The walk back from the square was a funeral procession of three. The sun, so bright and promising at dawn, now felt like a mocking, glaring eye. Wu Kang walked three paces ahead, his back a rigid line of swallowed disgrace. Wu Lihua kept a hand on her son's shoulder, her touch the only warmth in a world gone cold.
Their home was a modest, three-room structure of packed earth and timber at the village's edge. The vegetable patch Wu Jian had watered that morning now seemed a pathetic testament to his future. As the door closed behind them, it shut out the noise but sealed in the silence.
His father went straight to the small hearth, staring into the cold ashes. His mother busied herself making tea, her movements too precise, her chin held too high.
"It is not the end," Wu Kang said finally, his voice gravel. He did not turn. "An F-grade can still lead an honest life. The land does not judge. The crops do not care."
It was meant to be comforting. It sounded like an epitaph.
"We will speak to Elder Zhang," his mother said, bringing two chipped cups of weak tea. "Perhaps an apprenticeship with the carpenter. Or the tannery. Your mind is sharp, Jian. There are paths."
Paths that led nowhere. Paths of quiet desperation, of being forever the helper, never the master. Wu Jian accepted the tea, the heat barely registering. "Thank you, Mother."
The words were ash in his mouth. He saw Hong Lie's fire, brilliant and arrogant. He saw Mei's silver-black lotus, beautiful and lethal. He saw his own sputtering, dung-colored flicker. The hierarchy was not just a list; it was a visceral, luminous truth. He was at the bottom.
"I will go tend to the west field," his father said abruptly, as if he couldn't bear the stillness of the house. He took his worn hoe and left, the door closing with a soft finality.
His mother sat beside him. She didn't speak for a long time. Then, softly, "When I was a girl, they called me 'The Lily of Stone Creek.' I had a... brightness. People thought I might test high." She smiled, a distant, sad thing. "I tested D-grade. Memory affinity. Useful for reciting lore, keeping household accounts. Nothing special. Then I met your father. He was like a young mountain, strong and sure. His light was B-grade, solid and earthy." She took his hand. "The system said what we were for. It did not say who we could be. We chose each other. That choice, Jian, that is a root no obelisk can measure."
Her words were a balm, but they couldn't reach the cold, hard knot of reality in his gut. The system might not measure love, but it controlled food, security, respect. It had taken Mei.
"What will happen to Mei?" he asked, his voice hollow.
His mother's expression grew complex. "An S-grade... She will be taken to a special sect, likely the Shadow Kill Pavilion if her assassin manifestation is true. She will be trained, honed. It is a great honor. And a great sacrifice." She looked at him keenly. "You must not cling to her, son. Her path is clouds and shadows now. Yours is... the earth."
And the earth gets trodden upon, he thought but did not say. A strange calm was settling over him, a detachment. As if he were watching this scene from a distance. This wasn't grief; it was numbness. The mind's defense against unbearable weight.
The afternoon wore on in a haze. He couldn't stay inside. He wandered to the back of the house, to the small tool shed. The familiar smells of oil, wood, and soil usually calmed him. Now they felt like the scent of his prison. He picked up a hoe, its handle smooth from his father's grip and his own. He hefted it, then swung it at a clump of packed earth.
Thwack.
The impact shuddered up his arms. He swung again.
Thwack.
Again.
Thwack.
Sweat beaded on his brow. His muscles burned. It was mindless, punishing. With every swing, he tried to bury the images: the sneers, his father's slumped shoulders, Mei's desperate look as she was led away.
F-grade. Farming. Worthless.
Thwack.
S-grade. Assassin. Gone.
THWACK.
He swung with all his strength, the hoe-head biting deep into the ground. A jolt of pain shot through his palms. He dropped the tool, breathing ragged, staring at his blistered hands.
And then, the world dissolved.
Not in a flicker this time. It was an invasion.
A transparent, blue-tinted rectangle materialized in the centre of his vision, superimposed over the tool shed wall. It was crisply defined, edges sharp, humming with a silent, digital potency. Characters in a clean, sterile script appeared, one line after another.
[System Initialization Complete.]
[Welcome, Host: Wu Jian.]
[Recalibration of Spiritual Root Assessment Finished.]
[Initial Grade: EX (Sevenfold Sovereign – Dormant)]
[Current Manifested Grade: F (Farming – Camouflage Protocol Active)]
[Sevenfold Sovereign System: ONLINE.]
Wu Jian stumbled back, hitting the wall of the shed. He blinked furiously. The blue screen remained, unwavering. He looked away, at his hands, at the hoe—the screen hovered in his vision, always in the centre. He closed his eyes—it was there, etched on the inside of his eyelids.
"Wha—" The word died in his throat.
The system responded as if to his thought.
[Primary Directive: Facilitate Host's evolution into a Sevenfold Sovereign—a being of perfect, balanced growth.]
*[Warning: EX-grade designation prohibited by Heaven's Mechanism Protocol 7. Camouflage Protocol essential for survival. Maintain F-grade facade.]*
[System Origin: Locked. Security Clearance: EX-Grade Host Only.]
[Initializing Host Status Assessment...]
Another screen blossomed beside the first.
WU JIAN – STATUS
Spiritual Root: EX (Sevenfold Sovereign) / F (Camouflage)
Cultivation Base: Mortal (Unawakened)
*Health: 100/100*
*Energy (Qi): 0/0*
Attribute Points:
Strength (Str): 14
Agility (Agi): 11
Endurance (End): 16
Intelligence (Int): 19
Wisdom (Wis): 17
Charisma (Cha): 9
[Note: Average untrained mortal attribute: 10.]
Numbers. His life, his body, his mind, reduced to cold, clear numbers. EX-grade. Beyond S. Beyond anything the obelisk could conceive.
Sevenfold Sovereign.
The shock was a tidal wave. This wasn't hope. It was too big for hope. It was an earthquake reshaping his entire reality. Was this real? A cruel trick? A madness born of shame?
"Maintain F-grade facade. Essential for survival."
The warning cut through the panic with ice-cold logic. If the Pavilion discovered this... He'd be dissected, studied, destroyed as an anomaly. The system that enforced F-grade as worthless would not tolerate an EX hiding within it.
This was not a gift. It was a secret. A bomb strapped to his soul.
Tentatively, he focused. Understanding flowed into him—not as words, but as concepts imprinted directly into consciousness.
Balanced Growth Mandate. All six attributes must rise together. No specializing. Balance was the law.
Clone Genesis. At thresholds, create true physical clones. Seven bodies. Sevenfold training.
Exponential Growth.
It was staggering. Impossible. His.
The numbness shattered, burned away by a new, fierce flame. The humiliation of the morning didn't vanish, but it transformed. It became fuel. They saw a flicker of mud. They had no idea of the sovereign taking root in the darkness.
A new screen appeared.
[Initial Quest: 'The Foundation of Balance']
Objective: Raise all six base attributes to 30.
Reward: Unlock Clone Genesis Protocol (Clone 1: The Juggernaut).
Penalty for Imbalance: System degradation.
Progress:Str:14/30,Agi:11/30,End:16/30,Int:19/30,Wis:17/30,Cha:9/30Progress:Str:14/30,Agi:11/30,End:16/30,Int:19/30,Wis:17/30,Cha:9/30
Charisma. 9. Below average. The system had quantified what he felt—his social invisibility. Raising that would be its own peculiar hell.
He looked at his blistered hands. Strength 14, Endurance 16 from farm work. Intelligence 19 from hungry reading of any scrap of text. Wisdom 17 from... understanding things? Seeing patterns in irrigation wheels and people's eyes?
It was a blueprint. Not of who he was, but of who he could become. A balanced being. A sovereign.
The shed door creaked. His mother stood there, a silhouette against the fading light. "Jian? Are you alright? You've been in here for hours."
Hours? It felt like minutes. The blue screens winked out at his will.
"I'm... thinking, Mother," he said, his voice steadier than expected. "About paths."
She studied his face. Her eyes, which saw everything, narrowed slightly. The shame that had been crushing him was gone, replaced by a focused intensity she hadn't seen before. Or perhaps she had, but only in glimpses.
"Your father has spoken to Elder Zhang," she said slowly. "There is a position. At the tannery. It is... honest work."
The old Wu Jian would have bowed his head and accepted. The boy with the sovereign's secret met her gaze. "May I have until tomorrow to decide? I need to... understand the land better."
A faint, puzzled smile touched her lips. "The land?"
"My path," he said simply. "The land does not judge."
She nodded, though the puzzlement remained. "Very well. Come in soon. It's getting cold."
Alone again, Wu Jian leaned against the wall, breathing deeply. The scent of earth and tools was no longer the smell of prison. It was the smell of raw materials. Of a foundation.
He had a system. He had a mandate. He had a secret that could get him killed.
And he had a Charisma score of 9 to somehow raise while pretending to be nothing at all.
For the first time since the obelisk flickered, Wu Jian, the F-grade farmer, smiled. It was a small, hard, private thing.
The game had just begun.