Chapter 4 — "System Interface"
When the campus finally emptied and the hubbub of viral clips cooled into a thousand whispered echoes, Long Hao returned to his small rented room in the Long family's southern annex. He locked the door and slid down the paint-peeled wall until he sat on the floor—breathing shallow, blood still drying along his temple where a careless elbow had left a cut.
The system's voice arrived a heartbeat later. Calm. Immutable.
[Eclipse System — Adaptive Kernel Initiated.][Host: Long Hao][Prior Activation: Initialization 1% (pre-awakening). Emergency Unsealing: +9%][Current Unsealing: 10%]
A translucent interface bloomed in his mind—like frost on dark glass—and columns of information arranged themselves.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ECLIPSE SYSTEM – HOST INTERFACE
Talent: Forbidden Eclipse Dragon (Lineage: Dragon-Eclipse)Unsealing Progress: 10%Core Attributes: Void Resonance + Light Synthesis (latent)Hidden Stats:• Physique: 82/100 (base augmented)• Reflex: 96/100• Composure: 98/100• Talent Entropy: 000.001 (locked)Skills: (Unsealed: 1/Unknown)Quests: (1) Survive and Consolidate — Reward: Core FragmentPenalty: Public Exposure of Talent = Global Bounty (conditional)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Long Hao read the numbers slowly. Reflexes near-perfect. Composure uncannily high. Talent Entropy—an unfamiliar metric—blinked with near-zero, likely a sign of something the system held in reserve.
Penalty: Exposure of talent → Global Bounty.
He frowned. The world here was modern; information spread faster than rumors once did in ancient courts. If he flashed even a sliver of forbidden power publicly, some faction—guild, family, or government—would label him anomaly and hunt him. The system, pragmatic, protected itself by imposing restrictions.
[Warning: Host is flagged as a high-risk anomaly. System recommends stealth and gradual unsealing.]
Long Hao smirked despite the gravity. He had expected the risk. He had expected heavenly attention. But a global bounty had a practical upside: it meant that powers noticed him, and that made for interesting possibilities.
He tested the small skill the system had unsealed—something labeled as Void Flicker (Passive). It was not a flashy attack. It was a shift. He focused on a spot on the wall; the system answered like a bone clicking back into place. For a heartbeat, the edges of his vision went slightly darker—colors muffled as if someone dialed down the world's volume. When the effect passed, the hole in the wall where a loose brick sat looked the same. Only his awareness told him it had been there a moment ago.
[Void Flicker — Passive][Effect: Sensory dampening within immediate radius. Uses: concealment, reflex enhancement.]
This small ability explained why his reflexes had boiled over when Zheng lunged. It enhanced perception, not strength. It would also explain why conventional artifacts—like the Awakening Stone—couldn't read him. If the world's measures relied on certain emanations, his talent could simply mute them.
A second window pulsed—an optional quest.
[Quest Unlocked: Initiate — Obtain Core Fragment of Eclipse. Objective: Survive Trials x3 (Rift/Dungeon/Challenge). Reward: Unsealing +5-10%]
Long Hao laughed softly. Trials. Dungeons. The very sorts of things the system anticipated. He placed a palm over his heart where the sigil throbbed and murmured, "Fine. I'll play your games."
He also noted the penalty carefully. The system punished reckless showing. But the world's arrogance pushed at his patience. He could use the penalty as a leash for others—threaten the balance and watch guilds fight over the bounty rather than target him directly. Strategic chaos had its own charm.
The night deepened. He practiced small exercises—breath control, micro-meditations, testing Void Flicker while moving through the shadows in the Long Clan annex. Each small trial stitched his control tighter. Ten percent unsealed was small, but it changed the vector of factors: he no longer had to wait until death to react. He could begin shaping his own fate.
Before sleep, he opened his phone and scrolled to an underground forum where guild recruiters and talent hunters traded clips. Videos of the beating were already posted. Comment threads filled with speculation.
"Is he dangerous?""No talent—fake.""Those eyes—what are those pupils?"
Long Hao smiled and closed the phone. Let them watch. Let them gossip. Each second they spent underestimating him only prolonged their surprise.
Outside, the city slept. Inside, the sigil over his heart pulsed once—like a sleeping seed tasting water. The system had taken notice of his choices.
[Host Decision Recorded: Consolidation-mode engaged.]
Long Hao lay back and let darkness fold him. The awakening had more teeth than a school ceremony, and he had only just begun to feel the bite. This was survival by design. This was patience—you sharpen bones in silence, then you let the world break itself on you.
[CHAPTER ENDS]