I died in a convenience store robbery. Pretty pathetic way to go, isn't it?
Just like that, everything I knew about my life ended. And somehow… something new began.
A new world. Not exactly something I ever expected.
I took my first breath again.
Air rushed into my lungs, sharp and unfamiliar. High stone walls surrounded me, covered in moss and crawling with small creatures. The ground was soaked, puddles everywhere—my clothes completely drenched.
…Clothes?
I looked down at myself.
Robes. The kind cultivators wore.
Well, not exactly. The material was cheap, worn out—but the style was unmistakable.
I pressed my hands against the ground and tried to stand.
It didn't go well.
My body felt… fragile. Weak to the point it was almost laughable.
Looking up, I saw a thin strip of sky far above me.
A ravine.
My thoughts were still a mess—expected, considering I had just died—but memories that weren't mine began surfacing.
And they helped.
Along with them came a splitting headache.
Two lives. Two sets of memories. Trying to merge inside my head.
Yeah… not pleasant.
I leaned against the damp stone wall before I collapsed again and focused on sorting through everything as quickly as I could.
When it finally settled, there was no doubt left.
A cultivation world.
Honestly… I had always wanted something like this.
Power beyond reason. Defying the heavens. Living forever.
The idea of my life just… ending had never sat well with me.
But at the same time…
Spending years sitting in meditation? Grinding cultivation like a chore? Getting dragged into pointless tournaments?
That part didn't sound so great.
Anyway, I decided to push those thoughts aside for a moment. I had bigger problems.
The memories of this body brought some... grim realizations. The former owner wasn't a cultivator. Far from it. He was talentless, a literal nobody. A waste of space in the eyes of his peers.
So, the complications were already piling up. Because of course they were. It couldn't all be smooth sailing, could it?
On one hand, I was alive in a world I'd always dreamed of exploring. On the other, I was a total good-for-nothing.
And it gets better: I hadn't just fallen. I was pushed. The "bright young stars" of my clan had tossed this kid into the ravine to rot. I had been murdered.
Even if I somehow managed to crawl out of this hole, I'd still have to survive the rest of my "family." The whole situation was just… shit.
Once I finally wrangled enough control over my legs, I squinted toward the end of the ravine and noticed something peculiar.
A small stone door, half-buried under moss and thick vines. It was nearly invisible. Honestly, no one would ever find this place unless they were already down here.
And who the hell would come down here? My clan was tucked away in a backwater region—not exactly a hotspot for high-level cultivators. And for a normal human? Dropping down here was just a creative way to commit suicide.
I decided to check it out.
I limped forward, my boots squelching in the puddles. There was no avoiding the water. I was honestly more worried about catching pneumonia than anything mystical at that point.
I reached the door and leaned into it with the pathetic scrap of strength I had left.
The stone groaned. The door opened.
Not gonna lie—the whole place screamed "inheritance bullshit."
You know the drill. The stuff protagonists usually stumble upon in the first three chapters of a cultivation novel. Yep, that.
And I wasn't even wrong. As the door creaked open, there it was: a massive, serpentine dragon statue. Even though it was made of stone, those eyes felt... vivid. Way too real.
My mind immediately started racing. This is it, I thought. This talentless body is finally gonna thrive on some legendary bloodline. My power will skyrocket, and I'll end up as the sect leader of the strongest sect on the continent.
Yeah, no. Not even close.
A voice rang inside my head, and of course, it was the damn dragon.
"Kid, you're too weak. I can't give you my inheritance. Come back when you've reached the Nascent Soul stage."
I stood there, blinking. Reaching that level would take me a lifetime—if I didn't die of old age first.
"You have to help me out here," I pleaded. "I was literally just murdered by my own clan."
Silence. Then, a heartbreaking reply:
"Not my problem. Bug off."
No matter what I tried to say or how much I begged that mythical lizard, it wouldn't budge. No bloodline for me.
I sat before the statue. There was nothing I could do to change things. Besides, how the hell was I supposed to get out of here, anyway?
My weak body couldn't climb up. It was impossible.
That's when I saw something peculiar, something I hadn't noticed before.
A small, floating button in front of me.
What is that?
Like any curious person, I pressed it. A screen appeared before my eyes with two different tabs.
One was for a livestream, and the other was a shop. I checked both to try and understand what the hell was going on, and what I found was unbelievable.
I had a special system that let me broadcast my life to viewers from Earth, and from that, earn Spiritual Stones to buy things from the shop.
This was way better than getting some stupid bloodline at the start. I was thrilled.
So thrilled that I decided to start my first stream. My viewers might be exactly what I needed to escape this place.
I added a clickbait title: "First Day as a Cultivator."
It didn't take long for viewers to start showing up. They were seriously impressed by the statue in front of me, and the chat went wild.
"What is this? AI stuff? There's no way that statue is real. Look at those eyes!"
"You're right. But I'll keep watching."
A thousand viewers in the first few minutes. The system was still a mystery to me, so I had to figure out how it worked. I couldn't type in the chat, but I wondered if they could hear me.
"Hey, chat, can you hear me?"
To my surprise, they could!
"Are you actually a cultivator? What the fuck?"
"Use your powers, I want to see them."
With a sigh, I said, "I can't. I just got this new body, and I'm trapped in a ravine. This thing in front of me is a dragon bloodline, which I can't get because I'm too weak."
I was hoping for some help or compassion, but the chat just spammed laughing emojis.
"Bro, that's the first cultivator who can't get an inheritance. Insane."
"What if we make a pool?"
The viewers actually made a pool for me:
Hit the dragon to get your revenge.
I protested.
"Are you sure? This thing is a mythical dragon or something."
The funny part was the dragon listening to all this without understanding a single word.
Eventually, a viewer with money changed my mind.
"If you do it, I'll donate 1000 spiritual stones."
Yep. That was exactly what I wanted.