Chapter 1: The Gate of Angels

"In one's life, there are always a few moments when one feels they have seen the gates of heaven swing open. I waited seventeen years, and at my absolute lowest, the gate finally opened."

Lin Li stared at the back of the classmate in front of him, sighing softly.

"Are you hiding a lion in your eyes, too?" His desk-mate, Bai Bufan, turned his head to look at the suddenly deranged Lin Li and quipped, "Lu Mingli, can you use a quarter of your lifespan to get me a girlfriend? Someone like Shokuhou Misaki would do."

"If that's too high a bar, anything will do—no hidden meaning, I just want to waste your lifespan."

"Bufan, there is already a pathetic, thick barrier between us." Lin Li turned to look at Bai Bufan; there was no lion in his eyes, but there was a lofty, condescending pity.

Bai Bufan rolled his eyes and cupped his hands in a salute: "Master Tree-Man, please continue your madness. I haven't finished memorizing the words for tomorrow morning's English class, so I must go 'cram at the last minute' again. Farewell."

"Foot fetishist, truly disgusting." Lin Li shook his head with some disdain.

Bai Bufan, who had already turned away, took three seconds to realize that this insult was actually directed at him. He whipped his head back around:

"Does 'clutching the Buddha's feet' count as a foot fetish?! You apologize to this proverb! Besides, what's wrong with foot fetishes? You apologize to the Arknights players! Finally, apologize to me, whose precious minute of life you just wasted again!"

"No apology. I prefer Azur Lane."

"I am very interested in having a hearty debate with you about sexual preferences, but definitely not during this evening study session. Once I survive tomorrow's English class, you will pay the price for your ignorance." Bai Bufan sneered, then turned his head directly and threw himself into his English textbook.

Lin Li took a deep breath, exhaled gently, and suppressed the excitement in his heart.

He really wasn't having a sudden mental breakdown.

Just now, he had activated the system; these were his heartfelt sentiments.

Such a thing had truly happened to him.

This was a system that could lead him to the pinnacle of life, and after observing the reactions of others just now, he was certain that, at least in this classroom, only he had activated it.

Lin Li was now both nervous and excited. If he weren't in a crowded classroom, he reckoned his hands would be unable to stop themselves from reaching down, and he would be humming a tune.

After the banter with his desk-mate, his mood calmed down a bit, and Lin Li officially began to check his system.

【Loading 99%...】

It hadn't finished loading yet. Lin Li waited, so excited he could hardly keep from singing and dancing.

Twenty minutes later, the progress hadn't changed.

Lin Li waited excitedly.

Forty minutes later, no change.

Lin Li waited, frowning.

Sixty minutes later.

Lin Li, as if entering a 'sage mode', waited with a peaceful smile, having seen through the vanity of the world.

All is empty, Amitabha, no worldly desires.

Your mother—

【Binding complete.】

【Congratulations on successfully binding the God-Ascension System. This system will guide and assist your growth, helping you gradually grow and become supreme in this strange world!】

May your mother be in good health.

Just kidding, this old monk is returning to secular life first.

Good, very ambitious! That's how it should be!

So what if the wait was long? Good things should be like this.

Just like some items that cost 33.9 originally and 32.9 after a discount; does that mean the merchant is stingy? No, it clearly proves it's a good product, which is why it can only be a dollar cheaper.

The long loading time just means it contains a lot of stuff; its gold content is comparable to the fingers of the Laughing Chef Xiao Fugui.

It couldn't possibly be a bug, what a joke.

The illusory screen before his eyes turned into the initial UI.

Very concise: 【Panel】, 【Mall】, 【Warehouse】, 【Tasks】.

Click 【Panel】.

【Name: Lin Li】

【Age: 17】

【Physique: None】

【Passive Ability: None】

【Active Ability: None】

【System Currency: None】

A very simple introduction, and the content was a clean slate of 'None'.

The system probably didn't count those conventional abilities, or Lin Li at least had some specialties, or perhaps these specialties weren't recognized.

But this didn't strike a blow to Lin Li; it actually made him even more excited—if none of his abilities were recognized, did that mean only superpowers could be counted?

Didn't that prove the system would grant him superpowers?

Linking it to the system's opening line about "becoming supreme," he could become a superman in the modern age!

For Lin Li, this was better than those systems that just gave money or power.

Click 【Mall】.

【Unlocked after accumulating 300 system currency.】

It seemed this door couldn't be opened from this side for now. Lin Li clicked on 【Warehouse】.

As expected, it was empty, but Lin Li still felt a bit of regret; after all, he had held onto the hope that the system would give him a novice gift pack or something similar.

No matter, having a system was already great, Lin Li comforted himself.

It seemed that getting something for nothing wasn't the theme of this system. Lin Li locked his gaze on 【Tasks】, praying in his heart that the tasks given by the system wouldn't be too difficult.

【First entry into the cultivation world, even a mortal body should have the ambition of a swan; sweep away the demons of the world, starting from this moment!】

【Task triggered!】

【Task 1: Exterminate ten Lesser Demon Heaven Blood Crows that frequently appear around your village to attack and hunt villagers.】

【Reward: Physique improvement: Spiritual energy absorption speed increased by 100%; System currency * 50.】

"..."

Lin Li crossed his hands and pressed them under his nose.

Silence.

No, no, there is something nine-tenths wrong with this.

Lin Li patted Bai Bufan on the shoulder, and after he looked over, he asked sincerely:

"Bufan, I have a friend who just downloaded a game. For the novice task, the system told him to kill ten Lesser Demon Heaven Blood Crows, but he has no idea where these things are. What should he do in this situation?"

"Tell him to ask the nearby non-player characters," Bai Bufan said, shrugging.

"Hmm..."

As expected of a good brother, their thoughts were the same.

"My friend already tried that choice, and the NPCs don't seem to know either." Lin Li's expression leaned back toward sage mode, without sorrow or joy.

"Then it's one of those disgusting forced map exploration games. Your friend better hope the map isn't big," Bai Bufan said, waving his hand.

The map shouldn't be big, just 510 million square kilometers, and that's not even counting the outer space DLC.

Lin Li's gaze remained focused on the system.

Actually, it wasn't that there was no guidance; the task did say that those Blood Crows appeared in the "surroundings of the village."

Lin Li was at school, a key county-level high school, which had nothing to do with a village.

"..."

Lin Li felt he had to face one thing; he couldn't deceive himself anymore.

His gaze locked onto "First entry into the cultivation world" and "in this strange world" from the system's opening line, these two phrases.

He looked out the window; the classroom was on the second floor, but there was no scenery, just as usual, with no spiritual energy revival.

It was just the ordinary world where he had lived for seventeen years.

"Heh—" Lin Li took a deep breath.

Could it be...

Did he miss a step in the transmigration process?

The more Lin Li thought about it, the more he felt that was the case.

In this day and age, where would there be things that dare to frequently appear and hunt humans? Any creature with the guts would have long since been riddled with bullets by humans wielding the truth.

It's just...

If he hadn't transmigrated, this task should be impossible to complete, right?

If it couldn't be completed, the mall couldn't be activated, and the rewards couldn't be claimed...

Then what was the use of this system!?

No, wait, after he got senile, he could pull it up at any time to check his age and name.

His children would never have to worry about their grandfather forgetting his own name. Wow, he really was a genius!

Suddenly it wasn't... even more fucking sad.

Lin Li clicked through every part of the system interface, but he didn't find a transmigration option.

"System brother?"

"Customer service?"

"After-sales?"

"..."

"Daddy?"

"If you don't reply, I'm going to send Earth's coordinates to the Trisolarans!"

Lin Li tried many methods, and he finally confirmed one thing—this system wasn't alive.

What kind of backward, low-energy system was this? Couldn't it even install an AI?

Could it be that the loading hadn't been successful just now because it really had a bug?

Silence, incomparably painful silence.

"Bufan, do you know which road nearby has a lot of dump trucks?" Lin Li turned his head mechanically.

Maybe it wasn't too late to transmigrate now.

"How would I know that? What are you doing?" Bai Bufan was puzzled.

"I want to film a video. The content is me hiding in the bushes, and when a dump truck drives by, I suddenly appear in front of it to give it a big scare. There doesn't seem to be any blogger doing this kind of content on the internet; I should be able to go viral," Lin Li said with a miserable smile.

"..."

"Are you talking about 'viral' as in cremation?" Bai Bufan gave a thumbs up, then looked at his desk-mate with amusement and curiosity: "What's wrong with you? You look constipated."

"I've collapsed," Lin Li said truthfully.

"There's nothing that can't be overcome. Go home tonight and solve some derivatives; everything will be fine once you're done," Bai Bufan comforted him perfunctorily. After all, from his perspective, Lin Li had suddenly become like this within half a shichen, so it meant nothing major.

It was probably those few days that men have every month.

"You won't understand me. This is a collapse where I'm only one dump truck away from reaching the pinnacle of life," Lin Li sighed.

The system was right in front of him, yet it couldn't run.

"No, I should understand you. I've also collapsed, and it was just recently," Bai Bufan's expression became weathered, and a melancholy, low-spirited aura emanated from his body: "Last weekend, I finally found a movie I liked super much, but just as I was about to reach the peak, the internet lagged, and the screen froze on the male lead's eyeless face.

I bet everything I had, used all my strength, but I couldn't hold on, and I misfired.

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it all!!"

"Now that I think about it, I'm still very unwilling! That self-righteous and damn guy, I will never forgive him in this life!"

Limited by the fact that it was still evening study, Bai Bufan clenched his fist and tapped it lightly on the desk, but his face looked slightly ferocious.

"..."

It had to be said that Bai Bufan was truly a genius at comforting people; Lin Li suddenly found that he wasn't so collapsed anymore.

Sigh, anyway, all he had lost was what he had just gained; rounding it off, he had just been toyed with for two hours.

Lin Li couldn't really bet on a dump truck to let him transmigrate; that would be too stupid.

It was just that after such ups and downs, it wasn't realistic for him to settle down and study again. He decided to do nothing, empty his head, and wait for school to end.

Sleeping should make everything a little better.

However, a blind mosquito flew over with that annoying sound and landed on Lin Li's hand.

The classroom was on the second floor, and there had always been quite a few mosquitoes in the summer.

I'm already this miserable, and you're still here sucking my blood?

Wouldn't it be better if you went to suck Bai Bufan's?

If it were just now, he might have been willing to treat all the mosquitoes to a drink on his tab to share his joy, but now, this was unbearable!

Lin Li kept his left hand still, made a fake move with his right hand as if to scratch his head, and then, with lightning speed—

"Smack!"

A corpse in his palm; because it hadn't sucked much blood, there were no bloodstains.

Lin Li, who was just about to ask the person in front for a tissue to wipe his hand, paused.

【Killed Lesser Demon Heaven Blood Crow (1/10).】

Eh?!?!

(End of chapter)