The coffee mug floated.
Azrael Void stared at it, his heart hammering so hard he thought it might burst from his chest. The mug hovered three feet above his desk, spinning lazily in the air like gravity had simply forgotten it existed.
"Holy shit," he whispered. "Holy shit, it actually worked."
Eight years. Eight years of research, failed experiments, and colleagues calling him crazy. Eight years of watching Earth lose battle after battle against the alien invasion while he locked himself in this lab, chasing a theory that everyone said was impossible.
Humans couldn't develop psychic powers. The brain didn't work that way. He was wasting time humanity didn't have.
Except the mug was floating.
Azrael laughed—high, slightly manic, the laugh of a man who'd been vindicated after nearly a decade of being called insane. His hands shook as he grabbed his tablet, fingers flying across the screen.
"It works. The breathing pattern works. The meditation technique works. We can fight back. We can actually—"
The mug dropped.
It shattered against the desk, coffee splashing everywhere. Azrael barely noticed. He was too busy documenting everything, typing faster than he'd ever typed in his life. His colleagues needed this. Dr. Chen in Beijing. Professor Okonkwo in Lagos. Anyone still alive.
"Okay, okay. Breathing pattern: four seconds in, hold for sixteen, eight seconds out. Focus on extending your mind beyond your skull. Like reaching for something just out of grasp. After forty minutes you'll start to feel—"
His vision blurred.
Azrael blinked. Probably just tired. He'd been awake for... how long? Thirty hours? Forty? Who could sleep when you were on the verge of saving humanity?
He kept typing. "Results confirmed. Telekinesis achieved. Reproducible. Anyone can learn this. We can finally fight these bastards on even ground—"
The room tilted sideways.
"Whoa." Azrael grabbed the desk. When had standing become this hard? His legs felt like jelly. His chest felt tight. "Computer, run a diagnostic on my vitals."
"Scanning," the lab AI replied in its eternally calm voice. "Dr. Void, your vital signs are critical. Heart rate dangerously low. Blood pressure dropping. Core temperature—"
"Show me my cellular energy."
The screen lit up with numbers that made his stomach drop.
Energy production: 23% and falling.
Cell function: Critical failure.
"Oh." Azrael's laugh came out weak this time. "Oh, that's... that's bad."
The psychic power had to come from somewhere. Energy didn't just appear out of nowhere—Physics 101. He'd been so excited about the breakthrough that he'd forgotten to ask the most basic question: what was fueling it?
His own life force. And he'd burned through it like a student with a credit card at a bar.
"Time until system failure?" he asked, though part of him didn't want to know.
"Eleven minutes."
"Huh." Azrael slumped in his chair. Eleven minutes. Not even enough time to call for help, assuming anyone could reach him through the alien patrols outside.
He was going to die. Again. Humanity's last hope, and he'd killed himself being an idiot.
The irony was almost funny.
Almost.
His hands found the keyboard again. If he had eleven minutes, he'd make them count.
"CRITICAL WARNING," he typed. "PSYCHIC POWERS BURN YOUR LIFE FORCE. DO NOT DO WHAT I DID. MONITOR YOUR ENERGY LEVELS. USE AN IV DRIP OR SOMETHING. DO NOT BE AS STUPID AS ME."
Seven minutes left. His fingers felt numb.
"External energy source required. Maybe glucose. Maybe something else. Figure it out. Just don't die like an idiot like I'm about to—"
Four minutes.
The lab swam around him. Somewhere, an alarm was screaming. The AI was saying something about emergency protocols. Azrael's forehead hit the desk.
Cold metal. Getting colder.
I'm sorry, he thought. I'm sorry I couldn't finish this.
Then nothing.
Azrael Void woke up screaming.
Pain. Burning pain, like someone had set his insides on fire and forgotten to mention it. Every nerve in his body was trying to kill him. His heart felt like it was tearing itself apart.
No. No, I died. I should be dead. What is—
Memories that absolutely were not his slammed into his brain like a freight train.
Different life. Different childhood. Mountains that touched the sky. People flying on swords. Magic—no, wait, "qi"—being as normal as breathing.
And a name: Azrael Voss.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Azrael—which one? both?—tried to say, but his lungs weren't working properly.
The body he was currently dying in belonged to Azrael Voss, nineteen-year-old nobody in some cultivation sect. A scribe. His entire job was copying technique manuals for pocket change. Ten spirit stones for decent work, thirty for excellent work.
Azrael Voss had just died from a cultivation accident. Tried to break through to the next level, failed catastrophically, and bled out from internal damage in his tiny cave-room.
Just in time for someone else's soul to move in.
"Seriously?" Azrael wheezed. "I escape an alien invasion just to die again from a different kind of energy accident? What are the odds?"
The pain was fading. Mostly because he was dying. Again. For the second time in what felt like five minutes.
This is the worst reincarnation ever.
Then something chimed in his head.
Not a sound. More like a presence. Something vast and incomprehensible squeezing itself into his dying brain.
Words appeared in his vision, glowing:
[REINCARNATION SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
"Oh thank god," Azrael gasped. "System. Golden finger. The thing from all those web novels. You're going to save me and make me overpowered, right? Please say yes."
[SCANNING LOCAL ENVIRONMENT...]
[CURRENT LOCATION: TRASH-TIER PLANET]
[SPIRITUAL ENERGY: BASICALLY NONE]
[HOST REALM: QI CONDENSATION LAYER 3 (PATHETIC)]
"Rude, but accurate," Azrael muttered.
[ERROR: INSUFFICIENT SPIRITUAL ENERGY TO RUN SYSTEM]
"What."
[SYSTEM CANNOT FUNCTION IN THIS ENVIRONMENT]
"WHAT."
[IT'S LIKE TRYING TO RUN A SUPERCOMPUTER ON A POTATO BATTERY]
[THIS PLANET SUCKS]
[HOST'S CULTIVATION LEVEL ALSO SUCKS]
"Are you seriously telling me," Azrael said through gritted teeth, "that my cheat system doesn't work because this planet is too trashy?"
[YES]
[RECOMMENDATION: GO TO GALAXY CENTER]
[SPIRITUAL ENERGY THERE: ACTUALLY DECENT]
[DISTANCE: 50,000 LIGHT-YEARS]
[TIME NEEDED: APPROXIMATELY 100,000 YEARS]
[GOOD LUCK!]
Azrael stared at nothing. This was a joke. This had to be a joke. He'd died saving humanity, got reincarnated into a cultivation world, and his system was telling him to walk fifty thousand light-years so it could turn on?
"You're abandoning me," he said flatly.
[TECHNICALLY YES]
[BUT FIRST: COMPENSATION PACKAGE!]
[REWARD 1: HEAVEN-DEFYING COMPREHENSION]
[REWARD 2: COMPLETE MEMORY INTEGRATION]
[REWARD 3: NOT DYING IN THE NEXT FIVE SECONDS]
Warmth flooded through him. The burning pain vanished. His torn insides knitted back together. His cracked... whatever the cultivation equivalent of organs was... sealed itself.
He could breathe again.
"Okay," Azrael said slowly. "That's something. What does Heaven-Defying Comprehension do?"
[YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ANYTHING PERFECTLY IF YOU STUDY IT ENOUGH]
[TECHNIQUES, CONCEPTS, DAOS, WHATEVER]
[BASICALLY: YOU'RE REALLY SMART NOW]
"I was already really smart," Azrael protested.
[NOW YOU'RE STUPIDLY SMART]
[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: YOUR CURRENT CULTIVATION IS GARBAGE]
"You mentioned that."
[YOUR FOUNDATION IS TRASH]
[IF YOU BREAK THROUGH NOW, YOU'LL BE MEDIOCRE FOREVER]
[RECOMMENDATION: STAY IN QI CONDENSATION REALM]
"The weakest realm?"
[YES]
[PERFECT YOUR FOUNDATION FIRST]
[REACH 3,000 LAYERS IN QI CONDENSATION]
[INTEGRATE ALL 3,000 GREAT DAOS]
[FORGE THE CHAOS VOID PHYSIQUE]
[THEN BREAK THROUGH]
[TIME INVESTMENT: 1,000-1,500 YEARS]
[BUT YOU'LL BE STUPID OVERPOWERED AFTERWARD]
Azrael lay on the cold stone floor, processing this. A thousand years. Stuck in the weakest realm. Building the perfect foundation while his system napped.
But... the logic tracked. He'd spent eight years perfecting his psychic awakening protocol because he understood that foundations mattered. Rush the base, ruin the future. He'd literally died from that exact mistake.
"Fine," he said. "I'll do it."
[EXCELLENT CHOICE]
[WHEN YOU REACH GALAXY CENTER, I'LL WAKE UP]
[YOU'LL GET: CHAOS VOID PHYSIQUE MANUAL, 9 TRILLION DAO STONES, INFINITE SPIRIT STONES, TRAINING DIMENSIONS, AND OTHER COOL STUFF]
[UNTIL THEN: YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN]
[TRY NOT TO DIE AGAIN]
[SYSTEM HIBERNATING IN 3... 2... 1...]
The presence vanished. Azrael was left staring at a small interface in the corner of his vision:
[STATUS]
Name: Azrael Void (Azrael Voss)
Realm: Qi Condensation - Layer 3
Foundation: Trash-Tier
Talent: Heaven-Defying Comprehension
System Status: SLEEPING (DO NOT DISTURB)
"My system left me," Azrael said to the empty cave. Then he started laughing.
It wasn't a nice laugh. It was the laugh of someone who'd just realized the universe was playing a practical joke on him.
"Okay. Okay. So I'm a nineteen-year-old nobody in a cultivation world. My only job is copying books. My cultivation is terrible. And my cheat system told me 'good luck' and went to sleep for a thousand years."
He pushed himself up, looking around the tiny cave. A meditation mat. A desk covered in ink stains. Stacks of blank scrolls.
This was his life now.
"You know what?" Azrael picked up a brush from the desk. "I spent eight years cracking the secret to psychic powers. I can spend a thousand years cracking cultivation."
He looked at the cultivation manual on his desk. Basic Fire Palm Technique. Even with Azrael Voss's limited knowledge, he could tell it was garbage-tier.
But with Heaven-Defying Comprehension...
He could see the flaws. The inefficient energy paths. The wasted movements. The breathing pattern that made no sense.
I can fix this, he realized. I can make it perfect.
"The system thinks I'm on my own?" Azrael grinned. It wasn't a particularly sane grin. "Good. I do my best work solo anyway."
He dipped his brush in ink and began to write.
Not a copy. A perfection.
Outside his cave, the Celestial Peak Sect continued its day like always. Disciples trained. Elders meditated. Politics happened.
None of them noticed that in a forgotten corner of the outer sect, a trash-tier disciple had just decided to break every cultivation rule in existence.
One technique at a time.
"My system left me," Azrael muttered, his brush dancing across the scroll. "So I'll just have to become so stupidly overpowered that when it wakes up, it'll need me."
The first perfect technique took shape under his hands.
Somewhere in the distant future, the cultivation world would look back on this moment and ask: when did everything go wrong?
The answer: the day a dead scientist reincarnated with a useless system and too much free time.
[END CHAPTER 1]