A young man lounged on a wooden chair with a bored expression on his face.
In his hand was a smartphone.
The digital screen reflected his appearance—receding hairline and sharp but sunken cheekbones that hinted at a past filled with promise. Once, he might have been the prince charming girls whispered about.
Now, though still in his late twenties, he looked more like a jaded, pot-bellied man with a half leg in the coffin.
The dim, flickering light above cast tired shadows across the room—a chaotic mess of fast-food wrappers, empty bottles, and crumpled clothes. A world where time stood still, and ambition had long since dried up.
"Isn't this Felicia..." Zarek muttered, his thumb pausing mid-scroll on the comparogram app.
The screen showed a stunning woman with long, silky blonde hair and almond-shaped eyes the color of the ocean. She clutched the arm of a clean-cut man, the other arm cradling a baby.
It was a picture of a happy family.
"Damn, Felicia's already married? And a baby too..."
The memory of their first encounter stirred something in him. Hormone-charged, naïve affection. Locker room heated moments. Wild, reckless passionate kisses. It was all still so vivid.
The image flicked to the next. A man in a black leather jacket posed beside a glossy black Zugatti Panamera—Zarek's dream car.
"Bryan? That idiot? How the hell...?"
Zarek's lip curled in disbelief. Back in high school, Bryan had once struggled to count to a hundred, yet here he was, flaunting success. Meanwhile, Zarek—once top of the class, once the golden boy—was living like a beggar on the street.
He kept swiping. Image after image. Success after success. Laughter, luxurious weddings, vacations on exotic islands, promotions.
The darkness on his face deepened.
He closed the app with a grunt and opened his favorite web novel platform to cope with the creepy feeling rising in his heart. Anything to escape this pit of envy and failure.
But the front page greeted him with an avalanche of beast-taming, wish-fulfillment garbage.
No struggle, only success and success, since when did life become so easy.
"Where are the damn cultivation novels?" he grumbled, Zarek personally liked cultivation novels over everything, the concept of Eternal life and power to subvert the universe with the palm of one's hand fascinated him.
He dug through tags and titles, frustrated. The old gems were gone. Some discontinued, some dropped halfway by authors, although pissed he couldn't blame the hard working authors, being a web novelist in this economy was a tough job.
Zarek sighed.
Sometimes, he daydreamed about hiring his favorite authors just to keep his comfort stories alive.
Then one caught his eye—a new title climbing the charts like wildfire.
The Lord Dragon Tamer, a novel about taming dragon girls.
He scoffed. "What a lame-ass name."
Having Nothin better to do, he tapped into the reviews. The top comment made him pause.
It was a review, posted by someone going by the username: Pussydestroyer69.
"Another cliche dungeon story. MC dies and gets divine powers from the so-called god, stumbles upon OP treasure in some mountain... Yawn."
"He also wins himself a heroine in some competition. Thankfully, there was no broken engagement.."
"There's zero originality. But props for decent world-building, here author really went all out, the story almost feels likes as if it was a real world, with living and breathing people,"
Zarek frowned as he read. The review was sharp, brutal, but weirdly compelling.
When he finished, heat flushed his face.
He slammed an one-star rating and proceeded to drop his daily power stone on his favourite novel.
"Write some real cultivation novels, dammit! Enough of this beast-tamer crap."
He exited the app with a bitter taste in his mouth and almost instinctively launched his favorite game.
But just before the screen could load, his phone began to ring. Tring! Tring!
His stomach sank.
He recognized the caller ID.
The voice that barked from the speaker was harsh, guttural. Each word carried the weight of judgment.
"Why don't you just end your miserable life, you useless piece of trash..."
Zarek said nothing. His father's voice was a blade he'd been cut with too many times, now he was Even numb to it.
"At your age, I had a house. A car. A wife! What the hell are you doing? Sitting on your ass all day scrolling like a mindless loser."
The voice paused for a moment..
Then came the final blow, like a lighting strike on a cloudless day.
"You're not my son anymore. I disown you."
Zarek blinked, stunned, his mind failing to process the words, "W-What...?"
"You heard me. Pack your things. Get out of my house—or I'll call the police."
Beep! Then the call ended abruptly. Silence flooded the room.
Zarek's hands trembled. Heat surged behind his eyes.
Then he exploded.
The phone flew from his hands and smashed into the monitor.
CRACK!
Reality snapped with it.
"Oh! No, what have I done…"
Zarek gasped and lunged for the phone. His eyes scanned every inch, like a mother examining her child, if anything happened to the phone, he couldn't even imagine his life without it..thankfully it was Unbroken.
He exhaled in relief—but the monitor was done for, numerous cracks like spider webs spread in every direction.
"Goddamn it... I really am a failure," he muttered.
Still, his thumb hovered instinctively over the game icon. Escape was second nature now.
To cope with the anxiety.
The screen's glow returned. His heart rate slowed. His mind drifted.
Games had once been just for fun. Now, they were everything. The only place where he could win.
But deep down, he knew...
No victory would fill his belly. No leaderboard would mend his life.
He needed to get a hold of his life.
"Tomorrow... I'll change," he whispered, his words sounding hollow as if he himself didn't believe it.
He'd said that line a thousand times before.
As time passed, His vision blurred. His body ached. His stomach twisted. Sleep crept in like a thief.
The room went still.
Cold wind slipped in through the half-open window, brushing against his sweat-drenched face.
His brows furrowed. He was dreaming. Something dark—something terribly wrong.
Then his eyes flew open, the first thing that he noticed was…Smoke.
Tendrils of smoke curled from the phone. His breath caught in his chest.
"God damnit not this shit now.."
He tried to run, but his legs tangled and he crashed head first.
BOOM!
The phone exploded.
And then—darkness.
...
"Where am I...? Shouldn't I be dead?"
He couldn't tell how long he'd been out. But now he could see.
A pristine white hall stretched before him, then he examined himself and let out a gasp!
What happened to my body? Did I really die?
He was a flickering yellow orb of light—small, unstable.
Other than him, Two figures also stood nearby.
A young man dressed in casual clothes, judging from his sharp blue eyes and pointed nose, he seemed to be of european descent, his eyes were wide with excitement as if he had won a billion dollar lottery.
And beside him, a serene middle-aged man, a shiny golden crown above his head, a face so perfect that it seemed to have been carved by God himself, the middle aged man radiated divine aura.
The two didn't seem to notice Zarek.
Zarek watched silently as the young man asked, voice trembling with awe:
"So you're telling me you're a god... and you can transmigrate me into my favourite novel The Lord Dragon Tamer?"
The divine figure nodded.
"Yes. That is my compensation. You were not meant to die,"
The boy paused, then pointed toward Zarek.
"And this flickering thing? What is it?"
The god hesitated, then smiled faintly.
"That? Ignore him, he's Just a good-for-nothing extra."
"Not worth paying Attention to.."