Li Wei had never been the type of man who expected greatness. In fact, he didn't expect much of anything at all.
Life, as far as he was concerned, was a simple and stubborn routine:work until your legs shake, get paid just enough to survive, eat whatever was on discount that week, try to sleep, wake up, and do it again. He'd long ago accepted that the universe wasn't waiting to hand him anything special.
Most people dreamed of becoming someone extraordinary. Li Wei just dreamed of having a month where his delivery app didn't crash every other shift.
On the night his life ended, the city was drowning under a storm. Rain slapped the ground so hard it bounced back up, soaking him twice with every splash. His jacket—cheap, thin, and a size too big from a thrift store—was no match for the cold. Water pooled inside his shoes with every pedal stroke, and the delivery box strapped to his back felt heavier than usual.
He sighed through chattering teeth. "Of course the app glitches now. Of course."
He was already late. The customer had ordered noodles from the far side of town, right as the storm hit, and the GPS pin kept jumping across the map like it was trying to escape reality. He had backtracked twice already. His legs burned. His fingers were numb. His phone buzzed with new complaints.
He had half a mind to throw it into a puddle and quit on the spot.
But rent was due next week.
The landlord didn't care about storms.
Li Wei turned a corner—too fast, because frustration made him reckless. His front wheel hit a slick patch. The bike swayed. He tried to correct it, overcorrected, and suddenly the world tilted sharply to the side.
And that was when the headlights appeared.
A pair of blinding white circles cut through the rain, rushing toward him far too quickly for his brain to catch up.
For one stunned heartbeat, Li Wei thought,Seriously? This is how I go? Not even a dramatic last moment? Just… splat?
The impact answered for him.
He didn't even feel pain—just a violent jolt, a horrible sense of motion, then absolute nothingness, like someone had ripped him out of existence.
No sound. No body. No rain.No city.No Li Wei.
He drifted.
He didn't know how long. Minutes? Hours? A year? Time didn't seem to exist in the place he found himself in. It was like floating in warm ink—dark, thick, yet strangely calm. He had no body, only a sense that he was still there, somehow.
And then, faintly, something chimed.
A gentle, cheerful "ding."
The kind you might hear from an elevator announcing you'd reached another floor.
Except this felt like the floor of reality itself.
Ding.
Then a voice—not exactly a voice, more like words pressed directly into his consciousness.
[Initializing… Wild Deity System Loading… 18%]
Li Wei froze… or whatever the floating equivalent of freezing was.
"…No way," he whispered into the darkness. Or maybe he only thought it. Hard to tell when you didn't have lungs. "A system? Are you kidding me?"
He waited for a punchline. A narrator. A hidden camera crew.
None came.
The loading bar ticked upward at an agonizing pace.
[Loading complete.Soul integrity: 72%.Host: Li Wei — deceased mortal.Reassignment approved.]
A tug yanked at something deep inside him. A pressure built, stretching him in every direction at once. Warmth poured in. Light cracked through the darkness—
—and with a sudden, painful lurch, he fell.
Or maybe he rose. Hard to say. Directions didn't seem to work right in this place.
A final line of text appeared:
[Rebirth Process Initiating.Assigned Role: Low-Level Wild God.Designation: Minor Mountain Spirit — Unregistered.Rank: 0.]
The void shattered like glass.
Li Wei hit solid ground with a gasp.
Air—real, cold air—rushed into newly formed lungs. His chest heaved. His fingers curled instinctively into earth, crumbling soil between them.
He opened his eyes.
And the world he saw was not Earth.
A sky stretched overhead, impossibly wide, painted in deep twilight blues and streaks of soft gold. Mist curled lazily between ancient, moss-covered stones. Pine trees towered overhead, their needles shimmering faintly with spiritual energy. Every breath seemed to hum with life.
He blinked, dazed. "Where… am I?"
His voice sounded different. Clearer. Smoother. Younger.
He lifted his hands. They glowed faintly in the dim light, veins carrying a weak golden shimmer under the skin. His robes were rough, simple, tied with a cord. His hair spilled past his shoulders like he'd never experienced a cheap barbershop cut in his life.
He touched his face, half expecting it to feel wrong or alien.Instead, it felt… new.
A soft chime echoed in his mind again.
[Welcome, Host, to your new life as a Wild God.]
Words unfolded in front of him like glowing ink on invisible paper.
[Current Status]
Name: Li WeiRace: Proto-Deity (Wild)Type: Minor Mountain SpiritRank: 0Divine Authority: 13 meters around shrine stoneFaith Accumulation: 0Divine Energy: 3/100Shrine: Not yet establishedFollowers: NoneGodhood Stability: Fragile
Li Wei stared at the panel, lips parting slowly.
"…A mountain spirit," he muttered. "Like those tiny gods from old folktales? My divine territory is basically a… backyard."
[Correct.]
"Could be worse," he said hopefully.
[Godhood at Rank 0 is extremely unstable. Without followers, faith, or a shrine, existential collapse is likely within several months.]
He closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose. "Fantastic. I died delivering noodles and reincarnated as a supernatural goldfish with an expiration date."
[Please note: goldfish enjoy higher initial recognition among mortals.]
Li Wei rubbed his temples. "That wasn't meant to be a suggestion."
A faint glow pulsed behind him.
He turned.
And there, half-buried in the earth, stood a stone.
It was not impressive—not a sacred pillar, not a grand shrine, not anything a real deity would brag about. Just a medium-sized boulder with faint carvings and patches of moss, cracked slightly at the top.
Yet the moment he looked at it, something inside him tugged gently, like a thread pulling taut between his soul and the stone.
The system chimed again.
[Shrine Stone located.]This anchor is bound to your divine essence.If destroyed, the Host will perish.]
Li Wei took one involuntary step back. "Oh great. So not only am I a weak god—I'm a weak god whose life depends on… a rock."
[Correct.]
"This gets better every second."
He stared at the stone again, feeling the strange connection tug at him. Despite everything, it felt warm—comforting, almost like it greeted him. A home, maybe. Or maybe just the first thing in this world tied to him at all.
He touched it gently.
Warmth flowed through his hand. A soft golden ripple spread from the stone outward, brushing over grass and tree roots. The world inside that ripple felt… alive. Connected. His.
Thirteen meters of it, anyway.
The system chimed again.
[Domain confirmed.Territory radius: 13 meters.]
He snorted. "Is this even enough space for a proper shrine? It's barely enough space for a picnic."
[Host may expand territory by gathering faith.]
"Meaning I need believers," he said with a sigh.
[Correct.]
He paused, lowering himself onto a large root. The bark was smooth beneath his palm. A faint wind rustled leaves overhead. Strange, distant cries echoed from deeper in the mountains.
Everything about this place felt real. Too real.
He'd always wondered what it would feel like to step into one of those cultivation novels he read during lunch breaks. The thought seemed childish now. He wasn't the chosen one. He wasn't a genius, or a reincarnated sage, or some ancient immortal reawakened.
He was still Li Wei.
Only now, he was Li Wei with the divine authority of a cramped apartment balcony.
After a long moment, he whispered, "System… why me? Did Heaven run out of qualified gods and pick a random delivery guy from Earth?"
There was a long silence.
Then:
[Host meets minimum survivability requirements.]
"…That's not comforting."
[Host is advised to lower expectations accordingly.]
He groaned. "You are the worst system I've ever heard of."
[Thank you.]
He rubbed his face. It really did feel real. His skin warmed in the wind. His heartbeat—new as it was—thudded steadily. His stomach even growled faintly, reminding him he'd died in the middle of a delivery shift.
But beneath all that confusion and annoyance… there was something else.
A small spark.
Not excitement, exactly. More like… freedom.
No more late deliveries.No more angry customers.No more bills eating away his soul month after month.
He didn't have much now—barely any power, no followers, no shrine—but for the first time in years, the path in front of him wasn't a dead end.
He rose slowly, placing his palm once more on the shrine stone. The glow responded, faint but loyal, like a small fire refusing to go out.
"Alright," he murmured. "If this is the life I've been given… then fine. I'll make something of it."
He looked around his tiny divine domain—thirteen meters of forest floor, ancient roots, glowing moss, and a rock that held his life.
It wasn't much.
It was almost laughably pathetic.
But it was his.
"Let's start," he whispered. "I don't know how to be a god… but I guess I'll learn."
Somewhere in the distance, a creature roared—deep, powerful, shaking the trees.The mountains felt vast and dangerous.
But Li Wei's voice remained steady.
"This time… I'll climb."
The wind blew softly, brushing the trees in his domain like a quiet greeting.
And Li Wei, the man forgotten by the world he once lived in, took his first breath as a god.