The city outside the window sank into a false starry river lit by neon and LED lights. Chen Mo rubbed his dry, aching eyes. The code on the screen crawled like a swarm of twisted insects. 3:17 AM. On this floor of the office building, only the harsh, pale light above his workstation remained on.
"One last test run… then I can go home."
Home? That thirty-square-meter rental, cold and impersonal as a showroom unit? He gave a wry twist of his lips and hit Enter. The progress bar crept forward sluggishly, mirroring his own life over the past thirty years—methodical, precise, and utterly dull. School, exams, squeezing into a big tech company, then being slowly drained dry by endless demands, unfixable bugs, and a receding hairline.
His heart gave a violent lurch.
Not a metaphor. In the physical, literal sense, the muscle in his left chest cavity suddenly clenched, as if seized by a frigid, iron fist. Excruciating pain exploded. Dazzling white spots bloomed before his eyes, instantly devouring the code and the screen. He tried to breathe, but the air turned miserly, refusing to enter his lungs. His body slid from the chair. The back of his head struck the carpet with a dull thud.
Before his vision plunged into darkness, the last image that flashed was the face of his product manager, spewing saliva as he demanded faster progress.
'What a fucking… waste…'
Consciousness did not dissipate. Instead, it floated in a void devoid of time and space. No light, no sound, only an absolute "emptiness." Then, a voice cut in, stuttering, cold, mechanical, bearing a non-human quality.
[…Compatible soul detected… Energy signature: Low activity… Mental resilience and fixation assessment: Meets baseline thresholds… Concept anchors: 'Strive unto Death', 'Construct Order'…]
[…Scanning available protocols… 'Multiverse Growth Protocol' (Minimum Viability Version) responding… Initiating binding…]
[…Warning: Insufficient energy… Binding process unstable… Enabling minimum-energy deployment protocol… Coordinates randomized…]
Chen Mo wanted to think, to question, but his consciousness was like a candle flame in a gale, only able to passively receive these fragmented messages. What followed was an even more violent jolting and spinning, as if he'd been thrown into a washing machine.
"Cough! Cough-cough—!"
Foul odors assaulted his senses first—a turbid mix of moldy hay, animal dung, heavy sweat, and the metallic tang of rust, forcing its way violently into his nostrils. Chen Mo's eyes flew open. Violent coughs wracked his entire body, making every bone groan.
Touch returned. Beneath him was hard, rough plank wood, grinding against his back with each fierce jolt, stiff straw poking through the gaps. In his ears, the groan and creak of wooden wheels over a gravel road, mingled with labored breathing and stifled whimpers. His vision gradually focused. First, he saw the gray, patched canvas canopy overhead.
He shifted. A cold, harsh clatter came from his wrists and ankles. Looking down, he saw thick, crude manacles of cast iron, their edges still bearing burrs, shackling his limbs. The chains were short, allowing his arms only the slightest lift.
This wasn't a prank or a movie set. The scabs from where the manacles had chafed his skin overlapped with fresh, angry red welts, sending pulses of real pain. His clothes were rough sacks, barely covering him, offering no warmth.
Fragments of memory—belonging to another "Chen Mo"—surged into his mind like a rising tide.
An orphan, nameless and unknown, growing up on the charity of a border village. At sixteen, the village was raided by roaming, corrupted goblins. Survivors were "collected" by a passing slave caravan. No one cared what a scrawny youth was called. The caravan overseer casually assigned him a number, "Seven," and a phonetically similar name for address, "Chen Mo." Then came months of transit, being sold and resold, evaluated and displayed like merchandise.
The last memory was of being herded onto this prison cart bound for an unknown destination. For trying to snatch a piece of moldy bread, a guard had smashed a metal-tipped club into his gut. Agony, suffocation, then darkness.
'Transmigrated… For real. Landed in the most clichéd script, as the lowest of the low. A slave.'
Panic lasted only a moment before being smothered by a colder numbness. A weary corporate drone from modern society and a life-worth-less-than-straw slave in a different world—on the canvas of despair, they were laughably similar.
The instinct to survive reacted faster than reason. Almost subconsciously, from the depths of his soul steeped in countless web novels, came a silent, desperate shout:
'System!'
No response. Just the noise of wheels on stone.
'System, help me!'
'Ding?'
'Deep Blue? Add stats!'
'Main God Space? Where's the mission?'
'Status panel!'
'Open Sesame!'
The inner cries went from expectation to anxiety, then to near-desperate mockery. Just as he began to doubt he'd gotten the wrong script, wondering if he truly had to start with just manacles and a miserable life to gamble with—
At the very center of his vision, a nearly imperceptible blue speck of light ignited.
It spread, stretched, transforming into a few lines of extremely simple, semi-transparent characters glowing with a cold light. They hovered steadily before his retina, unaffected by blinking or eye movement.
[Energy replenished. Multiverse Growth Protocol (Trial Version) activated.]
[Host bound:Chen Mo (Provisional Designation).]
[Core Directives:Survive. Ascend. Explore.]
[Novice Resource Package delivered to temporary storage.]
[Status:Critically Weakened (Starvation, Dehydration, Minor Internal Injury). Immediate use of basic supplies recommended.]
The characters were succinct, utterly emotionless, yet they pierced the pitch-black darkness in Chen Mo's heart like sunlight tearing through thick clouds.
Not an illusion.
He stared fixedly at those lines, his breath involuntarily quickening. Trial version? Didn't matter. Critically weakened? Crystal clear. The package… storage…
How to open it?
The thought had just formed when, beneath the floating text, two new, smaller lines quietly appeared:
[Mental command 'Open Package' received.]
[Extract and open'Novice Resource Package'? Y/N]
Without hesitation, Chen Mo focused his mind and pressed down hard on that "Y."