So you want to know how I became a cult leader?
Let me back up.
My name is... well, it was Daniel. Daniel Park. Eighteen years old, college freshman, chronic overworker at a part time job that paid minimum wage, and proud owner of a dorm room that smelled perpetually of instant ramen and regret. Past tense on all of that, by the way. Because I'm dead.
Probably.
I mean, I'm pretty sure drowning in your own bathtub counts as dead. The logistics are fuzzy, but the outcome seems fairly definitive.
But before we get to the whole "waking up in another world as a cult leader" part, let me paint you a picture of my last day on Earth. Not because it was special or meaningful or had some profound lesson about the fragility of life. No. It was special because of how utterly, soul crushingly mundane it was.
Picture this: Wednesday. Midweek hell. I'd been at my campus library job for eight hours straight, shelving books and dealing with students who thought the Dewey Decimal System was some kind of conspiracy. Then I had to run to my evening shift at the campus coffee shop, where I made lattes for people who didn't tip and complained about temperatures.
Double shift. Back to back. Because student loans don't pay themselves and my scholarship only covered tuition.
By the time I dragged myself back to my dorm, my brain felt like it had been put through a blender, pureed, and then forced to take a pop quiz about the experience.
But.
BUT.
There was a light at the end of this tunnel of mediocrity.
Attack On Colossal.
The anime. THE anime. The one that had the entire internet losing their minds for the past three months. Every forum, every social media platform, every conversation in the dining hall revolved around it. The animation was supposedly god tier. The plot twists were breaking people's brains. The finale had just dropped and spoilers were everywhere.
I'd been dodging them all week like I was in some kind of digital minefield. Muting keywords. Unfollowing friends. Going full internet blackout mode. All so I could binge the entire final season in one glorious, uninterrupted sitting.
This was my reward for surviving another week of classes and double shifts.
So I got home, microwaved something that claimed to be food, and decided I needed to decompress first. Eight hours of dealing with entitled college students meant my eyes felt like sandpaper and my shoulders were in open rebellion against my neck.
A bath. That's what I needed. The communal bathroom down the hall had actual bathtubs, surprisingly. A hot bath to melt away the stress, then I'd set up my laptop, get some snacks, and dive into animated glory.
Perfect plan.
I ran the water. Hot as I could stand it. Threw in some bath salts my mom had given me when I left for college. Stripped down. Climbed in.
The heat hit like a divine blessing. My muscles unclenched. My brain finally stopped running through tomorrow's assignment list. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and thought, "Just five minutes. Then anime time."
Just five minutes.
That's what I told myself.
I don't remember falling asleep. There was no transition, no drowsy fade to black. One second I was enjoying the heat, the next second I was... somewhere else.
Somewhere very, very else.
I woke up to the smell of incense and the feeling that my body was wrong.
Not painful. Not injured. Just... wrong. Like wearing a jacket that was the right size but cut for someone with completely different proportions. My hands looked bigger. My chest felt broader. Even the way my lungs pulled in air felt foreign.
And I was holding a fruit.
Not like, a normal apple or orange. This thing looked like someone had taken a pomegranate, dipped it in liquid gold, and then sprinkled it with what I can only describe as edible starlight. It pulsed in my palm with a faint warmth that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with something my brain couldn't quite process.
I sat up.
Wrong room. Wooden walls carved with symbols I didn't recognize. A sleeping mat that definitely wasn't my bed. Robes instead of my towel. Through a window, I could see mountains that looked like they'd been painted by someone who thought regular mountains weren't dramatic enough.
"Okay," I said out loud. My voice was different too. Deeper. "This is either the weirdest dream ever, or I'm having a stroke, or..."
And then the blue screen appeared.
I'm talking full RPG status window, floating in midair like someone had copy pasted it from every isekai light novel ever written. Translucent. Glowing. Complete with that slight hum that somehow conveyed "mystical system bullshit" without making any actual sound.
[WELCOME, NEW USER]
[SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE]
[LOADING PROFILE...]
I stared at it. Blinked. Looked around to see if there were cameras. Some kind of VR setup I didn't remember putting on.
Nothing.
Just me, the fruit, and the glowing screen.
"Huh," I said.
And here's the thing. Here's the part that probably makes me sound insane. I didn't freak out. Didn't scream or cry or have an existential crisis. I just... sat there, processing.
Because the pieces were clicking together in a way that was simultaneously absurd and somehow perfectly logical.
The bath. The exhaustion. The way I'd closed my eyes.
I'd fallen asleep. In the tub. In hot water after two shifts and a week of minimal sleep.
I'd drowned.
Had to be. That was the only explanation that made sense. I'd passed out, slipped under the water, and that was it. Daniel Park, dead at eighteen, killed by his own stupidity and poor life choices.
And now I was... here. Wherever here was.
Reincarnated. Isekaied. Transmigrated. Pick your terminology.
I should have been terrified. Should have been desperate to get back, to wake up, to find out this was all some oxygen deprived hallucination as my brain shut down.
But you know what? I wasn't.
I sat there on that sleeping mat, holding a magic fruit, staring at a system screen, and all I could think was: "Well. At least I don't have classes tomorrow."
Is that messed up? Probably. But after eighteen years of grinding through school, then the nightmare of college applications, then starting freshman year with a scholarship that demanded perfect grades and two part time jobs to cover everything else, the prospect of being dead was almost... relieving.
No more shifts. No more assignments. No more pretending I had my life together while surviving on three hours of sleep and caffeine.
I was free.
Sure, I was also probably dead and inhabiting some stranger's body in a world I didn't understand, but hey. Glass half full, right?
Plus, and I cannot stress this enough, I had consumed an embarrassing amount of isekai content. Light novels. Manga. Anime. Web novels that updated daily and destroyed my sleep schedule. I knew the tropes. Knew the patterns.
Systems meant progression. Magic meant power. Another world meant adventure.
This was the fantasy. The escape every overworked student dreamed about while staring at textbooks and wondering if any of this actually mattered.
So I made a choice.
I accepted it.
"Alright," I said to the empty room. To the system. To whatever cosmic force had yanked me out of my bathtub and dumped me here. "Let's see what we're working with."
The screen flickered and changed.
[PROFILE LOADED]
[NAME: Adam Twilight]
[AGE: 18]
[RACE: Human]
[AFFILIATION: Twilight Reign Cult]
[RANK: Unawakened]
[CULT MEMBERS: 1]
I read it twice. Then a third time.
"Adam Twilight," I muttered. "Okay. Edgy name. I can work with that."
Twilight Reign Cult, though. That sounded... ambitious. Maybe a bit villainous. Definitely the kind of organization that had dramatic entrances and probably some kind of world domination agenda.
Which would have been intimidating if not for that last line.
Cult members: One.
I looked around the empty room again. Checked the corners. Peeked out the window.
Nobody.
Just me.
"So I'm the cult leader," I said slowly, "of a cult that consists entirely of myself."
The system helpfully provided clarification.
[PREVIOUS CULT LEADER: DECEASED]
[CAUSE OF DEATH: CONSUMPTION OF GOD'S EMBER PILL]
[CULTIVATION BASE: DESTROYED]
[ASSETS TRANSFERRED TO NEW HOST]
Another screen popped up, this one showing what looked like an inventory.
[CURRENT ASSETS]
[FRUIT OF FOUNDATION x1]
[GOD'S EMBER PILL x0 - CONSUMED]
[AVAILABLE FUNDS: 0 GOLD, 0 SILVER, 0 COPPER]
[REAL ESTATE: NONE]
[EQUIPMENT: BASIC ROBES]
I stared at the zeroes. "So the previous guy ate a pill that killed him, leaving me with one magic fruit and literally nothing else."
[CORRECT]
"And I'm supposed to lead a cult."
[CORRECT]
"A cult with no members, no money, no base of operations, and no idea what we even believe in."
[CORRECT]
I started laughing. Couldn't help it. The absurdity was too much. Here I was, dead in a bathtub on Earth, now inhabiting the body of some guy who'd apparently tried to steal power, failed spectacularly, and left behind the world's saddest cult.
This was my isekai adventure. This was my second chance at life.
A dying cult with no members and negative resources.
"This is ridiculous," I said between laughs. "This is genuinely the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to anyone."
The system didn't care about my existential amusement.
[MAIN QUEST ASSIGNED]
The text appeared in bold red letters.
[MAIN QUEST: REVIVE THE TWILIGHT REIGN CULT]
[OBJECTIVE: RESTORE THE CULT TO OPERATIONAL STATUS]
[REWARD: CONTINUED EXISTENCE]
[PENALTY: DEATH]
[STATUS: MANDATORY]
My laughter died in my throat.
"Wait. Death? As in, I die again if I don't do this?"
[CORRECT]
"But I'm already dead!"
[IRRELEVANT. CURRENT EXISTENCE CONDITIONAL ON QUEST COMPLETION]
I felt something cold settle in my gut. The system wasn't joking. Wasn't exaggerating. The clinical, matter of fact way it delivered information made it clear that this wasn't a suggestion or a tutorial quest I could ignore.
This was mandatory.
Revive the cult or cease to exist.
"Okay," I said, my voice quieter now. "Okay. So what does 'revive' actually mean? What are we talking about here?"
New screens blossomed in front of me like someone had opened multiple tabs.
[BRANCH QUEST 1: AWAKEN AND ENTER FOUNDATION REALM]
[OBJECTIVE: CONSUME THE FRUIT OF FOUNDATION]
[OBJECTIVE: COMPLETE BASIC CULTIVATION INITIATION]
[TIME LIMIT: 72 HOURS]
[REWARD: FOUNDATION REALM ENTRY, +10 TO ALL ATTRIBUTES, UNLOCK CULTIVATION INTERFACE]
[PENALTY: DEATH]
[BRANCH QUEST 2: RECRUIT YOUR FIRST MEMBER]
[OBJECTIVE: FIND AND CONVINCE ONE PERSON TO JOIN THE TWILIGHT REIGN CULT]
[REQUIREMENT: LOYALTY MUST EXCEED 60%]
[TIME LIMIT: 30 DAYS]
[REWARD: UNLOCK CULT MANAGEMENT INTERFACE, +5 TO CHARISMA]
[PENALTY: DEATH]
[BRANCH QUEST 3: ESTABLISH A BASE]
[OBJECTIVE: SECURE A PERMANENT LOCATION FOR CULT OPERATIONS]
[REQUIREMENT: MUST BE DEFENSIBLE AND CONCEALABLE]
[TIME LIMIT: 60 DAYS]
[REWARD: UNLOCK TERRITORY MECHANICS, +100 GOLD]
[PENALTY: DEATH]
[BRANCH QUEST 4: CREATE A CULT INSIGNIA]
[OBJECTIVE: DESIGN AN OFFICIAL SYMBOL FOR THE TWILIGHT REIGN CULT]
[REQUIREMENT: MUST BE RECOGNIZABLE AND MEANINGFUL]
[TIME LIMIT: 90 DAYS]
[REWARD: +10% RECRUITMENT SUCCESS RATE, UNLOCK REPUTATION SYSTEM]
[PENALTY: DEATH]
Four quests. Four different timelines. Four different ways to die if I screwed up.
I looked at the Fruit of Foundation in my hand. Seventy two hours to eat this thing and figure out cultivation. Whatever that meant.
Then thirty days to convince someone, anyone, to join a cult they'd never heard of, led by a guy who didn't know what he was doing.
Then find a base. Then design a logo.
All while having zero money, zero resources, zero connections, and zero understanding of how this world actually worked.
"This is impossible," I whispered.
[DIFFICULTY: APPROPRIATE FOR TUTORIAL PHASE]
"Tutorial? This is a tutorial?"
[CORRECT. DIFFICULTY WILL INCREASE]
I sat there, stunned. This was the easy part. The beginner quests. And they already felt insurmountable.
I looked around the empty room again. Bare wooden walls. No furniture except the sleeping mat. A single window showing mountains and sky. Nothing that screamed "cult headquarters." Nothing that suggested power or influence or even basic competence.
The Twilight Reign Cult.
A grand name for what amounted to one confused dead guy with a magic fruit and a system that would kill him if he failed.
I should have been panicking. Should have been desperately trying to figure out how to game the system, find loopholes, negotiate better terms.
But I'd already died once today. Already accepted that my old life was gone. Already made peace with the absurdity of it all.
What was one more impossible challenge?
I looked at the fruit. Watched it pulse with that inner light. Seventy two hours. Three days to figure out cultivation or die. Again.
"Alright," I said to the system, to the empty room, to whatever cosmic joke had put me here. "If I'm going to lead a cult, I should probably start by not dying immediately."
I lifted the Fruit of Foundation to my lips.
Hesitated.
"This better not kill me."
[PROBABILITY OF DEATH: 12%]
"That's not zero!"
[CORRECT]
"You know what? Forget it. I'm already on my second life. What's the worst that could happen?"
Famous last words, probably.
I bit into the fruit.
The taste hit me first. Sweet, but not cloying. Complex, like every flavor I'd ever experienced compressed into one bite. The flesh dissolved on my tongue, turning into something that felt more like energy than food.
Then the pain started.
Every cell in my body ignited. Not burning. Not quite. More like they were being rewritten at a fundamental level. My bones felt like they were cracking and reforming. My blood turned to lightning in my veins. My muscles seized and spasmed.
I collapsed onto the sleeping mat, convulsing, as the Fruit of Foundation did whatever the hell it was designed to do.
Through the haze of agony, I saw new system notifications.
[FRUIT OF FOUNDATION CONSUMED]
[INITIATING BODY RECONSTRUCTION...]
[PURGING IMPURITIES...]
[ESTABLISHING CULTIVATION BASE...]
The pain intensified. I couldn't scream. Couldn't breathe. Could only exist in this moment of absolute transformation.
And through it all, one thought managed to cut through the chaos:
"I really hope this counts toward the quest."
[CULTIVATION INITIATION: IN PROGRESS]
[ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETION: 8 HOURS]
Eight hours.
Eight hours of this.
I tried to laugh but couldn't manage it. So instead, I just lay there, twitching and burning and being unmade and remade into something that could survive in this world.
Welcome to the Twilight Reign Cult, population: one.
This was my plight now.