Note: much of the first few chapters will follow closely to Worldkeeper, as I intend to have it take place in the same universe, so I want to keep the system much the same.
Revamped 19/3/25, 2:45am EST
Two things were immediately clear to the woman currently driving her car as her foot slammed on the brakes. One, her brakes were out. Two, that poor old man currently betwixt her and a truck was definitely not going to survive the next couple of seconds.
The first thing to occur was her own vehicle slamming into the man’s body. The second was a spattering of blood – the third was rather unremarkable in comparison to what came next. A plume of nothingness encompassed everythingness and then all was naught. The woman wasn’t quite sure what happened.
She’d killed an old man, crashed into what had looked to be one of those new self-driving trucks, and then the world evaporated – quite literally – around her. With nothing else to go on, the woman assumed she was dead. As far as she could see was an endless dark expanse. Beneath what she assumed to be her soul was an off-white mist that flowed freely.
This must be purgatory.
Her name was Kuan Yin, and before she died, she had been probably the most average person on the planet. An Asian woman of average height, 160cm, with fairly medium-length hair. Her face was nothing above-average, and neither was her body. Not strong, or particularly beautiful; she had been remarkably in the middle in terms of grades as well.
There were few things that set her apart from others, and even those weren’t unseen in others. Her love for fantasy novels was quite robust. Her favourite genres were Xianxia and Wuxia, having loved to read about the life of those blessed with monstrous talent, or those who had attained luck beyond luck.
Her eyes wandered about the mist, watching it curl into itself in places, Purgatory was… quite boring. If that’s what this was. Maybe it was just life after death, with no real title. With nothing to do, and a strong urge pulling her, she fell into a sleeplike lull.
The distant dark grew farther.
After a very, very long time the darkness stopped expanding, and the off-white mist began to flow less freely. Whatever had been happening was now done. As soon as it finished, a soft snap echoed throughout as if to wake Kuan Yin from her reset.
A new light was present now, aside from the faint glow of the mist. It was a gamelike screen, presented in front of her. With a wry smile she wondered if somehow, just like some of her favourite characters, she too had found luck beyond luck.
A long menu with many options was presented in front of her after the initial screen closed. She waved that to the side, curious to explore what her new toy was. It had been… what felt like a long time since she had last had something to do.
She hesitated for a few moments, unsure of how to select what she wanted to. She had no body to press the buttons. Only after thinking about her body did she realize she was stupid; the little panel had already told her how. She just had to think about which to choose.
Current Statistics.
A blank menu, without any words or numbers, appeared. With a frown, she opted to try World Designer.
The System Companion Designer showed much the same text, albeit without mentioning itself. With a light sigh, Kuan Yin moved to design her body.
Three scrolling lists were beneath that. One entitled native races, the second entitled alien races, and the third was entitled fantasy races. She wasn’t exactly surprised by the alien races tab, or well, by the existence of aliens. Scrolling through that list was rather disappointing. The vast majority could barely be classified as living. The few other races that were reasonably considered animals, plants, or fungi were more interesting. Nothing she wanted though.
She scrolled through fantasy races next. A small voice nagged at her to just pick human already, but honestly, she just wanted to see her options. It wasn’t like she’d… her soul-finger-thing paused.
It wouldn’t hurt to take a look. It wouldn’t be that different from standard humans anyway… She expanded it mentally.
The very last trait which set Kuan Yin apart from others, a defining feature in her normality, was a tendency to partake in betting and gambling. There was nothing the woman loved more than playing unfavourable odds and winning big. Still, she held off, until after she finished examining every other choice on the native species and fantasy species lists.
There were only three options that interested her. Human, Wuxia Human, and Xianxia Human. Her heart raced, and her attention lingered on the Xianxia Human option. Hesitantly, she focused on it.
A new screen appeared, this one green, that seemed to be a slots machine of frankly ridiculous length.
Off to the side was a helpful menu explaining what the results meant. From what she could tell, there were five separate symbols – one of a spirit, one of a body, one of a hammer and sickle, one of a circle of rocks, and the final one was a brain. Each had a different meaning: Qi Cultivation, Body Cultivation, Crafting, Formations, and Comprehension. Below was another screen explaining how talent rating was calculated.
1-25 = Trash
26-50 = Poor
51-100 = Middling
101-200 = Decent
201-300 = Good
301-500 = Once-In-A-Century
501-750 = Once-In-A-Millennia
751-1,000 = Divine Talent
1,001+ = Child of Heaven
She could only assume that meant there were a total of 5,000 slots. With bated breath, she watched as the slot machine spun rapidly, several slots locking in each second. A few minutes passed until the last slot filled, and a screen popped up announcing her talent.
She frowned. It wasn’t… particularly good, but it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. According to the system, there were even ways to change these later, so for now she’d just accept that and move on. Crafting was quite good anyway, and the thought of refining legendary artifacts was enticing to say the least.
Another menu popped up, this one about detailing her body. There was a secondary tab, allowing her to detail her ‘metaphysical components’. Dantian, meridians, and various Qi pathways and other things. There were some general figures on the side about symmetry, effectiveness, cohesion and quality. Most of them were around 80%.
After tweaking them all to 100%, she moved to the physical designer. It was similar to the sims except far more detailed. She felt like smiling looking at the default body in front of her. It was Kuan Yin, prior to her death.
Totally average. It wasn’t necessarily what was befitting of what she suspected her role would soon be. Hours passed as she continued sculpting something more than just average. Her pores were shrunk, skin smoothed and beautified. All of her features were altered just enough to make them look better, but still her. A thought danced at the forefront of her mind; she imagined this would be how she looked on her wedding day, had she lived to see one.
Hours passed as she sculpted her form, hours more passed until she had finished. If before she was totally average, now she was exceptional in almost every manner. Her height was the only thing remaining unchanged. She was content with her height. Long, silky black hair that reflected the eternal black surrounding her. Her skin tone remained mostly unchanged, only evening out and removing patches of darker and lighter pigmentation. Her proportions were altered somewhat, her waist going from boxlike to a slight curve – but it was mostly her face that changed
She couldn’t help but find herself wildly pretty, and confirmed the creation of her body. The previously gentle coils of the mist began to roil as it surged upwards and formed her body. She shivered at the weird sensation of being embodied. It ended quickly, the mist falling off her in tendrils as everything solidified and locked into place.
She brushed a hand over her arm and smiled at the sensation. It was a lot better than nothing. She took a few minutes to stretch, and a few more to test out her voice before moving on to designing a system companion.
Kuan Yin wasn’t stupid enough to believe she could learn everything on her own. She tapped Default Companion, this time with her finger, savouring the tactile system menu.
With an eyebrow to raise now, it was lifted high. Visualize a body? That’s much different than the option I had been given. She closed her eyes, deciding to try and take advantage of the vague wording. A picture began to form in her mind, a standard beautiful male cultivator, many features matching her own as though they were siblings. The woman didn’t stop there, picturing a trait of immense pressure emanating from him as though the heavens themselves would press down around him if he wished.
With nothing popping up to stop her, she tentatively continued building a mental picture, digging into what she pictured his bloodline to be. Her mind continued pouring in the mental image of heaven itse–
She frowned as she read that, and returned to her mental image. She decided to revamp the species of the companion in her head, mentally merging the current Xianxia Human and Shapeshifter. It worked; but she felt a press on her from the System. With a roll of her eyes she complied to the unspoken demand, limiting its shapeshifting ability to two specified forms. The pressure eased drastically.
She hummed in thought; if she couldn’t make him a personification of the Heavens, a symbol of power could work too. She rolled a few ideas around before settling on an auspicious, golden-scaled chinese dragon.
A wave of pressure instantly put her on her knees, her head forced to lower. “Shit, he doesn’t have control while he’s being formed?” Exasperated, she cursed with no direction in particular. Minutes passed until the pressure eased, and her head rose shakily to meet the eyes of the system companion she had just designed.
He met her eyes for a moment, before closing his own and snapping his fingers. A hanfu similar to the one she had imagined him in appeared on herself before he opened his eyes. They were sharp, offset by an easy smile that formed on his face as he shifted into the form of a small golden dragon.
Is this better than the previous first chapter?
