Solo System Cultivation Chapter 1 (Test)

A/N:

This is meant to be a lighthearted popcorn-y story, working title: Solo System Cultivation

It'll be fairly tropey.

May be throwing these up 1/week on Sundays, maybe twice a week once the Twinned backlog gets beefy enough

Please enjoy this (temporary) Chapter 1!

Basic Concept: MC is the only one with a system in a vast xianxia world, goes around exploring, leveling skills and power thru his System cheat, and hopefully making some friends along the way.

-No murderhobo

-no harem, tbh no romance at all planned but it's possible

//

Jack didn’t have many regrets when he died. Well—not many interesting ones, at least.

He’d always had an obsessive personality. Sadly he never got obsessed over anything useful, like school. He was a specialist in uselessness.

In his short life he became a national master in chess. He could do V9’s in rock climbing. He could solve a Rubik’s cube in under 30 seconds, sketch photorealistic birds, place top three in his city in Smash Bros. He was Top 0.5% in freaking Minecraft Skywars PvP. And he didn't want to think about how many hours he’d poured into World of Warcraft. All of this, he was disappointed to find, was spectacularly unemployable.

Then a month after he turned 20, he discovered he had stage four blood cancer.

He had no grand ambitions.

He’d said all his goodbyes to his friends, real and virtual. He wished he could leave something behind for his mom. Other than that, his one true regret was that he hadn’t achieved anything of consequence. He’d only ever got close. He got good at stuff, really good sometimes, but once he saw the grind it took to close the gap between him and the truly elite, he always balked. He switched to some new obsession.

***

Now he was here. Floating in blank nothing, waiting. He was a formless existence, like a pair of eyes without a body. He saw nothing when he looked down—he wasn’t sure he could look down. What did down mean in a place like this?

After some time a being resolved before him. An old man with a thick white beard in flowing Roman robes, smiling kindly. It was like he’d stepped out of a renaissance painting. It was pretty much exactly what Jack thought a god should look like. So much so it was shocking. He wondered if this creature really looked like that, or if his mind was seeing what it wanted to see.

“Hello, Jack,” said the god. “As of approximately three hours ago, you flatlined at St. Mary’s hospital. I’m sorry to say, you’ve died. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” sighed Jack. “I figured.”

The god studied him for a moment. “You’re taking it well. Better than most.”

“I’ve had a while to come to terms with it. So what now?”

“That depends on you,” said the god. “I have an offer to make you. Should you say yes, splendid! Should you say no, I’ll send you to my good friend Granny Meng. She’s the one who deals with reincarnations.”

“You don’t?”

“Oh, Heavens no.” The god wrinkled his nose. “It’s very tricky business… life-and-death, the in-between… it’s not my domain.”

“Then who are you? Err—if you don’t mind my asking.” It just hit him he was speaking to a god; it felt surreal, like he was on a bad trip. What was the proper etiquette here? Was there a title he was meant to use—‘your holiness,’ or something? He always tried to be polite.

Jack couldn’t see the god’s smile through the thick of his beard, but he sensed it from the kind playful wrinkles of his eyes. “My name is Yuanshi. I am the Overgod of Fate. Don’t worry about what that means. All you should know is I’ve interfered with the natural life-and-death cycle, just for you. I’ve plucked out your soul.”

“…Why?”

“Good question.” The god cocked his head at him, considering him silently. “The official reason,” he said at last. “Is that I’ve selected you as one of my Chosen. As to the real reason… I’m not sure. Why don’t you tell me? What makes you special?”

“Am I special?” It was news to Jack.

“You must be. In the grand tapestry of Fate you are a key thread. But why?” Yuanshi scratched his beard. “The others are obvious. Kings. Great generals. Master artists, inventors, once-in-a-lifetime geniuses of their realms. The sort who can’t help but be great, no matter which life they’re thrust into. Then there is you.”

“Me,” agreed Jack.

“Well,” said Yuanshi, shrugging. “There’s little point questioning it. Who knows? You may yet surprise me.”

This wasn’t very reassuring.

“This is my offer. I shall grant you my Blessing. If not, forget this ever happened. I mean this literally—Granny Meng will see to it.”

“Huh,” said Jack slowly. “So what is this blessing?”

“I’m not sure about that, either,” said Yuanshi sheepishly.

“….What?” The more this god spoke the less confident Jack was in him.

“Blessings manifest differently in different people. For some it is a magic Tome. For others, it gives prophetic dreams. For others it grants insight into the true natures of things. All of it is related to the nature of Fate, of Being. It changes to suit you.”

Jack chewed on that for a while before he spoke. “What’s the catch?”

Yuanshi seemed mildly offended. “There’s no catch! Think of it as a gift…Well—you’ll have to promise me you won’t die. At least, not for a few thousand years. Blessings are expensive. Otherwise your mere existence, your growth, should shape the world in ways I like. It’s Fated. So what do you say?”

“Well…sure. Um, thanks?” he said, wondering what exactly he’d just agreed to.

Yuanshi smiled. “I knew you would say that. I should warn you, that promise will be far harder to keep than you think.”

“So do I need to sign something, or—”

The world dissolved.

***

Jack woke up badly hungover.

It felt like a second, heavier heart was beating in the middle of his skull. Groaning, trying not to hurl, he propped himself up to wobbly feet.

The hut was humble straw and wood, and yet his bed was silk with gold trim. Five mirrors hung on the walls, some tiny, two huge, one full-length—and it was in this full-length mirror he caught his first glimpse of himself, bathed in the soft glow of the noon sun.

His new body was rather handsome, he thought, with delicate regal features, if a little on the plump side. His memories trickled into him between head-throbs. He was Fang Yuan of the noble Yuan family, seventh son of Jun Yuan, one of the Grand Elders of the Verdant Leaf Sect. Through sheer nepotism he was able to squeeze his way past the entrance exam. Now he was an Outer Sect Disciple—

Oh my god.

More memories hammered at him. So much was drinking—so much. It explained those tankards in the corner, and the various bottles lolling half-drunk on the log floors—

Oh my GOD.

He backed slowly away from the bedsheets. Had he slept in those? The things this Young Master had done… that stink… he wanted to retch. He resolved to wash it—everything in this hut, come to think of it—as soon as he got the chance.

Fang Yuan had a reputation in the Outer Sect as a notorious drunk and a lecher. If anything this was underplayed. He refused to work, coasting off his father’s name; after years he was still barely into Qi Condensation.

Months ago, bored of drinking, gambling, and lechery in the mortal world, he’d cried and begged to get a position in the Verdant Leaf Sect’s Outer Sect. Once he got here he realized he hated it—he hated the cultivating, hated the missions, which he thought of as grunt work—hated the sparring especially. When he was assigned patrol work he complained so vociferously, threatening to go to his Father, that the Overseer let him skimp.

In short he was loathed by every other Outer Sect Disciple, especially the women. Also the Overseer hated him, and he was pretty sure his Father hated him too. His cousins in the Inner Sect made a point of avoiding him. Even Shen, the kind old man who kept the Archives, gave him stink-eye when he passed.

“Great,” he groaned.

[Blessing Activated!]

He perked up—finally, some good news!

[Initializing System…]

[Name: Fang Yuan]

STR: 0.6

SPD: 1.1

VIT: 0.01

Qi: 0.7

Like a video game? He blinked. That Yuanshi had said the blessing was made to suit him. Which made sense, once he thought about how many sunless months he’d spent locked inside, grinding Skyrim… and World of Warcraft… and Elden Ring… and freaking Wizards 101…

Wait—was VIT meant to be vitality? Because… he had no point of reference for what these numbers meant, but that seemed a bit…

He paused.

Fang was a famous drunk, true, but as far as he could remember he hadn’t drunk last night. He’d ran out of wine.

Then… why did he feel so….?

[Status Alert!]

[Poison Detected]

What.

[Analyzing…]

[Analysis Failed]

[Error: Insufficient Data]

WHAT.

[Poison Detected]

[??? Poison]

[Saturation: 94%]

[Estimated time until death: 2 hours]

WHAT!?

[Incoming Fate Quest!]

[System Note: Fate Quests are premonitions. They display to you glimpses of possible futures in Quest format.]

[Quest: Survive the Poison]

Estimated Difficulty: Hard (weak estimate)

Objectives: Obtain the information necessary for the System to deduce the mystery poison. Then, scavenge for the Spirit Herb which cures it.

Results: Success: Continued life. Failure: Instantaneous death.

***

After Jack was done losing his mind—it took about five minutes of straight cursing—he was ready to try his best not to die. For the third time that day, depending on how you were counting.

A question—less relevant than the quite pressing question of how to avoid death—was who poisoned him?

…The list of people with a motive was depressingly long.

Where was Ji Yuan? He scratched his head. Ji was his servant—well, his de facto servant. Outer Sect Disciples weren’t allowed to keep real servants. Ji hailed from a rural branch of the Yuan Family, and it was understood that he’d be allowed to take the Sect’s Entrance Exam if he served Jack. He was an incredibly ordinary boy, save for two traits—he was very brave and very determined. Oh—and very lucky, too; every two weeks he seemed to discover some new treasure herb in the forest. He’d come out of nowhere seemingly overnight, and his cultivation was rising so fast even some Elders were starting to take notice. The original Fang Yuan was quite jealous.

Today, Ji Yuan was nowhere to be seen. Stranger and stranger…

Jack ducked outside his hut.

The Verdant Leaf Sect was a sect of treehouses, like some fairy-tale elvish haven. They were built chiefly on four fat giant trees, like redwoods but with bark tough and gray as steel, which formed a rectangular courtyard of sorts. Strings of blue-light lanterns hung off vines, bathing the place in a perpetual ethereal glow. High above, sunlight peeked through the thick canopies.

This was the Inner Court, where all the important people lived—the Inner Sect Disciples, the Elders, the Alchemists and Artificers and Patriarch.

Houses were chiseled into the bark or hanging off branches, linked by bridges and swings, vine-ropes and walkways and climbing paths. Above many a door hung the Verdant Leaf Sect’s emblem: three leaves glistening with dew set against a tangle of roots.

The Outer Sect disciples, nearly four hundred, were spread in the Outer Court —on lesser trees ringing the Four Giants. Some, the newest members, made shelter on the ground. As Jack ducked out his tree-house he saw one such girl, his neighbor a tree over, Ming Lin, lounging in a wicker chair, reading a Technique tome.

He smiled and waved by reflex. She turned up her lip at him, then strutted back into her hut.

It just hit him who this was—Ming was a rising star in the Outer Sect and Ji Yuan’s childhood best friend. By some astonishing coincidence it was discovered they both had cultivation talent, and they both passed the entrance exam. The original Fang Yuan had found her very attractive, as had most of Sect’s male disciples, but she only had eyes for Ji. Even so Fang had made a habit of hitting on her. Because of course he did.

Jack sighed. But his image rehabilitation could wait. There was no time to waste. For now, he was bound for the Archive.

The System said it had insufficient data.

Jack was hanging his life on a hypothesis. The system used the language of a computer; maybe if he fed in enough Alchemy books it’d tell him what was burning a hole in his gut.

//

A/N: thoughts appreciated! not married to this series but the plan is to write a chapter of it the next few Sundays, see how it goes