At the border where the Silver Moon Forest met the Nightmare Marshes, an ancient yet vibrant city rose in solemn grandeur. Its walls, cloaked in verdant vines, bathed in the golden light of the setting sun — majestic, almost sacred, yet somehow serene. To the south, several volcanoes with rivers of molten lava breathed a blazing, crimson haze into the sky; every now and then, a clear, ringing cry of a phoenix would ring out through the layered smoke and cloud, sending the fire-clouds at the crater mouths into a churning boil. The heavens were stained a deep, burning red, as though challenging the sun itself, demanding that all lesser beings bow in reverence.
This was the famed Nature-alignment fortress, the land where phoenixes soared — Loxibrook.
A young girl with black hair cascading over her shoulders and exquisitely painted features stood beneath the shade of a tree, staring at the scene before her with her mouth hanging open:
Crusader patrols marched along the streets in perfect formation, their polished steel armor clinking rhythmically with every synchronized step.
Not far away, a tall watchtower stood against the sky, and a cluster of fairies with brilliantly colorful wings fluttered and frolicked around it in gleeful circles.
A shimmering, iridescent dragon hatchling was attempting to nuzzle a creature wreathed entirely in flames — something that looked suspiciously like a juvenile phoenix — emitting bright, delighted little sounds.
"Am I… transported into a fantasy world?"
After repeatedly trying to dial both the emergency line and her homeroom teacher with no success, Li Fei shoved her phone back into the pocket of her school uniform with a grimace of pure suffering.
She'd been walking on a sidewalk like a perfectly normal human being, when out of absolutely nowhere, a dump truck weighing over a dozen tons had introduced itself to her at high speed. Then came darkness. Then came consciousness, and with it — this bizarre, otherworldly place.
This wholly unexpected transmigration hadn't brought Li Fei excitement — it had brought her terror. Still trembling, she pressed her hand hard against her chest, feeling not a single shred of security.
Before she'd crossed over, Li Fei had no family to speak of, and aside from a few girlfriends, not much to hold her back. But she'd at least had the savings and property left to her by the deceased — enough to live comfortably. Now, she'd been hurled into a world she knew nothing about, completely alone, unable to speak the language, and unable to even guarantee her next meal.
The most terrifying part, though, was that this morning before she'd left the house, she had forgotten to delete a certain folder on her laptop.
"Calm down, Li Fei… The top priority right now is finding a job that anyone with working hands can do. Can't afford to starve to death on the street."
Li Fei irritably ruffled her own hair, pacing back and forth on the spot, muttering an endless stream of anxious thoughts under her breath, fighting to keep herself rational.
As this high school girl — who had rushed to visit her girlfriend at a neighboring school after classes and had never returned — wandered uncertainly through the unfamiliar city, the creatures of various races flowing through the streets couldn't help but steal glances at her.
Her high school uniform, blue with white patterns, and the pair of classic red high-top Converse sneakers on her feet clashed spectacularly with the surrounding environment — oddly out of place, almost quaint — yet none of it could conceal the graceful, slender lines of her figure. Her fair, delicate features were no less striking than those of an elf.
Thanks to Loxibrook's distinctly unique local customs, a considerable number of the female humanoid residents cast notably interested looks in the girl's direction.
As the girl stood there in flustered unease, a sudden hot breath puffed against her face, lifting a strand of her dark hair.
Li Fei turned her head — and found that at some unknown point, a creature with snow-white fur and an extraordinary, noble bearing had drawn close to her. A pair of large, pitch-black, glistening eyes stared back at her, filled with an almost uncanny intelligence.
It was a creature shaped like a horse, a single horn growing from its head, and its mane shimmered with the iridescent, dream-like hues of a rainbow — looking exactly like the unicorns of myth and legend.
Li Fei instinctively stepped back a few paces, on the verge of crying out in surprise — but then her eyes caught sight of two long, slender, snow-white legs swaying at the unicorn's side, and a pair of brown ankle boots bobbing gently along with them.
She instinctively tilted her head upward.
What met her eyes was a tall, otherworldly beauty with green hair, her clothing woven from vines and leaves that utterly failed to conceal her luminously pale skin. Her features were refined and radiant, and her green eyes were like a still lake — pellucid and clear.
Li Fei's gaze finally settled on one side of her light-green hair, tucked behind an ear — the ear's outline was unmistakably pointed. Li Fei, who kept a rather extensive collection of "short manga" featuring female elves and succubi on her computer, knew immediately: this was the defining feature of the fantasy creature known as an "elf."
"Fufu, even if you're also a girl, you can't just go rushing up to strangers like that!"
Beatrice — who, by elven standards, could still be considered a young woman — lightly scolded the unicorn beneath her, while quietly giving Fufu full internal credit for creating this opportunity for her.
Then Beatrice lifted her head, her slender jade fingers deftly tucking one side of her long hair back behind her ear, and turned a smile toward Li Fei — apologetic, yet impossibly radiant:
"I'm sorry, she doesn't listen very well. I hope she didn't startle you."
Unable to understand the language of this world, Li Fei could only tilt her head back at the elf girl with a quiver and bow on her back, give a shrug, and offer an awkward-but-polite smile.
"You don't know the Alliance Common Tongue yet?"
Seeing Li Fei's reaction, Beatrice was briefly taken aback, though not especially surprised.
Loxibrook was a world-renowned Nature-alignment fortress, and it was not uncommon for dark-haired, dark-eyed women from the Eastern Continent — gentle as flowing water — to travel here out of admiration, or even settle down. There were always newly arrived Easterners who had not yet mastered the Common Tongue.
The unicorn Fufu tilted her head to the side and quietly let out a small sigh.
So it seemed this carefully engineered chance encounter was, as usual, going to fail to break her contracted partner's centuries-long losing streak with women before the coming-of-age ceremony a few months away.
Honestly, what could you say about someone blockheaded enough to try chatting up a girl while mounted on a unicorn, forcing the other person to crane their neck upward the entire conversation? Eighteen-plus years of being single, absolutely well-deserved.
"Um… my name is Beatrice. This is a small apology gift — I hope we meet again sometime."
After several seconds of cringe-worthy silence, Beatrice tossed over a round, golden-orange fruit and brought the fleeting encounter to a somewhat flustered close.
Li Fei didn't watch Beatrice's somewhat dejected silhouette disappear into the distance. Instead, she stood there blankly, staring at the unfamiliar fruit in her hand.
[Orange Leaf Fruit]
[Description: The fruit of the Orange Leaf Tree. Non-toxic.]
Suddenly, that little fragment of information surfaced in the depths of her mind.
"Oh…"
Li Fei, an avid consumer of web novels, immediately understood. From the bottom of her heart, she sent out an eager mental call: "System?"
At once, a luminous panel materialized across her retinas.
[CHARACTER PANEL]
Name: Li Fei
Level: 0
Sequence Level: None
EXP: 0/200
Class: None
Legacy: None
Mana: 0
Strength: 3 (related to burst power, load-bearing capacity, etc.)
Agility: 6 (related to flexibility, coordination, neural reflex speed, etc.)
Constitution: 3 (related to recovery, adaptability, defense, HP, etc.)
Intelligence: 7 (related to memory, logical processing speed, etc.; after unlocking the Knowledge Tree, also related to Mana cap, Mana regeneration speed, and spell effectiveness)
Charisma: 80
Morality: 2
Note: 1. The average Strength, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, Charisma, and Morality of a healthy adult male is 5 points.
2. Intelligence makes you smarter, but does not represent knowledge or wisdom.
Luck: 1
Command: 0
Aptitude: 0
Achievements: None
Innate Talents:
1. Depravity
— When Morality decreases, Charisma increases. (Irreversible)
2. ???
Knowledge Tree: Locked
Potential Points: 0
Spells: None
Combat Skills: None
Evaluation: Girls, rhythm games genuinely do improve your Agility stat.
[MESSAGE PANEL]
[Orange Leaf Fruit]
...
[SHOP PANEL / LOCKED]
Hint: Unlock the Shop Panel after acquiring Wealth.
[GACHA PANEL / LOCKED]
Hint: Level up to receive gacha draws.
Li Fei read through the system panel over and over again. She covered her mouth, barely managing to keep herself from bursting into humiliating tears.
She had a future. SHE HAD A FUTURE!!!
Obviously, this system that had appeared from nowhere was going to be the very foundation of her survival in this world.
Li Fei read through every word of the system panel with painstaking focus, her thoughts slowly taking shape:
— 7 Intelligence points. This lady really is a genius, as expected.
— If she's guessing correctly, all she needs is enough EXP to level up and grow stronger. Once she has money to spend in the shop, the Shop Panel will make her even more powerful.
— As for how to earn EXP… probably by defeating or killing enemies. There might be other methods too — she'd have to figure those out over time.
— Depravity is a great skill. This class beauty knows all too well how valuable Charisma is — someone brings me breakfast every single morning, after all. But it brings trouble too. Use it carefully…
— Why is my Morality only two points? I have a Three-Good-Student certificate hanging on the wall at home! Don't tell me that teenage romance or being gay counts as immoral? This system is ridiculously prudish… Oh wait, I forgot — this lady has been playing the field since first year of high school. Never mind, that tracks.
...
The corner of Li Fei's mouth curved up, little by little. No matter what lay ahead, the system's arrival had settled her nerves. The terror and helplessness of mere minutes ago vanished entirely, replaced by a surging, restless ambition stirring deep within her.
Something seemed to click in her mind. She raised her head, glanced around, then climbed up onto a moss-covered observation platform not far away.
Ignoring the fairies who had stopped their chase to peer at her with curious eyes, Li Fei gripped the railing and gazed out over the distance. The prosperous, peaceful city spread before her, and beyond its walls, the vast, hazy expanse of the continent stretched into the horizon. She narrowed her eyes, staring at the setting sun in the far distance, and slowly extended her arm — her pale, slender hand opened wide, then closed into a tight fist, as though she could grasp the very sun in her palm.
"It looks like the days ahead are going to be very interesting."
The corner of Li Fei's mouth lifted into a smile. She took a bite of the fruit the elf girl Beatrice had given her.
Citrusy. Sweet and clean.
...
One month later, Li Fei dragged her exhausted body through the door, a practiced, mechanical smile barely plastered on her face, and collected her day's wages from the proprietress, Ms. Roslyn — seventy-eight copper coins.
Even miracles and magic came with a price. After slapping a few bugs to death and chasing a rat around with a stick — only to find that no EXP had been credited to her account — Li Fei had come to the conclusion that she probably needed to defeat or kill creatures that were "powerful" enough to trigger the system.
Before any of that, though, she needed to fill her stomach.
Fortunately, she had once considered majoring in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language — partly to appreciate exotic foreign customs… ahem, to experience the cultures of various nations — and had used her holidays to chat with golden-haired, blue-eyed foreign girls. When it came to communicating without a shared language, she was rather experienced. Her above-average Intelligence, too, was proof of Li Fei's natural aptitude.
After an enthusiastic round of charades-style negotiation, a ravenously hungry Li Fei successfully talked her way into a job at a restaurant — room and board included, ten copper coins a day, paid daily. And the model student who had survived the middle school entrance exams and was supposed to be preparing for her college entrance exams proceeded to give the working people of this other world a masterclass in what it meant to "fully leverage one's own initiative":
She diligently completed every task from serving dishes to cleaning, and within just a few days, her fake-but-sweet smile had begun drawing in a steady stream of returning customers. After that, Li Fei waited until Ms. Roslyn was in the best of moods and put forward a certain proposal. Ms. Roslyn, happy to go along with it, assigned Li Fei a new duty — during her free time, she would go out onto the street to solicit customers. For every customer she brought in, she'd earn an extra copper coin.
And so her good looks and her summer-job experience handing out flyers proved useful once more…
"Fei, before you got here, every staff member's weekly wages came out to about one silver coin and forty coppers. Since you arrived, the daily earnings I'm counting up don't even come close to that anymore. At this rate, I might not be able to afford to keep paying salaries."
Ms. Roslyn, well into her forties and comfortably plump, laughed as she directed the complaint at Li Fei.
Sure, and not only do you spend extra time every closing time counting the revenue — which has gone up by at least four digits — you're also shelling out hundreds of extra coppers in wages to us workers. We're the winners here. You're the one taking a loss. A real, catastrophic loss.
After a month of scraping by, Li Fei had managed to piece together enough of the language through sheer talent and guesswork to roughly decode what Ms. Roslyn was saying. She kept her polite smile perfectly in place the whole time, making snarky commentary in her head while simultaneously entertaining the little girl squirming contentedly in her lap — Ms. Roslyn's own daughter.
She waited patiently until Ms. Roslyn had finished weighing and tallying the day's revenue, when her mood was at its absolute peak, before scooting closer with her best well-behaved expression to ask her a few questions about the Common Tongue.
...
Half an hour later, Li Fei bid Ms. Roslyn goodnight and dragged her heavy body into the staff quarters — a small wooden cabin that had long sat unused.
She fished out a heavy clay jar from under the bed and dropped today's wages inside. The copper coins clinked against each other with a crisp, satisfying ring, easing just a little of the weariness in her chest.
Li Fei then flipped open her notebook, recording the day's income and a few quietly gathered pieces of information worth remembering — such as the approaching enrollment period for the Magic Academy, and the fact that Transcendents advancing along a Sequence required the completion of a specific "Ritual."
A month of hard work had earned her fifteen silver coins, with a daily average of roughly fifty copper coins — and after subtracting necessary expenses like clothing and the occasional small snack, she had fourteen left. She opened the [Shop Panel], glanced at her still-zero Wealth stat, and quietly closed the system panel again.
Transmigrated into another world, unable to speak the language, with no family and no connections — she could only work under the table at a restaurant, wearing a fake smile for over ten hours a day, even having to put on a self-hemmed short skirt to solicit customers on the street. After closing time, she had to swallow her pride and beg coworkers and her boss to teach her the local language. The system that was supposed to change her fate sat completely idle. Nearly every single minute of every single day felt like a form of torture to Li Fei.
"Endure it, Li Fei. This is not the time to give up. Once you save enough starting capital, a bright future is absolutely guaranteed."
Li Fei gave herself the pep talk, fetched a basin of well water from outside, and carefully washed herself down.
The temperature was still bearable for now, but the wet cloth strips dragged across her skin in the night air still raised a chill, and she shivered slightly. Firewood from the kitchen was free to take, but boiling water was such a hassle — managing a hot bath once every three days was already the result of Li Fei being relatively conscientious about hygiene.
After that far-from-comfortable wash, Li Fei lay down on her somewhat lumpy wooden plank bed and stared at the ceiling in a daze.
She was exhausted, yet sleep refused to come.
She already had plans for the future, but the days before a butterfly breaks free from its cocoon were always the hardest to endure. She stared at the unchanging data in her system panel as ambition and a hollow emptiness gnawed at her insides like ants.
On this strange and wondrous continent of Enlos, there were knights and magic, legendary creatures of every kind; countless city-states dotted the land, and wandering bards with the whole world as their home sang the epics of heroes. Kingdoms rose and fell, yet only the Six Great Factions endured throughout the ages.
Li Fei was desperate to write her own story in this turbulent world — to claim beauties and wealth for herself… ahem, to carve out a career and a love life all her own. But before she had saved enough to buy even the most basic equipment, she could do nothing. She estimated that she would likely need to defeat or kill a Sequence 9 enemy to start earning EXP.
After all, on the continent of Enlos, only those who had crossed into Sequence 9 were considered proper "combat units." But even the weakest Sequence 9, to a frail young girl, was a terrifying, nearly unbeatable opponent.
Fortunately, there was always a way. In certain well-known stories, there were always villains who used poisoned crossbow bolts to ambush the heroic protagonist — even a genuine Sequence 9 or higher could be brought down by a sneak attack, their lives cut short in an instant. That gave Li Fei an idea.
She had already visited a weapons shop to inquire about the prices of crossbows and poison. At her current rate of income, she would need to save for one year to afford the cheapest crossbow and a single vial of poison.
Work hard. Make money. Buy a crossbow. This lady refuses to believe the damn system won't give me EXP for killing a Sequence 9 combat unit. Once I have EXP I grow stronger, and once I'm stronger I can earn more money, more EXP… From zero to hero is just a matter of time.
Of course, Li Fei had also heard of another kind of story — the kind where a protagonist born in poverty, armed only with battered, hand-me-down gear before ever setting foot on the path of the Transcendent, relied on exceptional wit, talent, or sheer luck to defeat Transcendent creatures, honing themselves through endless life-and-death struggles and awakening their innate gifts to climb the path of the strong…
Fourteen silver coins. Not enough for a crossbow. Just about enough for the cheapest wooden shield and iron sword, though. But Li Fei would never follow that second path.
Are you kidding? If she endured for just one year, she could harvest EXP safely and efficiently, then cheat her way to power and shoot straight to the top. Why on earth would she risk her life doing that?
This lady would sooner work herself to death or be killed by her own wooden plank bed before she ever picked up a sword and played the melee fighter like some reckless brute!
After a good long while of rambling, half-delirious thoughts, Li Fei finally let her eyes drift shut.
________________________________________
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