I Died. Again. No Big Deal.
Dying once was unfortunate.
Dying twice? That's just plain careless.
The first time I died, it was in my so-called first life. Born in a modern world, I had it all—money, a luxurious car that practically purred when it moved, a gorgeous wife who made grown men cry with envy, and two kids who were somehow not annoying little goblins (a true miracle). We lived in that kind of suburban bubble where everything felt permanent, where you believed the good times would just keep rolling because why wouldn't they? Life was good. Genuinely good. The kind of good that makes you complacent, that tricks you into thinking you've beaten the system.
Then came one rainy night—the kind where water hammered against the windshield like an angry god throwing a tantrum. I was driving home from a client dinner, probably thinking about how great my life was. The universe apparently took that as a personal challenge. A truck decided to play GTA with my car, merging into my lane like physics was just a suggestion. Boom. Instant noodles. My last coherent thought wasn't profound. It was something like: Are you kidding me?
Then came the reincarnation. Life number two. Another shot. Another world. Another grind.
And grind I did.
I worked hard—the kind of hard that makes your bones ache and your dreams blur into reality. I studied like a maniac, got rich all over again, climbed the ladder rung by rung. Married another stunning woman—equally terrifying in arguments, which I somehow found attractive—and had two more kids. I even started a business empire, built something that actually meant something. For a while, I thought I'd learned the secret. I was smarter this time. More careful. More prepared.
Then the universe's sense of humor proved infinite: Yup. Car crash. Again. Different city, different country, same stupid rainy weather, same stupid truck mentality. Apparently, the universe had decided I was its personal running joke.
Note to self: Never trust luxury vehicles in rainy weather. Or trucks. Or possibly breathing.
And now? Welcome to Round Three.
This time, I woke up in the body of a six-year-old kid with a suspiciously large forehead—the kind that made you wonder if my parents were aliens or just extremely optimistic about future hairlines. I was lying inside a bamboo basket like a cheap version of Moses, except there was no dignified river to rescue me. Just a muddy ditch and a couple of confused goats staring at me like I personally owed them money. One of them had a horny problem. The other looked vaguely threatening. Both seemed disappointed to see a kid instead of food.
Turns out, this world is a straight-up cultivation realm—spiritual beasts with eyes that could burn mountains, ancient sects hidden in impossible peaks, flying swords that cut through clouds, exploding mountains because someone got angry. It's every nerd's dream on steroids. The kind of world you'd kill to be born into.
Except…
I can't absorb chakra.
Yeah. Let that sink in. Born in a world where chakra is life itself—where your spiritual cultivation determines whether you live like a king or die like a peasant—and I'm a literal dry sponge. My "spiritual roots" were apparently so pathetically bad that my parents took one look at my cultivation potential and decided I was a bad stock investment. They dumped me off at birth like I was a clearance item nobody wanted, leaving me to be raised in the outskirts of the Firecloud Region by a half-sober, half-crazy drunk who called himself "Master."
Most villagers just called him Old Wine Barrel.
In fairness, he did try to teach me. In between hangovers and hiccups and moments where he forgot what decade it was.
"Strike the air like you're slapping taxes off it, boy!" he'd slur, waving a gourd in one hand and gesturing wildly with the other. "Feel the resistance! Become one with the poverty!"
"Balance your chi! And by chi, I mean the wine in this cup. Very important chi. Spiritual chi. The kind that makes you forget your orphan status."
"If you can't fly, fall with style. Preferably near a river. Water breaks your fall. Also attracts fish. Useful for dinner."
Needless to say, my training results were… mixed. I got better at falling with minimal injury. My tolerance for criticism increased. My ability to absorb spiritual energy remained exactly where it started: nowhere.
But here's the thing—I'm not just any orphan with no chakra and a drunk master. You see, this time, I came back with memories of both my past lives intact. Every failure. Every success. Every stupid mistake and every hard-won lesson. Two complete lifetimes stored in this six-year-old's awkwardly large head. And believe me, if there's one thing two lifetimes of getting crushed by the universe teaches you, it's this:
Avoid trucks and trust no cats.
I learned that last part the hard way. There was a cat. Let's leave it at that.
So I spent my days doing what any sensible non-chakra-blessed orphan does: dodging wild beasts that didn't realize I was beneath their dignity to hunt, doing weird postures under waterfalls that probably accomplished nothing, and trying to punch trees to "feel the flow" (I mostly felt pain and accumulated bruises that made no sense). I practiced meditation on rocks that were actively hostile to comfort. I ran through forests at dawn when my legs were still made of sleep. I meditated under moonlight while Old Wine Barrel snored somewhere in the distance.
Still, I never gave up. Something deep inside me—something primal and stubborn—whispered that I was meant for something greater. That getting reincarnated three times wasn't just cosmic bad luck. That there had to be a reason I kept coming back.
Or maybe that was just Old Wine Barrel's leftover soup talking. That stuff had the consistency of regret and the flavor profile of questionable life choices.
But just when I was about to accept a life of mediocrity and tree-punching, of being the village's resident "broke chakra" orphan, of spending eternity doing postures under waterfalls while nothing changed…
[Ding!]
A sound echoed in my head like a divine bell made of pure sarcasm. Not a physical sound—something deeper. Something that resonated in my very being, in the bones of this reincarnated soul.
"Tutorial System Activated."
…
Wait, what?
Tutorial?
TUTORIAL?!
I reincarnated twice for this?! Where's my Ultimate God-Slaying Cheat System™? Where's my Infinite Sword Library™? Why am I stuck with the beta version of a power-up?! What am I supposed to do now—watch an ad to skip cooldowns? Grind dungeons for experience points? Complete daily quests to unlock divine artifacts?
The message flashed again, now with an overly polite, deeply condescending voice that somehow managed to sound like it was smirking:
"Hello, Host. Due to your embarrassing tendency to die like a noob, you have been granted the TUTORIAL SYSTEM. Please survive the tutorial. Or don't. Your past record says otherwise."
…
God is watching. And He's clearly roasting me.