Someone was hitting his temples with a sledgehammer, over and over, shaking his brain until it sloshed.
Li Ming snapped his eyes open. Above him stretched a ceiling of weathered blue-gray wood, rough-hewn beams crossed with age-old cracks and delicate cobwebs thick with dust. Yellowed talismans dangled from the rafters, rustling in a draft he couldn't feel, whispering like voices at his ear.
The bed beneath him was hard planks covered by a reed mat thin enough to feel every splinter. When he shifted, the frame groaned in protest, wobbling on uneven legs, the whole structure squealing like it might collapse any moment.
"Wasn't I... fixing that damn production bug?"
His voice came out rough as sandpaper, throat parched from sleep. Li Ming pushed himself up, palm pressing against wood grain so real it bit back—a splinter pricking his skin, the boards cold against his palm, every ridge and groove telling him this wasn't a dream.
Three in the morning. Company office. Seventh cup of coffee, stomach acid churning. Python traceback on line 247 still screaming at him. He'd rubbed his throbbing temples, thinking he'd step to the break room after this loop, maybe check if the late-night cat café downstairs was still open.
Then darkness.
Then this.
Memories crashed over him like a breached dam, two consciousnesses colliding in his skull until he nearly retched. Like wearing two sets of headphones, each playing a different song, neither from his playlist—completely irreconcilable. After the dizziness passed, the new memories settled, merging with his own.
The original body was also named Li Ming. Sixteen years old. Outer disciple of Qingyun Sect, three months into his tenure. Parents were mortal commoners running a small apothecary in Qingzhou City, selling bruise balms and bone-setting herbs, scraping by on copper coins. The shop wasn't big, herbs constantly scenting the doorway, his parents working from dawn to dusk for a few more coppers. They'd emptied their savings and pulled every string they had to get their son into Qingyun Sect, hoping he'd achieve immortality and bring honor to the family name.
Unfortunately... his talent was abysmal.
The spirit root test revealed five-element mixed roots—metal, wood, water, fire, earth, all present, all impure. Like a soup where you'd dumped every seasoning in the pantry and ended up with nothing. His cultivation speed rivaled a turtle's crawl. Three months in, and he hadn't even touched Qi Refinement Layer One. Half his batch-mates had already broken through. The rest were close. Only he remained stuck at the starting line.
Every time he saw another disciple's breakthrough smile, the original had felt sick inside. That feeling—working hard but never catching up.
"Hell mode from the start, huh."
Li Ming rubbed between his brows, a bitter smile tugging at his lips.
He looked down at himself. Thin. Wrists so narrow the bones showed, blue veins visible across the backs of his hands, skin pale and bloodless. He wore the gray outer disciple robes, washed until they'd gone pale, cuffs frayed at the edges, a clumsy patch on the shoulder—clearly self-sewn by a kid who'd never held a needle.
The room held nothing beyond the bed, a broken table, and a wooden wardrobe. One table leg was shorter than the others, stabilized by an irregular stone underneath, still wobbling slightly. On the table sat several dog-eared books: *Foundation Qi Circulation Technique*, *Qingyun Sect Outer Disciple Regulations*, *Cultivation World Basics*. Their pages had yellowed at the corners, handled by who-knew-how-many outer disciples before him, margins crowded with handwritten notes.
Birdsong drifted through the window, clear and bright but a touch too loud. Dawn light filtered through rice paper screens, dust motes dancing in pale beams like tiny golden stars. A small hole in the paper let a circle of light through, crawling slowly across the floor as the sun rose.
Li Ming drew a deep breath, forcing himself calm. Transmigration... since it had happened, he'd face it. In his previous life, he'd been a senior engineer at a major tech firm. Nine years of ninety-six-hour work weeks, hairline receding, savings minimal, but a full collection of occupational hazards—cervical spondylosis, lumbar disc herniation, mild depression, and endless requirement documents.
Now, starting over... at least...
At least this life was his own.
And he had a system.
"Let's see what this body can do."
He closed his eyes, following the original's memories to circulate the *Foundation Qi Circulation Technique*. The most basic cultivation method, available to every Qingyun outer disciple—guiding heaven and earth spiritual energy into the body, converting it to personal spiritual power. The original had practiced countless times. Every attempt had ended in failure, abandoned in frustration.
Breathe. Focus. Intent guarding the dantian.
One minute. Two minutes. Five minutes...
Nothing happened.
Li Ming opened his eyes, cold sweat beading his forehead and sliding down his cheeks, cool against his skin. It wasn't lack of effort. The technique simply felt... wrong. When spiritual energy moved through the meridians and reached the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian, it hit a wall it couldn't pass. Forcing it caused pain like his channels would split—not ordinary pain, but something like needles threading through his blood vessels, dense stabbing sensations spreading from wrist to chest.
"There's something wrong with this technique."
He frowned, fingers tapping the bedframe—tap tap tap—a habit from his coding days, loud in the silence.
"Or... the original tried so many times, his meridians are already damaged?"
He stood, pacing the cramped room. The floor was packed earth, kicking up fine dust with each step, footsteps echoing—thud thud thud—like knocking on something. A wooden sword hung on the wall, its blade notched in several places—practice marks from the original, the hilt wrapped in cloth worn soft and frayed at the edges. The wardrobe held only two spare sets of disciple robes, folded neat, and a cloth bundle in the corner containing the original's possessions—a few spirit stones, some pills, and an unsent letter home to his parents.
He'd read that letter. The original had started it many times, always stopping and starting, finally too afraid to send. Simple words—everything's fine at the sect, don't worry, will visit when I can.
"No..."
Li Ming stopped mid-stride, turning to stare at the *Foundation Qi Circulation Technique*.
"If this technique is broken, why would Qingyun Sect give it to every outer disciple? Did nobody notice?"
Unless...
"Unless everyone assumes cultivation problems come from poor talent, not broken techniques."
The thought sent ice down his spine.
If that was true, then Qingyun Sect...
He shook his head, setting the theory aside. Right now, he needed to know if he could cultivate at all. Nine years of coding had taught him one thing: he was excellent at debugging. Memory leaks, deadlocks, concurrency issues—he'd seen them all. Code didn't lie; the problems were written right there.
"Treat it like code and debug it?"
The idea made him pause.
But nine years of programming had ingrained the habit: when facing a problem, debug first. Rather than guessing, look at the code.
So he focused, staring at an empty point in the air—like hunting bugs on a screen, that state of concentration he could maintain for hours without blinking, everything else fading until only lines of code remained.
Then the impossible happened.
The air before him rippled like water disturbed by a stone. Lines of semi-transparent text materialized from nothing, like holographic projection, like direct retinal feed—close enough to touch, distant as the horizon:
```
[Qi_Circulation_Technique.py]
def circulate_qi():
while True:
absorb_spiritual_energy()
if error_detected():
debug() # there's a bug here!
```
Li Ming's eyes went wide.
Code.
Actual code.
And this code... why did it look so familiar? Wasn't this the logic flow of the *Foundation Qi Circulation Technique*? `absorb_spiritual_energy()` for drawing in qi, `error_detected()` for anomaly detection, `debug()`... wait, the `debug()` function was empty? Just a pass?
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"So this technique never had error handling written?" Li Ming laughed and cried at once. "No wonder problems during cultivation could only be endured raw!"
He stared at that comment for a long moment—*there's a bug here!*—five characters that seemed to mock him, mocking his naivety, mocking generations of outer disciples this technique had failed.
But the question was... how to fix it?
He reached out tentatively. The moment his fingertip touched the code, a mechanical voice sounded in his mind—not through his ears, but directly in his thoughts:
[System Notification] Host transmigration detected...
[System Version] Code Cultivation System v0.1.0-alpha
[Current Realm] Mortal
[Available Functions] Code View, Technique Analysis, Bug Fix
"System?"
Li Ming blinked, then felt wild joy surge through him.
Golden finger! The transmigrator's standard package! He'd finally gotten his! He'd read so many transmigration novels in his past life, every protagonist with their system—check-in systems, alchemy systems, strategy systems... he'd wondered what he'd get if he transmigrated, and here it was!
A programmer-exclusive system!
But the joy lasted three seconds.
v0.1.0-alpha? Why did that version number reek of unreliability? Alpha versions meant incomplete features, bugs everywhere, crashes imminent. And only three functions? Code View, Technique Analysis, Bug Fix... they sounded perfectly suited to his previous skills, but wasn't the total count a bit low? Other people's systems had dozens or hundreds of functions. He got three?
Well, better than nothing.
"Let's try this Bug Fix function first."
He concentrated, imagining himself editing code in an IDE. His fingertip traced through empty air, and the line `debug()` began flashing, yellow light blinking like a warning. Li Ming drew a deep breath and "wrote" new code in his mind:
```python
if error_detected():
auto_fix_meridian() # automatically repair meridian anomalies
retry_circulation() # restart circulation
```
The moment the code modification completed, warm energy surged from his dantian, flowing through his meridians. That blockage he'd felt before... it was gone? Like someone had pulled the rock from a blocked pipe, water flowing freely again.
[Ding! Host detected fixing technique bug]
[Reward: Cultivation +10, Unlock Function: Auto-Cultivation]
Li Ming felt something new in his body—a faint heat, weak but undeniably present. Like a small flame burning slowly through his channels, warm and comfortable. This was... spiritual power?
"I broke through just like that?"
He stared at his palm, disbelieving. "Three years of overtime without promotion or raise in my last life, and now I gain cultivation from changing two lines of code?"
He burst out laughing, the sound echoing foolishly in the small room, a touch manic.
But the laughter died in his throat.
That warm flow, after circulating several times through his meridians, suddenly grew unstable. Strong then weak, strong then weak—like something was pulling at it.
Li Ming immediately tried to call up the code view again, but the system notified him of function cooldown—ten minutes until next use.
"Damn."
He cursed softly, a vein jumping in his forehead.
He couldn't just watch. He closed his eyes, carefully sensing that unstable spiritual power. Every time it flowed near his body's surface, he felt a faint suction, like someone drinking his "blood" through a straw—scalp prickling with the sensation.
"Someone's absorbing the surrounding spiritual energy?"
He walked to the window, pushing open the creaking wooden frame. The hinges had rusted, screeching like a crying infant. Outside stretched the Qingyun Sect outer disciple residential area—rows of crude wooden huts climbing the mountain slope, dense as an ant colony. In the distance, mist-shrouded main peaks loomed, several grand halls barely visible, flying eaves and upturned corners like celestial palaces in the morning fog.
The morning air was fresh, carrying the scent of vegetation and distant reading voices, rising and falling in rhythm. But Li Ming sensed something else—the spiritual energy in the air seemed to be flowing in a particular direction. Like something was drawing it in.
And that direction...
"Is my room?"
Li Ming slammed the window shut, pulled the curtains—worn and translucent, shadows visible through the fabric—and sat back on the bed. If someone nearby was doing this, then his breakthrough just now, that fluctuation of spiritual power...
"Was like telling them there's a fresh novice here, come drain me?"
Li Ming laughed bitterly.
First day transmigrated, and he already faced this kind of crisis?
He tried circulating the *Foundation Qi Circulation Technique* again—now his fixed version. Spiritual energy flowed smoothly through his meridians, but every time it neared his body's surface, that suction grew stronger, like invisible tentacles pulling outward, making his scalp crawl.
"Can't just sit here waiting to die."
Li Ming opened his eyes, his gaze turning cold.
"Need to find a way to deal with this external interference."
But the system was still on cooldown. He couldn't use the code view to modify the technique.
So he'd have to use crude methods.
Li Ming dug through his wardrobe for a spare disciple robe, tearing it into strips—the ripping sound loud in the quiet room, rasp rasp rasp. Then, following some rudimentary knowledge from the original's memories, he began arranging them around the room—dampening the cloth strips, hanging them at door and window gaps to sense airflow changes. The original had read this in some miscellaneous book, claiming it could detect spiritual energy fluctuations. Who knew if it actually worked.
When finished, he sat back on the bed, closed his eyes, and pretended to cultivate.
But his full attention focused on those cloth strips.
A quarter hour passed.
Two quarter hours passed.
The strips didn't move, hanging there motionless.
Li Ming was about to relax, thinking he'd imagined it, when suddenly—
The strip nearest the door gap swayed slightly.
Small movement. If you weren't watching constantly, you'd never notice.
Someone was there.
Footsteps were light, but they couldn't escape his ears. The person seemed to pause outside the door, as if... confirming something? A moment later, the door panel tapped once—dong—soft, like a knuckle strike.
Li Ming held his breath, palm sweating, slippery. He quietly reached to his waist, gripping that notched wooden sword. The cloth wrapping on the hilt felt rough and solid in his hand, that coarse texture bringing some comfort.
A moment later, he heard a soft snort.
The sound was brief, like seeing something amusing, or like... mocking his pathetic precautions.
Then the footsteps left.
Light. Fast. Soon inaudible.
Li Ming waited a full minute, confirming the person was truly gone, before he dared unclench his fist. His palm was soaked with cold sweat, the sword hilt damp, fingers stiff and white from gripping too hard.
"I've been marked."
Li Ming leaned against the wall, exhaling slowly, heart still racing—thump thump thump—like it might burst from his chest.
"And they probably noticed... the 'food' suddenly cut off just now."
This wasn't over.
That person—or those people—would return. Once, twice, thrice if needed. Competition among outer disciples was far more brutal than the original's memories suggested. The strong preyed on the weak—that was the only law here. Without strength, you'd only be trampled.
Li Ming looked at his palm. That faint spiritual power still flowed slowly through his channels, like a small flame that could be extinguished by any breeze.
"Code cultivation..." he murmured. "Since I can modify techniques with code, could I also..."
A bold idea surfaced.
He tried calling up the code view again. The system reported three minutes remaining on cooldown.
Wait.
Three minutes stretched like an eternity. Each second dragged, Li Ming hearing his own heartbeat—thump thump thump—the distant birdsong—chirp chirp chirp—the faint snoring from the neighboring room—snore snore snore—the wind across the roof—whoosh whoosh whoosh.
Finally, system available.
Li Ming immediately focused. This time his target wasn't the *Foundation Qi Circulation Technique*, but the unknown enemy's "presence" outside his door.
The system paused briefly, as if analyzing, then displayed new notification:
[Warning] Hostile spiritual energy fluctuation detected in vicinity
[Recommendation] Raise cultivation to Qi Refinement Layer One to unlock [Counter-Tracking] function
[Current Progress] Mortal 10/100
"Still need ninety more points."
Li Ming calculated. "At that speed, fixing a few more bugs should get me there."
But the problem was, he only had the *Foundation Qi Circulation Technique*. For other techniques...
"Qingyun Sect's Scripture Library."
Li Ming recalled from the original's memories. "Outer disciples can enter once per month, for two hours."
Today was the ninth day of the third month. The original's last visit was the ninth of last month. Which meant...
"Today I can go."
He stood, changing into a clean set of outer disciple robes, hanging that notched wooden sword at his waist. Before pushing open the door, Li Ming looked back at this cramped room—the plank bed, broken table, wooden wardrobe, those damp cloth strips still dripping.
From today, this was his starting point in the cultivation world.
And that unknown enemy who'd lingered outside his door...
"Next time we meet," Li Ming said softly, "I hope you're the one begging me not to pursue."
He stepped through the doorway. Morning sunlight hit his face, a bit too bright, making him squint.
In the distance, toward Qingyun Sect's main peak, several streams of light streaked across the sky—inner disciples flying on swords. The flashes vanished too fast to follow, leaving only faint afterimages.
Li Ming squinted, walking in that direction.
He'd only taken a few steps when a voice came from behind:
"Hey, new kid."
Li Ming stopped, turning.
A tall outer disciple leaned against the neighboring hut's doorway, a grass stem dangling from his mouth, studying Li Ming with an amused expression. Li Ming recognized him from the original's memories—Wang Hu, Qi Refinement Layer Two, a small leader among the outer disciples here. Had a few underlings, frequently bullied newcomers, known as a "bully" in the outer sect.
"Something you need?" Li Ming asked.
Wang Hu spat out the grass stem, sauntering over to look Li Ming up and down: "Heard you broke through last night?"
Li Ming's heart tightened, but his face showed nothing: "No."
"No?"
Wang Hu smiled, something bandit-like in the expression, yellowed teeth showing. "Then why did I sense spiritual energy fluctuation from this direction at midnight?"
"Maybe you imagined it."
"Is that so."
Wang Hu nodded, suddenly reaching to clap Li Ming's shoulder. "That's good. We're all outer disciples here, let's keep things peaceful, no need for any funny business..."
His palm nearly touched Li Ming's shoulder when Li Ming sidestepped.
The movement was fast—too fast for Wang Hu to react.
Wang Hu's hand hung in empty air, his smile freezing briefly, that smile frozen on his face, somewhat comical.
"Sorry," Li Ming said. "I don't like being touched."
The air solidified for a moment.
Wang Hu withdrew his hand, his gaze cooling like knives: "Fine. Don't like it, don't like it. But Li Ming... some rules, you'd better learn them quick. Otherwise... you'll be the one suffering."
With that, he turned and left, his retreating figure carrying a hint of threat, footsteps heavy on the ground—thud thud thud.
Li Ming stood watching until Wang Hu disappeared around the corner.
"Rules..."
He repeated the word softly.
This cultivation world was more complicated than he'd imagined. Not just strength determining status, but those invisible "rules," those unwritten regulations, those unspoken rules that could crush you. These things were more terrifying than martial arts, because you never knew when you'd violated them.
In the distance, the Scripture Library's flying eaves emerged faintly through the morning mist, gray tiles and red pillars, quaint and timeless, small beast statues crouching on the roof ridges, vivid in the morning light.
Li Ming drew a deep breath and walked toward it.
Behind him, behind some window, a pair of eyes watched his retreating figure, gaze cold. Their owner seemed to be evaluating something, or perhaps... waiting for opportunity. Those eyes in the shadows, face unclear, only a chill emanating from them.
Wind blew. Window paper rustled. The eyes vanished into the morning fog.
And in a place Li Ming couldn't see, a trace of spiritual energy fluctuation from his technique fix seeped slowly into the earth, like a seed quietly buried deep in Qingyun Sect's spiritual veins.
Some old monster in closed cultivation suddenly opened his eyes.
In those eyes, golden light flashed and quickly faded.
