Thousands of miles away from Lin Hao's cramped dorm room, in a place that did not appear on any map, Wudang Mountain pierced the clouds. But far above the temples visited by tourists, hidden by sheer cliffs and ancient, illusion-bearing forests, stood a single, unadorned stone monastery.
It had no electricity. No running water. No internet. It was a place out of time, a relic of a forgotten age.
Inside the main meditation hall, a single oil lamp cast flickering shadows on the stone walls. An old man sat cross-legged on a simple rush mat.
His name was Elder Chen. He was ninety-four years old, but his face was smooth, with only a few wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. His back was as straight as a spear. His breathing was so slow and shallow that a feather placed under his nose would not stir. He had not eaten in ten days.
Elder Chen was a Level 4: Grandmaster. In the parlance of his hidden sect, he had achieved "Bone Forging." He was one of perhaps a dozen people on the entire planet who had reached the absolute zenith of mortal potential. He could shatter a granite block with a single, casual punch. He could hear a leaf fall in the forest a mile away. He was, by all human standards, a perfect being.
He was deep in his meditation, his mind as still and vast as a placid ocean, touching the "Dao," the flow of the world, the wind, the stone, the water.
Then, the Pulse arrived.
It did not just touch the monastery; it slammed into it.
The ancient, thousand-pound bronze bell in the courtyard, untouched by human hands, let out a single, deafening BONG that echoed through the mountains.
Inside the hall, the tiny flame on the oil lamp flared, shooting up a foot in the air like a blowtorch, before extinguishing, plunging the room into absolute darkness.
For Elder Chen, the "lightness" that a common person felt was a cataclysm.
The "Dao" he was connected to—the calm, mortal flow of the world—vanished. It was as if the ocean he was floating on had instantly evaporated, dropping him onto hard stone.
A new, violent energy, wild, pure, and terrifying, flooded the air. It was like an electrical storm had just been born inside the room.
His body, so perfectly in tune with the old world, rejected the new one.
His chest seized. His meridians, the energy pathways he had so carefully cultivated for eighty years, felt like they were on fire. The "Bone Forging" he was so proud of, his perfected mortal frame, was suddenly revealed to be crude, impure, and flawed.
"Ghhk—!"
Elder Chen's eyes snapped open, wide with a shock that went beyond mere surprise. It was a fundamental, reality-breaking terror.
He pitched forward onto his hands and knees and a violent, wracking cough tore through him.
"Pthoo!"
A thick, black, steaming-hot liquid splattered onto the cold stone floor. It was blood, but it was clotted and thick with dark, foul-smelling impurities he never knew he possessed.
He gasped for air, and his gasp was a revelation.
The air was not just air.
It was thick. It was alive. It was buzzing with an energy he had only ever read about in his sect's most secret, most ancient, and most unbelievable scrolls. The scrolls that even the sect leader dismissed as "ancestral fantasy."
He could feel it, a cool, tingling power that his body, now violently purged, was desperately trying to drink in. It flowed into his skin, his lungs, his bones. The agonizing fire in his meridians was soothed, replaced by a feeling of growth and strength he hadn't felt since he was a teenager.
He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the blood on the floor. He stumbled to the open doorway of the hall, his movements clumsy for the first time in half a century.
He looked out. The moon was high and bright. The ancient pine trees in the courtyard were rustling, though there was no wind. The entire mountain was thrumming, as if it were a great beast that had just been woken from a billion-year slumber.
"Spiritual energy..." he breathed, his voice trembling. He reached out a hand, his fingers splayed, as if he could catch the new energy as it flowed past.
"Reiki!"
The word was a half-choked sob of terror and elation.
Terror, because his ninety-four years of knowledge, his status as a "Grandmaster," his entire life's work... it was all meaningless. He was a child again, a beginner in a world that had just been rewritten.
Elation, because the legends were true.
"The prophecy..." he whispered, staring at the moon, which seemed brighter than ever before. "The 'Great Awakening.' The 'World Ascension.'"
He fell to his knees, his body shaking with a force he couldn't control. He was not the peak. He was the beginning.
"The world... the entire world... has awakened!"
Back in his dorm room, Lin Hao was having a very different, but no less intense, experience.
The strange, prickling itch that had covered his body was the first sign. It felt like his skin was crawling, but it wasn't unpleasant. It was... energizing. The chronic ache in his neck from hunching over his laptop was gone. The fog of exhaustion that had clouded his mind for months was lifting, as if a dirty window had just been wiped clean.
He felt good. He felt better than he had in his entire life.
His body felt light, strong. He took a deep breath, and the air tasted sweet and cool, despite his fan being broken and his window being closed.
"So this... this is Reiki," he murmured. He could feel it, a subtle tingle in the air that wasn't there five minutes ago.
Then, the sounds from outside registered.
WEE-OOO! WEE-OOO! HONK! HONK! BWOOOP! BWOOOP!
A cacophony of car alarms. Not just one or two, but dozens, maybe hundreds, all blaring at once from the campus parking lots and the streets beyond.
Then came the shouting.
"What the hell?" "Did you feel that?" "My console just blew up!" "Dude, all the lights are out!"
His neighbors, his fellow students, were pouring out of their rooms into the hallway. Doors were slamming open. People were yelling in confusion and panic.
Lin Hao stayed in his room, his back pressed against the wall, his heart hammering. He watched through his window as the campus, previously dark and asleep, lit up with the flashlights of a thousand smartphones. People were running out onto the quads, looking around, confused by the sudden blackout and the wave of strange, unexplainable 'dizziness' they had all just felt.
The world was in chaos. And it was his fault.
A cold jolt of fear, far sharper than his earlier panic, shot through him. He had done this. With a single thought, he had broken car alarms, fried electronics, and probably scared billions of people.
"What did I do? What did I do?" he whispered.
He was a nobody. A failed student. And he had just pushed the entire planet off a cliff in the dark.
And then, the calm, steady, uncaring blue light of the System interface updated in front of his eyes.
[Planar Ascension Complete.] [Global 'Reiki' Awakened.] [Humanity's Spiritual Roots Unlocked (Average: Level 1-3).] [Daily UP Generation: Active.]
A new message flashed at the bottom of the screen, simple and beautiful in its implications.
[You have received 100 UP.]
Lin Hao's panic vanished, replaced by a sudden, sharp, exhilarating focus.
He looked at the reports of chaos on his screen. He heard the shouting in the hallway. He felt the new, vibrant energy in the air.
And then he looked at his [$Status$] tab, which had also updated.
[Upgrade Points (UP): 100]
He had his gasoline. He had his starting funds.
While the rest of the world was outside, confused and looking for answers in the dark, Lin Hao was in his room, looking at the answer.
He knew exactly what he had to do next.
He switched his view to the [$Self Upgrade$] tab. The first option, which had been a useless fantasy just minutes ago, was now a shining, viable promise.
[Cultivation: Uninitiated] [Upgrade: Level 1: Novice (Iron Skin)]? (Cost: 10 UP)