Long Fang took a single step into the bar and was immediately assaulted by the mixed stench of alcohol, sweat, and a tiny bit of puke. He’d thought the streets smelled; oh, how wrong he was.

The impulse to retch or flee was strong and he glanced at the door behind him, his avenue to nose freedom. But in the end, Long could only sigh and keep walking. Smells get used to and, for all he knew, it would be the same no matter where he went.

Barbarians… he sighed, wrinkling his nose as he finally took a good look around. Much like most things around here, this tavern was unlike anything he was used to; instead of orderly-placed tables and chairs, this establishment of doubtful quality had many small tables in close proximity, each crowded by a large number of people. Flickering torches lined the ceiling, enhancing the dim light that shined through the windows, and the thin-wood tables were shaped like a ship’s steering wheel.

There was also a bar at the far end of the place, behind which a burly, dark-skinned man was using a rag to wipe glasses. People sat across that bar on tall stools and on the wall behind the barman was an assortment of bottles, presumably containing a collection of fine spirit wines.

Seeing no waiters, Long immediately approached the innkeeper behind the bar.

“Hello, senior brother,” he greeted, politely and the man replied with a grunt. “Can I have a cup of good spirit wine?”

“Speak clearly, kid,” the barkeeper grunted again. “Do you want spirit or wine?”

“Uh…” Long was startled. Does he mean spirit wine and mortal wine?

“Spirit, then,” he replied, and the barman quickly poured him a glass. Going by the smell, the liquor contained more alcohol than any spirit wine was entitled to. On further inspection, it was not spirit wine at all, as Long could sense no spirituality from the drink, but he was tired; so he simply let it go.

“3 coppers,” barked the barman while extending a calloused hand, and Long obediently placed three copper pieces on his palm, missing the man’s surprised look at the chunks of metal. Thank the gods I brought some pocket change. 3 coppers is quite expensive for a drink, he thought, but I guess ripping foreigners off is a global practice.

Now equipped with a short glass of alcohol, Long needed a table. However, looking over the place, none were available. Resigned to his fate, he was about to sit on a bar stool when he spotted a corner table occupied by a single young man reading a book.

Huh, reading a book in a place like this? What a weirdo! He’s totally gonna be my friend.

With a big smile on his face, Long approached.

“Evening, brother,” he greeted, and the man raised his head. “Mind if I share your table? It seems everywhere else is occupied.”

The reading man was blond, and his hair fell in locks around his face. He also wore glasses, as befitting a man of books, and his brown eyes betrayed their surprise at Long’s appearance.

“Sure,” he replied, and his voice was soft, lacking the booming quality of more outspoken men. He projected his voice inside his mouth instead of in front of it, and Long had learned to take this as a sign of people who spoke more frequently with themselves than with others. “Take a seat.”

“Thanks, junior brother,” he smiled. Aha! The chain of command has been set. I am the senior brother.

“What wine is this, by the way?” asked Long, sniffing his glass. “It smells… strong.”

“That’s whiskey,” replied the man, putting his book away and removing his glasses. He placed them in a small, blue case which he also pocketed somewhere inside his jacket. “I’m Phil, by the way. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise,” Long smiled back, shaking the hand that Phil had just extended. “I’m Long Fang.”

“Wow, that’s a weird name,” Phil raised a brow. “Are you a native?”

“Less than you can imagine. Why, aren’t you a native?”

“I am. But these are colonized lands and there were people living here long before our ships arrived, hundreds of years ago. They are still around though, admittedly,” Phil threw him a look, “they dress quite differently than you do. And are often a bit greener.”

“Hm…” Long’s eyes narrowed. He believed that intuition rarely goes wrong, as long as one keeps an open mind to properly read it. And, according to his intuition, the man in front of him was a good one, worthy of his trust.

“Brother, you are exactly the person I was looking for,” he smiled widely. “Someone knowledgeable. Do you have any idea how to get rid of a stubborn blue rectangle?”

“A screen?” the blond man raised a brow. “Why would you want to get rid of it?”

“Because it is trying to scam me and won’t take no for an answer.”

“What? I’m going to need some context here.”

Long took a sip of his drink, burning his throat. He then explained to his new friend all about how he had entered his sect’s mystic realm to cultivate, then had a small family fallout in there and had to bail out through a strange-looking spatial tear to avoid certain death. He also explained how the blue rectangle, or ‘screen’, kept bugging him to accept some shady offer about a ‘System’.

Phil’s eyes were growing wider by the second.

“Are you trying to say you come from a System-less world?” he finally asked, voice trembling with excitement.

“I guess,” Long shrugged. “Doesn’t ring a bell anyway.”

"But that's impossible! It can't be true."

"Ah, and yet, true it is."

Phil's mind shook. This was probably a prank by someone, but what if it wasn't? The man didn't seem to be lying, or insane, and he was pretty weird. If he was an actor, he was just too good. Perhaps it was true. After all, magic did exist, right?

“But that’s- that’s… That’s amazing!” exclaimed the blond man, quickly lowering the tone of his voice. In this crowded, loud bar, they couldn’t be heard by others anyway, but better be safe than sorry. “How do you get stronger then?”

“We cultivate qi, of course,” Long took another sip. It was still awful, but just a bit less awful than before. “Don’t you?”

“I suspect we have entirely different systems of cultivation. Please elaborate.”

Phil’s eyes were practically filled with stars by now, and Long couldn’t help but suspect that this man, too, was crazy. Alas, the balcony-yeeting strikes again.

However, everything around him was too different; was it possible that Phil’s musings were correct? Just how far away had the spatial turbulence thrown him?

“Dao-based cultivation begins by discovering your affinities,” he explained, noticing that Phil was already scribbling on a notebook. “There are four basic elements; wind, earth, fire, and water, and each person has some degree of affinity to each of them. Once you discover your best affinity - and if it is great enough -, you begin to cultivate the particular element’s system.

For wind, in my case, you begin by amassing strands of wind-attuned cultivation energy, or qi, in your lungs; this is the Foundation Establishment stage. Keep in mind that wind-attuned qi and air are not the same; they are similar, but also independent of each other. Qi remains inside me while the air naturally circulates when I breathe.

Different elements use different parts of the body as the cultivation grounds; lungs for wind, stomach for earth, heart for fire, and blood for water,” Long paused, surprised by Phil’s enthusiasm at taking notes. “But I mean, this stuff is pretty basic… Haven’t your seniors told you these before?”

“My friend, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You are like a walking doctoral dissertation - no, two of them! Please continue, tell me more about this,” he looked at his notes, “Foundation Establishment stage.”

Long smirked. “Sure, if you buy me another glass of this whiskey drink.”

He had already downed half of his glass, and the burning amber liquid had gone from disgusting to enjoyable.

Phil burst out laughing. “Consider it done!” Nodding, Long continued.

“In the Foundation Establishment stage, which is the same for all elements, the goal is to expand the capacity of your cultivation grounds; in my case, the lungs. When you first begin cultivating, you can only cram so much energy inside the lungs before their walls begin to crack by the pressure. Through meditation, you continuously overfill your cultivation organ by just a bit, pushing the endurance of its walls.

This way, you train them like you would any other muscle, and gradually the endurance of the walls rises, allowing you to store more and more cultivation energy. The longer you remain at this stage, the tougher and more painful it gets to further strengthen these walls. However, the longer you persist, the better your foundation will be for the later stages, hence the name of the Foundation Establishment stage. When you reach your limits, you enter the Twin Core stage. But I spoke enough for now; can you explain things to me? How can you not have qi cultivation? What is this System?”

“Just a moment,” Phil kept scribbling for a few more seconds, writing more and more things down. In the meantime, Long had finished his whiskey.

“Are you sure you want another?” the blond man eyed the empty glass. “Whiskey can be pretty strong if you’ve never had it before.”

“It’s fine,” Long waved a hand. “I may not be an earth cultivator, but I have a strong stomach.”

Nodding, Phil took the empty glass and left to refill it, while Long lounged back in his chair. The tavern around him was still as rowdy as before and multiple eyes were constantly trained on him, either due to his out-of-place robes or due to his relaxed attitude.

Before, Long had ignored these intrusive gazes, wisely choosing to keep a low profile in this unknown land. Now, however, he felt emboldened. His blue eyes met a bald, card-playing man’s inquisitive stare and held it, watching as the man’s eyes switched from curious to glaring. The other man finally withdrew his gaze and Long, whose eyes had remained calm throughout, smiled to himself.

Young masters are not for ogling.

A glass getting placed in front of him brought Long out of his musings, as Phil also took a seat at the other side of the small table. He also carried a glass for himself, filled with the same amber liquid as Long’s, and he took a small sip as the cultivator nodded in thanks.

“The System,” began Phil, “is our path to power. It is omnipotent and omniscient, and it guides us to satisfying our potential. Our interactions happen through the blue screen you also see, and our attributes are quantified. Strength, Intelligence, Charisma, these all have a number placed next to them, indicating our level at this particular attribute.”

“Numbers?” Long started, almost sipping his drink. “That’s just weird. Whoever thought of that?”

“Some say the System has always been present, while others claim it was created after the last God War. The academic literature is not decisive on the subject but, thankfully, this knowledge has few, if any, practical applications. Now back to the screens. As we have numbers quantifying our attributes, so do we have a number quantifying our overall power; that is called Level. When our Level rises, so do our attributes. We rise in level through proving our worth in various ways, be it killing monsters, achieving difficult tasks, or honoring the path of our Class, which I will explain now. Are you following so far?”

“No,” Long laughed, sipping from his drink once again, “but keep going.”

“Why would I keep going if you’re lost?” replied Phil, scratching his head. “Sorry, I sometimes have trouble explaining things.”

The cultivator only shook his head. “It’s fine. I don’t understand everything, but I get the concept.”

“Alright then, I’ll be quick. This Class is the other important thing; at Level 5, we choose a Class to follow, a miniature system unique to each of us which embodies our orientation and strength. It is our own path, in a way. The final thing to explain is Skills, and these are simply what their name implies. You activate them, and they make you strike harder, breathe underwater, have tougher skin, or whatever.”

“Like using your cultivation base,” inferred Long.

“I suspect it’s similar, but skills are much more limited than the shapeless power you implied. Imagine being able to only ever use your cultivation energy for 5 specific things.”

“That’s horrible!” exclaimed the cultivator, clutching his robes. “How do you live like this?!”

“Practice. The Skill Limit is a huge obstacle, but it’s workable. Everyone faces the same problem anyway, plus we get extra skills at levels 25, 50, and 75.”

“By the gods…” Long’s eyes were filled with pity. “Do you want me to teach you cultivation? You say you don’t have it, but the qi in the air is the same as the one I know.”

“That…” Phil’s eyes widened as he cupped his chin. “That is interesting. Is it possible there are more paths to power than the System, and we just haven’t discovered them yet? There have been some interesting speculations on the subject, but… Hm. Why don’t you use the System instead? That’s easier.”

“Never.”

Long shook his head decisively. “I became a cultivator to cultivate, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Besides, to practice cultivation is to defy the heavens, and it sounds to me like this System allows you to borrow power from the heavens instead. If the power is simply given to you, it can easily be taken back.”

“That… Well, theoretically yes, the system can take back the powers it has given us. Regardless, we have talked a lot and I am tired. If you have nowhere to stay, I have a bed to spare. We could head back and continue this tomorrow.”

“Or,” Long sported a long grin, “we could drink some mo-”

“Hey.”

The cultivator’s words were interrupted by a heavy hand landing on his shoulder. Turning around, it was the man he’d crossed eyes with earlier, flanked by two of his friends. Now that Long could take a better look, this man was slightly taller than average but also significantly wide, revealing a lifetime of menial labor. He was bald, with thin facial hair and broad features, and his hand felt heavy and strong as he gripped Long’s right shoulder.

Long Fang frowned deeply, releasing his spirit sense to scan these people. They felt weaker than he was, but not by much. Taking on all three of them at once would not be easy.

The most peculiar thing was their cultivation base. Using his spiritual sense to scan their bodies, Long did not feel a concentration of qi in the blood, lungs, stomach, or heart. Instead, it felt as if their cultivation was spread evenly across their body, something which should have been, by his previous knowledge, impossible.

So this is the System…

“What is it?” he asked coldly.

“I want to speak with you,” replied the foremost man, towering over Long’s seated form, and his gaze said he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Join us outside.”

The cultivator spared a glance for Phil but saw that the scholar’s hands were shaking. Antagonizing three opponents at once was not a smart thing to do, and Long knew it. However, tonight, he just didn’t feel like backing down. He was a cultivator. If he could defy the heavens themselves, then he could certainly defy some random, rude, shit-eating gambler in a bar.

All of a sudden, gone was the playful spark in his eyes, gone was his easy-going attitude. Long’s gaze flashed with fire and a tiger’s ferocity as he directed it inside the offending man’s eyes. As he looked behind him, still seated, Long’s one visible, blue eye was frigid cold.

“This young master’s robes are not for you to touch, goon,” he said, and his voice was heavy, spreading over the bar’s clamor and quieting the entire crowd down.

“Remove your hand, or I will slice it clean from the root.”