The slots spun and landed on a new collection of trash.
[A Half-Burnt Candle.]
[A Chipped Bowl.]
[A Crude Drawing of a Duck.]
[A Single Shoelace.]
[A Dried-Up Pen.]
[A Bottle Cap.]
[A Sticky Note that says: "Don't Forget the Milk".]
[Two Singular, Low-Grade Spirit Stones.]
[A Wilted Cabbage Leaf.]
[A Different, Slightly Shinier Rusty Spoon.]
"Another spoon?!" Gray exclaimed, his frustration growing.
"What am I supposed to do, start a soup business?!"
He hammered the 10x draw button again, his lighthearted mood completely gone.
"Alright, you stupid system, stop messing around!"
40,000 SC... 50,000... 60,000... His massive fortune was draining away at an alarming rate, replaced by a growing pile of virtual trash in his inventory.
"Just one more," he gritted his teeth, his Street Cred now hovering around 90,000. He had spent over 80,000 points.
"One more, and then I'm done."
He hit the 10x draw button one last time. Nine of the slots landed on a few more trash. But the final slot... it exploded in a brilliant, golden light.
[Congratulations! You have won a Legendary Reward from the Common Thug Draw!]
[Skill Acquired: Street-Smarts of a Thousand Gang Wars (Low Celestial Grade) (Upgradeable)]
[Rarity: Legendary]
[Type: Passive Instinct Skill]
[Description: You now possess the raw, unfiltered battle experience of a thousand underworld veterans as well as a preternatural "sixth sense" forged from their brutal life experience. You don't need to analyze; you just know. You will feel a "cold spot" where an enemy hides, see a "threat line" tracing an incoming attack, and your body will instinctively know the perfect moment to act.]
[Downloading memories of 1,000 gang wars...]
[...]
[...Download Complete. Skill has been bound to your soul.]
[Text: "You are now a battle hardened veteran! But you don't survive a thousand turf wars just by being the strongest. You also survive by being the first to smell a rat and the last to step into a trap."]
Gray felt a sudden, overwhelming flood of information pour into his very being.
It wasn't just knowledge; it was memories.
The cold paranoia of an ambush in a rainy alley, the adrenaline of a chaotic bar brawl, the sharp sting of a knife, the satisfying crunch of a well-placed punch.
It was a thousand lifetimes of violence and survival, compressed and integrated into his own consciousness in a single instant.
The flood subsided, leaving behind a deep, calm, and incredibly dangerous instinct.
He closed his eyes.
The world felt different. He could feel the slight shift in the air as a night bird took flight from a distant tree.
He could sense the presence of a cat stalking a mouse two houses down. It was an amazing, almost intoxicating feeling.
He thought back to his past life, to the fights he had fought in an aim to become the King of Delinquents. 'If I was back on Earth now,' he thought with a humorless smirk, 'it wouldn't be a problem to take on a hundred, maybe even a thousand Iron Fists at once.'
He opened his eyes and the feeling of power faded slightly, replaced by a familiar sigh.
He instinctively tried to channel a wisp of Qi to test his new instincts, but felt nothing.
"Still nothing, it seems this problem is bigger than I thought. I wonder if there's any way to restore crippled Spirit Roots."
The vast ocean of battle knowledge was trapped inside a broken bottle.
Even with the instincts of a god-tier fighter, he was still a cripple who couldn't cultivate.
He looked at his remaining Street Cred. His balance was just over 90,000. He felt the urge to chase that high again, to pull for another Legendary prize.
But he suppressed it.
'No,' he decided, shaking his head.
'I've already used up all my luck for today. Maybe for the whole year.'
...
The night's air was crisp as Gray sat on the porch of his small residence. The adrenaline from the hearing had long since faded, and the triumphant cheers of the crowd were now just a faint echo.
He had humiliated his enemies, secured a fortune, and even forced a clan-wide reform. By all accounts, he was the victor.
Yet, a deep, frustrating unease settled in his gut.
He opened his hand, staring at a handful of the Spirit Stones he had won from Jamal and Elder Gustav.
They glittered in the moonlight, humming with a faint, pure energy. He closed his eyes and tried to do what the previous owner of this body had done a thousand times.
He tried to draw in the spiritual energy, to feel it cycle through his Spirit Roots.
Absolutely nothing.
The Spirit Stones remained as they were, their energy stubbornly locked away from him.
He wasn't just unable to sense the ambient Spiritual Energy in the air; he couldn't even absorb Spiritual Energy from a direct source.
A scowl formed on his face.
'This is a joke,' he thought, his frustration mounting. 'I have a system that rewards me for picking fights, a new battle instinct that can anticipate an attack before it's even thrown, and a body that can't even power a single, low-level technique.'
His victory in the hearing was a victory of wits. But he knew it was a one-time trick.
He couldn't keep relying on bluffs and psychological warfare.
This was the cultivation world.
Sooner or later, someone wouldn't be interested in talking; they would just slice his head off or crush him with a palm.
Without cultivation, he was a sheep in a world of wolves, no matter how clever a sheep he was.
Over the next few days, his frustration grew into a quiet desperation.
He spent his days in the clan library, not bothering with the basic cultivation manuals anymore.
He dove into the obscure, dusty sections, searching for any text, any legend, any scrap of information regarding "Crippled Cultivation" or "Destroyed Spirit Roots."
The scrolls all told the same, grim story.
Spirit Roots were the foundation of a cultivator, a gift from the heavens.
They were the reason why cultivators could even be cultivators in the first place, if you didn't have Spirit Roots, you were no different from mortals back on Earth.
Once destroyed, they were gone forever.
The few legends that spoke of miraculous restorations involved divine treasures found only in the Immortal Realm, things as mythical as phoenix feathers and qilin horns.
There was definitely no cure to be found in a backwater place like the Anarkin Clan.
One evening, after another fruitless day of research, he sat in his room, the helplessness budding within him.
Sigh.
He stared at his own hands, feeling weak and lost.
"This can't go on, in order to gain system rewards, I have to provoke and fight others. Should I risk it? After all, no matter how many enemies I make, as long as I'm within the clan, no one can kill me…"
"Damn it all," he whispered to the empty room. "Did the system not take into consideration that I would be transmigrated into a cripple's body when it assimilated into me?"
Just as he was feeling frustrated, a melodious voice laced with a trace of pity echoed through his chamber.
"Quite the struggle, isn't it? You might not understand it, but you're now completely crippled with little to no hope of recovering."