Chen Fan felt he was on the verge of transcending mortality.
Not the kind involving soaring on a sword through the clouds,but the kind that serves as the prelude to kicking the bucket after a seventy-two-hour, all-nighter "cultivation" session on the hard plank bed of a second-tier university's male dorm.
The light from his phone screen was the only sun in his world. The battery showed a dire 1%, but he didn't care. The web novel, Reborn: I Own Every System, was stuck at the climax where the protagonist was about to humiliate the rich, young antagonist.
"Just... slap him already..." Chen Fan muttered, his eyes bloodshot, his finger mechanically scrolling.
A veteran bookworm since elementary school, Chen Fan had devoured everything from A Mortal's Journey in middle school to Swallowed Star in high school, and had swept through Qidian's rankings in college. He knew every trope by heart: the humiliation-return arc, the trash-to-sage progression, the daily check-in power-ups, even Cthulhu-cultivation fusion.
Here in this utterly ordinary university, where he'd flunked Calculus and was retaking English, he firmly believed he was just born in the wrong universe. If he ever transmigrated into a novel, with his brain stuffed full of plotlines, he'd be the undisputed Chosen One.
"This author just padded a thousand words..." were Chen Fan's last muttered words before his vision blurred. His phone slipped from his grasp, smacking him on the bridge of the nose, but he didn't even feel the pain. Darkness swallowed him like a tide.
His final thought before consciousness fled: If there's a next life, I want to be the one doing the slapping, not the background extra eating instant noodles in his dorm.
An indeterminate amount of time later.
A strange scent, a mix of high-end cologne and... moldy medicinal herbs, wormed its way into Chen Fan's nostrils.
He snapped his eyes open, ready to see the dorm's yellowed ceiling and his roommate's hanging socks. Instead, his gaze met a massive crystal chandelier, its intricate pendants refracting cold light, illuminating the room like a medieval European palace.
Chen Fan froze. He shifted, realizing he was sunk deep into an exquisitely expensive leather sofa.
"Awake?"
A voice, old and icy, came from opposite him.
Chen Fan instantly sat upright, his eyes darting around. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows was a storm-lashed night, with the faint glimmer of a lake in the distance. A luxurious suite. Just him and the man across.
Wait, this scene...
His brain, that "well-read" search engine, instantly provided a match: Stormy night, luxury hotel, interview, lone youth.
"Is this... the Cassel College interview scene from Dragon Raja?"
His heart hammered against his ribs. Transmigration! It was real! And not just anywhere, but into that high-risk world crawling with hybrid dragons and psychic powers!
Struggling to suppress a grin, he arranged his features into what he hoped was a profound, all-knowing expression and looked at the man opposite.
According to the script, it should be Principal Ang Lee, dapper in a tailored suit, silver-haired and debonair, or perhaps the balding yet elite Professor Manstein.
However, when Chen Fan got a clear look, his confident smile froze solid.
Sitting there was a gaunt, sickly-looking old man in gray robes. He wasn't wearing a suit, nor was he holding a wine glass. Instead, he clutched a yellowed, thread-bound book. Most bizarrely, the old man's face was sallow, his eyes as venomous as a serpent's, and he broke into violent, lung-racking coughs every now and then.
The aesthetic is all wrong! Since when did Principal Ang Lee get too poor for a suit and catch consumption?
"What? Scared witless?" The old man lifted his eyelids, his gaze scraping over Chen Fan like a hook. "I asked you a question. Give me your hand. Let this old one assess your bone structure."
Bone structure?
Chen Fan frowned. Something was off. Wasn't the Cassel interview about psychological fortitude? Since when did it switch to Traditional Chinese Medicine pulse-reading?
"Um..." Chen Fan decided to test the waters. He adjusted his posture, crossed his legs, and mimicked the nonchalant tone of a novel's protagonist. "Professor, shouldn't we first discuss... 'dragons'? Or, you could just test my bloodline rating. I think I'm at least an 'S' rank."
Exuding an "I-have-no-idea-what-you're-doing-but-I'm-awesome" aura usually triggered hidden plotlines. He was confident.
The old man opposite stared blankly, then let out a raspy, wheezing laugh. "Heh heh heh... Dragons? Bloodline ratings? Boy, have you lost your mind? I don't care what you are. As long as you have a Spiritual Root, even a Pseudo Spiritual Root, this old one can refine you into... hmph."
The old man snapped the book shut. On its cover were three ancient seal characters: The Everlasting Spring Art.
A flash of lightning outside illuminated the old man's face. It was sinister, a greedy smirk playing on his lips.
Chen Fan's pupils constricted violently.
The Everlasting Spring Art? Spiritual Root? Calling himself 'This Old One'? Sinister and vicious?
Wasn't this the nightmare of the rookie village from A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality—Doctor Mo?!
Chen Fan's brain blue-screened for three seconds.
Why was he meeting a Mortal villain on the Dragon Raja set? It was like ordering Michelin French cuisine only for the waiter to plop down a plate of stinky tofu and ask if you wanted it spicy.
"System?" Chen Fan screamed internally. "Bro System? Deep Blue? Old Grandpa? Are you there?"
Silence. No cheerful 'Ding!', no status panel popping up.
"Enough of your tricks!" Doctor Mo had clearly lost patience. Suddenly, a hand—dry as a chicken's claw, with blackened nails and reeking of a nauseating (stench)—shot out to seize Chen Fan's wrist. "Let this old one see your aptitude!"
Chen Fan instinctively tried to dodge, but his chronically unfit, STEM-major body couldn't keep up.
Thwack!
His wrist was locked in a grip of startling strength, like an iron vise.
"Ow, ow, ow, OW!" Chen Fan yelped, all pretenses of 'protagonist demeanor' shattered by the pain. "Let go! I'll call the police! I'm a law-abiding citizen!"
Doctor Mo ignored his cries. A stream of chilling energy forced its way through his wrist, rampaging through his meridians. Chen Fan felt as if he'd been thrown into an ice cellar, shivering uncontrollably.
"Eh?" A light suddenly sparked in the old man's murky eyes, like a starving wolf spotting meat. "To actually have... a Heaven-Deficient Body? Your meridians are clogged like this city's sewers, yet your spiritual consciousness is remarkably strong... Strange, most strange!"
Chen Fan, on the verge of tears from the pain, hadn't given up thinking.
Heaven-Deficient Body? Strong spiritual consciousness? Of course it's strong! I