Chapter 1: The Karmic System | Immortality Starts with Karma

I've been reading a lot of Xianxia lately and I thought that I'd try my own hand it. I'm unsure if I should continue it or not, this story won't be posted publically until there are around 15~ chapters written and thus please let me know what you think!

Immortality Starts with Karma

Chapter 1: The Karmic System

My name was Wei Chen, and I was going to be an Immortal.

The entire village thought so. Old Man Li, the village head, slapped me on the back, his calloused palm leaving a red print on my new tunic. “Sleeping Carp Village has not seen a cultivator in three generations, Wei Chen,” he said, his voice loud for all to hear. “Do not forget us when you are soaring through the clouds.” I stood taller. I would not forget them. I would make them proud.

My mother said nothing. She just straightened the collar of my tunic, the one she had stayed up all night mending. Her fingers were rough but her touch was gentle. My father stood behind her, his face a mask of stern pride. He handed me a small cloth pouch with a few copper coins inside. It was more money than I had ever held at once. “For the journey,” was all he said.

At sixteen years of all, I was their hope. When the traveling elder from the Clear Sky Sect tested the children, a faint green light had pulsed from the stone in my hand. It was not a brilliant light, but it was there. It was enough. I was chosen. As I walked out of the village gate, with the cheers of my friends and the quiet waves of the adults behind me, I felt like the hero from the stories. My journey to immortality had begun.

The main gate of the Clear Sky Sect was carved from a single darkwood tree, wider than our village hall. It was far more impressive than the stories. Other youths stood near me, some looking nervous, others sizing up the competition. I just held my head high. I was a cultivator now.

An older disciple in fine silk robes, dyed a deep blue, strode towards our group. He moved with a confidence I had only ever seen in the village head. "I am Senior Brother Jin Kai," he announced, his gaze sweeping over us. It was a look of complete disinterest, like a farmer inspecting new livestock. His eyes paused on me for a moment longer than the others. “You. Step forward.”

I did as he said, my heart beating a little faster. Perhaps he saw my potential.

“Where are you from?” he asked, his voice flat.

“Sleeping Carp Village, Senior Brother,” I said, my voice filled with pride.

A faint smile touched his lips. “Sleeping Carp Village. Never heard of it.” One of the disciples standing near him snickered. “You look proud for a boy from a place named after a fish. Remember your station here. You start at the bottom.”

The pride in my chest curdled into hot shame. I was taught to respect my elders, but also to have dignity. “My village is my home,” I said, my voice firmer than I intended. “There is no shame in it.”

Jin Kai’s smile vanished. I did not see his hand move. I only felt the sudden, sharp impact against my cheek. My head snapped to the side, and the world tilted. A stinging heat bloomed across my face, and my eyes watered. The other new disciples fell silent. A few took a step away from me.

“Here,” Jin Kai said, his voice now cold as a winter stone, “you will learn when to speak. You will learn respect. Or you will be taught it.”

He turned and walked away, his lackeys following like dogs. I stood there, my cheek throbbing, the cheers of my village ringing hollowly in my ears. The truth of cultivation was nothing like the stories. This was my first lesson.

It was not my last.

My talent, the faint green light from the stone, turned out to be below average. While others mastered the First Breath meditation technique in a week, it took me a month to feel the first wisp of Qi in my dantian. My instructors offered no extra guidance. My progress was too slow to warrant their attention. I had no money for spiritual pills or better manuals. The copper coins my father gave me were gone in two weeks, spent on ink and paper.

Jin Kai did not forget me. The first beating was not enough. He never touched me himself again, at least not at first. His friends, however, were happy to do his work. During morning sword practice, a foot would 'accidentally' trip me. In the dining hall, my bowl of bland congee would be knocked from my hands, spilling onto the dirt floor. I would find my thin bedroll thrown outside my shack, soaked from the rain. They were small things, constant reminders of my place. I was a worm.

I learned to be invisible. I kept my eyes on the ground. I spoke only when spoken to. The proud boy from Sleeping Carp Village died a slow death over those ten months. In his place was a quiet, hungry youth with bitterness for blood and shame for bone. I endured it. I told myself this was a trial. A test of my will. If I could endure this, I could achieve anything. I repeated this lie to myself every night as I clutched my empty stomach.

Today, they cornered me behind the kitchens, where the smoke hung thick and greasy in the air. Jin Kai was there this time, leaning against the wall, observing with that same bored expression from the first day. His two friends blocked my path.

“Look at him,” one of them sneered. “Still here. I am almost impressed by how much you are willing to take, Wei Chen.”

I said nothing. I just waited for them to get bored and leave.

The other one poked my shoulder. “Senior Brother Jin was saying, it must be a special kind of village that produces such fine quality trash. What was it called again? Slumbering Toad? Sleeping Worm?”

“Sleeping Carp Village,” Jin Kai corrected them, a smirk on his face. He finally pushed himself off the wall and walked towards me. He looked me up and down, his eyes filled with contempt. “Your parents must be so proud. Telling everyone their son is at the great Clear Sky Sect. I wonder what they would think if they saw their brilliant son now, groveling in the dirt like the very fish his village is named for.”

Something inside me snapped. It was not a heroic surge of power. It was the desperate shriek of a cornered animal. My village. My parents’ faces. Their proud, hopeful eyes. It was the last thing I had.

I did not even form a proper fist. I lunged forward with a yell, a clumsy, rage-fueled charge aimed right at Jin Kai’s smiling face.

He did not even seem to move. He just watched me come.

His hand flickered out, almost lazily. It was not a punch, but a casual backhand. It connected with the side of my head with a sound like a wet cloth slapping against stone. The force was immense. I was sent flying backward, my feet leaving the ground. The world spun in a blur of gray walls and gray sky. I landed hard on my back, the air exploding from my lungs. Pain erupted in my chest, a deep, cracking agony. My vision began to dim at the edges.

I could hear Jin Kai's voice, not angry, not triumphant, just… empty. Disgusted.

“Tch, let’s go,” he said. “Waste of time.”

I heard their footsteps fade away. I tried to draw a breath, but my lungs would not obey. A thick warmth filled my mouth. Darkness flooded my vision, cold and complete. The pride of Sleeping Carp Village was dead.

A gasp.

The air that rushed into my lungs felt like sharp grit. My chest was a cavern of hollow, grinding pain. I tasted dirt and blood, thick and metallic on my tongue. My eyes fluttered open to a blurry world of grey stone walls and damp earth. Where was I? The question was a faint flicker in my mind, and the answer came crashing in right behind it.

Right. Jin Kai.

I remembered the alley behind the kitchens. His friends, their mocking faces. His words about my village, my parents. The burning, uncontrollable rage that had finally boiled over. I remembered charging at him, a desperate and foolish attack. Then, the casual slap that felt like my head had been caved in.

I was lying in a puddle of my own failure. The last thing I had heard was his voice, dripping with disgust. Waste of time. He had killed me. He had nearly killed me and just walked away. The thought brought with it a fresh wave of despair, a familiar and crushing weight.

Then, something else came.

It was not a memory of Sleeping Carp Village or the Clear Sky Sect. It was… a street. Sleek, metal carts moving without horses. Towers of glass that scraped the sky. A screen that glowed in my hands, filled with a universe of information. A different life, a different world. A different me. The knowledge flooded my mind, not as a foreign invasion, but as a waking memory from a long, forgotten dream. I remembered a life where disputes were settled with sharp words in quiet rooms, not with fatal blows in back alleys. A life where I had learned to read people and systems, to find the cracks and exploit the rules to get ahead.

The two worlds slammed together in my skull. I was Wei Chen, the humiliated outer sect disciple. And I was… someone else. The shame and rage of Wei Chen were still there, burning in my chest. But now I saw everything around me with an altered view. This situation was unjust beyond belief, but such was the nature of this world.

As I lay there, processing the impossible, a calm, blue light bloomed in my field of vision. It was not a physical light source but an image layered directly over my sight.

[Karmic Balance System Activated]

[Searching for a suitable host soul... Host soul was dissipating.]

[Issue detected. Commencing Solution. A new soul has merged with the vessel. Commencing binding process...]

[Binding Complete.]

The moment the final word appeared, a wave of warmth spread from my chest. It seeped into my battered muscles and aching bones, dulling the sharp, grinding agony into a tolerable throb. The fatal edge of my injury had been sanded down. It was not a full recovery, but I could breathe without feeling like my lungs were tearing apart.

The text on the screen flickered and updated.

[Host: Wei Chen]

[Cultivation: Qi Refining Stage 2]

[Good Karma (GK): 0]

[Bad Karma (BK): 0]

[Status: Heavily Injured]

I stared at the characters floating in the air. This was impossible, and yet the lessened pain in my chest was undeniable proof. The phenomenon was familiar. In my past life, I had come across fiction with similar concepts, though I usually preferred more solid, realistic material. A system. Something that grants abilities according to set rules. I never gave those stories much thought, but having it happen to me was another matter entirely.

As if sensing my confusion, more text appeared.

[System Tutorial: Earn Good Karma (GK) through positive deeds. Spend GK on host enhancement.]

[System Tutorial: Earn Bad Karma (BK) through negative deeds. Spend BK to inflict negative effects on external targets.]

The explanation was blunt and simple. Enhancement for myself. Negative effects for others. It was an interesting concept that I'd need to think more about when I wasn't swimming in a pool of my own blood.

With a grunt, I pushed myself up. Pain flared in my ribs, but it was distant now, no longer crippling. I got to my feet, leaning heavily against the grimy stone wall to catch my breath. The world felt more stable. This System, whatever its origin or purpose, had just saved my life. I could not afford to waste that by being discovered.

Keeping to the shadows, I limped out of the alley. My steps were uneven but steady enough. I made my way to the outermost edge of the sect grounds, where the disciples no one cared about lived in a collection of shabby huts. It was the slum of the Clear Sky Sect, and it was my home.

My hut was the last one in the line, half-hidden by the forest. The wooden plank door scraped loudly as I pushed it open and then barred it behind me. Inside, the single room was bare, holding only a straw pallet on the floor and a small chest for my clothes. I moved to the pallet and carefully lowered myself onto it, the dry straw rustling under my weight.

I lay in the darkness, feeling the dull ache of my body and staring at the faint blue screen that only I could see. My thoughts were not on grand schemes of revenge or soaring to the heavens. They were focused on a single, practical problem. The system's tutorial said I could use Good Karma for host enhancement. I assumed healing my injuries fell into that category. To do that, I needed to earn GK.

How was I supposed to perform a ‘good deed’ in a place like this, where every disciple was only out for themselves?