The afternoon sun hit Pyradine City with a heavy, stagnant heat, but inside the Origins Dungeon Hall, the air was perpetually chilled by the scent of old stone and something vaguely metallic.
Nothing had changed.
The heavy thud of a body hitting the floor. The hiss of the steam from the thrones. The sound of someone cursing their own ancestors.
Behind the counter, Yuan Bi leaned his head on his palm, watching the three regulars with the bored expression of a man watching paint dry. Min Luan was back in the chair for the third time today. Wu Feng looked like he'd forgotten what sunlight felt like.
"Still broke, still playing," Yuan Bi muttered, his voice barely carrying over the hum of the machines.
Lu Bong, standing nearby and nursing a bruised ego from his last run, stiffened. "I can hear you, shopkeeper."
"Good," Yuan Bi didn't even blink. "At least your hearing hasn't withered away along with your combat sense."
"..."
From the throne, Min Luan's muffled voice erupted: "AGH—NOT AGAIN! HIS ARM! WHY DID HIS ARM BEND THAT WAY?!"
Then, the sudden, heavy silence of a forced logout.
Yuan Bi didn't look at the screen. "Sixth death."
Wu Feng, leaning against the wall, corrected him: "Seventh. He tripped over a bucket in the kitchen during the last run. It was pathetic."
Yuan Bi paused, then gave a slow, mocking nod. "Ah. Well. At least he's finding new ways to fail. That's a form of progress."
The door creaked.
The casual, insults-and-sweat atmosphere of the shop didn't just vanish—it froze.
A woman stepped into the light. She wore violet robes stitched with jade thread—the kind of silk that cost more than this entire street's rent. Her posture wasn't just upright; it was a warning. She carried herself with the terrifying discipline of someone who had never been told "no."
Wu Feng straightened his back instantly, his hand dropping from the wall. "...Senior Sister Qing Yue."
Lu Bong followed suit, his irritation replaced by a sudden, nervous formality. "Senior."
Even Min Luan, pulling the helm off his sweaty head, scrambled to his feet. "S-Senior!"
Qing Yue.
The name carried weight in Pyradine Academy. She was the "Ice Peak"—a genius of the younger generation who was rumored to be one solid push away from transcending the First-Rate Fighter realm.
She didn't look at them. Her eyes swept the room, lingering on the stained floorboards and the strange, mechanical thrones before settling on the projection screen.
A pixelated corpse was currently dragging itself toward a screaming player.
"So," she said, her voice like glass. "This is the den of lunatics the Academy is whispering about."
She watched a zombie tear a chunk out of a player's shoulder on the screen.
"People say you can find enlightenment here," she murmured, more to herself than them. "...Ridiculous."
Her face remained a mask of calm, but internally, her thoughts were a mess of frustration. Peak First-Rate. Three months of meditation. Zero movement. If there is even a grain of truth to the rumors about this place...
She stepped toward the counter. "You're the owner?"
Yuan Bi didn't stand up. He didn't even straighten his posture. He just looked at her with those same half-lidded eyes. "That's what the sign says."
Qing Yue's eyes narrowed. Most shopkeepers in this city would be bowing until their foreheads hit the floor. This man treated her like a minor inconvenience.
She looked at the blackboard. Seven spirit crystals.
"Expensive," she noted.
Min Luan, unable to help himself, blurted out: "Senior, it's worth it! The pain is... well, it's horrible, but it's worth it!"
"If you survive," Wu Feng added quietly.
"And if you don't let the smell of the rot get to your head," Lu Bong chimed in.
Yuan Bi glanced at the three of them. "When did I hire a marketing team? I thought I was running a shop, not a guild."
Min Luan grinned sheepishly. "Experience, boss."
"Failure," Wu Feng corrected.
"Expensive failure," Yuan Bi added, sliding his gaze back to Qing Yue.
She didn't join in the banter. Without a word, she reached into her sleeve and placed seven spirit crystals on the wood. They clicked against the counter—clean, decisive, and final.
Yuan Bi stood up slowly, the first sign of effort he'd shown all day.
"For the beginners," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "Two rules. First: everything in there is real. Your brain won't know the difference, so your heart won't either. Second: you will die. Don't fight the feeling. Just learn from it."
Qing Yue met his gaze. "I've faced real blades, shopkeeper. I think I can handle a dream."
Yuan Bi smirked. It wasn't a kind look. "You say that now."
She sat. The helm lowered.
Inside the Dungeon
The world didn't just change; it collapsed and rebuilt itself.
The air went from the dry heat of Pyradine to a damp, sickening chill that tasted like copper and old mold. Qing Yue opened her eyes and immediately felt the weight of the atmosphere pressing against her skin.
She tried to circulate her Qi.
Nothing.
The familiar warmth in her veins was gone, replaced by a cold, heavy void.
"...Qi suppression," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. Not from fear, but from the sheer impossibility of the sensation. To be stripped of her power was a nightmare she'd never actually had to live.
She looked at her hands. They felt weak. Human.
A zombie dragged itself out of the gloom, its jaw hanging by a single tendon.
Qing Yue didn't scream. She didn't even move. She watched it. Slow. Heavy. No technique. Only hunger.
The creature lunged.
She stepped aside—a movement carved into her bones from a decade of training. Minimal. Cold. She used the zombie's own momentum, driving a palm strike into the base of its skull.
THUD.
The zombie staggered, but it didn't fall.
Qing Yue frowned. Without Qi, my striking power has plummeted.
She adjusted instantly. No more blunt force. She waited for the next lunge, then drove two fingers into the creature's eye socket, twisting with a sickening crunch.
The zombie collapsed.
Suddenly, a jolt of warm, pure energy flooded her limbs. It wasn't Qi—it was something more primal. It sank into her muscles, knitting them together, making them denser, harder.
Her eyes widened. This... this isn't cultivation. It was a direct refinement of the physical vessel.
She looked deeper into the dark corridor. If she could kill a hundred of these things... a thousand... the bottleneck that had held her back for months wouldn't just break. It would be crushed.
She didn't wait for the next one to find her. She stepped into the dark.
Outside
The regulars were glued to the screen.
"She's already cleared the first room," Min Luan whispered, half-impressed, half-jealous. "She didn't even break a sweat."
"She started better than you, Min Luan," Yuan Bi said from the shadows behind the counter. "Don't compare a housecat to a tiger."
"...That's uncalled for."
Wu Feng watched the way she moved—the efficiency, the lack of panic. "She's not playing a game. She's hunting."
Yuan Bi leaned back, closing his eyes.
He didn't need to watch the screen. He could feel the shop's energy shifting. Curiosity was the hook. Growth was the bait.
But it was the obsession—the desperate, bone-deep need to be better than yesterday—that would build his empire.
"The tiger has found the meat," Yuan Bi murmured.
He knew she'd be back tomorrow. They always came back.
End of chapter