The mountain morning's chill bled through the thin walls of Dormitory 13. Dew clung to the packed soil of the training yard like frozen pearls. Downhill, the metallic clang of practice blades beat a steady rhythm, while the bitter scent of Pill Hall incense wove through the air—a constant reminder of wealth he could not touch.
Qin Ye woke to the deep ache of old bruises and the sharp, fresh throb on his jaw. A slip of coarse paper was pinned to his robe. He knew its message by heart: Contribution Points Debt: 5. A sum that meant half a year of grinding labor.
He sat up slowly. The straw mat scratched his skin. The long dormitory room was mostly empty now, frost tracing silver patterns on the windowsill. Steam leaked from a bucket of gray water by the door.
A shadow fell over him.
"Still sleeping, trash?" Zhao Kun's voice was a rough scrape. The bully blocked the aisle, his two cronies flanking him like dull wings. "The roll-call bell is about to ring. You owe me for using my spot near the Qi-Gathering Array. Your last spirit stone. Now."
Qin Ye's fist clenched in the thin bedding. Resistance was pointless. Zhao Kun was two minor realms above him, his roots clearer, his fists heavier. The humiliation was a hot stone in his chest.
Then a sound, clean and mechanical, pierced his skull.
[Ding! Host's despair detected. Binding complete. Invincible Sign-In System activated.]
A semi-transparent blue screen blinked into being before his eyes, edges neat as cut glass.
[Daily Sign-In available.]
[Location: Outer Disciple Barracks. Location Bonus active.]
[Sign-In? Yes / No]
Zhao Kun misread his stillness. "What? Giving me trouble?" He reached for Qin Ye's collar.
There was no time for doubt. Qin Ye focused his will.
Yes.
The screen shimmered and reformed.
[Ding! Sign-In successful!]
[Congratulations, Host! Reward: Ten Billion Spirit Stones.]
[Assets have been credited to your personal system storage.]
[Vault created. Access by intent. Security: Absolute.]
Ten billion.
The number was incomprehensible. An outer disciple earned one stone a month. The sect counted wealth in the low millions. He was suddenly a king in a world of paupers.
A profound calm washed over him. The bruise, the debt, the bully—all faded to insignificance. He met Zhao Kun's gaze, his own eyes flat and empty.
"Move," Qin Ye said, voice quiet.
Zhao Kun laughed, a harsh, startled sound. "You've lost your mind!"
Qin Ye didn't argue. He stood and walked past as if Zhao Kun were merely furniture. The unexpectedness made the bully step back. The cronies didn't move. Qin Ye left the dormitory without a backward glance, the cold air a balm down the corridor.
He had business in the Pill Hall.
⸻
The path down from Dormitory 13 cut across terraces of scrub pine and pale rock. Disciples moved in twos and threes, chatter dimming as Qin Ye passed. Below, the Pill Hall hunched beneath heavy tiles like a patient beast, heat pooling under its eaves. Every step closer thickened the scent—angelica, crushed mica, something bitter that clung to the tongue. Wealth lived here: on shelves, in ledgers, behind the politeness of men who priced hope by the vial.
Inside, the Pill Hall was cavernous and orderly. Porcelain vials lined lacquered shelves, each label neat and merciless—name, grade, price. The polished counter had been worn to a soft sheen by a thousand anxious hands. From behind it came the click-clack of an abacus, steady as a heartbeat.
Deacon Wei looked up, his face pinched with habitual disdain. He saw Qin Ye's patched robe and sighed.
"Qin Ye," he said, voice syruped with false pity. He pulled a ledger from under the counter. "Debt file: five points. Overdue. No points, no resources. Don't waste my time."
Qin Ye placed his hand palm-down on the wood.
Deacon Wei scoffed. "An empty hand?"
Qin Ye reached into the vault with his mind.
A neat, glimmering pile of spirit stones spilled from his palm onto the counter. They chimed softly, inner light breathing. Not a mountain—he didn't need a mountain—just enough to still a hall, to choke an abacus. The rest remained where it belonged: hidden.
The abacus fell silent. Murmurs in the back room died. A junior attendant froze mid-scrape, pestle hovering over a mortar.
"I wish to make a purchase," Qin Ye said, tone even.
"H-how?" Deacon Wei stammered, eyes wide, greed and fear wrestling in the whites.
"Are you questioning a paying customer?" A thread of ice laced Qin Ye's words.
The deacon's demeanor flipped. "N-no, Disciple Qin! Of course not. How may the Pill Hall serve you?"
Qin Ye scanned the racks without flinching at the numbers. Sects monetized hope with careful cruelty; he read the columns like a map.
"One medium-grade Meridian Cleansing Elixir. One room-scale Spirit-Gathering Talisman. The 'Azure Vortex' qi-gathering manual. And that low-grade artifact sword."
A junior attendant in gray hesitated with a tray, eyes flicking from Qin Ye's patched robe to the tidy heap of stones and back again. Deacon Wei snapped his fingers and the boy jumped. "Mind the labels," the deacon said too smoothly, recalculating percentages in his head. Qin Ye watched the routine greed surface and pass. In the Outer Sect, even courtesy was a commodity. Stones bought tone, attention, respect—things he'd been denied for years.
The items arrived one by one: a cool porcelain vial; a paper talisman stiff with gold-threaded strokes; a dense manual, pages thick with faint blue diagrams; a sword from the back wall, artifact-forged steel that would hold qi without complaint.
The chime came as he gathered them.
[Ding! Optional Quest completed: "Invest in Yourself."]
[Reward: Supreme Meridian Cleanse (Instant).]
[Ding! Wealth Threshold reached: Vendor Persuasion +5%.]
Fire bloomed in his dantian and scoured the meridians, a clean-burning river that ripped loose years of grit. For a heartbeat it was agony; metal touched his tongue. Then the heat collapsed into clarity.
The world snapped into focus. Dust motes in a sunbeam separated into a drifting constellation. His lungs filled to their corners. The ambient qi of the world pressed along his channels like cool fingers.
He flexed his hand; joints clicked like beads rolling on a string. The hall's light sharpened until the hairs of the brush by the doorway stood distinct. Outside, a bell tolled the end of drills; he could follow the echo as it climbed beams and died in the rafters. The cleanse hadn't made him different—it had stripped away what didn't belong. The thought settled with a weight that felt like balance.
He flicked payment with a thought; the stones vanished from the counter.
"Put the change against my debt," he said.
Deacon Wei all but bowed. "At once. Debt reduced to… two points." He wet his lips. "If you ever require higher grades, Disciple Qin, the Pill Hall can arrange—"
Qin Ye turned, taking the vial, talisman, manual, sword. Words ended at his shoulder.
He left to a wake of whispers.
⸻
Dormitory 13 was a box of quiet. Qin Ye shut the door and set the Spirit-Gathering Talisman in the room's center. The paper leaf hovered when he let go, ink-strokes blooming with soft light. Symbols rotated a quarter turn, as if finding a direction only they knew.
The air thickened.
Qi drew through cracks in the frame and knots in the wood, silver motes streaming like minnows. The single candle on the stool guttered and leaned in the sudden current.
He did not open the manual. The cleanse had paved the path. Knowledge could come after the wall broke.
He sat.
He breathed.
In. Needle-fine qi pricked the lungs and laced into cleared channels.
Out. A veil of gray whispered from his pores and faded.
He kept the breaths short, stacked, exact. Ten cycles. Twenty. He hunted sensation, not scripture. There—the barrier at the base of the spine, thin and papery, the same he had pressed against for three stubborn years.
He gathered breath like a rope and pulled.
Crack.
Not loud. Intimate. Ice giving beneath a boot. The wall surrendered. Qi surged, clean as meltwater, spinning a first honest circuit. Warmth knit into muscle.
He opened his eyes. The room was still a box of shadows, but its edges had gone knife-sharp.
[Ding! Minor Breakthrough detected.]
[Reward: Stamina Recovery +10%.]
[Attribute unlocked: Micro-Perception (Lv. 1).]
A hum spread through him—awareness of weight, of tilt, of the warble of the candle flame. He stood; the scabbard tapped his hip, polite and present.
Outside, the bell for the third training period tolled, hollow as a drum in a gorge.
He went to the yard.
⸻
The outer training ground spread as a hard plain of tamped earth. Wooden dummies stood in ranks like patient soldiers. A narrow thread of shade pooled along the eastern wall. Disciples moved in small clumps—sweat, breath, the dry stamp of soles.
"The big spender," someone said.
Zhao Kun stepped from the shade and took the path. His cronies fanned out. Word traveled faster than fire through dry grass; a ring formed before anyone admitted to forming one.
"I heard you got lucky," Zhao Kun sneered. "Stole something? That kind of wealth isn't for trash. Hand it over, and maybe I only break one leg."
Qin Ye looked at him. The new sword at his hip added a thin line to his silhouette.
"Move."
Mockery bared its teeth and turned to anger. "Get him!"
Zhao Kun lunged. To Qin Ye's new senses the punch dragged a tail of air behind it. He didn't draw. He stepped—one foot turning, hip rotating—and laid two fingers gently on Zhao Kun's wrist.
Thwack.
Nerves sang. The wrist folded. The practice sword clattered and bit the dust.
The first crony roared. Qin Ye pivoted into him, elbow short and hard into two ribs; breath left the man in a hoot. The second came in low; Qin Ye's heel cut behind the knee, and the pommel of his sheathed sword tapped once as punctuation. The leg collapsed. Dust jumped.
Three heartbeats. Finished.
[Ding! Micro-Goal: "Defend Your Dignity" completed.]
[Reward: +1,000,000 Spirit Stones.]
[Ding! Combat Proficiency +10%.]
Silence held a full measure.
Then the ring breathed again.
"Did you see—"
"He didn't even—"
"Zhao Kun—"
Zhao Kun clutched his wrist, face washed with confusion he couldn't hide. Rage tried to flower and failed. He took a step back without meaning to. His cronies rolled to sitting and stared at the dirt as if it could retell the last ten seconds more kindly.
Qin Ye looked down at them with no heat at all. Not triumph. Not contempt. A flat assessment, like checking a ledger and finding the sum neat.
He stepped past. Space opened as if cut with a blade. No one reached to stop him.
From the shade of the equipment shed, an inner-sect attendant leaned on a railing, slate tucked under one arm. He didn't jeer. He watched how Qin Ye set his feet after the exchange, as if measuring a line. Chalk touched slate—one small, neat mark—then the man vanished into the shed. The crowd never noticed.
Qin Ye did not look up.
⸻
Dormitory 13 hummed softly. The talisman spun one notch tighter when he slid the door closed, ink-lines brightening as if it recognized the one who set it.
He set the talisman to full.
Qi stormed the room; the candle flame bowed sideways and held there, stubborn and small. Silver motes whirled like a patient galaxy.
The blue screen returned, washing rough wood with cold light.
[Main Quest Unlocked: "Outer Sect Ranking Trial."]
[Time Limit: 7 days.]
[Objective: Achieve a rank within the Top 100 of the Outer Sect.]
[Completion Rewards: Supreme Immortal Body (Fragment) + High-grade Artifact + 100,000,000 Spirit Stones.]
[Failure: Temporary System lockout (24 hours).]
A ranking trial. Not a hallway ambush. A stage with rules and names.
Another line flickered at the bottom edge of the screen—quiet, almost an afterthought.
[Note: Side Quest available — "Clear the Ledger."]
[Objective: Reduce contribution debt to 0 within 24 hours.]
[Reward: Reputation — Pill Hall +1; Deacon Negotiation +5%.]
He glanced at the faded debt slip still pinned to his robe and peeled it free. Paper rasped against cloth. The System didn't nag; it presented prices and choices. That, more than anything, felt honest.
Seven days.
The number felt clean in the throat.
He drew the artifact sword, steel whispering free, and laid it across his knees as he sat. The talisman sang in a voice too low to hear, or maybe that was only the blood in his ears. The silver motes spun themselves into a soft storm.
He exhaled, and let the world narrow to breath, heat, and the faint click of an invisible clock.
The cultivation began.