The Xianzhou.
Cangcheng.
A teahouse.
Early morning.
Felutina sipped her hot tea and tipped her head back toward the sky, where a crimson star hung over the dome of the lone ship.
It throbbed like something alive, and the husk of withered sinew and dried veins split open, until the vessel was wrapped whole.
“So you finally came.
World-Devouring Rahu.”
Felutina’s eyelids lowered.
She let out a thin sigh, and the white plume of her breath scattered fast in air already thick with the smell of blood.
Three full years had passed since she’d been dropped into this place for no reason anyone had bothered to explain.
And only now, watching a world-ending catastrophe unfold overhead exactly as some game in her past life had described it, line for line, did Felutina finally accept one thing beyond all doubt —
She had, without question, fallen into the world of that game.
That, and there was the thing riding on her hand that called itself the [Popularity System].
The girl raised her hand, and a translucent glow unfolded before her.
[Welcome to the Popularity System!]
[The Popularity System works like this: play your role, earn popularity.
So long as you can draw an unending stream of audience heat and approval, the host will receive all manner of rewards.
Should your popularity sink, however, you will be shelved permanently.]
[Popularity Points may be exchanged for outfits, stats, special effects, and more.]
[Current Popularity Points: 0 (Rating: Random Extra)]
“…”
Staring at that glaring “0” and the words “Random Extra” on the panel, Felutina rolled her eyes so hard it nearly hurt.
In the beginning she’d genuinely strategized about how to leave the deepest possible impression on an audience.
Childhood-sweetheart route, fated-encounter route — she’d chewed on it for ages before deciding to squeeze the little gray-hair for everything he was worth.
Add a little spice, transform into the little gray-hair’s white moonlight, his lost and unattainable first love, then borrow that immortal line — no one can beat a dead white moonlight in matters of the heart.
Felu fakes her death.
Peak psychological warfare.
Anyone following?
Sadly, the plan went bankrupt before it ever launched.
The timeline Felutina had landed in was a thousand years before the main story opened — before the Cloud Quintet had even assembled.
There wasn’t so much as a shadow of a “main cast” to run plot beats with.
Where exactly was she supposed to farm these Popularity Points?
She had tried making contact with the one absurdly popular character who was still a child in this era, the girl destined to become the Sword Champion of the Luofu — Jingliu.
She’d wandered the alleys of Cangcheng with little Jingliu, bought her candied haws, and even shamelessly muscled her way into the role of the “understanding big sister” until her face was a familiar one.
And her Popularity Points hadn’t moved a hair.
Flat as a dead pond.
Three years of transmigration.
She’d trained hard, leaning on a Xianzhou native’s constitution, but with no talent to speak of she was still a weakling through and through.
“Goddammit, this is the worst system I’ve ever had to work with!”
Felutina had no illusions that a body like hers would survive this disaster, and she had no idea whether running to little Jingliu and clinging to her leg would even get her onto the survival route.
[Ding—]
[Popularity Event unlocked.]
[The crimson star is the regurgitating gut of some colossal beast, a hotbed cast from flesh and blood, breeding filth.]
[World-Devouring Rahu is devouring Cangcheng.]
[Mission: Survive the Calamity of Cangcheng and rescue the popular character “Jingliu.”]
[Dimensional Popularity Loan unlocked.
Credit assessment complete.
Maximum loanable Popularity Points: 100,000.]
[Mission Reward: five seconds of high-definition screen time in Interstellar Journey!]
So…
there was a way out after all?
Felutina’s eyes lit up.
She had no clue how long she could drag out a loan like that, but a miserable life still beat a clean death.
She reached out without a shred of hesitation and swiped straight across—
“Borrow the whole hundred thousand.
Pour it all into power, thanks.”
She had no concrete sense of what a hundred thousand Popularity Points meant, so she simply maxed out the loan.
Debt stops weighing on you once it’s big enough.
Going all-in is a form of wisdom.
All in!
[100,000 Popularity Points consumed.]
[Current Popularity Points: -100,000]
[Path awakened for host: Abundance]
[Talent unlocked: Photographic Memory]
[Dynamic Strength activated.]
“…”
A hundred thousand bought that?
Refusing to believe it, Felutina stuck out a finger and jabbed at the system panel several times in midair, even trying to shake a terminal that didn’t exist.
Only after confirming that no new pop-up and no glittering golden effects were coming did she give up, wearing the expression of someone badly constipated.
Awakening the Path of Abundance was easy enough to understand.
She counted as a Xianzhou native now, already living under the Abundance’s blessing, so treading its Path tracked well enough.
But what in the world was Dynamic Strength?
Felutina turned it over for a while, a vague suspicion forming — and then several thunderous crashes cut her thoughts short.
BOOM—
One of them landed right beside the teahouse she was sitting in.
She looked toward the sound on reflex.
As the churned-up dust settled, a wolf-headed monster stood there, roughly three Felutinas tall.
A Borisin.
One of the Xianzhou’s enemy forces.
So the fall of Cangcheng had Borisin involvement too.
A proper loot-and-extract raid, then.
Fine, whatever.
Better to find Jingliu early and run for it…
She was about to pull her gaze away when a figure with white hair and crimson eyes caught the edge of her vision.
It was Jingliu.
Hold on — sweetie, what are you doing over here?
Hold on — what the hell is that Borisin about to do?
Why is it lifting its claws?
Felutina glanced at the gleaming golden word “Abundance” on her system panel, gritted her teeth, and steeled herself.
The loan was taken.
The Path was lit.
She was a genuine Pathstrider now.
Was she really going to take this lying down?
She vaulted the railing and drew a deep breath.
The King does not cry!
The King does not whine!
The King does not take the stairs!
The King descends from the heavens!!!
The girl’s body dropped through open air and landed between the Borisin and Jingliu in a perfect hero-entrance pose.
The Borisin faltered for half a beat, but its needle-sharp claws didn’t slow in the slightest.
Wind blasted outward, and in an instant Felutina was run clean through, cold straight to the core.
“Guh…”
“S-Sister Felu…”
Shielded behind her, Jingliu went rigid at first.
Then it registered.
Her eyes reddened, every trace of expression froze on her face, her breath caught, and her small white teeth bit down hard on her lip.
She reached out on instinct, then pulled her hand back.
This big sister who had moved to Cangcheng out of nowhere three years ago had been endlessly good to her — playing with her every day, teaching her her lessons, putting up with her occasional tantrums.
And now this big sister was going to die.
Right in front of her.
At that very moment.
The savage pain turned Felutina’s eyes red, and strength welled up from somewhere she couldn’t name.
Her hand rose, fingers curled into the same claw shape that had just punched through her own body, and she drove it into the Borisin’s chest!
Thud—!
That single claw pierced the brawny Borisin’s chest through, and the girl tore its heart out along the way and crushed it in her fist.
The massive body hit the ground.
Felutina was left clutching her wound, staggering back a few steps before she sat down hard in the dirt.
The notice [Dynamic Strength activated] surfaced in front of her again, and at last she was sure of her guess — as long as she performed badly enough, the enemy’s power level would sink to match.
Heh heh heh.
Chicken-claw style it is.
“Sister Felu!”
The girl’s cry pulled her out of her thoughts again.
Young Jingliu had never seen what death looked like.
She crept to the girl’s side, tears welling as she stared at the bloody wound.
“I-I’ll go get a doctor, just hold on…”
“No need, sweetie.
The streets are probably crawling with those things right now.”
Felutina dredged up a reassuring smile and lifted the hand that was still more or less clean, wiping the tears from the corners of Jingliu’s eyes.
She didn’t tell Jingliu that under the Path of Abundance her wound had already closed up almost completely.
It only looked drenched in blood.
Felutina studied her.
Fear still sat plain on that soft young face.
Of course it did.
At that age a child should be nothing but bright and carefree.
And after all the time she’d spent with little Jingliu, there was bound to be some real feeling there.
The girl drew a deep breath and pushed herself back to her feet, straightening her clothes.
Then, silhouetted against the failing light, she held out her hand to Jingliu.
“Let’s go, Jingliu.
Stay close to me.
We’re going to try to get out of here.”
____
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