A pillar of violet-white radiance slammed into the peak. The sound wasn't a bang; it was a physical weight that flattened the trees for a hundred yards. The fire wolf was swallowed instantly, turned to steam and scattered atoms. The guards were thrown like ragdolls, their armor sparking and smoking.
When the light faded, the peak was silent, save for the sizzle of scorched earth.
Jin stood in the center of it all, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Smoke rose from his fingertips. His silk robes were mostly gone, leaving him in tatters, but his eyes... his eyes were no longer the dull brown of a disgraced noble. They were glowing with a faint, restless amethyst light.
[Task Complete: Survive the Purification Party.]
[Rewards Granted: Basic Lightning Condensation (Manual), +10 Stat Points, System Shop Unlocked.]
[Body Status: Critical. Emergency Shutdown Imminent.]
"Wait, not yet," Jin groaned, looking at Kael, who was twitching on the ground, alive but ruined. "I need to... I need to find a place to..."
"Rest, Weaver," Tai-Zhu's voice was softer now, almost respectful. "You survived the strike and the snakes. The world will know soon enough—the Lightning God hasn't returned as a myth. He's returned as a man who understands the wires."
Jin's knees buckled. As he collapsed onto the wet, scorched stone, his last thought wasn't about the magic or the gods. It was a purely human one.
'I really hope this world has coffee. I'm going to have a hell of a headache when I wake up'
***
Pain was a familiar companion to Han Jin. He'd had his bell rung by a 220-volt line in his twenties, and he'd fallen off a service pole in his thirties. But this? This was a new category of agony. It felt as if someone had replaced his nervous system with barbed wire and then plugged him into a car battery.
When Jin's eyes finally flickered open, he wasn't on the mountain peak. He was in a damp, cramped space that smelled of wet earth and old moss. The light filtering in was dim and green, suggesting a cave hidden behind heavy vegetation.
"You're awake. Finally," Tai-Zhu's voice vibrated in his skull. "I was beginning to think your soul had the structural integrity of wet parchment."
Jin tried to groan, but his throat was too dry. He forced himself to sit up, his muscles screaming in protest. "Water..."
"To your left. In the hollow of the rock."
Jin crawled toward a small indentation in the cave floor where rainwater had gathered. He lapped at it like an animal, the cool liquid hitting his parched throat like a miracle. After a few minutes, the world stopped spinning enough for him to take stock.
He was alive. Barely.
"Status," Jin croaked, leaning his back against the cold stone.
[System Status: Online]
[Host: Ling Jin]
[Body Integrity: 9% (Critical)]
[Spirit Veins: Severed/Necrotic]
[Mana Pressure: 0.00 PSI]
"Severed and necrotic," Jin muttered, looking at his pale, trembling arms. "In any other world, that's a death sentence. Or at least a permanent disability."
"In this world, it is worse," Tai-Zhu added, his phantom form appearing as a small, crackling sparrow on Jin's knee. "Without Spirit Veins, you cannot circulate the world's energy. You are a 'Dead Circuit.' The Valerius Clan didn't just exile you; they ensured you could never rise. They used a Cursed Pulse to shatter your internal pathways."
Jin looked at his palms. He saw the faint, jagged scars running up his wrists—marks of the "purification" ceremony the original Jin had endured.
"A dead circuit, huh?" Jin leaned his head back, closing his eyes. He didn't see magic. He saw a complex wiring diagram of the human body. He saw the 'Spirit Veins' not as mystical tubes, but as biological superconductors. If they were severed, the signal couldn't travel. In engineering, you didn't cry over a broken wire. You bypassed it. Or you soldered it back together.
"Tai-Zhu, you said I have 10 stat points and a shop?"
[System Shop: Initialized]
[Available Credits: 100 (Starter Bonus)]
Jin scrolled through a translucent blue screen that hovered in the air. Most of the items were locked behind high levels—Heaven-Slaying Spears, Thunder-Step Boots, God-Tier Cultivation Manuals. All useless to a man who couldn't even stand without shaking.
Then, he found what he was looking for in the "General Utility" tab.
Item: Liquid Silver Solder (Low Grade) – 50 Credits
Item: Micro-Fine Etching Needle – 30 Credits
Item: Medicinal 'Conductive' Paste – 20 Credits
"What are you doing?" Tai-Zhu asked, his voice dripping with skepticism. "You have the seeds of a God-King's power, and you are buying... metal glue?"
"I'm not a God-King yet," Jin said, his eyes narrowing with a familiar, professional focus. "I'm a technician. And right now, the hardware is broken. I can't run your 'Holy Lightning' software on a fried motherboard."
He spent all 100 credits. In a flash of blue light, a small kit appeared on the cave floor.
"Tai-Zhu, I need you to act as my power source. I don't need a lot of juice—just a steady, low-voltage DC current. Can you do that without blowing my fingers off?"
The bird-god puffed out its chest. "I can control the smallest spark or the largest storm. But what you are suggesting... it is madness. No one 'repairs' Spirit Veins. They must be healed with expensive pills and years of meditation."
"I don't have years," Jin said, picking up the etching needle. "And I don't have pills. I have physics."
Jin stripped off his tattered shirt. He used his "Ohm's Law" passive ability to scan his own chest. In his vision, his body turned into a translucent blue schematic. He saw the main 'Spirit Vein'—the Central Conduit—running from his solar plexus to his brain. It was snapped in three places, the ends charred and darkened.
"Okay," Jin whispered, his hands steady despite the pain. "Let's start the bypass."
The next four hours were a descent into a private hell. Without anesthesia, Jin used the etching needle to carve tiny, shallow channels into his own skin, connecting the broken ends of his Spirit Veins. He applied the conductive paste to the necrotic tissue and used the 'Liquid Silver Solder' to bridge the gaps.
"Now, Tai-Zhu. Give me 0.5 milliamps. Steady."
A tiny arc of electricity jumped from the air into the silver wire Jin had literally embedded in his flesh.
Searing. White-hot. Agony.
Jin's vision went white. He bit down on a piece of wood he'd found, his muffled screams echoing in the cave. He felt the silver heat up, melting into his tissue, creating a synthetic bridge where his biology had failed.
[Warning: Physical Trauma Detected!]
[System Note: Host is... performing self-surgery? Logic error. Proceeding anyway.]
"Keep... it... going..." Jin hissed through gritted teeth.
He moved to the next break. Then the next. He wasn't just fixing the old veins; he was reinforcing them. He was using his knowledge of parallel circuits to ensure that if one pathway was blocked, the energy could reroute through another.
By the time he finished, his chest was a map of glowing silver lines and raw, red skin. He looked like a cyborg designed by a madman in a fantasy world.
[System Notification!]
[Spirit Veins: 45% Restored (Synthetic Bypass Active)]
[New Passive Ability Unlocked: Integrated Circuitry]
[Effect: 20% increased efficiency in mana flow. Resistance to 'Internal Overload.']
Jin slumped back, drenched in sweat, his breath coming in shallow gasps. But for the first time since he'd arrived in this world, the 'heaviness' was gone. He felt a hum—a low-frequency vibration that started at the base of his spine and radiated outward.
"You actually did it," Tai-Zhu whispered, the bird-god's eyes wide with genuine shock. "It's crude. It's ugly. It violates every law of cultivation I have ever known... but the energy is moving."
"It's not magic, Tai-Zhu," Jin said, a weak but triumphant smile playing on his lips. "It's just... good cable management."
Suddenly, the bushes at the mouth of the cave rustled. Jin's hand immediately went to the ground, his fingers tingling with a ready charge.
A young girl, no older than fourteen, stumbled into the cave. She was wearing the rough, homespun clothes of a peasant, and she was carrying a bundle of medicinal herbs. She froze when she saw Jin—the half-naked, silver-scarred stranger with glowing eyes.
"P-please!" she stammered, dropping her herbs. "I'm just a gatherer! I didn't see anything!"
Jin looked at her, then at the herbs. His 'Ohm's Law' vision flickered. He didn't see a girl. He saw a reservoir of untapped, low-level energy—and a set of bruises on her arms that suggested she was running from the same kind of people he was.
"Relax, kid," Jin said, his voice softening. "I'm not a ghost. I'm just... the new guy in town."
[New Quest: The Hidden Village.]
[Objective: Follow the girl to find a place to recover.]
[Reward: Information on the Ling Clan's movements.]
Jin stood up, his legs finally holding his weight. He looked at the girl and held out a hand.
"My name is Jin. And I think we can help each other."