Twenty-four hours inside the simulation subspace felt like a blissful eternity.
When Shen Jin’s eyes snapped open in the physical world, the raw, suffocating stench of the warehouse instantly rushed back into his lungs. The deep, rumbling chorus of snoring dockworkers still echoed from the straw pallets around him. Outside, the sky was just barely beginning to soften into a pale grey dawn.
In the real world, only six hours had passed.
Shen Jin slowly sat up, bracing himself for the usual agony that accompanied manual labor on a malnourished body. Instead, a wave of light, fluid warmth rolled through his chest. He looked down at his arms in the dim morning light. The raw, bleeding cuts from yesterday’s splintered cedar crate had already closed up, leaving behind faint pink lines of rapidly healing tissue.
His muscles felt taut, wired with a steady, quiet energy. The tar-like black impurities that had choked his ridians for years hadn't been fully purged, but the ridian Washing Dew had blasted a clean, open channel straight through his core.
He didn't have Qi yet—true cultivation required a proper cultivation mantra and a dense environnt—but his mortal vessel was no longer a leaky, broken bucket. He had a solid foundation.
[PING.]
[Simulation Cycle Concluded.]
Results: Foundational Horse Stance mastered (Mortal Layer). Complete assimilation of Low-Grade ridian Washing Dew achieved.
Current Status: Physical vitality increased by 35%. Internal pathways stabilized.
Current Balance: 0 Vanguard Points (VP).
A good start, Shen Jin thought, slipping his worn cloth boots on and quietly exiting the sleeping quarters before the morning bell could wake the rest of the crew.
The morning air by the river was freezing, biting through his thin burlap shirt. Mist rolled thick over the dark water of the docks, swallowing the silhouettes of the moored transport ships. Shen Jin grabbed a heavy bamboo broom from the tool shed and walked toward the primary loading platform, intending to maintain his routine as an unnoticeable, diligent laborer.
As he began sweeping the gravel and dried mud, the crunching of heavy boots on stone cut through the quiet morning.
Shen Jin kept his head down, rhythmically moving the broom, but his eyes narrowed.
Three figures stepped through the thick morning fog. In the lead was Overseer Deng. The man looked miserable; a massive, purple-black knot protruded proudly from the center of his forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot with an explosive mixture of hangover and pure, unadulterated rage. Behind him walked two massive enforcers from the Iron Whales' internal disciplinary squad—n whose knuckles were permanently calloused from beating uncooperative laborers.
"There he is," Deng hissed, pointing a trembling, fat finger directly at Shen Jin. His voice cracked with humiliation. "That’s the little rat! The one who 'slipped' and ruined my face!"
The two enforcers stepped forward, their heavy leather armor creaking. The larger of the two, a scarred man nad Brother Hu, drew a thick iron-bound truncheon from his belt.
"Shen Jin," Brother Hu grunted, his eyes cold. "Overseer Deng claims you intentionally assaulted a superior officer and sabotaged cargo yesterday. The punishnt for striking a manager is thirty heavy lashes and being thrown into the slave camps up the mountain. Drop the broom."
Shen Jin put on an expression of absolute, wide-eyed terror. He let the bamboo broom slip from his fingers, clattering loudly onto the stone pier. He took three frantic steps backward, his hands raised in a trembling gesture of compliance.
"Brother Hu, I swear on my mother's spirit, it was an accident!" Shen Jin pleaded, his voice cracking perfectly on cue. "The river mud was frozen! I slipped on a rivet! Overseer Deng saw it—I tripped over my own feet!"
"Accident my fat ass!" Deng roared, wincing as the sudden shout aggravated the throbbing headache from his concussion. "You did it on purpose! You tripped , you little worm! Hu, break his legs first! I want to watch him crawl!"
[🚨 DANGER SENSE ACTIVATED!]
Multiple Hostiles Approaching.
Threat 1 (Brother Hu): Advancing with iron-bound truncheon. Intended target: Right knee.
Threat 2 (Enforcer 2): Blocking left escape flank. Posture: Relaxed.
Threat 3 (Overseer Deng): Aggressive but physically impaired. Balance center: Weak.
Optimal Low-Key Counter-Path: Feign a panic-driven escape attempt. Trip over a mooring rope, causing Threat 1 to overextend and strike Threat 2.
The blueprint was clear. Shen Jin’s mind moved with crystalline precision. He knew exactly where the mooring ropes were coiled behind him without even looking.
As Brother Hu raised the truncheon, his face twisted into a cruel smirk, Shen Jin let out a loud, pathetic shriek. He turned on his heel and bolted backward, looking exactly like a terrified teenager running for his life.
"Don't let him jump into the river!" Deng shouted.
The second enforcer lunged forward from the left to cut off Shen Jin’s escape route.
Shen Jin tid it perfectly. Just as he reached the heavy, thick iron cleat embedded in the stone dock, he deliberately caught the toe of his left boot under a thick loop of hemp mooring rope.
This is it, Shen Jin thought. I trip, slide under the enforcer's grasp, and let Hu's swinging truncheon hit the other guard's knee.
He threw his body forward into a controlled fall.
But then, the world reminded Shen Jin that even a regressor with a system cannot control every minor variable of reality.
The hemp rope, rotted by weeks of stagnant river water and frozen solid by the morning frost, didn't hold under the sudden, precise pressure of his foot. With a sharp SNAP, the brittle rope sheared completely apart.
Because the rope snapped instead of staying taut, Shen Jin didn't trip at the precise angle his mind had calculated. His body, newly strengthened and surprisingly light from the ridian Washing Dew, shot forward much faster and further than he had anticipated.
Instead of a clumsy, pathetic trip-and-slide onto the gravel, Shen Jin launched forward like a slipped arrow.
"Whoa—!" Shen Jin gasped, his eyes widening in genuine, unfeigned surprise as his mishap unfolded.
His shoulder collided dead-center with the second enforcer’s sternum. But because Shen Jin’s internal pathways had been cleansed and his physical density had increased, his "weak mortal body" felt like a solid block of granite.
OOF!
The air exploded out of the second enforcer’s lungs in a violent spray of saliva. The massive man was lifted entirely off his feet, flying backward five full feet before crashing directly into Brother Hu, who was in the middle of a heavy downward swing with his truncheon.
The two massive enforcers tangled into a chaotic ss of limbs, armor, and iron weapons, crashing violently into a heavy stack of wooden cargo crates. The entire stack—filled with cheap porcelain jars—toppled over them with a spectacular, deafening CRASH. Shards of pottery exploded everywhere like a hail of sharp shrapnel.
Shen Jin landed hard on his side, rolling across the gravel until he hit the base of a crane. He scrambled to his hands and knees, covered in white porcelain dust, blinking in sheer disbelief.
The rope rotted, he realized, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. The simulation didn't account for environntal decay. I hit him way too hard.
The docks fell dead silent again, save for the pathetic groans of the two enforcers buried under a mountain of broken pottery and splintered wood.
Overseer Deng stood entirely alone in the morning mist, his mouth hanging open so wide his jaw looked unhinged. He looked at his two elite, bone-breaking enforcers twitching on the ground, then looked at Shen Jin, who was currently sitting in a pile of white dust, looking absolutely terrified and coughing violently.
To Deng, it looked like Shen Jin had tried to run, panicked, tripped so violently that he beca a human cannonball, and by so cursed, ungodly streak of demonic luck, wiped out both guards in a single, clumsy accident.
"Monster..." Deng whispered, his voice trembling as he took a step back. "You... what kind of cursed jinx are you?!"
[PING.]
[Mishap Detected: Environntal Variable Failure (Rotted Rope).]
[Recalculating Encounter Outcos...]
[System Assessnt: Despite the operational deviation, the host successfully avoided permanent trauma, neutralized all direct threats, and public perception remains thoroughly convinced of your utter incompetence and absurd luck.]
[Rewards Distributed:]
15 Vanguard Points (VP) for successful defense of self.
5 Bonus VP for "Spectacularly Clumsy Performance."
Current Balance: 20 VP.
Shen Jin instantly buried his face in his hands, letting out a loud, theatrical sob that echoed across the misty wharf.
"I'm so sorry! I'll pay for the jars! Please don't tell the Head Overseer!" he wailed, ensuring his voice carried to the early-morning workers who were just beginning to peer out of the dining hall.
Beneath his hands, however, a sharp, dangerous smile touched Shen Jin's lips. A mishap it may have been, but twenty Vanguard Points were sitting in his ledger. It was ti to see what else the shop had to offer.
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