"Courting death!"
I stopped mid-step, the sole of my worn-out sneakers hovering over a puddle of questionable green sludge. I didn't even look up. I just closed my eyes and let out a long, slow breath that felt like it carried the last shred of my patience with it.
"That's seventeen," I muttered. "Seventeen times in four hours. Do you guys have a script? Is there a mandatory rehearsal every morning where you practice saying that in the mirror while stroking your chin?"
I finally looked at the guy. He was a classic specimen of the 'Young Master' genus: dressed in silk robes that cost more than a Honda Civic, hair tied up in a topknot so tight it was probably cutting off circulation to his brain, and an expression that suggested he'd just smelled something particularly foul. Behind him, three lackeys stood in a V-formation, trying their best to look like they weren't just there to carry his bags and laugh at his bad jokes.
"How dare a mere mortal without a shred of Qi mock the scion of the Great Soaring Eagle Sect!" the guy—Zhao something-or-other—screamed. His face was turning a very unhealthy shade of purple. "I will cripple your cultivation and make you watch as I—"
"Yeah, yeah, 'make me watch' as you do something vaguely problematic to my family or whatever. Look, Zhao, can we skip to the part where you try to hit me and I humiliate you? I'm actually really hungry, and the guy at the noodle stall said I wasn't allowed to buy food until I 'showed proper respect' to the local gentry."
I shifted my weight, feeling the familiar hum of the Arcane Overseer System in the back of my skull. It wasn't like the "Heavenly Dao" these idiots kept screaming about. It didn't care about my "enlightenment" or how long I could sit cross-legged in a cave. It was a clean, blue interface that treated the laws of physics like they were just suggestions.
Three weeks ago, I was a senior at Westview High in Ohio. I'd been hiding under a desk in the library because some kid with a grudge and a handgun decided it was his day to be famous. I remember the smell of old books, the sound of footsteps in the hallway, and the crushing realization that I was about to die in a building that smelled like floor wax and despair.
Then, a flash of white light. A voice that sounded like a bored customer service rep. And suddenly, I was standing in a field of "Spirit Grass" while a giant bird tried to eat my face.
[Current Mana: 195/200]
[Active Quest: Teach the Local Trash about Modern Warfare]
I didn't have Qi. I didn't have "meridians." My body was essentially a hollowed-out battery for raw, chaotic magic. To these people, I looked like a "mortal" because I didn't have a golden core spinning in my gut. To me, they looked like people trying to run Windows 95 on a supercomputer.
"Die!" Zhao roared.
He moved fast—I'll give him that. He pulled a jade-encrusted sword from his waist, and it caught the light, glowing with a sharp, golden aura. To any other "mortal," he would have been a blur of lethal precision. To me, he was just a sprite with a predictable animation cycle.
[Threat Detected: Level 12 Foundation Establishment Practitioner]
[Calculating trajectory...]
I didn't draw a sword. I didn't do a hand seal that looked like I was playing a high-stakes game of Rock-Paper-Scissors against myself. I just pointed my index finger at his chest.
"Fireball," I whispered.
I didn't have to scream the name of the technique. The System didn't care about branding. But honestly? Doing the finger-gun gesture made me feel better.
A sphere of condensed, white-hot arcane flame erupted from my fingertip. It wasn't a "Seven-Suns Divine Strike." It was just high-octane magical napalm.
Zhao's eyes went wide. It was the first sign of actual intelligence he'd shown all day. He tried to pivot, throwing up a "Jade Tortoise Shield" that shimmered into existence in front of him. In this world, that shield was supposed to be a solid defense. To my system, it was just a bit of code that needed to be overwritten.
The fireball hit the shield and didn't bounce. It melted.
The explosion sent Zhao flying backward, his fancy silk robes turning into "homeless chic" as he tumbled through a tea stall, three vegetable crates, and finally a brick wall. The wall won.
I watched him hit the ground and slide down like a wet noodle.
[Target neutralized.]
[Exp gained: 450]
[Loot dropped: 1x Bag of Spirit Stones, 1x 'Jade Pendant of Mediocrity']
The street went silent. The crowd of onlookers, who had been cheering for my inevitable demise seconds ago, were now staring at me like I'd just rewritten the Bible in front of them. The old man at the noodle stall dropped his ladle, his long white beard quivering.
"His... his Dao," the old man stammered. "There was no Qi! How can there be power without Qi?"
"It's called 'Magic,' Gramps," I said, walking over to the smoking crater that used to be Zhao's dignity. "It's like cultivation, but I don't have to drink tea made of literal dirt to get stronger. You should look into it. Might help with the arthritis."
I leaned over Zhao, who was currently coughing up soot and looking at his broken jade shield like it had betrayed him.
"Look, buddy," I said, reaching down and snatching the silk pouch of spirit stones off his belt. "Next time you feel the urge to tell someone they're 'courting death,' maybe stop and ask yourself if you're actually the one who's courting a trip to the hospital. It'll save you a lot of dental work."
I shoved the pouch into my inventory, watching it vanish into thin air. The crowd gasped again. "Spatial storage! Without a ring!"
I ignored them. I was tired, I was hungry, and I was pretty sure the "Grand Elder" of the Soaring Whatever Sect was going to show up in about five minutes to demand I pay for the wall.
"Anyway," I shouted to the terrified crowd. "Does anyone here know where a guy can get a burger? Or a taco? Seriously, if I have to eat one more bowl of 'Immortal Cabbage,' I'm going to mana-burn this entire city to the ground."
Nobody moved.
"Right. Cabbage it is," I sighed. "Welcome to the cultivation world, Leo. It's exactly like a toxic Twitter thread, but with more swords."
I turned and started walking toward the city gates, the blue HUD in my eyes already highlighting a new quest marker.
[New Quest: Survival of the Wittiest]
[Objective: Find a place to sleep without being challenged to a duel by a teenager.]
[Reward: 200 Mana, 1x Clean Pair of Socks]
"Socks," I muttered. "God, I love this system"
"""