Chapter 5: Attempts One Through SevenATTEMPT ONEThe gap between a mortal and a cultivator, even a pimple-faced, arrogant 1st Stage nobody like Chen Gou, was supposed to be absolute. It was a law of the Qiān Relem, as immutable as gravity. Lin Wu didn't believe in immutable laws. He believed in frame data and hitboxes. He charged, axe raised. His feet slipped slightly in the mud, costing him a fraction of a second. He saw Chen Gou's smirk widen. The cultivator didn't even bother to draw the short, rust-pocked sword at his hip. He simply raised his right hand, palm open, and pushed. A wave of invisible force slammed into Lin Wu's chest. It wasn't a refined technique. It was raw, unfiltered Qi release—the spiritual equivalent of a strongman shoving a child. Lin Wu felt his ribs creak. His forward momentum reversed violently. He flew backward, landing hard on his spine in a puddle of cold, muddy water.
He couldn't move. His lungs refused to inflate. Chen Gou walked over, his boots squelching to a stop inches from Lin Wu's face. "See? You're nothing. Less than nothing. A mortal shouldn't even look at a cultivator, let alone swing an axe at one." He spat. The glob of saliva landed on Lin Wu's cheek. "Stay down, trash. Next time, I'll break your arm." Chen Gou and his cronies walked away, laughing. The sound faded into the morning mist. Lin Wu lay in the mud, staring up at the gray sky. He waited for his breath to return. When it did, he spoke a single word, quiet and clinical. "Checkpoint." Nothing happened. He was still in the mud. The save state was locked at 04:52 AM. He couldn't reload from here. He had to die. He reached into his pocket. He had kept a small, folded leaf containing a dab of Bitter Moonflower paste. A backup plan. He swallowed it. The convulsions took him again. The pain was just as bright, just as terrible. But this time, he was prepared for it. He counted the seconds. He catalogued the sensations. He treated it like a loading screen.
ATTEMPT TWOHe gasped awake in his cot. The bruise on his neck throbbed. He checked the System notification.
Four point seven seconds, Lin Wu thought, swinging his legs off the cot. Pathetic. Let's try a different opener. He walked outside. Chen Gou and his cronies were approaching the property line, right on schedule. The dialogue was the same. The sneer was the same. "Morning, Chen Gou. You're up early. Looking for a spar?" "A spar? With you? I'd break you in half, noob." This time, Lin Wu didn't charge. He threw the axe. It was a clumsy, off-balance throw. The axe spun through the air, handle over blade, completely lacking the aerodynamic grace of a throwing weapon. Chen Gou batted it aside with a casual flick of Qi. The axe clattered harmlessly into the mud ten feet to his left. "Really? That's your best—" Lin Wu was already moving. The axe was a distraction. He had closed the distance in the moment Chen Gou's eyes tracked the spinning blade. He lunged, aiming a fist at the cultivator's throat. His knuckles connected with something that felt like a brick wall wrapped in silk. Chen Gou's Qi armor—a passive, skin-tight layer of spiritual energy that all cultivators developed instinctively—absorbed the blow completely. Lin Wu's hand screamed in protest. Two of his fingers snapped backward with a sickening crack.
Chen Gou grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground with one hand. "You actually hit me. You tried to hit me. That's adorable." He headbutted Lin Wu. The world exploded into white stars. Lin Wu felt his nose crunch, felt the hot gush of blood over his lips. Then Chen Gou threw him. He landed in a heap near the woodpile, next to the rusted axe. "Last warning," Chen Gou said, his voice flat and genuinely annoyed now. "Next time you so much as look at me, I'll cripple your cultivation." He paused, then laughed. "Oh, wait. You don't have any." They left. Lin Wu lay in the mud, his face a mask of blood, his right hand a throbbing mess of pain. He looked at the axe. He looked at the black fragment of the Null Crown half-buried nearby. Attempt two. Duration: 8.3 seconds. Data acquired: Qi armor is passive. Negates unarmed strikes from mortals. Weak point targeting required. He crawled to the woodpile, found the leaf of poison he had stashed there in the previous timeline, and ate it. LOADING SAVE STATE... ATTEMPT THREE
Noted. He walked outside. The dialogue repeated. The sneer repeated. This time, Lin Wu didn't throw the axe. He didn't charge. He walked calmly toward Chen Gou, hands empty, palms open. Submissive. Defeated. "Morning, Chen Gou. You're up early." Chen Gou blinked. The lack of aggression threw him off. "Uh... yeah. What's it to you?" "Nothing. Just being polite. Have a good day." Lin Wu walked past him, toward the village path. Chen Gou and his cronies exchanged confused glances. They had expected a fight, or at least some pathetic defiance. This was just... boring. As Lin Wu passed behind Chen Gou, he stopped. He bent down, picked up a fist-sized rock from the mud, and in one fluid motion, swung it at the back of Chen Gou's skull. The rock shattered. Not Chen Gou's skull. The rock. The Qi armor flared, and the stone disintegrated into dust against the back of the cultivator's head. Chen Gou whirled around, eyes wide with fury. "You—!" Data acquired: Qi armor is 360-degree coverage. No blind spots. Requires armor-piercing or Qi-based attack to penetrate. Lin Wu smiled through bloody teeth. "Just testing a theory." He didn't wait for the retaliation. He turned and sprinted toward the deep irrigation ditch at the edge of the farm. It was a twenty-foot drop onto jagged rocks below. A quick, clean death. He jumped. LOADING SAVE STATE... ATTEMPT FOUR
Okay. Last attempt. Make it count. Lin Wu sat on his cot, breathing slowly. His body remembered the pain of three deaths. The poison. The headbutt. The rocks. His soul felt... thin. Stretched. Like a rubber band pulled too far. I have one more try before I risk getting booted from this shell. I need to win. Not just survive. Win. He reviewed the data. Chen Gou's Qi wave had a 0.8 second cast time. His Qi armor was impenetrable to mortal strikes. He was arrogant, but not stupid. He wouldn't fall for the same trick twice in a single encounter. But Lin Wu had a variable Chen Gou couldn't account for. The Null Crown Fragment. It was still sitting on his bedside table. Unidentified. Useless. But the description had said it drained Qi. It was an anti-cultivator weapon. He didn't need to know how to activate it. He just needed it to react. He picked up the cold, heavy lump of metal. It felt different this time. Warmer. Almost... eager.
One inch. That's nothing. That's useless. Unless he could get it inside Chen Gou's Qi armor. He looked at the rusted axe. He looked at the fragment. An idea, stupid and desperate, formed in his mind. He walked outside. Chen Gou approached. Dialogue. Sneer. "Morning, Chen Gou. You're up early. Looking for a spar?" "A spar? With you? I'd break you in half, noob." Lin Wu raised the axe. He had wrapped the Null Crown fragment against the back of the axe head using a strip of torn cloth. It was a crude, unbalanced mess of a weapon. The fragment was a lump of dead weight, throwing off the swing entirely. But it was there. He charged. Chen Gou sighed, raising his palm for the Qi wave. Lin Wu watched the cultivator's shoulder. The tell. The slight drop before the push. 0.8 seconds. He didn't try to dodge. He couldn't. He was too slow. Instead, he threw himself forward, into the mud, sliding under the wave of force. The Qi blast passed over his head, ruffling his hair. Chen Gou's eyes widened. "What the—" Lin Wu was at his feet. He swung the axe, not at Chen Gou's head or chest, but at his hand. The hand that was still extended from the Qi wave. The axe blade, with the Null Crown fragment pressed against its spine, connected with Chen Gou's knuckles. The Qi armor flared. And then it flickered. For a single, infinitesimal moment, the spiritual energy around Chen Gou's hand wavered, disrupted by the proximity of the ancient, Qi-devouring relic. It wasn't enough to break the armor. It was barely enough to be noticeable. But it was enough to let the edge of the rusty axe blade slip through.
Chen Gou screamed. It wasn't a scream of pain from the tiny, insignificant cut on his knuckle. It was a scream of violation. He had felt something pull on his Qi. Something had stolen from him. For a cultivator, especially one as low-level and insecure as Chen Gou, that was more terrifying than any wound. He stumbled backward, clutching his hand. His Qi armor flickered again, destabilized by the shock and the minuscule drain. His face was pale. "What... what did you do?! What are?!" Lin Wu stood up slowly, mud dripping from his clothes. He held the axe loosely at his side. His hands were steady. His eyes were cold. "I'm the guy who just figured out how to hurt you." He looked at the notification that had appeared in his vision. It was small. Glitched. But it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
One unit. Ten seconds of a minor buff. That's all I got from making him bleed. It was enough. He moved. Faster than he had any right to. The buff was small, but his baseline was so pathetically low that five percent felt like a revelation. He closed the distance before Chen Gou could recover his stance. He swung the axe again, not at the hand this time, but at the cultivator's knee. The Qi armor held. But the Null fragment leeched another unit of Qi. The buff refreshed. He swung again. And again. And again. Each swing was weak. Each cut was superficial. But Chen Gou was panicking. He couldn't focus. He couldn't gather his Qi for another wave. Every time he tried, that thing on the axe pulled at him, disrupting his concentration. It was like trying to meditate while a mosquito constantly bit your ear. "GET AWAY FROM ME!" Chen Gou shrieked, swinging wildly with his fists. One connected with Lin Wu's shoulder, sending a jolt of pain through his arm.
Lin Wu didn't stop. He couldn't stop. The buff had five seconds left. He aimed for the face. The axe blade, guided by the instincts of [Axe Adept], found Chen Gou's cheek. The Qi armor flickered. The Null fragment leeched. The rusty edge drew a thin, red line across the cultivator's pimple-scarred skin. It was barely a scratch. But Chen Gou saw his own blood on Lin Wu's axe. He saw the calm, relentless, utterly alien focus in the farm boy's eyes. And he ran. Chen Gou, 1st Stage Qi Condensation cultivator, son of the village butcher, fled from Lin Wu's farm. He ran through the mud, clutching his bleeding cheek, his cronies stumbling after him in bewildered terror. Lin Wu watched them go. The buff faded. The exhaustion crashed into him like a wave. His arms felt like lead. His legs trembled. He was covered in mud, blood, and sweat. But he was standing. And Chen Gou was running.
Lin Wu dropped the axe. He looked at the Null Crown fragment, still tied to the blade. It was just a lump of black metal. But it had been the difference. One inch of Qi disruption. One unit of stolen energy. This is how I level up, he thought, his mind already racing with possibilities. I don't cultivate. I steal. I'm not a cultivator. I'm a parasite. He liked the sound of that. From the farmhouse doorway, Lin He stood frozen, having witnessed the entire confrontation. He had seen his son die four times. He didn't know that. He had only seen this one, final, impossible victory. The talentless boy with the broken meridians had made a cultivator bleed. "Son..." Lin He's voice was barely a whisper. "What... how..." Lin Wu turned to face his father. His face was a mess. His body was broken. But he was smiling. "Father," he said, "I think I'm starting to understand this game." He walked inside, leaving muddy footprints on the threshold once more. Behind him, the sun finally broke through the gray clouds, casting a pale, golden light over the quiet, rain-soaked farm. And in the distance, Chen Gou ran home to tell his father a terrifying lie: that Lin Wu was a demon in human skin. |
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Chapter 11: The Mortal Who Broke the Rules DAY 30 OF 30 — THE DUEL Lin Wu woke before the sun, as he had every morning for a month. But today was different. Today, the grind ended. Today, the boss fight began. He lay still for a moment, cataloguing his body. The hairline fracture in his right forearm from the boar hunt had healed to a dull ache. His muscles were loose, warm from sleep. The Numbroot paste, applied the night before and sealed under cloth wraps, had left his hands and forearms comfortably distant—a buffer against the pain to come. STATUS REPORT HP: 100/100 Stamina: 100/100 Soul Sync: 29% ...
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