had changed.
Lin Yuan returned to his desk and sat down.
If he wasn't sleeping, then he would plan.
He needed information.
About cultivation.
About this hidden world beneath modern society.
About people like Zhao Feng.
And most importantly—
About how to use the system optimally.
By dawn, Lin Yuan had confirmed one thing beyond doubt:
The world was not what it seemed.
He hadn't found open references to cultivation, of course. That would have been too obvious. But scattered across obscure forums, academic anomalies, and half-buried news articles were hints.
Reports of "unexplained strength" displayed by certain individuals.
Videos quickly taken down.
Martial arts competitions where winners moved… too fast.
Private security firms hiring "special consultants" with backgrounds that didn't add up.
And names.
Old families.
Hidden organizations.
The Zhao family appeared more than once.
Not explicitly tied to anything supernatural—but frequently adjacent to strange incidents, land purchases near "accident sites," and sudden disappearances of whistleblowers.
Lin Yuan leaned back in his chair.
"So you're standing at the edge of this world," he murmured. "And you think that makes you superior."
His fingers tapped lightly on the desk.
Soon, he thought, you'll realize how small you are.
The system interface shimmered faintly, as if responding to his resolve.
[Intent Detected: Advancement.][System Ready.]
Lin Yuan smiled.
Outside, the rain had stopped.
The city woke up, unaware that something had shifted during the night—something that would, in time, overturn its entire hierarchy.
Lin Yuan closed his laptop and stood.
This was only Day One.
And already, the path ahead was clear.
But as he turned toward the window, a sudden, unfamiliar sensation brushed against his perception.
A flicker.
A disturbance.
Like a gaze—brief, probing, and gone in an instant.
Lin Yuan's smile faded.
"Interesting," he said softly.
Somewhere in Tiancheng City, someone—or something—had noticed the ripple he'd caused.
And that meant one thing.
The real game was about to begin.