One of the many alleyways in Jiangnan Base City's Sector 7.

  Lin Jue squatted behind a humming air-filtration unit, far from the prying eyes of the street cameras. He pulled the heavy, ancient jade ring from his pocket. It glowed faintly in the smoggy darkness.

  'ARIA,' Lin Jue thought, rubbing his hands together like a greedy merchant. 'Pop the lock. Let's see my hard-earned inheritance.'

  [The Jade Ring features a Foundation-level spiritual lock,] ARIA's robotic voice chimed in his head. [Cracking fee: 1,000 Distress Points.]

  Lin Jue clutched his chest, leaning against the damp brick wall. 'A thousand?! You're a digital loan shark! I stole this with my own two hands! I risked a Foundation-level tactical nuke for this!'

  [The Emotional Entropy System does not negotiate. Would you prefer to use the ring as an ornament instead?]

  'Fine. Extortionist. Do it.'

  [Transaction Complete. Deducting 1,000 Points. Balance: 3,549 Points.]

  The jade ring clicked silently. A spatial distortion rippled in the air above it, and a pile of items tumbled out, clattering loudly against a discarded wooden crate.

  Lin Jue's eyes widened.

  Three heavy, rectangular bars of pure, ancient gold. A stack of expensive-looking silk robes. A weird bronze token with the character for 'Wang' carved into it. And lastly, three small, pristine white pills that radiated a soothing, dense energy.

  'Gold,' Lin Jue breathed, picking up one of the heavy bars. 'Actual, undeniable gold. I just earned more than my mother did in her entire life standing next to a dumpster.'

  He picked up one of the white pills. The pill was as soft as marshmallow and smelled like rose.

  [Item: Basic Qi-Gathering Pill. Highly pure. Used to expand meridians and accelerate cultivation.]

  Lin Jue tossed the pill thoughtfully in his palm. He needed money, badly. But selling these?

  'Mages drink blue, syrupy mana potions to recover their Stardust,' Lin Jue reasoned. 'They don't know what Qi is. If I try to pawn a Qi-Gathering Pill, the Hunter's Guild will either arrest me for pushing unregulated narcotics or throw it in the trash.'

  His newly forged Iron-Ox physique was a bottomless pit, hungry for energy to solidify its foundation. He swallowed the pill dry.

  Instantly, a warm current exploded in his stomach, rushing through his limbs. His muscles compressed tighter, his bones itching as they grew even denser.

  He exhaled a long breath of white mist into the alleyway. The physical power humming under his skin doubled.

  He quickly shoved the gold bullion and the remaining pills into the ring, slipped it onto his thumb, and stepped out of the alley.

  The walk to his apartment took ten minutes. The deeper he went into Sector 7, the worse the air became.

  This was the factory district. Massive, smog-belching processing plants loomed in the distance, butchering the low-level Kaiju carcasses brought in by the Hunter Guilds.

  Lin Jue pushed open the rusted metal door to Apartment 402.

  The room was tiny. A single mattress, a cracked digital stove, and a flickering fluorescent light buzzing overhead.

  Sitting at the small dining table, asleep with her head resting on her arms, was his mother, Shen Mei.

  Lin Jue stopped in the doorway. The chaotic, greedy energy that constantly propelled him forward suddenly evaporated.

  The excitement died in his chest.

  He looked at her hands resting on the cheap plastic table.

  They were stained a permanent, sickly blue. The chemical dyes from the monster-hide processing vats had seeped deep into her pores over the years. Her knuckles were swollen with early-onset arthritis.

  She was only thirty-eight, but the grueling twelve-hour shifts made her look ten years older. She was destroying herself, piece by piece, just to afford the rent and his school fees.

  Lin Jue clenched his fists. The Iron-Ox Qi flared in his blood, but it couldn't fix this.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  'This ends today,' Lin Jue promised himself, the silence of the room heavy and absolute. 'I have gold. I just need to convert it to Federal Credits. I'm buying out her factory contract tomorrow.'

  BAM! BAM! BAM!

  The apartment door shuddered violently under heavy fists.

  Shen Mei jerked awake, her eyes wide with panic.

  "I'm coming! I'm coming!"

  "Mom, you rest easy! I will get the door." Lin Jue tried to interrupt his mother but she kindly stared at him and said, "I heard the news of you getting suspended…probably the whole neighbourhood had also known by now. I don't want you to experience hardships, go inside your room. Your Mom will handle whoever this is!"

  She put on smile and stride towards the door, however, before she could reach the handle, the door was kicked open.

  BAMMM!!

  It slammed against the wall, breaking the plaster.

  "Where are you, broke bitch!"

  A massive, scarred man in a leather vest stepped into the room. Three thugs stood behind him in the hallway.

  This was Brother Scar—a local slum enforcer and factory debt collector.

  Scar wasn't a mage or a Federal Officer. He was something much more annoying to the slum dwellers: a failed Mage.

  He had awakened the Earth element years ago, but his constellation talent was so garbage he could barely connect the seven stars needed for a Novice spell. He flunked out of the military and came to the slums, where a failed Mage was still a god among mortals.

  "Shen Mei!" Brother Scar barked, his voice laced with cruelty. "Word on the street is your trash son got suspended from Jiangnan Third High today. That means his federal student stipend is cut."

  Shen Mei turned pale. She stepped in front of Lin Jue, instinctively trying to shield her eighteen-year-old son. "Brother Scar, please! It's a misunderstanding. The suspension is only for three days! The stipend will—"

  "The factory doesn't care about three days!" Scar interrupted, spitting on their floor. "Your rent is subsidized by that stipend. You owe the factory an extra 5,000 credits by midnight, or you're working the toxic vats for the next six months to pay it off. Double shifts."

  "Five thousand?" Shen Mei's voice cracked. She grabbed Scar's sleeve with her blue, trembling hands. "Please, give me a week! I can pick up extra shifts sewing, I can—"

  Scar sneered in disgust and raised his hand to violently shove her away. Lin Jue supported his mother helping her to balance herself.

  'This bastard…' Lin Jue was no longer weak, he no longer needed to cower behind his mother for all the suffering this guy had given them, all the pent up rage shot towards his head all at once.

  "Don't touch me with your dirty--!" Before brother Scar could finish his words, a hand shot out from behind Shen Mei and clamped down on Brother Scar's thick wrist like a titanium vice.

  "Shut up! You talk like a broker radio! Blah-blah-blah!!"

  Brother Scar blinked. Lin Jue had stepped around his mother. The teenager wasn't glaring or screaming. His face was entirely devoid of expression, which somehow made it infinitely more terrifying.

  [+100 points from Brother Scar's confusion!]

  "Hey, how dare you lay your hand on me!" The thug glared and tried to shove Lin Jue the same way he did with his mother, but this boy didn't budge an inch.

  Still gripping tightly, Lin Jue picked his ear with his other hand and asked carelessly, "Five thousand credits?", his voice deadpan. "That's a lot of money. Let me see your calculator."

  Scar's face flushed red with rage. "You little Null trash! Let go of me!"

  Scar closed his eyes, his face contorting in concentration. A faint, muddy brown magical aura flickered around his body. One star... two stars... three stars... He was frantically trying to connect his Stardust to cast Earth Skin, a spell that would turn his flesh as hard as rock.

  'Five seconds,' Lin Jue analyzed coldly. 'It takes him five whole seconds to cast a Novice spell. This guy is talentless!'

  "Earth Skin!" Scar roared, his fist suddenly hardening into a jagged, stone-like texture. He ripped his arm back and threw a brutal, rock-hard punch directly at Lin Jue's face. "Die!"

  Shen Mei screamed.

  "Soooon!!"

  Lin Jue didn't dodge. He simply raised his bare palm and caught the stone fist.

  CRACK.

  The sound of shattering rock echoed in the tiny apartment.

  Lin Jue didn't just stop the punch. His Iron-Ox grip crushed the magical stone casing entirely, driving right through the spell and compressing Scar's knuckles underneath it.

  "AAAGH!" Brother Scar shrieked, his knees buckling as the bones in his hand ground together. The magical Stardust in his mind shattered from the shock, causing a severe magical backlash.

  Blood poured from his nose.

  "Are you calcium deficient?" Lin Jue asked politely, releasing the mangled hand. "That rock was very brittle. You should drink more milk."

  [From Brother Scar's extreme physical agony and mind-break, +400!]

  [From Thug A's terror, +100!]

  Brother Scar collapsed to the floor, clutching his ruined hand and weeping like a child. The three thugs in the hallway stared at the F-Grade Null who had just casually crushed an Mage's spell with his bare hands.

  "My mother doesn't work the vats," Lin Jue said, stepping over Scar to look at the thugs in the hall. "In fact, she's taking a sick day tomorrow. If you kick my door again, I won't crush the rock. I'll just crush your skull. Now take your trash out of my living room."

  The thugs didn't hesitate. They scrambled forward, grabbed Brother Scar by his vest, and dragged the screaming man down the hallway, sprinting as fast as their legs could carry them.

  Lin Jue gently closed the broken door.

  He turned around. Shen Mei was staring at him, her hands covering her mouth, trembling violently.

  "Jue'er..." she whispered, terrified. "What did you do? He's a Mage! The factory will send the authorities! We can't pay the medical fees for a ruined hand! We have nothing!"

  Lin Jue's expression softened instantly. He walked over, gently taking his mother's blue-stained hands in his own.

  "Mom. Don't worry about the factory," Lin Jue said, offering her a warm, confident smile. "I came into some money today."

  He let go of her hands and reached into his pocket, his thumb brushing the ancient gold bullion hidden inside the spatial ring.

  'I have to go to the underground market to exchange the gold by tonight.'

  He couldn't walk into a Federal Bank with Warring States era gold. They would ask questions, and the Federation didn't take kindly to anomalies. So, the best place to exchange these gold bar would be underground black market.

  "Anyway, can we eat! I am very hungry today!" Lin Jue rubbed his tummy gestured towards the kitchen.

  "Oh, you! Come with me we will eat while taking." His mother guided him to the kitchen, Lin Jue followed suit with gentle smile while watching his mother quickly heat up the dishes.

  'Don't worry mom, I will become most powerful man on earth and will keep you safe forever!'