The minor health potion burned going down.
Crimson liquid, thick and metallic, flooded Feng's throat and spread through his body like liquid fire. The worst of the pain in his ribs and left arm dulled within seconds, enough for him to stand without immediately collapsing again. The claw marks on his chest stopped bleeding. The deep bruises from the snake-tail remained, dark and ugly beneath the torn fabric of his jacket, but the bone-deep ache eased into something he could force himself to move through. It was not true healing. It was suppression—raw, temporary, and exactly what he needed.
He did not question where the bottle had come from. The system had offered. He had accepted. That was enough for now.
Feng shoved the empty vial into his pocket, tightened his grip on the egg, and ran.
The lower district swallowed him the way it always had. Narrow alleys reeking of damp concrete and old oil. Rusted fire escapes that groaned under even light weight. Gaps between buildings so tight he had to turn sideways. Sirens howled on the main roads behind him, but the Gate Authority preferred open streets and clear sightlines. They rarely pushed deep into the maze unless they already had a confirmed target. Feng used every shortcut he had memorized since childhood—cutting through abandoned lots, ducking under broken overpasses, slipping between chained fences—until the sound of pursuit faded into the ordinary noise of the city waking up.
He finally stopped in a forgotten service courtyard behind a shuttered warehouse, the kind of place no one checked twice. A half-collapsed awning provided thin cover from the sky and from any drones that might pass overhead. Feng sank down against the wall, the egg still pressed tightly to his chest, and let his head fall back against the cool concrete.
Morning light filtered through the gaps above. The day was still young. School had already started without him. His mother would have called by now. Hao and Lei would have seen the gold-gate alerts the second they hit the guild feeds but then he looked at his phone and noticed no alerts? He kept looking and saw no mention or even the though of it anywhere. It was like it had never appeared.
The system window reappeared, quieter this time.
[Host condition: Stabilized]
[Incubation progress: 1% → 3%]
[Passive effect active: Bond Resonance – Host recovery accelerated while in contact with companion egg]
A new tab opened without him asking.
[Status]
Name: Yan Guefeng
Age: 15
Class: Beast Tamer (Rank D)
Level: 20
Companion Slots: 1/1 (Occupied – Celestial Chimera Egg)
Currency: 10000 gold
Warning: First purchase (Minor Health Potion) cost 50 gold.
Ten thousand gold. The number sat in his vision like a joke. He had never held more than a few crumpled bills at a time. Now the system was telling him he had the equivalent of months of his mother's salary sitting in some invisible video game currency.
Feng exhaled slowly and looked down at the egg. The surface still pulsed with that faint violet-white light. It felt heavier now, or maybe he was simply weaker. The note about separation still hung in his mind. If he left it somewhere, the bond would collapse. If anyone from the Gate Authority found it on him, he would be detained before he could finish a single sentence.
Unauthorized taming of a high-rank beast. Class-A violation. He did not need the system to tell him what that meant. People disappeared for less.
He needed to get home. He needed a place to hide the egg that still counted as "in his possession." And he needed a story that would hold up for at least the next twenty-four hours.
Feng pushed himself up a little straighter against the wall and spoke under his breath, testing the interface.
"How did I buy the potion? How can I buy more?"
The system answered in clean blue text.
[Basic weapons, armor, and potions available in the Shop.]
[Access Shop?]
He thought the confirmation. A new window unfolded, filled with simple icons and prices. Potions. Basic knives. Light armor. Nothing flashy, but all of it real. He understood then: the gold had come from defeating the chimera. The system rewarded results.
His eyes drifted lower and found another notification he had somehow missed in the chaos.
[60 unused stat points available.]
[Strength]
[Agility]
[Endurance]
[Intelligence]
[Perception]
[MP]
Sixty points. The number felt almost as heavy as the gold. Feng stared at the list for a long moment, then allocated twenty points into Strength without overthinking it.
The change hit immediately.
A deep, rolling heat spread through his muscles. His arms tightened. The lean, underfed look he had carried for years shifted in real time—shoulders broadening slightly, forearms gaining visible definition, the hollows of his frame filling with sudden density. It was not dramatic bodybuilder bulk. It was functional. Solid. Real.
He flexed his free hand and watched the new muscle move under the skin. For the first time in his life, he felt strong.
He bought a second minor health potion for another fifty gold and drank it without hesitation. The remaining aches and half-healed wounds sealed further. The worst of the external damage faded enough that, with a change of clothes, he might pass for someone who had simply taken a bad fall.
Then he noticed the inventory option.
[Store companion egg in Inventory?]
[Warning: Incubation speed will be significantly reduced while stored.]
Feng hesitated only a second. Slow incubation was better than discovery. He confirmed the command. The warm weight against his chest vanished, replaced by a faint sense of distance, like the bond had been stretched thin but not broken. A small icon of the egg appeared in the corner of his vision, ticking forward at a crawl.
[Incubation progress: 3% – Slowed]
Relief loosened something tight in his chest. He could walk through the door without the egg visible under his jacket. That alone might buy him the time he needed.
Feng stood, adjusted the torn jacket as best he could, and slipped back into the alleys.
The walk home took longer than usual. He avoided the main roads and the elevated platforms where Gate Authority drones liked to hover. Twice he had to duck into shadowed doorways when patrol vehicles rolled past with their scanners active. The gold gate would be the only topic on every feed for hours. Anyone who had been near the overpass would be flagged the moment a scanner locked on.
By the time he reached the familiar cracked steps of his apartment building, the sun was higher. The residual warmth of the egg was gone, but the new strength in his limbs kept him moving.
He climbed the stairs slowly, each step measured. At the door he paused then slowly to his family still there with his siblings getting ready to go to the guild and his mother dressed for work. They all looked at him as he attempted to just walk to his room.
Hao was the first to speak "Hey get your ass back out here, what did I say about skipping? and what happened to your uniform". Feng jumped a bit and slowly turned around and said "uhhhhhhhh, I just didn't feel like going after a really rabid stray dawg came at and me and it left a claw mark on my uniform and it almost took me out and-." The boy kept rambling until Lei finally stopped him "Hush, no more skipping, we're going to work and I'll try to sew your uniform and backpack back together tonight". They all just went about their day as nothing seamed wrong and Feng goes to his room and takes another breather to think about all of this.