1:17 a.m., corner of 7th Street, South Side, Chicago.
The convenience store glowed with a dim red light; the words 24-Hour Servicehad been blinking unchanged for three years. The doorframe was rusted shut — you had to push hard to get it open. A cold wind swept in, carrying cigarette packs and shredded paper. Shelves leaned crookedly, the freezer hummed, and the security camera hung askew toward the wall, its lens never catching the cashier counter head-on.
Marcus Brady stood behind the counter. Twenty-one years old, six-foot tall, wearing a faded hoodie. The right sneaker had a split mended with black tape in three layers. Three scars marked his face, and the little finger of his right hand was missing. He counted the coins slowly, eyes never leaving the entrance.
He was the night-shift clerk. After his parents died, he had no family; his wages barely covered rent. Every day after work he walked the same route, head down, silent. He knew who ruled this block — the Iron Claw Gang's turf, and motorcycle gangs often came to stir trouble. Cops didn't come. Patrol cars veered away.
He didn't want trouble. And he didn't want to die.
The door burst open.
Two men rushed in. The taller one wore black gloves and held a revolver in his left hand. The shorter one wore a leather jacket, carried a canvas bag, and a vein throbbed in his neck. Both were masked, only their eyes visible.
They were robbers. Not first-timers. Their movements were slick and practiced. The tall one headed straight for the counter while the short one turned, shut the door, and pulled down the metal shutter. The grating screech stabbed the ears. The lights flickered twice.
Marcus raised his hands, palms chest-high. He didn't move or speak. He knew struggling under a gunpoint was useless. At seven, he'd once screamed for help while his mother took three bullets. At twelve, he tried to run but was caught by a motorcycle gang and beaten until he coughed blood. He learned one thing: to stay alive, you endure.
The tall man yanked him out from behind the counter. With brute force, he dragged Marcus, whose knees slammed into the floor and forehead struck the tiles with a dull thud. He curled up, arms shielding his head.
The next second, a fist drove into his gut.
Not the butt of a gun — a solid punch. Hard, precise, aimed just below the stomach. The air was knocked out, his throat soured. Bent over, he coughed, tasting iron. His vision darkened at the edges.
"Where's the money?" The tall man's voice rasped like sandpaper on steel.
Marcus opened his mouth, gasping for breath. His fingers twitched toward the cash register.
The short man had already opened the drawer. Coins clattered into the bag. He scooped stacks of hundreds, not missing even the crumpled cigarette change. This wasn't their first haul.
The tall man kicked Marcus in the side — not fatal, but enough to cramp the muscles.
"Stay still."
Marcus lay face-down, blood from his forehead wound trickling along his brow. Gritting his teeth, he unconsciously rotated his stump of a right pinky — a habit since he was seven, something he did when tense.
A car's headlights swept past outside, cutting through the crack of the door. Two seconds later, gone.
Inside, silence reigned except for the freezer's hum.
Marcus's breathing grew shallow. The agony in his gut hadn't faded; instead, a strange sensation spread — as if his body were sinking, his heartbeat slowing with every beat. He knew what that meant: too much blood loss, and death would follow. He couldn't die.
He didn't want to watch someone kill him again.
As a child, he'd seen his mother fall, eyes wide open. His father was dragged into an alley, his skull shattered. Those images lived inside him; every time he closed his eyes, they returned.
Not this time.
This time, he would live.
The thought sparked something in his mind.
A voice rang out — cold, mechanical, devoid of emotion.
"Survival will detected. Martial Arts Mastery System activated."
Marcus flinched.
Nothing changed in his surroundings. No sound reached his ears. Yet that voice was inside his head, clear as if whispered against his eardrum.
He didn't lift his head or move a finger. Only his pupils contracted slightly.
In the lower-right corner of his vision, a translucent blue panel appeared.
Simple Chinese characters aligned neatly in the corner:
[Boxing Proficiency LV1 (0/1000)]
[Emotional Volatility Index 12%]
No buttons, no menus, no instructions — just those two lines.
Marcus froze.
It wasn't a hallucination. When close to passing out, he'd get tinnitus and see static. But this was different — crisp, steady, like a projection hovering before his eyes. He blinked; it remained.
He tried willing it to close. Nothing. Tried exit. Still nothing.
But he could feel it — the system recognized him. As if it had always been inside him, only now awakened.
Boxing Proficiency LV1.
He didn't understand what it meant, but he knew what boxing was. At thirteen, he'd fought underground bare-knuckle in an abandoned factory. His opponent outweighed him by forty pounds. He broke three ribs and nearly got buried under scrap. He won because his final punch landed square on the other's temple.
That punch had taken three months of practice — five hundred swings a day at a concrete wall. Hands raw, wrapped in cloth, he kept going.
Was this system connected to that memory?
Before he could think further, footsteps approached.
The short man crouched, the canvas bag bulging. He pressed the gun barrel to the back of Marcus's head.
"Don't move."
Marcus didn't.
The cold metal made his scalp prickle.
The short man patted him down, even checking the insoles. Finding nothing valuable, he cursed.
Meanwhile, the tall man cleared the hidden compartment behind the drink shelves — where the owner stashed emergency cash. He found it, grinning as he stuffed the bills into his bag.
"Done?" asked the short man.
"Finish him," the tall man replied, glancing back. "Look at him — he's trouble."
Marcus heard that.
His heart sank.
They were going to kill him to tie up loose ends.
He couldn't die.
He hadn't even escaped the slums yet, hadn't uncovered his parents' killer, hadn't made those people pay. He couldn't die here.
Gritting his teeth, blood filling his mouth, he slowly clenched his right hand. His knuckles cracked softly.
The system was still there.
The panel hadn't vanished.
[Boxing Proficiency LV1 (0/1000)]
He stared at the line.
It was real. Not a dream. Not a dying illusion.
He had something. Something that could change fate.
So long as he could still move.
So long as he stayed conscious.
Outside, another vehicle passed. In the distance, sirens wailed — probably another neighborhood.
The two robbers exchanged a glance.
"Hurry." The tall man raised his gun.
The short man stood, backed away two steps.
The muzzle pointed at Marcus's head.
Time seemed to slow.
Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus spotted a metal baseball bat lying beneath a shelf — left behind by a customer, never picked up.
He looked at it for one second.
Then closed his eyes.
Not surrender. Confirmation.
System link stable.
Body broken, will unbroken.
He could still fight.
Even if only a breath remained.
He could throw the first punch.
In the instant before the shot, he opened his eyes.
A flicker of blue light shone deep in his right pupil.
The panel didn't change.
But in his mind, he etched this moment.
This punch — from now on, he would train it.
Inside the store, lights flickered.
Blood trailed from Marcus's forehead down his cheek, dripping to the floor.
He lay there, not risen, not resisting.
The robbers still controlled the scene.
The canvas bag brimmed with cash. The gun was loaded.
The trigger would be pulled in the next second.
And Marcus Brady, eyes wide open, fixed his gaze on a crack in the ceiling.
He survived.
At least this time.
The system was bound.
Fate had shifted.
Starting now.