The low groan from Overseer Deng broke the stunned silence of the Iron Whales transit docks.
Several senior laborers cautiously stepped forward, staring in absolute bewildernt at the sight of their usually tyrannical manager face-first in a heap of scattered iron rivets. A thick blue bump was already swelling on Deng’s forehead where it had made perfect, resounding contact with the iron wheelbarrow.
"Is he... dead?" whispered Old Feng, a gaunt dockhand whose back had been permanently bowed by thirty years of brutal, unrewarded labor.
"No," Shen Jin stamred, pulling himself backward on his hands while keeping his voice pitched to a perfect, panicked octave. He trembled visibly, ensuring that his eyes were wide with a youth’s unfeigned terror. "He’s breathing! I—I didn't an to! The river mud... it was so slippery, and when I dropped the crate, my foot just gave out!"
"Get up, you foolish brat," Old Feng hissed softly, moving quickly to grab Shen Jin by his ragged collar and dragging him to his feet. "If the Head Overseer catches wind that Deng was knocked out on your watch, they won't care if it was an accident. They’ll throw you straight into the river with stones tied to your ankles. Help haul him into the shade before soone from the main office walks down the pier."
Shen Jin nodded frantically, bowing his head repeatedly. "Thank you, Uncle Feng. Thank you!"
As they grabbed the heavy, dead-weight arms of Overseer Deng to drag him toward a nearby lean-to, Shen Jin kept his gaze downcast. Beneath his mask of panicked submissiveness, however, his mind was remarkably cold and calculating.
A corner of his vision was still dominated by the flickering, translucent pale-blue screen of the Heavenly Guardian System.
[Current Balance: 10 Vanguard Points (VP)]
[System Notice: The feature [Flawless Simulation] is now active. The host can access the simulation subspace during deep sleep or ditation cycles.]
Ten points, Shen Jin thought, his pulse steadying. In my past life, I would have traded a limb for an inheritance like this. I need to find out exactly what these points can buy.
With a dull thud, they dropped Overseer Deng onto a canvas cot beneath the wooden awning. The man snored heavily, a thin trail of saliva pooling at the corner of his mouth.
"Go back and finish gathering those rivets," Old Feng grunted, wiping sweat from his brow as he looked at Shen Jin with a mix of pity and exasperation. "And hide that splintered crate. If Deng wakes up and sees his boots are scratched, he’ll skin you alive anyway."
"Right away, Uncle Feng," Shen Jin said, offering another deep, awkward bow before rushing back out into the sun.
For the next two hours, Shen Jin worked with intentional clumsiness. Whenever another laborer passed by, he made sure to drop a rivet, stumble slightly, or wipe his brow with an expression of sheer exhaustion. Yet, beneath the performance, he was testing his body.
He was painfully weak. His lungs burned from the ambient mortal smog of the lower docks, a toxic mixture of burning coal, cheap fuel, and the stagnant, unrefined spiritual waste dumped by the high-tier cultivation sects located further up the mountain. His muscles were severely malnourished, his ridians blocked by years of poor diet and untreated physical injuries.
If a minor rogue cultivator wanders into the docks tonight, I am completely defenseless, Shen Jin realized grimly. Absolute Obscurity hides my presence, but it doesn't make bulletproof. If a stray blade cos my way, a mortal body will still bleed out.
By the ti the heavy bronze bell of the Iron Whales courtyard rang three tis, signaling the end of the shift, the sun had dipped below the jagged western peaks of the Nine Heavens Domain. The sky twisted into a bruised purple hue, and a biting chill swept over the riverbank.
The laborers filed into the communal dining hall—a drafty, dilapidated warehouse where they were served bowls of watery millet porridge and salted radish. Shen Jin took his wooden bowl and sat in the furthest, darkest corner of the room, completely ignoring the raucous chatter of the older n discussing the local gambling dens and the rising prices of grain.
With a thought, he summoned the system shop nu.
🏪 VANGUARD EXCHANGE SHOP
[ridian Washing Dew (Low-Grade)] — Cost: 10 VP
(Purges basic mortal impurities from the bloodstream and strengthens foundational pathways.)
[Iron Skin Ointnt (Low-Grade)] — Cost: 15 VP
(Increases physical density against blunt force trauma.)
[Qi-Tracking Needle] — Cost: 5 VP
(A disposable spiritual tool to detect hidden arrays or traps.)
Shen Jin didn't hesitate. Purchase the ridian Washing Dew.
[Transaction Complete. 10 Vanguard Points deducted.]
[Item stored in System Inventory. Would the host like to consu it now?]
Notice: Consuming cleansing dicine in a conscious mortal state will cause extre physical discomfort and visible discharge of impurities. It is highly recomnded to use [Flawless Simulation] during sleep.
I'll wait until midnight, Shen Jin decided, closing the interface.
After finishing his tasteless al, he walked out of the dining hall and made his way toward the communal sleeping quarters—a long, drafty warehouse lined with rows of straw pallets. The air inside was thick with the sll of unwashed bodies, sour sweat, and heavy snoring.
Shen Jin claid his usual pallet near the drafty wooden wall, far away from the center of the room where the larger, more aggressive dockworkers fought over the thicker blankets. He pulled a thin, coarse burlap sack over his shoulders and closed his eyes, letting the exhaustion of his seventeen-year-old body wash over him.
System, he thought as his consciousness began to drift. Initialize Flawless Simulation.
[PING.]
[Flawless Simulation: Initialized.]
[Transporting Host Consciousness to Subspace...]
The heavy snoring, the sll of sweat, and the biting chill of the drafty warehouse vanished in an instant.
Shen Jin opened his eyes to find himself standing on a vast, seamless floor of reflective black glass. Above him, there was no sky—only a deep, starless violet void that stretched into infinity. There was no wind, no sound, and no physical weight.
He looked down at his arms. In this space, his body didn't look raw or bloody. Instead, it was semi-transparent, allowing him to see his own internal anatomy rendered in glowing lines of pale light. His main ridians looked like dark, choked pipes filled with a thick, tar-like black sludge—the cumulative result of a lifeti of breathing mortal smog, eating rotten food, and enduring untreated physical trauma.
[System Notice: Automatically administering [ridian Washing Dew (Low-Grade)].]
A drop of brilliant, starlight-blue liquid materialized in the void above him and fell directly onto his crown.
Instantly, a wave of cool, pristine energy erupted through his spiritual core. Like a gentle but unyielding rising tide, the cool blue energy rushed into his glowing pathways, pushing directly against the dense black sludge.
In the real world, such a process would feel like liquid fire scraping against the inside of one's veins, causing a mortal to scream in agony. But here, in the simulation subspace, Shen Jin felt only a profound, crystalline clarity. The starlight energy systematically flaked the sludge away from the walls of his veins, dissolving the impurities into nothingness.
[Ti Remaining in Real-World Sleep Cycle: 6 Hours.]
[Ti Available in Simulation Sub-space: 24 Hours.]
[Notice: In this state, the host can direct the flow of the dicine manually to maximize structural efficiency. Would you like to begin foundational posture training?]
A faint, genuine smile finally broke across Shen Jin’s face.
Twenty-four hours of uninterrupted, completely painless training with a body that wouldn't tire, tear, or break. To an ordinary cultivator, the monotonous repetition of foundational stances for an entire day would be an insufferable, mind-numbing chore. But to a regressor who had watched the entire world burn simply because he wasn't strong enough to stand his ground, this space was the ultimate sanctuary.
"Let's begin," Shen Jin murmured, dropping his weight into a low, completely unostentatious horse stance. "We have a lot of work to do."
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