The air in the meditation chamber was thick with the scent of burning sandalwood and bitter spirit herbs. Han Jue sat cross-legged, his breathing ragged as he tried to guide a sliver of Qi through his meridians.
Badump.
His heart kicked against his ribs like a trapped animal. A white-hot needle pierced his skull, and suddenly, he wasn't in a stone room anymore.
"What is—" He tried to scream, but his voice was swallowed by a tidal wave of foreign images. Gold-robed immortals stepping on clouds, bloody battlefields that stretched for light-years, and the mundane life of a 15-year-old brat named Han Jue.
The mental overload was too much. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed onto the cold stone floor, unconscious.
When he finally groaned and blinked his eyes open, the world felt... wrong. The ceiling was made of dark, polished wood. The bed beneath him was covered in silk that cost more than a commoner earned in a decade.
"What the fuck..." He sat up, clutching his head. "Where am I? Whose memories are these?"
He squeezed his eyes shut, and his real past came roaring back. He remembered the cold weight of a pistol in his hand. The sirens. The smell of gunpowder and cheap floor wax. He had been in the middle of a bank heist when some wannabe hero—some kid who watched too many movies—rushed him. He hadn't hesitated. One shot, and the kid was dead. Then the police swarmed. Knowing his life was already a gutter-fire, he had turned his gun on them, welcoming the hail of lead that finally tore through his chest.
He was a criminal. A killer. And now... he was a 15-year-old kid in a silk robe.
Then, the context of his new memories hit him like a freight train.
"Wait... no... Fuck, please no..." Han Jue scrambled out of bed, his hands trembling. "Don't tell me this is a fucking cultivation world? The kind of place where your head gets cut off just for looking at a 'Jade Beauty' the wrong way?"
He paced the room, the horror dawning on him.
"And of all things... my clan is the lowest of the low. Fuck me... I'M DEAD!"
He remembered his new "family." His father was a mid-level Elder in the Han Clan, a man whose only talent was bullying maids and stealing spirit stones from servants. But one of those servants... a boy named Ye Fan.
"Ye Fan," Han Jue whispered, the name tasting like poison. "The kid with the 'unbreakable will' who cleans the stables. He's a protagonist! He's definitely going to take revenge and wipe out our whole clan!"
It got worse. He remembered his older brother, the supposed "Pride of the Clan." That idiot had recently "stolen" a girl that Ye Fan loved and, in a fit of arrogant rage, had accidentally killed her during an argument.
"Fuck! FUCK! FUCK!" Han Jue slammed his fist against the wall. "My brother killed the hero's love interest? My father treats him like trash? I'm living in a 3rd-rate webnovel, and I'm the first boss the hero kills to level up! I'm an EXP pack!"
He slumped against the wall, hyperventilating. In his past life, he was the one pulling the trigger. In this life, he was the one waiting for the executioner.
Suddenly, a sound like a crystal bell chiming echoed directly inside his brain.
[System Initializing...]
Han Jue froze. "A system? Is this the part where I get a cheat?"
Han Jue stared at the flickering light in his mind, his heart hammering against his ribs. He had been a bank robber; he knew how to spot an advantage. If he had a system in a world this insane, he wasn't just a victim—he was a player.
"System!" Han Jue hissed, his voice cracking. "How do I cultivate? I need to get fucking stronger now! I've read enough of these webnovels to know the drill. You're my cheat code, right? Give me a starter pack! Give me a Divine Body or something!"
He waited for a golden light or a massive power surge. Instead, a cold, dim text box flickered in his vision.
[System]
Host: Han Jue
Current Stage: Skin Tempering - Early (Mortal Forge)
Starter Bonus: Temporal Stasis (3 Days) Effect: Time slows by 10x for the Host. 3 Days of cultivation will pass in the room while only 7 hours pass outside.
"Three days?" Han Jue's eyes lit up. "Okay. Okay, that's something. I can work with that."
He immediately scrambled back onto the meditation mat. He had read hundreds of these stories—he knew the poses, the breathing, the 'inner peace' bullshit. He shut his eyes, crossed his legs, and waited for the power to flood his veins.
One minute passed. Five minutes. Ten.
Nothing. No warmth, no glowing light, just a sore ass from sitting on the hard floor.
"System, what the fuck?" Han Jue snapped, opening one eye. "I'm doing the thing! I'm meditating! Why isn't my level going up? Can't you just... I don't know, auto-allocate my XP? Just click 'Level Up' for me!"
[Negative,] the System chimed, its tone annoyingly flat.
[The System does not cultivate for the Host. You are currently at the bottom of the Mortal Forge. Your meridians are clogged with impurities and 'trash' energy.]
[The Host must manually guide the raw Qi from the air into the pores of the skin. You must visualize your internal energy and force it through the first three blocked meridians. If you do not focus, the energy will dissipate. If you rush, your veins will rupture.]
Han Jue's face paled. "You mean... I actually have to do the manual labor? I have to push the energy myself?"
[Correct. Cultivation is a grind of the Mind, Flesh, and Heaven. Start now. You have 72 hours of slowed time. If you fail to break through to the Middle-Stage of Skin Tempering before the 'Protagonist' event triggers, your probability of death is 99%.]
"99 percent..." Han Jue swallowed hard. The bank-robber in him took over. He wasn't a genius; he was a survivor. If he had to crawl through his own veins to stay alive, he'd do it.
He closed his eyes again, but this time, he didn't look for a shortcut. He focused. He felt the tiny, needle-like stings of Qi hitting his skin. It was agonizing. It felt like being poked by thousands of hot wires. He had to grab that 'sting' and pull it into his arms, dragging it through paths that felt like they were filled with dry sand.
Hours bled into days in the silence of the room. His muscles cramped. His head throbbed. Every time he lost focus, the energy snapped back, bruising his insides.
"Again," he wheezed, sweat soaking his silk robes. "Again... goddammit, I am not dying in a stable..."
By the end of the second "day" in his slowed time, he had only managed to clear one meridian. He was exhausted, weak, and his skin felt like it was on fire. He wasn't a god. He was just a kid in a room, struggling not to scream.
On the third day, a loud crack echoed in his ears—not from the room, but from his own body.
[System Notification: Skin Tempering (Early) —> Progressing...]
He wasn't there yet. He was still weak. But for the first time, he felt the energy stay inside.
Suddenly, the "slowing" effect vanished. The world sped back up. The 7 hours were over.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
His door nearly flew off its hinges. A servant burst in, looking pale as a ghost.
"Young Master! Thank the Heavens you're awake! Your brother, Han Ming, has captured the stable-boy Ye Fan! He's accusing him of stealing the Young Lady's pendant and is going to break his legs in the courtyard! He wants you to come and 'have some fun'!"
Han Jue stood up, his legs shaking from the three-day grind. He was still the weakest person in the room, but his eyes were different.