Change did not arrive with thunder.
It came with a decision made quietly, before dawn, while the village still slept.
Luke stood in his yard, breath fogging lightly in the morning air. His body felt strong—but uneven. Farming, carrying loads, climbing slopes had hardened him, yet there was inefficiency in the movement. Waste. Strain where none was needed.
And when he looked at the village—at the sagging beams, the crooked pillars, the temples held together by faith and habit—he saw another kind of weakness.
Not broken.
Just… neglected.
The System responded when he opened himself to it.
No fanfare.
Just a familiar, restrained interface.
[Karma Store]
Available Karma Points:1,000
Luke's gaze paused on two entries.
▶ Martial Arts Mastery (Foundational Internal Discipline)Effect: Perfected balance, tendon strength, breath coordination, efficient force transferApplication: Daily labor, longevity, injury resistanceCost: 400 Karma
▶ Genius Analytical Ability — Structural & Architectural SpecializationEffect: Advanced spatial reasoning, load distribution intuition, historical structure restoration insightNote: Upgrades existing analytical cognition toward physical constructionCost: 500 Karma
Luke considered.
This was not about fighting.
Not about dominance.
Not about the next world.
It was about lifting beams without hurting his back.
About repairing homes so elders would not fear rain.
About making sure Wo Long did not collapse quietly while no one was watching.
He confirmed.
Karma Deducted: 900Remaining Karma: 100Skill Integration: In Progress… Completed
The change was subtle—but immediate.
When Luke inhaled, the breath sank deeper.
When he shifted his weight, the ground answered cleanly.
When he looked at a structure, lines appeared—not visually, but understanding: stress paths, failure points, hidden strength.
He flexed his fingers.
They felt… honest.
The first repair began at the eastern ancestral hall.
The wooden frame had stood for over a hundred years, its beams darkened by smoke and time. Termites had eaten quietly at the joints. Rainwater had found its way into places no one thought to check.
Villagers watched from a distance as Luke unpacked his tools.
"Can that still be fixed?" someone whispered.
Luke ran a hand along the beam.
"Yes," he said. "It just needs to breathe again."
He worked in the mornings.
Always the mornings.
Luke replaced rot with carefully shaped wood, matching grain direction, age, and tension. He reinforced joints not with modern metal, but with older methods—mortise and tenon refined just enough to hold another lifetime.
His movements were calm.
Efficient.
Almost meditative.
When he lifted beams, his posture never faltered.
When he balanced on ladders, his feet found their place naturally.
Martial discipline, without a single strike.
By the third day, elders began bringing stools to sit nearby.
By the fifth, children stopped running past the worksite.
Something about the rhythm commanded quiet.
"This beam," Old Zhang said one morning, pointing with his cane. "My grandfather replaced that after the war."
Luke nodded. "He did it well. I'm just finishing the job."
Zhang watched the joint slide into place, seamless.
"…You learned this somewhere?"
Luke smiled faintly. "I paid attention."
Next came the smaller ancestral homes.
Roof frames sagging under years of patchwork.
Doorways warped.
Support posts eaten hollow from the inside.
Luke restored them one by one.
Not rebuilding.
Preserving.
He kept the old marks.
The knife scars.
The unevenness that told stories.
Genius was knowing what not to change.
At noon, he rested.
At dusk, he cleaned his tools.
By nightfall, Wo Long looked the same.
But it felt different.
The System logged quietly in the background.
Skill Usage Detected:Martial Arts Mastery — Passive IntegrationGenius Analytical Ability — Architectural ApplicationResult: World Stability Increased (Local)
No one called him master.
No one called him expert.
They just said:
"Ask Xiao Lu."
"He'll know."
"He'll fix it."
One evening, Luke stood before the restored temple frame, lantern light catching fresh wood fitted into ancient bones.
He did not feel pride.
He felt alignment.
This—this was what power looked like when it stayed.
Wo Long slept on.
And Luke, at last, was no longer trying to wake it—
Only making sure it would still be standing when it chose to rise.