If there is one thing that ten years in corporate office environments taught me, it is that any software update labeled "Alpha" is not an upgrade; it is a declaration of war against the user base.
I was sitting in our small, leaky wooden shack behind the Iron Blood Sect's pigsty, trying to scrape the dried mud off my polyester shirt with a spoon, when the world suddenly froze.
The squealing of the pigs outside stopped mid-shriek. A falling drop of water from the leaky roof hovered in the air three inches from my nose, looking like a tiny, suspended glass bead. And then, a massive, golden, blindingly bright screen materialized in the center of the room, accompanied by a trumpet fanfare that sounded like it had been recorded through a cheap walkie-talkie.
[CONGRATULATIONS, USER CAELAN MACGREGOR! THE SYSTEM HAS DETECTED YOUR EXISTENCE. SYSTEM VERSION 0.0.1-ALPHA HAS BEEN AUTOMATICALLY INSTALLED. DEPLOYING CHEAT ENGINE...]
My heart skipped a beat. A warm, glowing sensation of hope rose in my chest.
"Finally!" I gasped, tossing the spoon onto the floor. "The cheat! The OP cheat is here! I knew the universe wouldn't leave me with nothing but a Glasgow business degree and a sarcastic mouth! What is it? A divine library? An infinite duplication glitch? A system that gives me points for swearing at deities? Or maybe just an option to change my clothes? Because seriously, this polyester shirt has been through three chapters of mud and it's starting to develop its own ecosystem."
Han, who had been frozen mid-yawn, suddenly snapped back to life as the water drop hit the floor. He stared at me as I stood up, my eyes locked on the empty air in the middle of our tiny shack.
"Caelan?" Han asked, falling backward off his pile of straw in surprise. "Why are you staring at the empty space? And what was that weird trumpet sound? Did a bird get caught in the chimney?!"
"It's the cheat, Han!" I cackled, rubbing my hands together. "It's the standard cultivation protagonist starter kit. Let's see what we got. Let me read the patch notes."
I reached out, my fingers catching the side of the golden screen, which only I could see. I grabbed the physical scroll-bar on the right side of the empty space, dragging it down with a satisfying ziip sound. To Han, I was just clawing at the air and pulling down an invisible rope.
"Alright, let's see," I said, leaning in. "System Patch 0.0.1-alpha notes..."
[PATCH NOTE 01: FIXED BUG WHERE FLYING SWORDS CLIP INTO MOUNTAINS DURING SECLUSION CHAMBER BREAKTHROUGHS.]
I paused. I blinked.
Han, who was currently peeking over my shoulder while shaking like a wet leaf, squinted at the empty space I was staring at. "What... what are you looking at? Why are your eyes moving left to right? Are you reading the air? Is this a secret method of the Iron Blood Sect?"
"No, Han," I said, my voice flat. "It's a bug fix for a problem that only affects the top ten percent of cultivators. But thank you, developer, for protecting the flying swords of the rich. I appreciate the attention to detail. It's good to know that while my life is in constant danger, the elite's transport is structurally sound."
I scrolled down further.
[PATCH NOTE 02: NERFED BASE COMMONER BREATHING RATE BY 4%. SYSTEM HAS DETECTED COMMONERS TAKING IN SPIRIT-INFUSED OXYGEN, REDUCING THE QI DENSITY RESERVED FOR SECT ELDERS.]
Immediately, I felt a slight tightness in my chest. I took a deep breath, but my lungs felt like they had been downsized by ten percent.
"Hey!" I yelled, slapping the empty air. To Han, my hand smacked against a completely invisible wall with a loud, solid thwack. "Why did you nerf my breathing?! I was doing just fine! This is classic developer behavior—fixing things that aren't broken to cater to the top-tier players! It's like a video game company releasing a patch that reduces the player's run speed because 'the world looks too fast'. They're literally taxing my lungs to feed the elders' qi pools! It's a literal tax on breathing!"
"Caelan!" Han shrieked, pointing at me. "Your face is turning grey! Why is your breathing so shallow? Are you having a fit?!"
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I looked down at the corner of my vision, where my stats were changing.
[QI POOL: 100/100]
[QI POOL: 96/100 (NERF ACTIVE)]
[QI POOL: 92/100...]
"What the fuck?!" I cursed, my Glasgow sailor mouth firing at full speed. "My qi pool is dropping! Why is my qi pool dropping just from reading this trash?! Stop! Cancel update! Rollback! Ctrl+Z, you bastards!"
I searched the empty space for a Cancel or Reject button. There was none. Just a giant, pulsing button that read [ACCEPT AND LAMENT]. Beneath it, in tiny, almost invisible font, was another note:
[TO RESTORE ORIGINAL STATS, PLEASE PERFORM TEN THOUSAND KOWTOWS TO THE STATUE OF THE SECT FOUNDER OR PURCHASE THE 'LEGACY COMPATIBILITY' PACK FOR 999 SPIRIT STONES.]
"A paywall!" I screamed, shaking my fist at the ceiling. "They've monetized my lungs! The Heavenly Dao is run by EA! What's next? Do I have to pay ten spirit stones to unlock the second half of my dialogue sentences?!"
Han strode over, grabbed my face with both hands, and turned my head toward him. "Focus on me. Not the empty air. Me. What is going on?"
"I'm not dying, Han, I'm being optimized by a team of underpaid developers!" I yelled. I scrolled down the patch notes frantically, trying to find a loophole.
[PATCH NOTE 03: REMOVED THE CONCEPT OF 'SPOONS' FROM SECTOR 4 TO OPTIMIZE INVENTORY SPACE. SPOONS ARE NOW CLASSIFIED AS 'SMALL FLAT SHOVELS'.]
I looked at the floor where I had tossed my spoon.
The spoon was gone. In its place was a tiny, wooden spade about three inches long, complete with a tiny, splintered handle.
Han gasped, pointing at the spade. "My... my spoon! It turned into a toy shovel! The spirits have stolen our cutlery!"
"No, Han, they've reclassified it!" I wailed. "How am I supposed to scrape mud with a spade?! This is an outrage! I'm opening a ticket! I demand to speak to the lead developer! I have a Glasgow degree! I will write a three-page complaint letter that will make their database administrators cry!"
"Who is the lead developer?!" Han wailed, throwing himself to the floor and sobbing. "Is it the Heavenly Emperor?! Is he taking away our cutlery?! Why is the world ending?!"
I didn't listen to him. I was focused on the next line of the patch notes, which was flashing in a violent shade of neon pink.
[PATCH NOTE 04: TO ENHANCE IMMERSION, USER CAELAN MACGREGOR'S VULGARITY COEFFICIENT HAS BEEN BOUND TO THE LOCAL ATMOSPHERIC TENSION. CUSSING WILL NOW TRIGGER PHYSICAL WEATHER PHENOMENA.]
"Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me," I muttered.
BOOM!
A localized bolt of lightning shot through the roof of our shack, striking the pile of straw right next to Han's foot. The straw exploded into flames, filling the tiny room with thick, black smoke.
"Aaaaaah!" Han screamed, rolling around on the floor to put out his robes. "The heavens are punishing your mouth! Caelan, stop speaking! Use sign language! Use thoughts! Just shut the fuck up!"
"I can't help it!" I yelled, coughing in the smoke. "It's my primary character trait! If I stop swearing, I lose fifty percent of my comedic value! It's a creative decision! A creative, beautiful, goddamn decision!"
CRACK!
A loud clap of thunder rattled the wooden walls, blowing the door clean off its rusty hinges. Outside, the pigs began to scream in terror as a sudden, localized hailstorm started pelting the pigsty.
"Great! Perfect!" I screamed at the empty space in front of me. "Now I'm a walking weather hazard! What's next? If I say the C-word, does a meteor hit the sect?! Let's test it! C—"
[SYSTEM WARNING: METEOROLOGICAL CONTEXT FOR 'C-WORD' IS CORRUPTED. RUNNING TEST WILL TRIGGER A SECTOR RESET. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.]
"Alright, that's it," I growled, my face turning dark. "This system isn't a cheat. It's a liability. It's a virus. It's a bloatware suite designed to make my life an absolute hell."
I stepped forward, grabbing the invisible top corners of the empty space. I planted my foot against the bottom and pulled with all my might.
"What... what are you doing now?!" Han coughed, waving his hands through the smoke. "You are peeling the empty air! You look like you're trying to pull a massive invisible tooth!"
"I'm uninstalling it!" I grunted, my muscles straining. "If I can't find the 'uninstall' button, I'll just rip the interface out of the memory cache! I've deleted tougher files than this during my IT audits!"
With a loud, digital ripping sound that only I could hear, I pulled the golden system screen right out of the air. The golden light flickered out, and I rolled the invisible interface in my hands like a sheet of plastic, turning it into a tight cylinder.
I walked to the open doorway and threw the invisible cylinder like a javelin.
The invisible object flew across the yard, hitting a passing outer disciple right in the back of the head with a solid thwack. The disciple stumbled, clutching his neck and looking around in utter confusion. "Who threw a rock?!" he yelled, but there was nothing on the ground.
[QI POOL: 92/100 (UPDATE SUSPENDED. REVERTING TO LEGACY TRASH STATE.)]
The tightness in my chest vanished. I took a deep, clear breath, the air smelling of ozone, burnt straw, and pig manure.
"See?" I said, turning back to Han, who was currently sitting in the corner, clutching a charred piece of wood like a protective talisman. "Legacy state restored. I might not have a cheat, but at least I can breathe without a four-percent penalty."
Han slowly looked up at me, his glasses completely shattered on one side. "Caelan."
"Yes, Han?"
"Please," the boy whispered, his voice cracking. "Please just let me go back to talking to my rice. It was boring, but at least the sky didn't throw rocks at my feet. And please... stop throwing invisible spears at the other students. They're going to lock us in a cage."
"No can do, partner," I said, picking up my new tiny spade-spoon. "We're in this together. Now help me put out this fire."