SWNOVELXO Chapter 4: Simulation Start?! (1/3)
Hong Ye grimaced, a ghostly expression of disgust that mirrored the one she would have made in life. Reincarnation, a clean slate, a new chance, that was supposed to be how this was supposed to work, but it hadn't, not in her case, not now. She was not inherently evil, this had all been an accident, a mistake in the system. She hadn't quite been reincarnated, not that she had even expected it, anyway, it was that she had been thrust into a position that was completely unlike anything she had ever experienced before. She was still, undeniably, herself, just… different. And what was even worse was that she knew what this was. She was an integral part of a system that she did not agree with, a part of a machine that she wanted to break, and she was in a world that she did not recognize, and it was a terrifying situation, not because she was evil, but because she was never meant to be here.
A new message, cold and mechanical, flashed across Hong Ye's vision, overlaying the fractured realities of the ghost town:
[Would you like to use your Life-Seek Token? Warning! Staying here without increasing your base statistics can lead to the following: insanity, wasting away, soul eradication, impermanent dispersal, the recommendation is to use the token.]
Hong Ye grimaced at the stark, matter-of-fact warning. The language was clinical, devoid of any empathy, and the list of potential consequences was certainly… unpleasant. This system, whatever it was, was clearly not designed for human sensibilities. It felt as if the system was a machine that did not care about the well being of its users, it simply ran its program, regardless of the outcome. It made her want to lash out, to attack the machine itself.
Before blindly accepting the unknown, she decided to gather a bit more information. "System," she said, her voice a low, ghostly rasp that echoed in her mind, "What are my base statistics, anyway?" She would not walk blindly into the next step, she was not a fool, she was not a pawn.
The reply was instantaneous, a string of numbers that meant absolutely nothing to her:
[Status: Body --, Soul 0.3, Spirit 0.3, Chi(Yin): 0.001. the average stats of a first stage body strengthening cultivator is 1.0]
The numbers, while cryptic, were enough to tell her that she was incredibly weak. The system also mentioned some weird word, Chi that was almost impossible for her to understand, and she knew that she needed to learn more. She was not an idiot, she knew she could not fight this system, not yet.
"Okay, that's... concerning," she muttered, the words barely audible. A body of zero, a soul and spirit barely above that, and a chi reading that was just about negligible. That was not good at all, that was the feeling that she was in mortal danger, and that made her teeth grind. She had to get out of here, she had to escape this place, and the only option that had been presented to her was to use the 'Life-Seek Token'.
Not knowing what else to do, and feeling a growing sense of urgency, Hong Ye relented. "Fine," she said, her voice a mix of resignation and defiance, "I'll use the damn token. Just get me out of this place."
The moment she agreed, the world around her dissolved into a kaleidoscope of swirling colors, and the ghost town vanished from her senses. She felt a strange, almost sickening sensation, like she was being squeezed through a tiny hole, and then, everything went silent, before returning back to normal again.
She blinked, her vision adjusting to a new reality. She was no longer in the ghostly teahouse. Instead, she found herself in what was clearly a child's room, filled with bright colors, toys scattered across the floor, and a small bed adorned with frilly pillows. It was a far cry from the opulent offices of her previous life. It was a far cry from the ghostly teahouse that she had just left. This felt, disturbingly, like it was a real place, a real room.
She looked down at her hands, and found that they were small, chubby, and utterly useless. She looked at herself in a nearby mirror, and a child with a tiny face, chubby cheeks, and wide, innocent eyes stared back at her. The reflection was not her, it could not possibly be her, and that made her blood boil. Her form had been twisted and distorted into something that she was not, and she hated it.
With a grimace of frustration, she looked towards the sky as if she could see through the roof, and demanded, her voice thick with anger, "System! What in the hell is going on? Why am I being jerked around like some damn doll?!" This was a new level of disrespect, even for a machine, and she was not going to stand for it.
The reply was immediate and, as she noticed were all of the same sound, monotone and devoid of any hint of emotion:
[You are not being 'jerked around like some doll' as you put it. This is simulation 1, grade: mortal 0. Goal: survive to age 10.]
"Simulation 1, grade: mortal 0. Goal: survive to age 10?" she demanded, her voice sharp, laced with disbelief. "Why is surviving to the age of 10 a Goal? Shouldn't that be easy?" It sounded ridiculous, like she was being tasked with something that any normal human being could do without any effort, but the system would not simply give her that type of task.
The system, as usual, remained silent, refusing to offer any further explanation or any sort of clarification. This lack of response only fueled Hong Ye's frustration. She hated to be ignored, she hated the feeling of helplessness that this whole experience was giving her, and she was not in control of this situation anymore.
She decided, in the absence of any information, to gather her own. She looked around the room, her small body feeling incredibly awkward and foreign, searching for any clues about her identity in this strange simulation, which, disturbingly, felt far too real. It was as if her old life had been wiped away, leaving nothing but the shell of a child. This was not a game, this was a simulation, and a simulation that felt far too much like reality.
She found a few discarded books, mostly filled with childish stories, and a scroll that listed the various families of the Du Kingdom. It was clear that she was indeed the young mistress of some Hong clan, in some Du Kingdom, which in turn, was part of some Wei Empire. These names meant nothing to her, she had never heard them before, and that made her skin crawl. She was not on earth anymore, she was not even on a version of earth, this place was alien, it was different, it was something that she could not even possibly understand.
She was in an entirely new world, a place where families were called 'clans' and countries were called 'kingdoms' and everything was all wrong. Her search did not end there. She found what looked like a medical report. It was, in a word, terrible. Apparently, she had no 'spirit roots,' a concept that was as alien to her as the world she now occupied, and it mentioned something about an 'anti-cultivation body,' which made it so she couldn't gain any sort of strength at all. It was all a mess, all random terms that she did not understand. It was like she had been given the instructions to build a machine, but she did not have any of the parts to make it work.
"System!" she demanded, her voice rising in frustration, a sharp, almost angry sound that echoed in the small room. "Explain yourself right now! What is this world? What is a spirit root? What is an anti-cultivation body? Why am I here? What is this goal?! It's now impossible instead of easy!" She needed answers, she needed clarity, she needed something that would at least point her in the correct direction. She hated not knowing, she hated not being in control, and the fact that this system was not responding was driving her to the edge of her patience. She was no longer in her old world, she was now a pawn of some god, a tool of a machine that she could not understand, and the feeling was enough to make her want to scream.