“Every legend begins as an ordinary story.
Only history decides when it becomes extraordinary.”
Rain.
It had fallen without pause for three consecutive days.
Not the violent kind that tore through cities with roaring winds, nor the gentle drizzle that soothed restless hearts.
It was simply… constant.
An endless curtain of water that blurred the world beyond the glass, turning the bustling city into nothing more than shifting lights and indistinct shadows.
From the twenty-third floor of an aging apartment complex, the streets below resembled rivers of moving stars.
White headlights cut through the darkness before vanishing beneath the rain, while the glow of towering buildings painted the soaked asphalt in streaks of blue, gold, and crimson.
People hurried home.
Cars crawled through traffic.
Restaurants remained crowded despite the weather.
Everything continued exactly as it had yesterday.
Exactly as it would tomorrow.
Or so everyone believed.
Inside apartment 2307, however, the world felt completely different.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The rhythmic tapping of a mechanical keyboard blended with the soft hum of two computer monitors, becoming the only sound that interrupted the quiet room.
Its owner barely noticed.
Leaning forward in his chair, one hand resting against his forehead, the young man stared intently at countless lines of code racing across the screen.
His name was Tian Yu.
Twenty-four years old.
A software developer by profession.
A gamer by hobby.
An ordinary man by every reasonable standard.
If someone had asked his coworkers to describe him, they would probably say he was quiet.
Reliable.
A little strange.
The kind of person who disappeared into his own thoughts without realizing hours had passed.
He wasn’t particularly handsome.
Nor was he exceptionally talented.
He simply possessed something few people still had.
Patience.
The digital clock beside his monitor quietly changed.
11:57 PM.
Three minutes until midnight.
Tian Yu stretched his sore shoulders before reaching for the mug beside his keyboard.
Cold.
He frowned.
“…Again.”
The coffee had long since lost its warmth.
Just like the last one.
And the one before that.
With a helpless smile, he stood and walked toward the tiny kitchen.
His apartment wasn’t large.
A single bedroom.
A small bathroom.
An equally small kitchen.
The kind of place every young professional rented when they believed they would move somewhere better “next year.”
Somehow…
Next year had become four years.
The microwave beeped softly.
As he waited for the coffee to warm, his eyes wandered toward the rain-covered window.
Lightning flashed somewhere beyond the distant skyline.
Several seconds later…
Thunder answered.
The storm showed no signs of ending.
“…Guess tomorrow’s commute is going to be miserable.”
He returned to his desk.
The reheated coffee tasted terrible.
He drank it anyway.
His desk looked exactly the way every programmer’s desk eventually looked.
Half-read technical books.
Stacks of handwritten notes.
Loose USB drives.
A screwdriver.
Three charging cables that somehow belonged to only one phone.
Empty coffee cans.
Instant noodle cups.
Small reminders scribbled onto sticky notes that had long since lost their purpose.
To anyone else…
It looked like chaos.
To Tian Yu…
Everything was exactly where it belonged.
His eyes drifted toward the monitor on his left.
The results of another ranked match remained open.
Victory had slipped away less than ten minutes earlier.
He sighed.
“So close…”
One win away from promotion.
Again.
Without another thought, he closed the game.
His attention shifted toward the second monitor.
Unlike the first, this screen contained no colorful interface.
Only folders.
Dozens of them.
Work.
University.
Taxes.
Photos.
Programming.
Archived Projects.
Among them rested one folder that looked almost forgotten.
Origin Project
A faint smile appeared across Tian Yu’s face.
“…You’re still here.”
He double-clicked it.
The folder opened instantly.
Unlike the organized folders on the rest of his computer, this one felt almost alive.
Documents.
Notes.
Diagrams.
Flowcharts.
Incomplete ideas.
Entire concepts abandoned halfway through before suddenly continuing several months later.
He slowly scrolled through them.
Human Realm.docx
Upper Realm.docx
Immortal Realm.docx
God Realm.docx
Primordial Realm.docx
Cultivation System.docx
Spiritual Roots.docx
Bloodlines.docx
Constitutions.docx
Occupations.docx
Formation Theory.docx
Ancient History.docx
World Timeline.docx
Every file represented countless hours of work.
Years, perhaps.
Not because anyone had asked him to make them.
Simply because he wanted to.
He loved cultivation novels.
He always had.
Yet the more he read…
The more questions he found himself asking.
Why did everyone cultivate exactly the same way?
Why did nobody question the cultivation realms themselves?
Why was reaching the next realm always more important than perfecting the current one?
The questions never left him.
Eventually…
They became ideas.
Ideas became notes.
Notes became documents.
Documents became…
Origin Project.
Not a novel.
Not a game.
Not even something he expected anyone else to see.
It was simply the world he wished already existed.
A cultivation world where foundations truly mattered.
Where every breakthrough carried meaning.
Where perfection demanded sacrifice.
Where history stretched back millions of years instead of conveniently beginning whenever the protagonist was born.
His cursor stopped on the final document.
Origin Notes.docx
“…Let’s see where I left off.”
He opened it.
Only a handful of lines occupied the otherwise empty page.
The Heavenly Dao governs all things.
Every realm possesses a hidden perfection.
Every shortcut leaves behind a flaw.
The stronger the foundation…
The greater the future.
Silence.
Tian Yu quietly reread the words.
They weren’t particularly profound.
At least…
Not yet.
They were simply reminders.
Fragments of ideas waiting to become something greater.
His fingers rested above the keyboard.
He wanted to continue writing.
Instead…
He found himself staring at the blinking cursor.
“I still don’t know what comes after the Primordial Realm…”
He laughed softly.
“If this were real…”
“…I’d probably spend my entire life trying to figure it out.”
Outside…
Lightning flashed once more.
For the briefest instant, the apartment was illuminated in pure white.
Then…
Darkness returned.
Followed by thunder.
This time…
The sound felt strangely closer.
Tian Yu didn’t notice.
His attention remained fixed upon the blinking cursor waiting patiently for the next sentence.
He placed both hands on the keyboard.
Took a slow breath.
And began to type…
One sentence.
Then another.
The familiar rhythm of typing gradually returned, and with it, the strange satisfaction that always accompanied creating something from nothing.
The blinking cursor moved steadily across the page.
Nothing felt unusual.
Nothing felt wrong.
Until…
His fingers stopped.
A sentence appeared on the screen.
Not because he had typed it.
Because it had simply… appeared.
The world has merely forgotten.
Tian Yu frowned.
“…What?”
His hands remained motionless above the keyboard.
Perhaps muscle memory?
He looked back at the previous sentence.
No.
He had never written those words.
He highlighted the line and pressed Delete.
The sentence disappeared.
“…Weird.”
He leaned back, stretching his fingers before taking another sip of coffee.
Cold again.
He sighed.
“I’m definitely going to bed after this.”
The cursor blinked quietly.
Once.
Twice.
Then…
Letter by letter…
The exact same sentence slowly formed once more.
The world has merely forgotten.
This time…
He didn’t touch the keyboard.
His eyes narrowed.
“…No.”
He refreshed the document.
Nothing changed.
He checked the file’s version history.
Nothing.
Auto Save.
Nothing.
Cloud synchronization.
Nothing.
Finally, he opened the Git repository connected to the project.
No commits.
No changes.
No external access.
His heartbeat slowed.
Not from relief.
From confusion.
“…How?”
Years of working as a programmer had taught him something very simple.
Computers did not create things by themselves.
Every output required an input.
Every command had a source.
Every result had a cause.
There were no exceptions.
Yet…
This sentence had no cause.
He carefully placed both hands on the desk.
“Okay…”
“If this is some prank…”
He glanced around the apartment.
Empty.
No hidden speakers.
No second monitor mirroring his screen.
No remote desktop connection.
Nothing.
The room was exactly as it had been five minutes ago.
Ordinary.
Quiet.
Safe.
Another line appeared.
Slower this time.
Almost as though someone unfamiliar with a keyboard was carefully choosing each letter.
But Origin has not.
Tian Yu’s smile disappeared completely.
He immediately copied both sentences into a blank document.
The moment he pressed Ctrl + V…
The text vanished.
Not from the new document.
From both.
The page became completely blank.
“…”
He stared.
Then…
The original words slowly reappeared.
Exactly where they had been.
The world has merely forgotten.
But Origin has not.
A chill crawled down his spine.
His apartment suddenly felt colder.
He instinctively looked toward the air conditioner.
The display had gone dark.
“…Power outage?”
He glanced toward the ceiling.
The lights were still on.
Strange.
The humming sound that had quietly filled the apartment every night…
Had disappeared.
The refrigerator.
Silent.
The desktop fan.
Silent.
Even the faint buzzing of the fluorescent lights…
Gone.
Only the rain remained.
Or rather…
It should have.
Tian Yu slowly turned toward the window.
The rain still fell.
Yet…
He couldn’t hear it.
Not a single drop.
The city below continued moving.
Cars crossed intersections.
Traffic lights changed.
People walked beneath umbrellas.
Everything looked normal.
Completely normal.
Except…
It was silent.
A silence so complete that even his own breathing sounded unnaturally loud.
His pulse quickened.
“…This isn’t funny.”
No one answered.
A bright flash illuminated the room.
Lightning.
Several seconds passed.
No thunder.
Impossible.
The flash had been close.
Too close.
Thunder should have followed almost immediately.
Instead…
Nothing.
He slowly stood from his chair.
Every instinct told him to leave the apartment.
Call someone.
Do something.
Instead…
His eyes drifted toward the corner of his desk.
The stainless-steel spoon.
It was moving.
Not shaking.
Not vibrating.
Rotating.
Slowly.
Silently.
As though an invisible hand gently turned it upon the wooden surface.
Tian Yu froze.
“…”
The spoon completed half a rotation before stopping.
He approached cautiously.
His heartbeat echoed inside the silent apartment.
One step.
Then another.
He reached toward it.
The moment his fingertips brushed the cold metal…
Everything stopped.
The spoon.
The blinking cursor.
Even his monitor.
Frozen.
The silence became almost unbearable.
Then…
The monitor flickered.
Once.
Twice.
The document disappeared.
Its white background faded into darkness.
Not black.
Darkness.
A darkness so deep it almost seemed to swallow the light around it.
Slowly…
White letters emerged from the center of the screen.
Origin Protocol Initializing…
Tian Yu’s breathing caught.
“…No…”
“I never…”
Another line appeared.
Searching…
He immediately reached for the mouse.
Nothing.
The cursor refused to move.
He pressed the keyboard.
No response.
He held the power button on the monitor.
Nothing happened.
Another message appeared.
Searching…
His phone vibrated.
Hope flashed across his face.
He grabbed it.
No signal.
The screen froze.
Then…
It turned black.
Not powered off.
Black.
The television followed.
The Wi-Fi router.
The microwave.
The digital clock.
One by one…
Every electronic device inside the apartment died.
Only one remained.
The monitor.
Waiting.
Watching.
Then…
A final line appeared.
Candidate Located.
Tian Yu slowly stepped backward.
His breathing had become uneven.
“…Who are you?”
Silence.
No answer.
Only another message.
Foundation Qualification Confirmed.
Foundation…
Qualification…
His face paled.
Those exact words…
Existed nowhere except inside his own notes.
No one.
No company.
No friend.
No website.
No one had ever seen those documents.
No one.
Then…
The monitor flickered one final time.
Origin Path Synchronization…
The message remained motionless.
No percentage.
No progress bar.
Only those three words.
Tian Yu stared at the monitor, barely aware of his own breathing.
Nothing happened.
Then…
The spoon moved again.
Not a tremble.
Not a vibration.
It slowly rose from the wooden desk.
One centimeter.
Then another.
The room remained deathly silent.
The spoon simply floated there, suspended in midair as though gravity itself had ceased to exist.
“…”
Tian Yu instinctively took a step backward.
His heartbeat echoed loudly within the apartment.
Every instinct screamed at him to run.
To leave.
To wake himself from whatever nightmare this had become.
Yet his legs refused to move.
Outside the window…
Lightning illuminated the clouds once more.
This time…
It did not disappear.
The silver light lingered across the heavens, branching endlessly through the storm like veins spreading across the sky.
For a brief moment…
The entire city seemed frozen beneath that light.
Then…
Everything returned to darkness.
The monitor flickered.
A new line appeared.
Synchronization Authorized.
The spoon slowly drifted toward the window.
Not quickly.
Not violently.
It moved with quiet purpose.
Almost…
As though it had been called.
Tian Yu reached toward it.
“Wait!”
His fingertips missed it by mere centimeters.
The spoon stopped before the rain-covered glass.
Outside…
Another flash.
This one brighter than before.
His pupils contracted.
The lightning wasn’t striking randomly.
It was coming straight toward the building.
Toward his apartment.
Toward…
The spoon.
His mind finally caught up.
“…No.”
The single word had barely left his lips.
The heavens answered.
A blinding pillar of lightning descended from the clouds.
Not onto the rooftop.
Not onto the lightning rod.
Not onto the apartment building.
It struck the stainless-steel spoon.
The tiny piece of stainless steel became the center of a world filled with white light.
Glass shattered.
The apartment disappeared beneath an explosion of brilliance.
Electricity surged through the spoon.
Into the window frame.
Through the walls.
Across every wire hidden inside the concrete.
Straight into the computer.
The monitor cracked.
Yet the final words remained visible.
The First Successor Has Been Chosen.
Time slowed.
The smell of ozone filled the air.
His body refused to obey him.
His vision dissolved into white.
Then…
Nothing.
No pain.
No fear.
No sound.
Only warmth.
A warmth unlike anything he had ever felt.
As though he had returned to a place he had never known.
Somewhere beyond light…
Beyond darkness…
A voice echoed.
Neither male nor female.
Neither old nor young.
It carried no emotion.
Only certainty.
The path was never lost.
It was hidden.
Find it.
The voice faded.
The light followed.
Everything else disappeared.
Darkness.